lea_hazel / "The Gay Elf Books" by Hazel, a Fan (Reply)

Since this came up in today's fan meetup, here's the deal with the "gay elf books" I was talking about:

First: Calling them gay is a mite inaccurate. Yes, there's a same-sex romance that's a central theme in the books, but as both characters also have relationships with women, I'd personally be more inclined to call them bisexual, if at all.

Second: The word "elf" does not appear anywhere. They are merely very long-lived, stunningly beautiful, highly magical people. Who grow no beards. And are kind of radically separatist. And like to sing beautiful sad songs about how much better things were in the good old days. And liberally sprinkle names with various apostrophes and diacritics.

Third: These books are full of plot! Tasty, tasty plot. If you have a low tolerance for epic fantasy style doom and gloom/ultimate evil/corruption incarnate type deals, this plot may not be to your liking. On the other hand, it does pave the way quite nicely for a truly legendary amount of hurt/comfort. Top quality H/C, in fact, at least in my opinion.

Fourth: The first two books are basically one book. Half the plot threads raised in the first book don't reach fruition until the second book. Read them back-to-back with that in mind. As a single book in two volumes, I found them quite well-paced and delightfully satisfying in their resolution.

So, why read these books? Well, I don't know if they're actually the first of their kind, but I think it's pretty safe to say that they're a significant milestone in queer fantasy. Also, they're very good, not in a masterpiece way, but also not in a bad-but-enjoyable way. They're tightly plotted and expertly paced, especially when it comes to adding mysteries and resolving them.

Also, the romance. If you like a slow burn romance that involves almost intolerable amounts of pining and gazing soulfully and everybody knowing how the protagonists feel about each other except them (including, literally, an oracle), then you'll probably enjoy this. If you like stories about experienced, worldly characters who take much younger, more naive and provincial characters under their wing, you'll probably adore this.

When asked whether they have porn in them, I said yes, but without the sex part. If you've been reading slash fic for a while, you probably have a pretty good idea what I mean by this.

But the bottom line is, this is a series about bisexual elf spies, and that's usually all that needs to be said.

The Nightrunner series by Lynn Flewelling begins with a two volume story in the books Luck in the Shadows and Stalking Darkness. There are numerous other books in the series which I have only just started going through. It's worth noting that reviews for later books are mixed, and some fans who loved the early books became disenchanted with later ones.

Crossposted to my tumblr.