Ask the internet: SFF books with bisexual protagonists?

[starlady]

Partly for my sister, partly for my own interest, I was trying to brainstorm SFF books with bisexual protagonists who

a) exist
b) don't die
c) aren't Evil Bisexuals.

Off the top of my head, I thought of

• Malinda Lo, Adaptation
• Sherwood Smith, the Inda books
• Ellen Kushner, Swordspoint

I'm pretty sure that I don't carry the entirety of SFF (YA or "adult") around in my head, so I would love to know what other books you, dear readers, can think of that meet the above criteria. Please feel free to signal-boost!

Comments

[raven]

Hmm - Aral Vorkosigan comes to mind; also Michael Young, the protagonist of Stephen Fry's novel Making History.

[starlady]

"He was bisexual, but now he's monogamous." *facepalm*

But yes, you're right. Thank you!

[lotesse]

god that line just never gets less awful.

[seekingferret]

Neal Stephenson's The Big U, if we want to say it's SF, which it probably is.

Also, there was this whole wank... does this count? http://whatever.scalzi.com/2007/04/18/what-sex-is-sam-berlant/

Also, Heinlein's whole Lazarus Long series.

[starlady]

Oh, thank you! And sure, Stephenson counts on general principles! I am not too fussed on the genre boundaries for my current purposes, anyway. :)

[seekingferret]

If you ever want a list of books that don't meet criterion C...

[seekingferret]

Also, not sure why it didn't occur to me originally, but a whole bunch of Samuel Delany.

Dhalgren, for sure, plus some of the Neveryon books.

[melannen]

*basically everyone in Diane Duane's Tale of the Five
*Elizabeth Willey's books are 'everyone is of dubious morality' so idk about 'non-evil' but several of the protagonists are bi, including the one who is closest to actually purely good
*I'm pretty sure there were some bi protagonists in the Callahan's books by Spider Robinson?
*...some of the protagonists of the later Heinlein books *supposedly* are, only, well, Heinlein...
*I know some of Melissa Scott's books have bi protagonists but I don't know them well enough to say which

[lnhammer]

The protagonist of at least Laurie Marks's books has been bi, I think more than one. Blanking on titles, though.

ETA: Laurel Hamilton's Merideth Gentry books.

---L.

[the_rck]

Lynn Flewelling's Nightrunner series.

[oursin]

Vonda McIntyre's Dreamsnake and the Starfarers sequence.

[arduinna]

Tanya Huff has bi characters in most of her books, but for protagonists per se, your best bet is probably the Quarters series. The first book, especially; Anise's bisexuality in Sing the Four Quarters is a huge part of the plot, actually, and is never treated as anything but utterly normal and unremarkable. (They're also highly sex-positive books.)

[kindkit]

Philip Eslingen, one of the two protagonists/POV characters in Melissa Scott's Points series, is bisexual. So is Trey Maturin, the protagonist of The Kindly Ones; we never learn if Trey is a man or a woman but Trey has attractions to men and women.

[inkstone]

Jacqueline Carey's first Kushiel trilogy (the ones with Phedre) and the Naamah trilogy.

[swan_tower]

I was going to suggest Carey. I can't remember whether Imriel sleeps with any men in the second Kushiel trilogy -- I wasn't as big a fan of that series. But it's possible he does.

[inkstone]

He doesn't. It's one of my main criticisms about those books -- her female protags are bisexual but the male protag isn't. I suppose there is an in-context explanation for it but that specific usage and its implication makes me uncomfortable.

[swan_tower]

Ah, feh. I was afraid that might be the case. Yes, Imriel has good in-story reason for not having the usual Terre d'Ange "sure, I'll enjoy anything" attitude, but the lack of symmetry is less than ideal.

I wonder if that's because of the story she'd already established for him, or because Carey felt uncertain about writing m/m smut directly, or because of some (sub)conscious feeling that it would detract from Imriel as a protagonist to have him be bi? I can't remember whether there are male bi characters in the first trilogy -- I know there's male homosexuality, but I can't recall whether any of those characters are presented as also really enjoying sex with women.

[octette]

Candace Jane Dorsey's A Paradigm of Earth - protagonist is bisexual and ends the book in a bi poly V.

[lilacsigil]

SFF graphic novel: Agent 355 in Y: The Last Man. The premise is that almost all male mammals (including humans) have died, so there's a lot of situational f/f sex. Agent 355 is interested in both men and women, and has sex with both of the other main characters, Yorick and Allison.

[wild_irises]

Sadly, I think you would have to make a case here for most late Heinlein characters, most notably the pansexual future characters in Time Enough for Love. Not to say that they are worth much in any other way, but they do fit that criterion.

On a stronger note, I think that the warlord in Elizabeth A. Lynn's Dragon books is also bisexual, though I'm too lazy right now to go look up his name.

[rachelmanija]

Kristin Cashore's Fire, but it's subtle. So subtle I missed it. But confirmed by Word of Author.

[marina]

Kameron Hurley's books. Also Karin Lowachee's "Cagebird" and arguably "Burndive".

[cordialcount]

The Bel Dame Apocrypha by Kameron Hurley

Embassytown by China Mieville

The Administration by Manna, origfic (almost) all available online: one of the two main characters, both explicitly bi, does fairly reprehensible things, but the tagline is something like "there are no good people or bad people, only better and worse," and I give main protagonists a free dispensation from Evil Bisexuality. (Incredibly explicit and iddy books, and all around very solidly fun.)

Almost everyone in the Culture novels by Iain M. Banks is pansexual. Off the top of my head, Diziet Sma from Use of Weapons is the most obviously so of the protagonists. (Although she is also attracted to sneezing ships.)

Several of the protagonists of C. J. Cherryh's Cyteen have been attracted to both men and women as adolescents, but by the present timeline they're only into each other and might read as gay instead.

[toft]

The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson, which I'm currently reading, and which is awesome. I think it's everyone-is-bisexual? But certainly there are multiple bisexual characters.