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I’m reading Witch King by Martha Wells, and now that I have read more than one (1) series by this author, I have been suddenly brained with a two-by-four sharpied over with “realizing that I really enjoy novels by Martha Wells because they live in the specific niche created by the intersection of casually and thoroughly queer casts and non-romance storylines”
I am as ever a sucker for non-human main characters struggling with their very human feelings, which is why I jumped on Witch King the moment I saw “the author of Murderbot wrote another book with a main character that’s non-human,” but I live in this dichotomy where I can really enjoy reading queer romances but I don’t really identify with non-ace characters (which is not actually something I figured out how to differentiate until I was Last Week Years Old). so there are lots of books out there that I enjoy reading but it’s comparatively rare for me to read something that feels like it was written For Me and Martha Wells does that very well
anyway, give me more ace it-pronouns human-spliced robot main characters and people-eating demons who consider rank over gender when finding new bodies to inhabit
#text posts#martha wells#witch king#personal#her castes and universes are also very culturally and ethnically diverse but I've had ace-ness on the mind lately#so it was relevant to my ongoing thoughts#I never really read books that are advertised as specific types of diversity representation#especially with queer books what I like to read is books that are very queer but aren't ABOUT being queer#so I tend to steer clear when people are like read this the mc is a nonbinary lesbian witch without even really saying what the plot is#but martha wells writes books that are queer and brown and INFLUENCED by being queer and brown but#the characters still get to have their stories be ABOUT whatever fun sci fi fantasy shenanigans are ongoing#((inb4: this is my preference not an overal value judgment))#((I just want to read the same books I read when I was a little kid and have them just ALSO be lovingly diverse))#((and I only really read SFF))#in other news I was trying to figure out how to name my flavor of ace#and then I looked up the difference between demi and gray#and I realized gray is what I am looking for#very very dark gray
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i’m so tired of the popular writing style lately. i feel like it’s mostly sci-fi/fantasy and stuff that’s adjacent to it. yes marvel movies are the big example but other things are not excepted from this bc it’s permeated the genre so deeply
they’re written like they’re a half-comedy, and there’s a quippy one-liner on every page. doesn’t that get exhausting??
#mine#like. the irreverent sarcastic tone of voice is everywhere#noticing it specifically in a lot of sff cause that’s what i’ve been reading lately#andy weir john scalzi becky chambers#where’s that post that’s like. going back in time to kill joss whedon’s mom before she can conceive him#bc i KNOW these bitches all watched firefly#but it could also just be like. genre fiction in general. sff is really the only Genre i read bc otherwise i like lit fic and nonfiction#i did notice (and hate) this same tone in one last stop (which is the last book i can remember reading from a diff genre)#this is a draft from 2 and a half years ago but i'm still right and yknow what. send.
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2023 reads // twitter thread
Into the Midnight Void
part two of a chaotic fantasy duology
our unhinged lesbians try to survive and take power in a gory world of dark magic where water is running out, after more is revealed about the world they live in
i don’t believe in the glorification of murder but i do believe in the empowerment of women
#Into the Midnight Void#beyond the ruby veil#this is so fun#i forgot it really goes all out on the horribleness and violence lmao#but like also….doesn’t take itself too seriously?#obsessed with this one 1 star review that says they’re all narcissistic psychopaths who are all abusive to each other and think it’s okay to#kill people as if that’s not the POINT OF THE BOOK OH MY GOD#don’t read this book if you think it’s mean to kill people I guess :(#it is like. I can’t not want to know more wider worldbuilding. like what exists outside of these cities? is there. nature. is that a thing t#that exists. what about like. production and resources#but also that’s not the POINT it’s more conceptual and if you try make it logical it will fall apart. which tbh we need more YA sff that jus#just zeroes in on a concept for the vibes#and characterisation#also how would the MC know what exists outside of her perception#I also think that the succinctness of the worldbuilding that is only informed by what the plot needs is what makes it work re: being centred#on horrible villains#if there was too much external worldbuilding you would have to consider the implications of the terrible things more and it wouldn’t be as f#fun#anyway way. the lesbians rip out and eat more peoples eyeballs
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i don't know who the fuck Lucas Flint is but his books look boring, Likewise. i will never read them, Likewise. they're not related to anything else i read, Likewise.
#seriously the only thing i get in 'related reading' for ANY book is lucas flint. this app is broken#and also it's not very user friendly and I'm SICK of seeing the same fifteen or so books regurgitated everywhere#i'm one more stupid kid's take away from uninstalling#unfortunately it IS a good way to look up genres/descriptions/rating. the only other service i can think of that comes close is Goodreads#but that isn't really usable on a phone (even the app is hard to navigate)#i'm hot and tired and pissy and sick of seeing THE SAME FUCKING BOOKS *EVERYWHERE*#if any of you are in adult sff book groups or smth shoot me a link? not the most active but i'm trying to start reading again
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The other day one of my friends was like “Where on earth do you hear about all the books you read?” and I’m honestly trying to think about that because I don’t really pay attention to Booktube, Booktok, Book Twitter, or Bookstagram, only occasionally dip back into book blogging, and mostly use Goodreads as a place to track books I want to read or have read rather than searching for recommendations, so I’m trying to make a list of the places I hear about books from besides a few trusted social media mutuals.
