The best SF book I read last year was The Yiddish Policeman's Union, shelved as mainstream. My favorite collection of slipstream/magical realism short stories, Meet Me In the Moon Room, shelved as mainstream. My favorite mindfuck book that I want to slap for its misogyny, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, shelved as mainstream (Japan is more flexible in the amount of fantasy that's allowable in mainstream fiction... I love Haruki Murakami's weird stuff except for his women.) Kelly Link, shelved as mainstream.
I won't say that these books necessarily do a better job of representing LGBT people, people of color, people with disabilities, and other people who lie outside the conventionally-attractive-movie-star paradigm, but at least -- they do better at getting to the heart of WEIRD, rather than being just supernatural mysteries in leather and stilettos.
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I won't say that these books necessarily do a better job of representing LGBT people, people of color, people with disabilities, and other people who lie outside the conventionally-attractive-movie-star paradigm, but at least -- they do better at getting to the heart of WEIRD, rather than being just supernatural mysteries in leather and stilettos.