Help me remember this obscure sci-fi featuring cross-species gay lovers!

Post date: 2022-06-23 06:52:06

A few years ago I found a sci fi book at Half Price Books. I'm not sure if it's even in print anymore. It was super, super weird but amazing and I kind of loved it, but I only got halfway through before I lost the book and I really want to finish it.

Essentially, it's about a human boy training to be an opera singer. The boy grows up wealthy, IIRC, and his mother pushes him to become a performer, so at a young age he is apprenticed to an older opera singer who takes him traveling around in space performing for various alien cultures. At some point he falls in love with his friend, who is also male and a different species (some kind of snake-people). That's most of the plot that I remember. There is possibly some war/political stuff going on in the background, too. Of course, no one I've ever met has read this book and google failed me. You are my only hope, metafilter.

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