Tor.com is one major place I hear about science fiction and fantasy books–they do deal announcements, cover reveals, lists of new releases, and reviews, as well as columns reviewing backlist work. I really like “The Book Queered Me,” for instance, which is people looking back on books that were important to their understand of identity.
The Book Smugglers isn’t really that active anymore, but they reviewed science fiction and fantasy media, as well as publishing essays and short fiction and I read them religiously for a long time.
Book Riot I read occasionally and they publish bookish news and essays. I forgot I was subscribed to their LGBTQ+ book newsletter for a while and went through the emails I’d been sent earlier this week and that particular newsletter is nice because it highlights a couple books and does a round-up of recent news about queer books.
Austraddle’s book section, especially the Rainbow Reading column, does reviews, interviews, and news related to queer books, mostly queer women. It’s helpful for non-SFF stuff because I’m usually very up-to-date on news in the science fiction and fantasy world but they cover poetry, nonfiction, romance, etc.
We Need Diverse Books is a great resources, of course, and I really like the interviews they do with authors of recent releases.
LGBTQ Reads is an invaluable resource for queer literature–new release highlights, author interviews, lists of books by representation or age/genre if you’re looking for something specific.
Electric Literature is where I hear about more adult lit fic/nonfiction stuff, they also have a column called Novel Gazing in which people write about books that have impacted them and I find that really interesting. They also publish poetry and short fiction but I haven’t read much of that.
The Lesbrary does reviews of books about lesbian and bisexual women, as well as round-ups of new releases. Good resource for keeping up with sapphic books.
Rich in Color reads and reviews diverse YA books and is a good place to keep up with books by authors of color.
#will add more of i think of them#there are also websites i still miss like disability in kidlit and yainterrobang#but they're not active anymore#lulu speaks#lulu reads#books
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i really think - contrary to a lot of booktok-esque writing advice - the average reader is absolutely okay with coming across things they don't understand in fiction. i know i've read and watched tons of things full of specialist jargon that went over my head but i was invested enough to understand the stakes, both for real-world subjects and in second world SFF - where it's inevitable! younger me read slightly older books that referenced celebrities relevant only really a decade or so before i was born, but i could vaguely guess who they were via context and it didn't impede on my enjoyment and engagement in any way. this sort of thing is a very common occurence to anyone who isn't american. i'm certain i'm not alone in saying it's far preferable to have a narrative voice overestimate your knowledge in something than have them spell it out for you. please never cut a word or a reference out of fear that most readers wouldn't 'get'
and frankly if you're someone who does insist on needing to understand everything i think you may need to return to the 5 finger rule
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Book recommendations: queer adult SFF
It's been a while since I did one of these posts but I'm thinking of doing more regularly. I have read a lot more new books that I hope some of you will pick up and I've made another selection. I'm reading more and more adult SFF lately because lots of YA is getting a little too young for me. But I also find that transitioning to reading more adult can be difficult, and it's not always easy to find what you're looking for. I found YA a far easier market to navigate, so I figured I'd make a post featuring some of my favorite adult SFF books.
The Unbroken & the Faithless I read recently.
This is a trilogy, with book 3 coming out most likely in 2025? Not sure actually. The series focuses on Touraine and Luca. Touraine is a conscript in the Balladaire army, stolen from her homeland and trained to fight from a young age. She is originally from Qazal, a country colonized by Balladaire, but doesn't speak their language or understand their customs. In the first book, she returns home for the first time since she was taken, to stop a Qazali rebellion.
Luca is the princess of Balladaire. Her parents both died when she was young, and her uncle is ruling as regent, refusing to allow her to be crowned Queen until she proves herself. She too is sent to deal with the Qazali rebellion. What makes Luca interesting is that she often means well and is definitely more benevolent towards the Qazali, but she's also very power hungry and wants her throne, and no matter how much she does to help the Qazali she is still the princess of the empire that colonized them, and the author continues to hold her accountable for her role in the empire and some of the choices she makes.
Luca is also disabled, she injured her leg when she was young and uses a cane.
There is a sapphic romance between Luca and Touraine. It is not really the focus on the series but at the same time it is what shapes much of the negotiating between them since Luca has a very obvious soft spot for Touraine and Touraine has to use that to improve things for Qazal.
The world is inspired by North Africa and French colonialism (in Balladaire they speak French so I'm pretty sure they're supposed to be France), and the author themself is Black and North African. The series as a whole is very political.
Next is Notorious Sorcerer by Davinia Evans
This is the first in a duology (I think?) with book 2 coming out this November.
This is set in a world where there are four different planes, and Siyon is a poor man who can delve into the different planes to get ingredients for wealthier alchemists. He wants to be an alchemist himself but can't afford the education. There's also the problem of magic being technically illegal, which means rich people can do alchemy but poor people can't.
Then one day Siyon accidently unleashes wild magic and is thrust into the world of alchemists where he wants to belong but doesn't. And there's also the matter of the four planes being instable and at risk of collapsing, and Siyon might be the only one capable of stopping it.
Siyon is bi/pan and his main love interest is a man, though this is not the main focus of the series.
Then Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh
I think I had this one last time too, but not enough people are reading it so I'm going to discuss it again.
Check out the summary, but honestly not sure if that does it justice. Some Desperate Glory is the story of a girl who grew up in a fascist cult and was raised to believe in everything this cult stands for.
