The Year in Gay Books: Mouse Soars, J.K. scores and more!

Best Gay Science Fiction

Q-FAQ by Tom Bacchus (Harrington Park Positronic Press).

Bacchus’s dystopian saga puts gay sex back into science fiction. Set in a future Divided States of America, Q-FAQ are the erotic adventures of Afaik, a gay Arab man who is bombed out of his Manhattan home after being accused of terrorism by the ruling Puritan Party. Afaik soon joins forces with the bionic Aces Bannon and goes on a cross-country tour, where the two uncover an underground network of hunky guys and circuit party orgies.

Gay Fantasy and Horror

The Werewolves of Central Park (STARbooks)

First time author Tom Cardamone has created a fantastic New York City, a place full of frolicking fauns, lecherous werewolves, stomping centaurs, and a Central Park where sexual passions run wild each night.

Best Gay History (tie)

Gay Artists In Modern American Culture: An Imagined Conspiracy by Michael Sherry (University of North Carolina Press)

During the 1940s and 1950s, much of American literature, theater and music was created by gay male artists. But this was also the age of the “lavender scare,” a time when gay men were persecuted as perverts and agents of Communism. In Gay Artists In Modern American Culture, Michael Sherry explores the role gay male artists played during these crucial decades.

The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein by John Lauritsen (Pagan Press)

Lauritsen calls himself “an independent scholar,” and The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein proves it by taking on one of English literature’s most famous works, Frankenstein. Lauritsen’s book has three theses, all controversial: “[1] Frankenstein is a great work which has consistently been underrated and misinterpreted. [2] The real author of Frankenstein is Percy Bysshe Shelley, not his second wife, the former Mary Godwin. [3] Male love is the dominant theme of Frankenstein “

Best Gay Arts (tie)

Hard Boys by Harry Bush (Green Candy Press)

In his lifetime and after, the erotic drawings of Harry Bush (d. 1994) appeared in publications like Physique Pictorial, Mr. Sun, and Drummer. Hard Boys is both a biography of the elusive, reclusive Mr. Bush and a celebration of his art, which in its time stood alongside the immortal works of George Quaintance and Tom of Finland.

Man to Man: A History of Gay Photography by Pierre Borhan (Vendome Press)

This collection goes beyond the buff musclemen we usually expect from a gay photo book. Rather, it is the first fully comprehensive study of homoeroticism and male homosexuality in the history of photography around the world. Don’t worry, though

Best Gay Mystery

Drag Queen in the Court of Death by Caro Soles (Harrington Park Southern Tier)

This mystery is another good gay book written by a woman. When Professor Michael Dunn-Barten cleans out the apartment of his ex-lover Ronnie, a famous drag queen, he finds a mummified corpse along with Ronnie’s dresses and other drag regalia. Seeking to uncover the truth behind the literal skeleton in Ronnie’s closet, Michael is forced to look back at his own checkered life.

the buff musclemen are here, too.