I do love a good read myself. My shelves really do bow under the amount of books I have. I also have the Kindle apps on my PC, phone and ipad.
Authors I especially like include:
Peter F Hamilton. Scottish author and famous for his HUGE space opera. Nights Dawn Trilogy being the classic point. Still great books though.
Iain M Banks. Another Scot who is well regarded for rekindling Sci-Fi around the UK etc. His Culture series is his most well known. He often writes very dark stories. But also has a good dose of humour espeically when it comes to the spaceships, their super AI Minds and attitudes.
Alistair Reynolds. Another fairly recent addition. Likes his Hard Sci Fi. And his music, as most of his books are titled from songs. Revelation Space. Century Rain and so forth.
Most of these will not feature any overt sexuality and so wont cover GLBT books really. Most of those will see you looking to small press stuff which is where the Kindle can come in very handy.
Anne McCaffery RIP. Sadly passed away now. McCaffery did feature some subtle but prevalent nods to Homosexuality etc in her Pern novels. These are more of a Sci Fantasy kind. The earliest books read like regular Fantasy with people flying on dragons and so on. However it is later revealed that they are actually a Lost Colony. Began as a colony effort from Earth but find their existence nearly wiped out. A rogue planetoid dubbed the Red Star passes the planet every few centuries and when it does spores are drawn from the planetoid to Pern where they consume anything Organic. The only solution the ccolonists find is some small reptiles that seem able to chew certain rocks to trigger flames that can score the spores before they land. They genetically modify these lizards into something big enough for a human to ride on and mentally meld with, bonding the 2 from the "Dragons" birth.
The dragons in question are intelligent and mentally equal to their human bond mates. They also vary in size and colouration. Colours also denote their gender with Gold and Green being the only female dragons. Green are the smallest and Gold the biggest. The dragons themselves do mate and when they are in their Heat their riders will be driven by that urge to mate as well with the others rider. Women riders are typically only Golden riders so the Greens are typically paired with men. Men who will be inclined to the riders of the Male dragons above them as well.
I can only recall one book which gave one of these pairings a definite face. Dragonsblood. Where a dragonrider in the early part clearly talks about a male partner and mate of his and his dragon. Alas it is a sad romance as said lover had died. But it is an overt acknowledgement of Homosexuality in her Pern Universe and that they can attain any goal including bonding with and riding the dragons.
TL:DR: Pern dragons have small females who mate with the smaller males and when they mate, so do their riders. Which in terms of the smaller dragons are almost all male. And to quote the book. Green dragons will bond with riders who are not adverse to mating with the larger dragons rider. I may have got that quote badly wrong, but that is the essence of it.
Back to regular fantasy without all the above added...
Robin Hobb. Writes some very moving and intelligent fantasy books. Very much worth a read. And her covers are done by John Howe. Otherwise known as the artist for Lord Of The Rings etc. He helped shape the look of those films.
David Gemmell RIP. Gemmell is a writer of the so called Heroic Fantasy. Think vaguely along the lines of Conan etc. However he also was a very smart writer who widely acknowledged there being no such thing as pure good or evil. Everyone has reasoning behind their actions, even if their actions lead to evil acts happening. And his Heroes are always deeply flawed people for whom doing good typically is forced upon them.
His Drenai novels are very good and what led me into reading him when I read an analogue to Samurai etc were in it. From there I was hooked.
Arthur C Clarke RIP. If you don't know this name then you must be fairly new to Sci Fi or not have seen or read much yet. He is one of the great Grand Masters of the 50s onward. Typically a Hard Sci Fi author. His books although somewhat dated at times, can be extremely impressive and moving.
He often writes books that see humnaity far ahead in the future or having to come to terms with very advanced cultures.
Rama sequence being a classic case. A small group of scientists are sent to this odd alien ship that arrives near Earth. They become trapped on it as it accelerates away from Earth and have to find a way to live and learn about this new home of theirs. There are perils and discoveries aboard and they encounter a lot of the course of the 3 novels.
A Space Oddysey. aka 2001. Yes the books and film are dated now, much like early Trek. But so much of 2001 and its 3 sequels is great.
TL:DR synopsis. Humans find a big black Monolith that sends a signal to Jupiter. Humans follow and something all together more wide ranging triggers. 2001, 2010, 2061 and finally 3001 are the books of this, covering leaps in time and developments as the names ssuggest.
Now if you really want GLBT stories and are relatively open minded you might consider some of the so called Furry Fandom/Anthropomorphic stories. Yes we are talking stuff like the Caitians here. And as mentioned above with Nifty, a lot of it is highly sexualised Erotica. But if you are open minded about your Sci Fi and it does not need to be Human romance then you have an outlet there. Because they are very much a niche deal they do not feel such an urge to mute any sexual suggestions or aspects that might see a bigger publisher turn away from them.
Kyell Gold would be worth a look at for someone from that fandom who I gather has spread beyond into even having his books added to some American School libaries...
