You're listening to All the More Books, a weekly show about books of all kinds.

I'm your host, Danica Ellis, and today I'm talking about queer norm books.

So I write the Read Harder Challenge newsletter. I'm talking about queer norm books. So I write the read Harder Challenge newsletter,

and one of the tasks this year is to read a queer norm book. And if you're not familiar with it,

that means a sci-fi or fantasy book that is set in a world where transphobia and homophobia don't exist.

So I actually wrote a list of Queer Norm Fantasy books in 2021, which I can't believe it's that long ago.

But I wrote about fantasy then, and then recently I put together a list of queer norm sci-fi books.

And what's interesting about queer norm is that, and queer norm meaning like queer normative,

being queer, totally normal, just a regular part of society that's unremarkable. So with queer norm books,

it's kind of about what's not there, because it's about a book that doesn't include any

prejudice against queer people. And that means that even a single line can decide whether a book is

queer norm or not, because you can have a very positive queer representation in a book

and not have it be queer norm. It's a very specific thing. And it's also not that well-known of a term.

So it's difficult to research.

I spent a lot of time sifting through, double-checking every single book, because sometimes,

you know, the cast of characters are all very pro-queer, but they will mention, you know,

this planet that they're going by where people are really queerphobic, and that would take

it out of the running as a queer-norm book. So I've been very interested in this topic,

and I feel like even in the years since I first wrote about it,

there's a difference between how people think and talk about queer norm. I think when I first

wrote that fantasy book, it got a lot of positive reception. I think a lot of people were looking

for books like that. And I think it's become a lot of positive reception. I think a lot of people were looking for books like that.

...