The earth was destroyed before she was born, and the Majo, aliens, were responsible. Kyr has been training her entire life for revenge. She wants nothing more than to be the perfect soldier for earth. As a result, she is a terrible person and everyone hates her.
Kyr first starts questioning Gaea station when she is assigned nursery to have babies even though she is the best fighter in her mess. When her brother disappears, she teams up with his friend Avi, a queer genius who works with the station's systems and was always aware of how fucked up Gaea station is. They discover Magnus has been sent on a suicide mission and go after him, and Kyr is confronted with the outside world, including a Majo she grows close to, and has to unlearn everything Gaea station taught her.
This book has a difficult to stomach mc at first, though it is very obvious what she believes is not what you as the reader are supposed to think. But there is some wonderful character development going on in here. It's hard for her to change, and she's thrown into lots of difficult situations before she gets there, but in the end you can see she's nothing like the person she was before.
There's an amazing cast of side characters, though not a very big cast. There's her twin brother Magnus who never wanted to be a soldier and is actually very depressed, which Kyr never noticed. Yiso, the cute non binary alien Kyr develops a weak spot for even before she comes to realize Majo are people. And my personal favorite, Avi, who is an unhinged little guy who is way too smart for his own good. He's a great example of how a cult can affect different people in different ways. He doesn't believe in Gaea station like Kyr does and is aware of how fucked up he is, he experienced that first hand as the only visible queer person on the station. But he did internalize their messages of revenge and violence which plays out in interesting ways.
This edition is the Illumicrate edition of the book from April's box, which has the UK cover.
Witch King by Martha Wells is next
This is a confusing book for people who do not have a lot of experience reading adult fantasy. It has a lot of world building that is explained gradually, the book doesn't really hold your hand, so be prepared for that.
Kai is a body hopping demon. He has been betrayed, killed and entombed under water. When he is freed by a lesser mage hoping to hone his power, he kills them and frees himself and his friend, the witch Ziede.
Together, they have to uncover what happened to them, who betrayed them and what is going on with the Rising World coalition. He's not going to like the answers.
Alternating is a past timeline in which Kai and his band of allies rebel against the tyrannical rule of the Hierophants, which happened decades before the present timeline.
The strenght of this book is really in the characters and how they grow and the bonds they have with each other. I loved the relationship between Kai and Bashasa, who is the rebel leader in the past timeline in particular. It's not quite clear what the nature of their relationship was, though it is implied to be romantic and I do think Kai is supposed to be queer. He is a body hopping demon after all, and spends his early life in the body of a girl. There's also a sapphic side pairing between Zieden and her wife Tahren, who they spent much of the present timeline looking for.
The Dawnhounds by Sascha Stronach
This is a science fantasy set in a world inspired by New Zealand and Maori (I think? The author is Maori and a trans woman herself)
The main character is a police officer from a poor background who believes she's making the world better for people like her. She's already been demoted for being queer but believes she can make the police force better from the inside.
Then she's murdered by fellow officers and thrown into the harbor. Unfortunately for them, she comes back from the dead with new magic powers.
She teams up with a pirate crew with similar powers and has to stop a plague from being unleashed on her city.
This book focuses on how police functions in many modern societies to protect the wealthy and harm and restrict poorer, non white communities. The main character doesn't believe this at first but it's obvious to the reader that they're not helping anyone doing their job. Next book is coming out next year.
Last is the Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri
Two books are out and book 3 is coming sometime in 2024.
This series is set in a world inspired by India. Priya is a maidservant with a secret. She is one of the few surviving temple children and still has some powers from being once born.
Malini is the princess of Parijatdvipa, the empire that conquered Priya's land. Her religious zealot brother has taken the throne and imprisons Malini because she refuses to be burned alive.
Priya is one of the maidservants sent to take care of Malini in her prison, which is the old temple where Priya grew up. Together, they can change the fate of an empire, but they can never quite trust each other.
This is a sapphic fantasy with magic but also lots of politics and I think if you like this series you'd also like the Unbroken and vice versa. I've talked about this one before but it should definitely be included on a list for adult fantasy.
I hope you can find something you like on here. All these books are not super well known and deserve a bigger audience
@alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer @life-through-the-eyes-of @astriefer @justanormaldemon @ipromiseiwillwrite @a-dream-dirty-and-bruised @amchara @all-for-the-fanfiction @imsoftforthomastair @ddepressedbookworm @queenlilith43 @wagner-fell @cant-think-of-anything @laylax13s @tessherongraystairs @boredfangirl16 @artist-in-soul @aliandtommy @ikissedsmithparker
#the jasmine throne#the oleander sword#tasha suri#the burning kingdoms#magic of the lost#the unbroken#the faithless#cl clark#some desperate glory#emily tesh#the dawnhounds#sascha stromach#witch king#martha wells#notorious sorcerer#davinia evans#book recommendation#adult fantasy#queer fantasy#adult science fiction#queer science fiction#books
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do you ever read scifi or fantasy in french? i am trying to read more sff that was originally published not in english but it's not easy to find 💀
I do! It’s not my favourite genre but one of my friends loves it so I read a bunch of SFF books every year ahead of her birthday to try and find a gift for her. I’m glad I do this because it’s allowed me to discover N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy which was amazing, and I don’t know if I would have picked it up otherwise!
