Claiborne, Sybil    

Category: Science Fiction
Summary: Another book about what would happen if AIDS mutated. In this future America, an Orwellian future has outlawed all sexual contact, ostensibly to keep the plague at bay, but really to control the populace. This is the story of one young woman's struggles to deal with her mother's toxic nostalgia, her best friend's cult obsession, and her new partner--a young man who is different from any other she's met. The character of the mother was quite well done (reminded me of my own mother).

Busby, F.M.    

Category: Science Fiction
Summary: AIDS mutates. Phoenix Pharmaceuticals finds a cure. The cure causes sterility. They find a cure for that. The only problem is, children born due to the treatment are all cyclical hermaphrodites--they change sex every month or two. The strange thing about these hermaphrodites is that they are all 100% heterosexual--no matter what sex they are, they are attracted only to those of the opposite sex. They form relationships with people they love, but only have sex when their two cycles sync up. They don't even experiment. It's very silly. Also, all the primary narrators were male, and the one strong female person was a psycho sadist. Despite all that, it was an entertaining story, which is why it got a 3 instead of a 2.

Shepherd, Joel    

Category: Tough Women
Summary: This is the sequel to Crossover and is an utterly tedious read. My comments in Crossover about the prose apply here, except I think they rushed this one to press without the final editing stage. As for the lesbian content, you find out pretty much right away, in a scene that was so awful that I cringed while reading it, that Cassandra is 100% heterosexual. Vanessa, however, is bi, so the book goes on the list. I'm guessing more Cassandra Kresnov novels are forthcoming; you won't be seeing them here.

Watts, Peter    

Category: Science fiction
Summary: Deep sea thermal power station crewed by social misfits; new life forms that threaten to overtake the earth; evil corporations trying to suppress the threat; artificial intelligence with different priorities than the programmers intended. Those are some of the themes of this dark and complex novel. Two of the female rifters are lovers.

Pollack, Rachel    

Category: Fantasy
Summary: Satirical look at an America that has embraced Wicca/New Age philosophies and a new take on the virgin birth.

Williams, Liz    

Category: Humans on another planet
Summary: A crew from the planet Irie St Syre come to Monde D'Isle to find out what happened to their lost colony, and to bring it back to the Gaian fold if necessary. What they find are a new kind of human, designed to live in harmony with the environment, and only one crewmember has the insight and wisdom to question the purpose of their original mission. The natives of Monde D'Isle are all bisexual and one of the main crewmembers is mourning the death of her female lover.

Burdekin, Katharine    

Category: Far future
Summary: Written in the 1930's, but unpublished until recently, this book depicts a future utopia where women rule a peaceful, prosperous society, but at a cost. The men are infantilized; barely more than children mentally and emotionally. One woman believes it is time for men and women to be equal and sets about trying to start a revolution. The reason I gave this a 1 was because 3/4s of the book is nothing but her telling the history of their world to her son and since it is all just exposition, I found it boring. It does have historical and academic merit though.

Eskridge, Kelley    Lesbian Author!

Category: Science fantasy
Summary: These stories aren't really science fiction, but there's a touch of it here and there, and some fantasy. Mostly they are just fantastic pieces of writing. Even though there's a link to Amazon, you should buy this through the publisher, Aqueduct Press at http://www.aqueductpress.com.

Spencer, Wen    

Category: Fantasy
Summary: In this tale of boy meets girl(s), gender roles are flipped. In this world that is reminiscent of the US Wild West, women are in charge, and men are kept at home to cook, clean, and take care of the children. The ratio of men to women is on the order of 1 to 10, so men are rare and precious and are closely guarded against kidnappers. It's a good read, like all of Spencer's novels. One of Jerin's new wives alludes to a past relationship with another woman.

Rosenblum, Mary    

Category: Space-based
Summary: Ahni has traveled to the New York Up orbital to avenge the death of her brother. Instead, she ends up embroiled in a political maelstrom over the fate of the orbitals and the strange new creatures inhabiting them. Ahni has a female ex-lover and a few lesbian couples make brief appearances. However, the portrayals are not particularly positive.

Bear, Elizabeth    

Category: Humans on another planet
Summary: Michelangelo and Vincent, Coalition spies posing as diplomats, come to New Amazonia to broker an agreement between the two governments. As the story unfolds, you find that nothing is as it seems. Michelangelo and Vincent are lovers, which is why they were chosen for the mission--New Amazonia is ruled by women and they are suspicious of "stud" males. The women of New Amazonia, especially Lesa, are strong and interesting, though the "gay" females in the story are separatists and are not sympathetic characters. Bear did a great job of depicting how cultural assumptions and biases influence our perceptions.

Ore, Rebecca    

Category: Time travel
Summary: Not your typical time travel story. Earth in the 24th century has received time machines from its own future. The "Archives" use them to grab people from the past. Most of them go crazy or die, until they bring up the Italian woman Benedetta. The book is somewhat unusual in that it never reveals what is going on behind the scenes--you're left just as uncertain as the characters themselves. For me, the biggest flaw was that Benedetta didn't get enough airtime. The two male protagonists got more than their 66% worth, and since both of them started out as unlikable, it made me even more frustrated that I didn't get more of Benedetta's side of things. Ore has another book in this collection, but my favorite of her's is Gaia's Toys, which is in the Other Books section.

