It should be pretty well known by now that my absolute favorite genre is science fiction. Make it queer and set in space, and you immediately get it to the top of my TBR. Those are my favorites of the favorites.
This is now the third year in a row that I’ll be dedicating the summer to all things scifi with #summerOfScifi and #JulyOfScifi on Instagram, reading even more than I already do during the rest of the year, and of course sticking to diverse books, mainly queer ones.
And because there are so very many queer space operas (never mind the long list of books yet to come out this year alone), here is my recommendation list of “just” 30 space adventures featuring queer characters.
Killing Gravity by Corey J. White
God’s War by Kameron Hurley
Leviathan wakes by James S.A. Corey
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White
The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley
A Pale Light in the Black by K.B. Wagers
Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O’Keefe
Salvaged by Madeleine Roux
Ancestral Night by Elizabeth Bear
Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone
Space Unicorn Blues by TJ Berry
The Vela (a serial by multiple authors)
Architects of Memory by Karen Osborne
Hunger Makes the Wolves by Alex Wells
Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes
The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi
Escaping Exodus by Nicky Draydon
Fortuna by Kristyn Merbeth
A Red Peace by Spencer Ellsworth
Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
The Outside by Ada Hoffmann
Phantom Song by Kate Sheeran Swed
To Be Taught if Fortunate by Becky Chambers
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee
An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon
Star Wars: Aftermath by Chuck Wendig
Barbary Station by R.E. Stearns
This list doesn’t even come close to what’s currently available. I could easily make another one just as long. One thing is for sure though: we need more queer space operas by BIPOC authors.
Also: very many of these feature queernorm worlds / don’t feature any queer-pain at all!
And as a little extra, because I love them so very much, here are some of my current favorite short stories, available for free: