SSF Stories with Middle Eastern Leads

This post is focuses on my favorite science fiction and fantasy stories with protagonists whose race and ethnicity is rooted in the Middle East.
Previous Posts: SFF Stories with Native American Leads, SFF Stories with Asian Leads and SFF Stories with Black Leads.

The Aggregate Stats

• Total number of works/series/authors on the list: 15/7/24
• Author with most works on the list: Frank Herbert, with 6 books on the list
• Most consistent pattern: Historical Fantasies.  Rather than take the ideas and culture and build their own world, about half the series on the list placed their stories in a serious historical context.
• Biggest overall surprise:  No fantasies with the magic based on ancient Egyptian mythology.  I would have assumed that would be more popular, but no.

and now for...

My Favorites

Shattered Dreams

Summary: A nice regency romance available as a $.99 e-book. 

Shattered Dreams, by Laura Landon, tells two love stories set vaguely in Regency-era England, with a little action near the end for spice.  The first love story is of a perfect man (handsome, charming, titled, rich, well-adjusted, etc.) and a flawed woman (beautiful, vivacious, and titled, but also dealing a disability and accompanying emotional issues).  The second is of two former lovers who were separated by a misunderstanding.

The book is worth reading if you regency romances, but it's not so great that I'll accost random strangers on my way to work and force them to read the book.  I'm not that sort of person, after all.  I think where it fails for me is that there are four main characters, but only one of them has any real complexity.  The others are fun to read, but shallow, which ends up making the book a bit fun-but-shallow also.

My Favorite Romances with Differently Abled Leads
Reading this book did get me thinking about my what romance books I enjoyed that have a lead dealing with a disability of some sort.  Here's my top 5:

1. Miles in Love by Lois McMaster Bujold.   It's my favorite series in general.  You should really start earlier in the series, but this is the core romance part of it.  It's a far future science fiction with a a brittle-boned, hyperactive, little person genius protagonist.  Imagine all possible good things you can say about a book and you can assume they apply here.  Yay!
2. The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie by Jennifer Ashley.  OMG, autism spectrum disorders never sounded so sexy as in this regency.
3. Candle in the Window by Christina Dodd. Medieval romance with a blind heroine.  Actually, the hero is blind, too, now that I think about it.  Well-deserved RITA award winner.
4. Seeing Eye by Patricia Briggs in the Strange Brew Anthology.  Short story paranormal romance/adventure between a blind witch and scarred werewolf.  Set in Seattle, it features secondary characters from her Alpha and Omega series
5. Nothing to Commend Her by Jo Barrett.  Hero is severely disfigured from burns, set in Regency England. Warning, it's a bit corny, so don't come here expecting an award winner.  But I really like the characters and find myself rereading on occasion to recapture the happy feeling it gives me.

Irish Moon

Summary: $.99 e-book price and high reviews made this a tempting read, but I just couldn't get into it enough to finish the book.  Meh.

Irish Moon, by Amber Scott, is a romance set in an alternate dark age Ireland where druid magic really works.   I feel like I should like it more than I do.   I went back to check on the Amazon reviews afterward to figure out what other people saw in it (because it has an average review of 4.5 and the only two negative reviews both said they thought the story was nice) and I still didn't get it.

So, maybe it's just me.  Maybe it's a really great book but I'm just in a bad mood or not the intended audience or something.  I don't know.  But I did notice how just about everyone commented on how much they loved the Irish setting.  So, if ancient Ireland+romance+magic is your thing, then this may be a good book for you.

Now, why didn't I like it?  Let me count the ways.