Larbalestier, Justine    

Category: Short stories
Summary: A mix of stories and lit crit that examines the history and role of women in science fiction, starting in the pulps of the 1920s. The stories chosen for the collection are all excellent and the articles about them are okay. I was pretty surprised at what some women were writing in the thirties and fifties.

Tiptree, James Jr.    Lesbian Author?

Category: Alien society
Summary: This is one of those novels where you can just tell that something bad is going to happen and as things move along you just want to scream at the characters to pay attention to what they are feeling because everything is getting all f*ed up.

Fowler, Karen Joy, Pat Murphy, Debbie Norkin & Jeffrey D. Smith, Ed.    

Category: Short stories
Summary: Truthfully, the stories didn't do a lot for me in this anthology, but it is a good bit of history about how the Tiptree Award started. Joanna Russ and Suzy McKee Charnas, both out lesbians, have essays in the collection as well. Russ, in her essay, states that Tiptree/Sheldon was a lesbian, just one who'd never dared to have a love affair.

Shepherd, Joel    

Category: Bioengineering
Summary: Cassandra Kresnov is an artificial human, a super soldier who has defected from the League and who just wants to live life as a normal person in the Federation. But she's found out and gets embroiled in deadly politics. Vanessa Rice is a SWAT lieutenant who starts falling for Cassandra. Will Cassandra give women a try? Overall the book is a little amateurish. It doesn't get interesting until a good 30 pages in. It's heavy on discussions about politics and ethics and gets redundant and overbearing. The author uses a lot of present day terms and technologies which I found unconvincing on a planet in another solar system several hundred years in our future ("rock music, "phone, "mi crowave"). I suspect the editor/publisher might be new to SF. But despite these flaws, I was able to get into the story and the characters. A sequel is due out in 2007 (Breakaway), which I'll probably buy, if only to see whether or not Cassandra and Vanessa get together.

Kadrey, Richard    

Category: Science Fiction
Summary: The writing was okay, but the plot frustrated me because the main character kept doing stupid things again and again. Anyway, he's in a 3-way relationship with two women which is how the book ended up in this collection. Note: I purchased it from amazon.co.uk.

Moriarty, Chris    

Category: Science fiction
Summary: In four hundred years, how will humans, post-humans, clones, and AIs coexist? This book explores those issues and throws in a bit of spy thriller and myrmecology and terraforming and complexity theory and more. Very dense, character-driven hard science fiction. Catherine Li, the star of Spin State, is a major character in this novel as well, though not the main character.

Huff, Tanya & Alexander Potter, ed.    Lesbian Author!

Category: Military Science Fiction
Summary: A collection of short stories about women soldiers, warriors, vets, and recruits. The stories alternate between science fiction and fantasy.

Burgess, Anthony    

Category: Dystopian future
Summary: A novel about how modern Western society cycles between liberal and conservative. It starts toward the end of the "Pelaphase, a liberal period, where overpopulation is considered such a threat that homosexuality is encouraged ("It's Sapiens to be Homo"). The lead characters, however, are very straight and disgusted by the homosexuality, so this isn't really a positive portrayal.

Ruff, Matt    

Category: Literary Fiction
Summary: In some ways it's cheating to put this book on this site because it isn't really science fiction. But Ruff has written other science fiction novels and this one does have a virtual reality company in it.... But its treatment of gender is exquisite and you really should read. What is it about? Andy Gage has multiple personalities, and he has a very unique system for making his life workable. But there is a secret he has been keeping from himself, and together with Penny, another multiple, they'll discover just what that secret is.

Koch, Polly    

Category: Science fiction
Summary: If you like experimental fiction, read this. If you don't mind a book with no discernible plot, this one's for you. If you like books where in a single paragraph a character can be in two times and places with no explanation about how the two are connected or why you suddenly jumped from one to the other, you'll like this one. If you like books where the description goes on and on and on and nothing substantial ever happens, you might enjoy this. If you are like me, though, you'll hate it.

Boyd, John    

Category: Science Fiction
Summary: The invention of Vita-Lerp, a drug that not only allows parthenogenesis, but gives great orgasms as well, makes men superflous and sparks a movement to eliminate men altogether. Captain Benjamin Franklin Hansen of the US Navy finds himself promoted into the highest ranks of government as the men make plans to stop the women's crusade. Hansen must choose whether to put his faith in the loyalty of his beloved wife Helga and daughter Joan Paula, or to side with the High Command, who is so intent on victory that they would even consider nuking the United States.

Harpman, Jacqueline    

Category: Science Fiction
Summary: Forty women in a cage, underground. Guarded day and night by men who watch them with unceasing diligence, yet do not interact. The whip punishes any infraction of unwritten rules. There is no privacy. They are not allowed to touch. Or to commit suicide. They barely remember their lives before the cage, or the night they were captured. Who has imprisoned them, and why? How much time has passed? These are questions with no answers, so the women finally stop asking.

Then one day, something happens and everything changes. Or does it?

Carr, Jayge    

Category: Alien society
Summary: Delyafam is a water world, ruled by females. The Kimassu Lady has risen far in her society, despite her odd coloration. Through a male Terran, captured after violating the Inner Holy, she discovers that the Terrans, considered little more than pests by the Council, have plans to wipe out her people and take the planet for themselves. The more time she spends with the Terran, the more she realizes that her people have been shortchanging the males of her species. Ultimately, she must act to save her world from the Terran threat, and at the same time create equality between the sexes.