Here are some French-language authors I’ve read or plan to read (unfortunately English translations are few and far between :( I bolded the names for which I found English translations—if you read in another language you can check out the non-bolded authors, there are often translations available in other languages long before English ones)
When it comes to classics you've got Pierre Boulle (Planet of the Apes of course; also Garden on the Moon, which is (deservedly imo) less known), Jacques Spitz (La Guerre des mouches—it was translated but not into English), René Barjavel (The Ice People, Ravage, Future Times Three—I read them a long time ago but I remember them as very sexist even by French classic standards), Bernard Lenteric (La nuit des enfants rois), Alain Damasio (La Horde du Contrevent—maybe too recent to be a classic but it’s everywhere. I was surprised to find no English translation!), Bernard Werber (I feel like he rehashes the same 3 ideas again and again but some of his earlier stuff was fun), Alexandre Arnoux (Le règne du bonheur), Jules Verne of course, Stefan Wul (Oms en série which was adapted into the film La Planète sauvage—Fantastic Planet in English. I like the film better!) And some I haven’t read: Georges-Jean Arnaud, Serge Brussolo (I liked his Peggy Sue series when I was in middle school but it spooked me so much I haven’t dared to pick up any of his SFF for adults, like Les semeurs d’abîmes), Élisabeth Vonarburg.
Newer authors: Estelle Faye (L’arpenteuse de rêves, Un éclat de givre—I tend to like her worldbuilding more than her plots); Sandrine Collette (The Forests—if you count speculative fiction as SFF) (I didn’t like it at all personally but others might), Jean-Philippe Jaworski (I really liked Janua Vera; didn't like Gagner la guerre but it was mainly because I have a low tolerance for rape scenes in fantasy books) (he’s about to be translated into English according to his editor), Stéphane Beauverger (Le déchronologue)
More authors I haven't yet read: Pierre Pevel (The Cardinal's Blades—I've been told it's "17th century Paris with dragons"), Romain Lucazeau (Latium), Laurent Genefort (Lum’en), Christian Charrière (La forêt d’Iscambe), Roland Wagner (La saison de la sorcière), Aurélie Wellenstein (Mers Mortes—I love the synopsis for this one), Magali Villeneuve (La dernière Terre, trilogy)
And non-French, non-anglo SFF authors: Maryam Petrosyan (my review of the Gray House last year was that I understood maybe 1/3 of it but I liked it anyway!), Hao Jingfang (haven’t read her yet), Arkady & Boris Strugatsky (idem), Jaroslav Melnik (I’ve read Espace lointain (originally Далекий простір) but didn’t like it much), Andreas Eschbach (The Carpet Makers), Walter Moers (I read The City of Dreaming Books back when I was still learning German and found it very charming), Liu Cixin (I loved The Three-Body Problem but The Dark Forest was so sexist it made me not want to pick up the third volume), Lola Robles (El informe Monteverde, translated as Memoirs of an Interstellar Linguist), Elaine Vilar Madruga (Fragmentos de la Tierra Rota), Tatiana Tolstaya (The Slynx), Karin Tidbeck (Amatka), Emmi Itäranta (Memory of Water, The Moonday Letters), Angélica Gorodischer (I’ve read Kalpa Imperial and found it only so-so but it always takes me a while to warm up to characters or a setting so I struggle with short story collections. I’ll still give Trafalgar a try) Also my favourite fantasy book as a kid was Michael Ende’s Neverending Story, I was obsessed with it. I re-read it in the original German a few years ago and it was still great.
#ask#book recs#i feel like sff has long had a poor reputation in france. like it's seen as 'not real literature'#not necessarily by readers but by literary awards and mainstream outlets that promote books#the genre doesn't get a lot of attention from those so it's hard for authors to become well-known#it's often seen as a genre for kids and teenagers—i know i had an easier time finding sff books by french authors when i was younger#scifi for primary school kids like christian lamblin's le survivant or philippe ebly's space operas in bibliothèque verte#or sff for middle school kids: the peggy sue series; linus hoppe by a-l bondoux; more recently the nuées series by nathalie bernard#but yeah in the adult sff aisle of nonspecialised bookshops it's mostly anglo authors + always the same handful of french ones
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17! but also using the opportunity of the ask game to get to know more about the effortless worldbuilding in sff :)
from the end-of-year book ask
17: Did any books surprise you with how good they were?
I think Three Body Problem is the only one meeting this condition this year so I'll have no trouble staying on topic :> but I'm gonna specifically talk about "hard" SF as I conceive of it—I haven't read any analysis so this may just be a jumble of improvised thoughts.
SF, being "speculative" fiction, of course has to take on the problem of speculating and of presenting things that don't (and perhaps cannot) happen. On average this is accomplished thru a healthy combination of scientific grounding and good-natured handwaving: I drop a few sentences about "quantum entanglement" and you go along with my ansible, or you tell me about "positronic circuits" and I agree that you can make a brain with them. This is the compact that makes SF work because you fundamentally cannot expect speculation without, well, ceding ground on reality.
But at least a subset of SF readers are of the kind to really want to grok how it is that this or that scientific feature of the world works or may come about. Every contraption and novel technology is like a puzzle to be riddled out. This is the place where speculation becomes sincere mechanical prediction, and it's why I love hard SF.
This subset of readers can be matched to a subgenre of writers who commit fully to filling in as many blanks in their technological, biological, etc. speculation as possible. The rows of astronomical data can't be left vague—tell me what frequency of light we're dealing with here—xenobiology isn't taken for granted—what is the neurology of your aliens??—and so on. The dots are connected, the rest of the owl is drawn for real, the image is made crisp. Like fireworks for the reader's brain.
When this kind of worldbuilding is executed well imo it looks effortless. Looks, not is, because behind every explanation of near-c travel is hours of research into at least special relativity and time dilation, along with calculations by-hand. Behind every account of an exoplanet's atmosphere is probably a few papers perused on the subject and several articles on scientific american. Peter Watts, in the note at the end of Blindsight, includes a fucking bibliography of a hundred or so references as well as thank-yous to many an academic he split handles of liquor with. And this is only the visible fragment of what has to be a library of knowledge accumulated both passively and actively to make a speculated world feel as concretely plausible as possible.
None of this is necessary for good SF. The aforementioned compact means any author can opt out of this commitment at any time. But it's what it takes to make tightly-written hard SF, where your conceptual hands are kept diligently at your side, waving an idea through maybe once every five chapters when you have no other choice.
So anyway, Three Body Problem is a tour de force in doing this and doing it cleanly. It uses a storytelling device a lot of hard SF employs to make it work: rather than stuffing dense exposition into narration (at which point, just read the source papers) it deploys a cast of characters who more than anything else, really know their shit. We get exposition trickle-fed through experts who are trying, along with us, to make sense of their novel environments and unfamiliar technologies using their knowledge of the present limits of human understanding. This is what Watts does in Blindsight too, by the way: a claustrophobic ship crewed by technical specialists makes first contact, so everyone has something encyclopedic to say about everything and it's only natural.
What astounded me about Cixin Liu's writing is that he made it work just when I least thought he would be able to. I was sure I was being shown things completely inexplicable and necessarily supernatural until he went and explained them in plain terms; better yet, he explained them in ways that made so much sense in retrospect that I was kicking myself for not seeing the answer. This has exactly the flavour of a good puzzle.
The trade-off hard SF makes is that you are often limited in the metaphorical/thematic work you can do through your speculation. I think the contrast between "calendrical science" in Yoon Ha Lee's Machineries of Empire series and Asimov's "psychohistory" illustrates this well.
Yoon Ha Lee has mathematical training, and calendrical science is a speculative field consisting of theorems, conjectures, proofs, etc. in the language of mathematics that stand in for cultural hegemony and power projection. This makes for a great operationalization of soft power: space is filled and distorted by the quantifiable effects of whatever regime is dominant there (the "calendar" here being synecdoche for culture writ large). But obviously he can't fill in the blanks of how a calendar causes spacetime distortions that specifically make one side's weapons more effective, or provide certain formations with shielding effects. This is, I guess, semi-hard (lol) SF—you can see how it's supposed to work, but it's clear that it just won't. What you get in return is pretty politically interesting storytelling.
Psychohistory is the converse: a deterministic-enough lovechild of economics and sociology explained in the Foundation series as using all the familiar methods of linear algebra and differential equations together with unfamiliar innovations of just how to quantify human behaviour in order to make reliable predictions. There are entire chapters dedicated to explaining the conceptual nuance that went into developing psychohistory ("the hand on thigh principle" from prelude to foundation is just about how the theory resolves divergence by reducing insignificant terms to zero) and an entire book to exploring one of its limitations. It's fascinating to read. But you also get little narrative depth out of it, because hard SF, even when done well, is not guaranteed to make a story thematically interesting or politically compelling. This is the Three Body Problem problem too: its political commitments are threadbare and unserious because that's just not what it's about. I couldn't recommend it on those terms, but that's not what I like so much about it. I will say the conceptualization goes a little off the rails in the final chapters, but I think most SF authors were in some kind of string theory inspired fugue state at the time.
What I would love to see (and I'm sure exists) is hard SF that also has interesting politics. Unfortunately that's an intersection of two already-narrow intersections.
ty for ask✨🐐
#ask answer#idk if that's what u were asking about but. well.#got some sleepy thoughts out#also this is not to say that there isn't tons of research in “soft” SF#it's just that it would be a different kind of research and a different library of knowledge
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Queer Normal-World in SFF Books
Here are five books where being queer is the norm, aka there is no homophobia or transphobia at all! Not all these books are fluffy though -- most of them have heavy conflicts and a bunch of shit going down, but at least no one has a problem with anyone being gay!
These are my favorite kind of books and I have so, so many recommendations, so let me know if you ever want more of these :) And I can also absolutely do only fluffy queer books, too!
The Genesis of Misery, by Neon Yang
Mx. Yang's books are perfect for this type of prompt. The Genesis of Misery is their most recent, and the premise is absolutely killer. It follows Misery Nomaki (she/they), who is haunted by an apparition of an angel. While she is convinced she is mentally ill like her mother, and that her visions are a symptom, people around her seem more and more certain that she is actually some sort of messiah.
I have my issues with The Genesis of Misery, but it’s a very creative sci-fi that’s worth the read. It includes mecha, interesting depictions of religion, which permeates the entire story, and, of course, excellent queer rep. We have characters who use neo-pronouns, a polyamory situationship and most characters are queer. Not to mention, it’s written by a queer and non-binary author, which is always a plus. It’s part of an on-going series, though, so be prepared to wait a little while for the sequel!
Plus, The Locked Tomb fans might be interested to know that there’s a very cavalier-necromancer dynamic in this, and that Rebecca Roanhorse (who wrote Black Sun) described it as Joan of Arc meets Gideon The Ninth.
Yep. You wanna read it, don’t you?
(Also, if for some reason you’re like: “gee, I really wish there was a black-and-white silent movie with a killer score that touched on these same themes”, then you should probably watch The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928). It’s not explicitly gay, but it is queer in my heart. And it rocks.)
The Locked Tomb Series, starting with Gideon The Ninth, by Tasmyn Muir
Since I mentioned it, I guess I might as well include The Locked Tomb in here! This is a Tumblr favorite, and with good reason, because The Locked Tomb fucking rocks. It’s hard to pitch it to someone without ruining the whole point of the series, but the first book follows a necromancer, Harrowhark and her sworn swords-woman, her cavalier, the butch-as-hell Gideon, as they’re summoned to the First House to compete to become Lyctors, the companions of God.
Yeah, I know that’s a lot, and, to be honest, it’s probably not gonna make much sense to you at many points throughout the story, but that’s the point of The Locked Tomb - everything is confusing, and it’s about sapphics in space!
The thing about this series is they’re the most unique books you’ll ever read. Every volume has a different approach to telling its story. There’s so many mysteries and it’s almost impossible to understand all the intricacies without sitting down and doing some work. The magic system is also the wonkiest, coolest thing - it involves eating people, sometimes, y’know. And, I promise, you’ll love every single second of it. Especially because there’s absolutely no homophobia or transphobia in any of it, and almost every character is queer as fuck - especially after the second book, when gender starts getting a little funky!
Winter’s Orbit, by Everina Maxwell
I love this book so much, and so know that it comes highly, highly recommended! I have a whole five star review on it you can check out here. (Do check trigger warnings, though! You should always, but especially for this one. I didn’t and they really got me!).
Winter’s Orbit features my absolutely favorite trope - queer arranged marriage. (Nothing better - those three words and you know it’s gonna be a queer normal world, have some politics and probably be really fucking sweet.) This one is probably one of only ones out of this list where the romance is very predominant and serves as an important B plot. It’s also a standalone, but has a companion book in the same universe, called Ocean’s Echo, which rocks, too!
This one follows Jainan, a recent widower who is rushed into an arranged marriage with Prince Kiem in order to keep the alliance between their homelands intact. Together, they must navigate court intrigue I’m trying my best not to spoil and investigate Jainan’s ex-husband’s death, which might not have been an accident, after all...
In this sci-fi fantasy world, being queer is completely normal, and their system when it comes to gender is absolutely fascinating. People will wear little gender signifiers, like a wodden token for female, for instance, so that others know how to refer to them. It’s super cool to see these kind of things incorporated into the world-building, and it’s something you really only get when queer authors are behind the helm.
(Also, this was originally written online, and it was actually picked up and traditionally published! Which is so cool! Queer fics becoming traditionally published books is so rare, it’s so nice to see it actually happen!)
The Teixcalaan Series, starting with A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine
This is another one of my favorites! I read it last year and it blew me away - so much so that I’ve been itching to re-read it ever since I finished the second book.
The Teixcalaan Series is a political sci-fi duology focusing on the themes of language, empire and cultural domination through imperialism. It’s amazing, and I wrote about it in a full-length review, here, if you wanna take a look!
It follows Mahit Dzamare, from the tiny Lsel Station, who becomes the ambassador to the huge Teixcalaan Empire, whose culture she’s been in love with for ages. The problem? Something happened to the Lsel ambassador, and the Empire’s control over the Station has been growing ever bigger. To make matters worse, Mahit’s imago machine - the cerebral implant full of her predecessors memories and experiences - doesn’t seem to be working properly, leaving her with a ghost of her predecessor inside of her head...
With all the problems the Teixcalaan Empire has, it’s not homophobic or transphobic, which is a plus for us gays who want to read in peace. Mahit has a charged relationship with her cultural liason, Three Seagrass (yes, that’s her name; yes, there’s an in-world explanation; no, I won’t tell you what it is, you’ll have to read it and find out), not to mention all the hijinks she finds out her predecessor was up to. And none of it needs to be justified or explained at all - people are just gay, and that’s fine!
On A Sunbeam, by Tillie Walden
This graphic novel has a stunning art style, and, listen closely sapphics, absolutely no men at all. Yep. Literally there’s only women and non-binary people in this comic!
And guess what? It’s available to read for free, here. Thank you, Ms. Walden!
Here, romance is also an important plot point. On A Sunbeam follows Mia, who starts working for a crew of repair-people who rebuild broken down structures. In another timeline, we flashback to her experiences at her boarding school, and to her relationship with a new student.
What’s most unique about On A Sunbeam - apart from the fact that there are no men at all - is it’s unique version of outer space. It’s almost historical, with huge sprawling marble structures decaying, surronded by trees. The ships are shaped like huge fish. You can feel the whimsy in your bones from the colors and the art style that Ms. Walden uses, here.
This standalone is definitely worth a read. And if you like it, you should definitely check out the rest of Ms. Walden’s work - it’s all as beautiful as this is, if not more. Her The End of Summer was one of my favorite reads, last year.
