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WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE SF/FANTASY TG-THEMED NOVEL?
By Touch the Light Here are a few of mine. I hope you can introduce me to others. |
'The Identity Matrix' by Jack L Chalker
A rare stand-alone novel from the undisputed king of transformation stories. It begins when a lonely 35 year old male on a hiking trip is suddenly turned into a 13 year old girl. After that it gets seriously weird.
'I Will Fear No Evil' by Robert Heinlein
I'm not Heinlein's biggest fan, but he makes a really good job of this brain-transplant yarn.
As far as I'm concerned, Tanith Lee can do no wrong. This cover is from an edition that contains her novels 'Don't Bite The Sun' and 'Drinking Sapphire Wine', set in a decadent far future where the rich can change sex any time they feel like it.
Ilario is a true hermaphrodite living in 17th century Venice who accidentally becomes pregnant. As he/she finds it much more convenient to pose as a male, this causes a few problems. Like many of Mary Gentle's central characters, Ilario is difficult to warm to, but the setting and plot development are superb.
'Orlando' by Virginia Woolf
Was this one of the first tg-themed novels ever written?
Orlando is a picaresque character who seduces his way around renaissance Europe until for no discernible reason he wakes up to find 'he' is female. Seemingly unperturbed by this, she manages to hang around until 1928 to write her autobiography.
Many have interpreted this tale as a metaphor for women in literature, but it's still a gripping read.
I await your additions to this list eagerly.
Comments
Pip
I'll pick The Marvelous Land of Oz. It's even kid-friendly.
the well world saga
not a lot of TG transformations but some of the species look very much like mythical creatures like fairies and mermaids ...
Good Old Nathan Brazil!
Isn't there a particularly nasty character in one of the earlier Well World novels who gets turned into a beetle and doesn't realise he/she has changed sex until her offspring eat her? Or something like that.
The Bone Doll's Twinby Lynn
The Bone Doll's Twin
by Lynn Flewelling
The female heir to the thrown is magically hidden as a male to hide her from her usurping uncle, Even she doesn't know she is female until the spell starts to unravel and she must fight for her rightful place, all while trying to come to grips with her role as a women and queen as well as dealing with the ghost of her dead twin brother who's life was used to hide her.
There are two other books in this series.
There's Also 'The Bone Palace'
'The Bone Palace' by Amanda Downum isn't a tg-themed novel, but it has one of the most beautifully drawn trans characters I've ever come across in this type of fiction. She all but steals the show.
I would agree that Bone Doll's was good...
The other two were only middlingly okay, and there's a new series the author is working on now involving some of the characters from the later titles in the original trilogy which I honestly couldn't recommend for use as kindling, let alone reading.
YMMV.
Abigail Drew.
Are you talking about the
Are you talking about the nightrunner series? that first came out before the series bone doll is part of, or are you talking about something new? I have to agree with you about the Nightrunner series if that is the one you are talking about. In the Tamir Trilogy I liked the first and last one about the same. The middle one wasn't as good but then it's hard to have a good middle book in a trilogy. Your not introducing a new world anymore and your not yet wrapping things up.
Something new...
But yeah, the Nightrunner series was the "original trilogy" that I very loosely referred to, lol.
It's technically still the Nightrunner series, just, being continued past it's logical conclusion and is just plain out stupidly crappy. For me, Nightrunner is rightly a trilogy, and was somewhat decent as such.
In my mind there are 3 major "series" that Flewelling has worked on and is presently writing within that same universe. The original trilogy were the first 3 Nightrunner books, with the Tamir trilogy being a prequel trilogy, and the new Nightrunner books are a half-ass sequel.
IMO, Lynn ran out of all her good ideas and is now a one-hit-wonder. She was OK on the first three Nightrunner, she shined with Bone Doll's, was OK with the other two Tamir books, but she's dried up now.
Abigail Drew.
Heinlein
First one I thought of was "I will fear no evil"
What's Your Favourite SF/Fantasy TG-themed novel?
I'd have to say Chalker's 'Identity Matrix', I've an old dogeared copy of it that I've read over and over again through the years.
A couple
I barely consider "I Will Fear No Evil" a TG/TS book. As at no time did the main character ever consider that he might have his brain transplanted into a female body. Heck, he didn't even think he'd survive. It just happened, so she got on with life. Her behavior post-transplant fits well with Heinlein's other characters' motto, live life to the fullest!
And how about John Varley! His novel "Steel Beach" along with all it's predecessors do quite well with variant sex/sex changing. One of his short stories deals with the after affects to a couple when the wife changes sex.
Then there is the rather dense novel "Triton", by Samuel R. Delany, and also his novel "Dhalgren". Not so much in "Dhalgren" but very much so in "Triton". As I commented, these are rather dense, certainly no quick reads either one, so I'm not going to try to write even a brief summary of them.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Most of the ones
I'm familiar with have already been mentioned. Still the Soul Rider series by Jack L. Chalker as well as the Change Winds stories bear mentioning. John Varely's stuff is pretty good.
Hugs
Grover
Justin Leiber - Beyond series
Click on the image to go to the Amazon page.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Here's another - Transmigration by J.T. McIntosh
The protagonist does a lot of hopping around in bodies, usually as a sort of hitchhiker. It's well-written and interesting without the minor TG aspect.
hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
SF Classic - The Dreaming Jewels by Ted Sturgeon
This is a chilling story about an alien consciousness that amplifies the mind of a human child. There is an extended TG sequence but the book is just really, darn good.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Mantra Ultraverse from Malibu Comics
Here's a link to the Amazon page for these comics that starred a millennia-old male warrior's soul trapped in the body of a modern housewife. Good stories and good comics, but be aware that after about 1995, the book featured a different character of the same name.
Mantra Ultraverse
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Dreaming Jewels
I wondered if somebody else would mention that one. When I bought it it was just because he wrote SF. I had no idea that the central protagonist would change gender not just once but several times.
That tale also deals with some serious abuse issues, as I recall. Hmm, probably time to read it again.
Penny
Yes!
This one slipped my mind. It was a fun story, and was planned as the start of a series featuring the heroine and her perpetually young special agent boss, roving the stars as galactic troublesooters. Alas, that never happened. At least I now know the heroine made it into another story, I'll have to look into it.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Well...
I want to talk about that first picture. OMG did someone else read "Camelot 3000"! When I was a preteen I got it because it was King Arthur, but when I found out there was a trans character in it. Well it took on another level. I was still in the dark about who and what I was. But I read that story no I devoured it. The whole thing was good but I knew I had the same predicament as the character. Born in the wrong body, his conflict of emotion and finding he is the same sex as his lover. His tortured soul and uncompromising bravery despite his new body limitations. This was easily in my top five limited series ever. It played a little loose with the legends of King Arthur but top notch writing, and absolutely beautiful art redeemed it. Thank you for reminding me about this, now I have to go looking through my long boxes to find it again. If anyone is interested find it its worth the read and I think it was reprinted as a complete graphic novel some time ago. Camelot 3000 published by D.C. comics. Happy memory smiles, Jenn.
Upon my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
Way back in the dim and dark depths .......
.... of last millennium, I remember a book by Gore Vidal called "Myrah Breckinridge" (or similar).
It awoke a lot of self-analysis and also awoke a deeper awareness (and maybe appreciation) of satire.
It was the late 60s I think, maybe early 70s.
It was a fundamental read for me, definitely life-changing and yet I can barely remember the plot nowadays.
Maybe there wasn't one!
So maybe it wasn't exactly a favourite ......
Hmmm --- good question this!
I will probably have to repeat an answer or two when I get back from the shops.
Thanks,
Julia
The Left Hand of Darkness
by Ursala K. LeGuin comes to mind for me. Published in 1969.
A whole world Where the inhabitants change sex in cycles. Very good in it's time, though I haven't read it in quite awhile.
Maggie
I remember this one.
