On the Bond Between Sci-Fi and Queerness, a guest post by Christopher Hartland

Science fiction has been one of my favourite genres for as long as I can remember. My longest reigning autistic special interest, for example, is Doctor Who. People might think it’s because I like science – I did, after all, do a physics degree at university – but for me, the best sci-fi stories are those in which the science takes a backseat, allowing the characters to be the main focus. Take Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, my favourite film of all time. What first appears to be a film about people travelling through space to find a new planet to live on turns out to really be about the love between a father and his daughter. An emotional human story becomes the focus, while the sci-fi elements form the backdrop.

This type of story is what I wanted to tell with Against The Stars. The sci-fi concept presented in the novel is that a company known as GlimpseTech offers all over-sixteens the chance to have a short vision (a Glimpse) of a random point in their future. The focus of the story, however, is the relationship that develops between the two main characters, Elliot and Seb. The Glimpse technology is the driving force behind the narrative, but the love story is what it’s really all about.

There is a long, queer history when it comes to science fiction, stretching as far back as the second century AD with the gay moon aliens depicted in Lucian of Samosata’s A True Story (seriously – look it up!). But my first experience of this intersection was, of course, Doctor Who. In 2005, when I was seven, Doctor Who came back to TV screens (after a very long hiatus) in the hands of a gay showrunner (Russell T Davies, who is now back in charge of the show again in 2023). The first series of the show’s new era included a queer character in the form of Captain Jack Harkness, a character who wasn’t mocked for his sexuality. At the time, I didn’t give this much thought. As far as I remember, I hadn’t yet started questioning my sexuality. Thinking back, however, that was probably the first time I ever encountered a queer character in a work of fiction. Years later, I learned that Doctor Who had, arguably, been a queer show from its very beginning back in 1963, with the first episode being directed by a gay man of colour (Waris Hussein). The list of queer characters in Doctor Who has only grown since 2005, and there’s no doubt in my mind that it has had a hand in my coming out journey.

It was a no-brainer for me that Against The Stars would have queer lead characters. Queer representation is important for a whole host of reasons, and as a queer writer myself I wanted to put people like me at the forefront of the story. When first drafting the outline for the story, I realised that there was a way to tie the queerness directly into the sci-fi concept. Against The Stars started with the question “what would happen if you got the chance to see a random point in your future and you couldn’t change it?” but once I began to create the character of Elliot, the question gained an extra part: “what if you thought you were straight, but your Glimpse showed you in an intimate gay moment?” Suddenly, the story became far more interesting. It spawned further questions: “Would you tell the other person what you saw?”, “Would you try to stop it from coming true, even if you knew you couldn’t?”, “Would you accept the truth about your sexuality?”

The queer aspect of Against The Stars isn’t just a small feature of the story, it is integral to the whole thing. Without it, there is no story. While I believe there is a definite value in stories where characters just happen to be queer, i.e. where their queerness isn’t important to the story, but is just an extra little feature, I do also think that we need stories where queerness is a major feature in order to highlight the value of representation. If we see ourselves in books and know that a story couldn’t exist without us, it lets us know we matter. I’m glad I made this choice with Against The Stars.

Not only did Against The Stars give me the opportunity to make my own entry into the queer sci-fi world, it also gave me the chance to explore queer teenage-hood as someone who never got to experience it myself. While some of my closest friends came out during high school, I was in the closet until the age of 20. Perhaps that would have been different if I’d seen representation in more places than just Doctor Who. I’m still in my twenties now, so it hasn’t been that long since I was a teenager, but even so I’ve seen how times have changed. There is still a long way to go, of course, but there are certainly more openly queer teenagers in schools today than there were ten years ago. I have no doubt that these numbers will continue to increase (and rightly so) if queer teens continue to see themselves represented in fiction. I can only hope that my little addition to the rich world of queer sci-fi can be part of that movement.

Meet the author

Based in West Yorkshire, England, Christopher Hartland is a queer, autistic writer with a particular love for sci-fi, fantasy, and romance.

Despite going on to do a physics degree, “author” was always his answer to the childhood question of “what do you want to be when you grow up?” When not writing, you can find him nerding out over musical theatre, playing Dungeons and Dragons, or endlessly rewatching Doctor Who.

Against The Stars is his first published novel.

Social Media Links:

https://instagram.com/christopherhartland

Twitter: @chartlandwriter

About Against the Stars

When Elliot starts questioning his sexuality on prom night, he’s desperate for some certainty and turns to GlimpseTech, a company offering all over-sixteens the chance to glimpse a vision of their future. But Elliot’s Glimpse only makes him more confused, showing him in an intimate moment with Seb, the ‘one gay kid’ in his year at school.

Seb, meanwhile, has no time to worry about Glimpses, not while he’s dealing with his mum’s depression and the man showing up at his house demanding money. But then he bumps into Elliot, and bumps into him again, and it seems like the universe is pulling them together.

Despite Elliot keeping his Glimpse a secret from Seb, and despite the vast differences between their lives, undeniable feelings begin to develop. But tensions are building in the world around them. People are protesting against the Glimpse technology, and there are rumors about the so-called Last Day: the day beyond which no one has ever seen in their Glimpse. A day which is drawing ever closer.

Against The Stars is an exploration of class, love, and destiny, perfect for fans of Adam Silvera’s They Both Die At The End. This speculative, queer romance will have readers desperate to know how things turn out, but if given the choice would you glimpse ahead?

ISBN-13: 9781915585035
Publisher: Tiny Ghost Press
Publication date: 04/18/2023
Age Range: 13 – 18 Years

Filed under: Guest Post