That’s all I’ve got, guys, but lemme know if you want more of these - I have so many, I can definitely recommend you more! Drop me an ask if you have specifications, too - I’m always happy to do some digging :)
#booklr#book recommendations#book recs#queer books#sapphic books#lgbtq books#book review#queer sff#sff books#the locked tomb#the genesis of misery#neon yang#gideon the ninth#winters orbit#a memory called empire#teixcalaan#on a sunbeam#tillie walden
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Any fiction recommendations? I’ve repeatedly read Locked Tomb, natch. I’d love something similarly brainwork inducing but maybe a touch lighter. Also not fantasy or sci fi…I need something to listen to while I do a ton of chores, and those can be hard (for me) because the unfamiliar proper nouns get confusing. :/
anon!! I'm terrible at reccing anything based on “if you liked TLT” because TLT is like five different genres in a trench coat, but I TRIED (⭐) Here are some brainworm-y recs that aren't sff — where by brainworm-y I mean that they stayed with me for a while after I finished them, but aren't overly confusing. (most of them are books, but available on audio)
Podcasts: a tumblr pal recced me the deviser based on me liking the eldritch elements of tlt; it's short and horror-y, and I really enjoyed it.
I haven't checked out the new TMA yet but I see many TLT peeps who are enjoying it (or S1 of the original The Magnus Archives could be a good entry point if you haven't ever listened to it)
TV: Unfortunately I hardly ever watch live action stuff BUT if you haven't seen either IWTV (the series not the film) or Yellowjackets, I do rec those! There's a lot of overlap between these fans and TLT fandom on my dash. His Dark Materials also goes hard and you might enjoy it (dysfunctional characters! worldbuilding! religious weirdness!) but it has more sff elements than other stuff I've recced. Oddball out of nowhere but The Great is a fun show if you enjoy the meme moments of TLT + people being gleefully horrible + having feelings despite your best intentions
Animanga: Utena (!!!!!) also Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, which occupies a very similar space to TLT in my brain
Books!
✧ I went through my “women unhinged” goodreads shelf and found some books that are avaliable in audio format, and might appeal. These are wildly varied in scope and ngl the criterion was just “at least one person (besides myself) who enjoyed tlt also this book” and the similarities stop there. It's all vibes baby! Still, I tried
my heart is a chainsaw by stephen graham jones (horror, slasher), bunny by mona awad (horror, wildly unhinged), the witching hour by anne rice (horror, gothic)
matrix by lauren groff (historical, lesbian nuns), anything by sarah waters (historical fiction + lesbians), rebecca by daphne du maurier (historical, gothic)
the plot by jean hanff korelitz (litfic, thriller), sadie by courtney summers (thriller, coming of age). anything by gillian flynn (thrillers with terrible women).
✧ I really enjoy Tana French thrillers for the strong sense of place, great prose, and the complete emotional turmoil of her character-centric narratives. If anything sounds up your alley, I enjoyed the witch's elm + dublin murder squad series. They're murder mystery procedural but the messy characters really elevate the novels. Available in audiobook also
✧ American Elsewhere, technically scifi but set in New Mexico. Somehow, cosmic horrors who have taken over a quaint little town and worse! They are enforcing HETERONORMATIVITY upon it! They also have tentacles. The main character rocks
✧ Sundial by Catriona Ward: insane, gripping psychological horror. A mother and her unsettling daughter take a trip to the isolate desert ranch where the main chracter grew up. Surrounded by unsettling science experiments
✧ A Touch of Jen by Beth Morgan: when the parasocial relationship is so strong, it accidentally summons a hellmonster from another dimension
✧ SFF adjacent, sorry, but set in the real world (historical, tho) — Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge, a middle grade novel with fairytale elements that gave me more brainworms than any kids book ought to, mostly because I LOVED the main character. She occupies a very similar place in my brain as Gideon does. This is actually the only book on the list that I'm not sure is available in audio format, but if you get a chance and it's up your alley, I'd check it out
I hope there's at least ONE thing you'll like in here! lmk (also. lmk if you don't have access to a way to borrow audiobooks but would like to)
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The Locked Tomb: Gideon and Harrow - Aro Perspective
Any Locked Tomb fans here?
Just wanted to chat about Griddlehark. It's kind of amazing to be in a fandom where the same ship is end game for like 100% of the community, myself included.
But - and maybe this is just perspective bias - that ship has never been romantic to me. I've never really read anything romantic into Harrow and Gideon's relationship. To me, it's a very strong non-romantic bond that we, in this non-TLT universe, have no appropriate word for. Absolutely a Jaeger pilot (Pacific Rim) sort of bond. The new sff bond: cavalier and necromancer; sword and adept.
(I could go either way on it being sexual or not.)
"You are my only friend. I am undone without you."
--Harrow to Gideon, pg 356 GtN
"[...] the entire point of me is you. You get that, right? That's what cavaliers sign up for. There is no me without you. One flesh, one end."
--Gideon to Harrow, pg 432 GtN
"You think anything I did has been to make her love me? [...]"
"Like I said before. She's just not into you. She's into bones. She gave her heart to a corpse when she was ten years old," I said. "She's in love with the refrigerated museum piece in the Locked Tomb. You should've seen the look she had on when she told me about this ice-lolly bimbo. I knew the moment I saw it. I never made her look like that... She can't love me, even if I'd wanted her to. She can't love you. She can't even try."