If I recall, it was about a planet of humans that had been left out of touch for several millennia since colonisation. the peculiar environment meant that the inhabitants had become neuter for most of the climate cycle, and only emerged with a gender in the warmer months. Due to a quirk of evolution/defence, they had the ability to be either male or female (but not at the same time). If I recall, the process was known as Hemmering, or similar.The narrator is a human male who rediscovers the planet and its inhabitants for the first time since being lost.
It's a great concept, and I am using a similar idea as a side plot in a new Sci-fi book to be released soon.
Tanya
There's no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes!
Books...
As Karen says, I do not consider the 'Heinlein' a TS/TG book. What it is, to me, is a man trying to write what he thinks is a woman, just as he tried for teenaged girl in 'Podkayne of Mars'.
John Varley does better, and he has many stories which involve sex-changes by way of cloned bodies or elective surgery. One I enjoyed was 'The Phantom of the Kansas', which I won't spoil for anyone.
The Dreaming Jewels does indeed contain what can fairly be termed 'female impersonation', which made me smile at the time I first read it. I adore Sturgeon's work, as he had a real feel for humanity and despite a cynical facade was IMHO a genuinely caring man. Try 'Slow Sculpture', which is non-TG but sums up a lot of his worldview.
'Left Hand'----ah! A wonderful book. Sturgeon wrote 'Venus Plus X', a story of hermaphrodites, but Le Guin actually dove into the whole concept of how a society would function like that. Who is male, and when? Who female, and why?
Pardon me; I'm just slipping into kemmer.
Mary Gentle's 'Orthe' Novels
Mary Gentle tried a variation on this theme in her novels 'Golden Witchbreed' and 'Ancient Light'. In this world it's the children whose sex is indeterminate. The human protagonist, Lynne de Lisle Christie, takes one of them, a bit of a tearaway, under her wing and assumes 'he' is male on account of 'his' behaviour. Unfortunately this loveable scamp's transformation into a beautiful young woman happens off camera, so to speak.
Anyone Remember?
I read a story in one of the SciFi Mags way back when.
The concept caught in my brain but I but i don't remember the title or who it was by, just that it intrigued me.
Basically: anyone could change their sex overall appearance and apparent age(effective immortality seemed to be the norm) by what amounted to the equivalent of going to the beauty parlor in our current Real World, that is a quick afternoon appointment.
Does anyone know what story this might be and by whom, I would love to find it again. I was fairly young when I read it. It definitely made an impression, but it took some time to sink in and I did not save it.
PS.
I have been wanting to post this question for a while this thread seemed like a good place too.
John Varley
Sounds like his stories set in the 'Ophiuchi Hotline' universe. Try his collection "In the Hall of the Martian Kings", also sold as "Persistence of Vision"
there was a novella
in one of the first best of trek or trek fanfic books in the late 70"s that was very well written story that had the whole crew of the enterprise genetically transformed to the opposite sex except one male who ended up XYY. the dynamics of kirk trying to command when his mind, mannerisms and physical dynamics no longer fit her body was interesting. then to add to the mix Kang followed the ship in, after the "day of the dove" he had a all male crew, now all female with him as the hyper male.
I don't...
I don't have a "favorite" per-say, but there is one that is very memorable. "The Morphodite", "Transformer" and "Preserver" by M. A. Foster had a protagonist that changed gender (more than once) over the course of the trilogy. I found them quite readable and fascinating.
Annette
What About Novel Length
Stories at BCTS? I was very blown away be The Unicorn's Gift by Sarah Lynn Morgan.
I had that blown away feeling more often as a teen reading SF and Fantasy, than as an adult, but I didn't find any TG/TS books during that time. I'd read quite a bit of Heinlein by the I read I will fear no evil so the impact was lessened. For the last 20 yrs. I've felt too poor to by books; I read whatever I can get free on the web.
Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee
has to be
The Heinlein classic, I Will Fear No Evil. Not read it for a few years but its always included in my Heinlein re-read cycle.
Madeline Anafrid Bell