​​A Queer Fantasy for a Post-Colonial Reality: A Vicious Game Author Melissa Blair on the World of The Halfling Saga

As a writer of fantasy, I get to imagine so many things that don’t exist in reality. Entire worlds, entire peoples, entire languages. All of that is up to me and the strength of my keyboard. Being queer myself, I decided to make a world where all characters should be presumed queer, unless otherwise stated. That is the world of The Halfling Saga. (This series of novels is currently comprised of A Broken Blade, A Shadow Crown, and A Vicious Game.)

The story of The Halfling Saga happens on a magical continent populated by Fae who live for millennia and Halflings who can live for several centuries. It just seemed unrealistic to my queer heart that they would adhere to a strict gender binary or sexuality. Ten thousand years is a long time.

Jokes aside, I was inspired to write a story that delved into how different the queer experience is in a colonial world versus an Indigenous one. Total acceptance of queer people and the beautiful landscapes of gender and sexuality they hold within in them is often depicted as a fantasy, as an ideal to strive for, a hope that one day humanity can achieve.

 But for many Indigenous peoples, mine included, that is not a fantasy. It is a real part of our cultural fabric—but a part that has been stripped away by colonization. I wanted to write a story that tackled the harms of colonialism and there was no better way to do that than through a queer main character.

 In English, Keera is a bisexual. To me, she just exists, as my Two-Spirit ancestors were allowed to exist. And when she makes her way back to her people her sexuality is not viewed as a shame, but a celebration, just as Two-Spirit people were and are celebrated by the Anishinaabeg.

 Keera is also joined by several other characters who are all queer in their own way, though those reveals may happen over the course of the entire saga, or not explicitly at all. That choice was important to me too, not to make their sexuality an afterthought, but to immerse the reader in a world of so much acceptance that no one needs to brandish a label as a shield or to judge the safety of a particular room. The world of the Halfling Saga is one where there is no need for a “coming out” moment juxtaposed against heteronormativity; there is no need to define oneself against a colonial norm.

Keera and some of her fellow Shades help exemplify this difference when they witness how much their lives change between living under the rule of a conqueror and coming home. There is no more hiding in the shadows because who you choose to love or who you truly are can be used against you, or the ones you care about. They come home to find a world of beauty, peace, and acceptance far beyond their dreams.

For some readers they might include that as part of the fantasy, but that wasn’t my inspiration as the author. I wanted to craft a world that didn’t just shine light on the possible but rather illustrated what could be possible again.

Melissa Blair is the author of A Vicious Game (Union Square & Co., February 6, 2024).