Theodore McCombs with queer science fiction, in convo with Colin Winnette

At the end of the Victorian era, a handful of public intellectuals advocated for tolerance of the “Uranian”—a man who loved other men. Some went so far as to propose that these “intermediate sexes” might, in fact, constitute a totally different species, even serve as intrepid guides in our march toward an uncertain future.

The five speculative stories in Theodore McCombs’s kaleidoscopic collection span several possible worlds, teasing the boundaries between coexisting realities and taking up the question of queer difference from one surprising vantage after another. In “Toward a Theory of Alternative Lifestyles,” a heartbroken gay man waits in line at an exclusive Berlin rave promising visions of parallel lives across the multiverse. In “Six Hangings in the Land of Unkillable Women,” at the turn of an alternate 20th century, a policeman’s wife feels that if you want an execution done right, you just have to do it yourself. And in the operatic novella “Uranians,” an expedition of queer artists, scientists, and one trans priest embark on a lifelong interplanetary voyage that requires them to renegotiate their connections to a remote and hostile Earth, while keeping their ship’s biome—and each other—alive.

Theodore McCombs's stories have appeared in Guernica, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and the anthology Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. Born in Thousand Oaks, California, he is a graduate of the University of California, San Diego, UC Berkeley School of Law, and the Clarion Writers Workshop. He lives in San Diego with his partner and their surly old cat and practices environmental law, with a focus on climate change.

Colin Winnette is the author of several books, translated into multiple languages, including Haints Stay and The Job of the Wasp. His new novel Users was one of the New Yorker's "Best Books of 2023" and was called "...a timeless and moving story about fatherhood and one man’s yearning for a more meaningful life," by the NY Times. His writing has appeared in numerous publications, including McSweeney's, Playboy, and BOMB Magazine. He lives in San Francisco, and you can find him online at colinwinnette.net.

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