Rick Rawes

A Quick Intro

Welcome one, welcome all, and Happy Pride Month to everyone! Yes, even to you, Margaret, giving me that look over your half-rim glasses like some dowdy East Anglian verger. You’re one of us too, and by that I mean, a human being. And some of us, especially those a little o’ the rainbow, are downright vulgar, joyful, colourful and bloody bonkers. So give your custard cream a double dunk in your Horlicks, and lets enjoy the festivities.

And why? Because it’s Pride Month. Not a month-long party, but an annual reminder that the world is shit for all the members of the LGBT+ rainbow – and only getting worse. But this time ‘round, I ain’t preaching about it. You’ve likely followed me long enough now you know I don’t tolerate none of that bigoted shit, and anyone who doesn’t like it can toddle off back to pretend to read their Bible. Instead, I’m gonna do what writers do best – talk your ear off about writing by introducing you to some of my favourite LGBT+ identifying characters.

So on with the show.

L

Beginning with the L – which I’ve never understood why that’s come first. Perhaps because to do it alphabetically, BGLT sounds more like a sandwich. Anywho, we’ll start with ‘Lesbian’. Now, it did take me a while to begin to explore L characters within my works, mainly because of a hesitancy to offend – as I’ve talked about in previous posts. But now that I have, and grown more confident in respectful representation – the gloves are truly off.

Bastet is my most prominent lesbian figure throughout the books – appearing in her own eponymous standalone novel – as well as about to feature heavily in the upcoming New Knights. She is at the centre of my first true romance book. While other stories feature romantic love of all kinds, Bastet was the first one to have a true love story at the heart of it – and as such be suggested to be partially a romance story. While Bastet is not confirmed to only be attracted to women, her defining love story is with dear Leilana – and as such I feel most confident placing her in this category.

But, of course, as sweeping epics tend to do the course of love doesn’t much run smooth. The upcoming Echo will introduce us to my second character who identifies as lesbian, Simone. While we’ll not explore her romantic side too much in her debut in Echo, there are definitely plans in the works to maybe have a little romance on the cards in the future.

What I love about both of these characters is their heart. They are big, bold, brash and don’t stand for any shit – either of them – but at the same time they love deeply, fiercely and with no regrets. I’m proud to learn more about them as time goes on, they have so much left to teach.

G

We venture a little more into familiar territory for me – being a gay man myself – with the G. Here ‘Gay’ characters are plentiful in the worlds of Rick Rawes, so I’ve narrowed down to what I think are the most prominent three. Artie Abrams, Rick Carter and Matt Merrick.

Artie is the mild-mannered psychology teacher, who’s experiences as a gay man have led him to live his life mainly in the closet. Sure, as an adult he can go where he pleases and do what he pleases, but few people – even those closest to him – know. What I really enjoyed about exploring Artie’s story through Avalon and beyond, was how this kind of self-correcting mechanism is so prevalent amongst gay men, even in the modern day – especially those who do not conform or identify with many of the gay subcultures.

Rick is to Artie as day is to night. He loves openly, honestly, and quite frankly, rudely. He is brash, sarcastic, masculine yet unashamedly gay. Yet the facet of gay life that he so clearly embodies is the exploration of how external childhood homophobia and – let’s face it abuse – at the hands of those who are meant to love us, can break us well beyond our understanding even into adulthood. Through Heroes & Demons and the subsequent sequels, we may come to love Rick – but that doesn’t mean we always like him. But, if nothing else, I guess I understand him.

Matt yet again portrays a very different face of the gay journey to Rick and Artie. No tragic coming out story, surrounded by familial love. A handsome gay bear and Magick User, swarthy and sophisticated and crude and warm and funny all at once. He’s the guy you can bring home to mum, who will also crack an incredibly filthy joke about a dark room once in a while. He’s the nice guy, the guy for whom the gay experience has been (mainly) positive. The fabled unicorn, you may say.

Actually, don’t – unicorns are arseholes. You’ll see why in the next Avalon book.

B

Bisexuality is a complex beast. Not gay, not straight – and often facing discrimination and push back from both. Well, f* right off then. Because honestly, sexuality is a complete spectrum – and all of us lay along it at different ends. I myself had a few dalliances with ladies back in the day. Who when I used the word dalliance assumed (correctly) we wouldn’t have much of a future. So, moral of the story – chill.

Ben is probably the only male character I have who would openly identify himself as bisexual – and probably because of how difficult his journey was, he has every damn right to. Appearing in the Heroes & Demons series, he is the one who questions, the one who doubts – the one who looks inside himself and wonders whether it is possible to love both a man and a woman. He embodies the journey of self-acceptance – a journey probably many people are familiar with.

Then on the other hand, there is Linda. Linda Lake. Linda – who cannot and will not define herself by labels – Lake. We know she has had several relationships with men over the years (including one of the Monty Python lot, if jokes are to be believed). We also know she doesn’t like it when men go halves on the bill. We also know she has had lesbian relationships – how else could she have Kevlar-plated Dragon resistant suits made and a lifetime waiver of the entry fee to Hebden Bridge’s Honey Pot? And, massive tragic love story with an ancient Titan, of course. I wouldn’t even use the term pansexual to describe Linda, mainly because she’d scold me with her tongue harsher than a whipping from a trigger-happy Dominatrix.

She’s… Linda. And she loves.

Am I right in thinking that for sexual orientation, that covers everything else?

T

The one area where many of my stories are currently lacking, though again this is very likely for the same reason about respectful representation that I’ve said before, is in gender identity. There were, of course, the lovely trans and cis drag queens of Proud Marys, who were fierce and loveable and sassy in their own way.

What is freeing about writing about so many realms and concepts is that sometimes, stepping away from the concrete existence of a physical earth means you can mess with the status quo a bit. Already, we have precedent from Charlie (first met in the Insomniac) series that thought-forms don’t always adhere to binary gender.

Well, that’s only the beginning. I’m staying deliberately vague to avoid spoilers but there are two upcoming figures – one a protagonist, and one an antagonist – who are very much in their own way evolving those pre-established concepts. One, a protagonist who explores the issue of gender and identity through coming into being. And the second, an antagonist, who shed of physical form now exists well beyond binaries.

I’m doing a lot of work to make sure that what I am doing with these characters is right. That I am writing beautiful, flawed creations that are achingly real – despite existing in worlds of gods and monsters. That I am honouring the part of our community for whom existence is getting tougher at the moment, round the world, all without reducing anyone to a pawn in the hateful world of ‘gender politics’. I am writing individuals who are characters first, identity second – but never hidden.

Until Next Time

So, there you go, a quick whistle stop tour through some of my favourite characters of the rainbow. Like I said, not preaching here, but simply highlighting some of the best. Now, yes, there’s plenty of straights in my work too – you get a participation trophy – but honestly, the novels of Rick Rawes are unapologetically queer-led and queer-fronted. Whether that’s through beautifully human characters, or brutally hammered home points.

By proudly bringing found family to the heart of everything and rejecting stereotypes and tropes all too common in the science fiction and fantasy space, I guess I am committing myself to a political act.   By creating characters who live, die, love, and hate – and who we wish to do all four sometimes – I’m saying to the world ‘we are here’. This is our space too. Because we are, you know? We’re here, we matter, we take up space.

And we are proud to.

To every other writer out there wondering how to best represent the community within your works, I give only this little piece of advice. Do it. Write a character. Make them real. Make them gay, make them trans, make them sip their drink with their pinky up. Write them. Check with us, if you’re unsure. But write them.

It’s that easy.

‘til the End
Rick Rawes
Leeds, West Yorkshire
11^th June 2026