[...]
"If you think anything I did, I did to make her love me, then you don't know anything about her and me. I'm her cavalier, dipshit! I'd kill for her! I'd die for her. I did die for her. I'd do anything she needed, anything at all, before she even knew she needed it. I'm her sword, you pasty-faced Coronabeth-looking knock-off."
Always your sword, my umbral sovereign; in life, in death, in anything beyond life or death that they want to throw at thee and me. I died knowing you'd hate me for dying; but Nonagesimus, you hating me always meant more than anyone else in this hot and stupid universe loving me. At least I'd had your full attention.
--Gideon to Ianthe, pgs. 435-436 HtN
So Alecto, wearied of talking, kneeled up on the rock and offered up the sword to [Harrow], and placed the child's hand upon the blade, so that it received also the red blood of the child. This made the child exceedingly faint, but it did not swoon of weariness.
Which strength pleased Alecto, who said: Notwithstanding, I offer you my service.
To which a voice on the opposite side of the shore was raised, exceeding wroth, and Alecto heard it shout in a very great shout: Get in line, thou big slut.
--Alecto's perspective, pg 477 NtN
Like Gideon knows very clearly that Harrow does not romantically love her. But they are the only two children of the Ninth left. They are committed to each other in "one flesh, one end" by now. They are meaningful to each other, and that is enough.
I don't know. I'm just having a lot of feelings about it.
#aromantic#aro spectrum#fandom#the locked tomb#tlt#headcanon#fandom analysis#character analysis#relationship analysis#griddlehark
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for about the fiftieth time, i'm getting back into writeblr, but for realises, i promise. call me aran, and this is my writing (and art) sideblog (my main is @isanyonetoknow).
what i write: really geared toward sff! i love multiverse, time travel, alternate dimension stories, but i also have some more classic fantasy wips!
my wips are numerous and time limited, but three wips i'm currently working on are to win a prince (a knight goes on a quest to be able to marry their best friend, but along the way, the past is dredged up and they realized that they can never return the same), in the name of a capitalized lord (in a world where reigning lords are gods, becoming a saint is both an honor and a fate worse than death. on the run, a mail carrier ends up in a sealed off lorddom and a even more mysterious--and perhaps sinister---lord), and the house creation, the house indifferent (short story/novella following a person who has lived all their life in an ever changing house and who starts to unravel the mysteries surrounding the only other two people there).
what i draw: mainly ocs but i'm currently planning on doing more art studies to #ImproveMyArt. if you're a fellow writeblr who draws, lm know!
what i like to read: SFF, surrealism, horror, mystery, literary fiction... if the world is strange and not like ours in any way whatsover, or the story centers the investigation of characters' psyches, i'm all for it!
hmu if you write anything like these genres and please spread the word! would love to become more active in the writeblr community again :)
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Book Review 46 – The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez
Okay the month of August was essentially a write-off for...a lot of things, but non-web serial reading among them! Now trying to claw my way out of the pit and back on the horse. So, some high concept genre fic full of queer people and war crimes, just what the doctor ordered.
The Spear Cuts Through Water is the fantasy epic and love story of a pair of warriors – one a generally despised one-armed checkpoint guard, the other a positively reviled princeling – as they escort the moon goddess in her attempt to escape the prison her sons had trapped her within as they tyranize and empire that spans a continent. As told through a dream/vision of the Inverted Theater, where shades throughout time are called while they sleep to witness a performance put on by the favoured child of moon and sea. Intercut with the same tale as told through out POV’s grandmother, along with vignettes of his life as the son of a failing cloth merchant centuries in the future as the world goes through its equivalent of WW1. All this metaness and layering is either the book’s strongest point or it will make your eyes roll back into your skull so, you know, make an informed choice here.
Being entirely honest I don’t remember exactly how this book ended up on my radar – I believe I was first pointed towards after I expressed some dissatisfaction with this year’s Hugo nominees as something that would have been a more deserving inclusion on the short list. Certainly I’d never heard Jimenez’s name before picking it up. Entirely happy I did, anyway – whoever first rec’d it yes, this does deserve a Hugo nod way more than some of the other nominations.
The plot itself is quite well done, but absent any of the stylistic flourish wouldn’t really have been anything that memorable. The layered framing devices – and the way that they intrude on the narrative in a hundred different ways, switching from depicting the action to saying how it was staged and presented or how the narrator heard the tale told – are really just fantastically well done, enough that even when it got all meta and self-referential I was still enjoying it more than enough to just go with it.
Not that our heroes aren’t fun in their own right. They’re both at times profoundly unlikable, and other times utter idiots, and always totally and completely incapable of intelligibly expressing their feelings. It’s great, love them. Even if on occasion I also wanted to throw rocks at them. The main supporting cast – or at least Defect the tortoise and the moon/empress herself – are even better, really.
Though as far as characterization goes its the extras where the book really shines. It has a trick I really, really like where little snippets of the internal monologue or history of some fellow traveller on the road or sentry being gutter from behind are interspersed into the action in italics like this. Diegetically this would be the chorus in the theatrical performance, but regardless it does a shocking amount to make the world feel like it’s full of actual people and not just mannequins forming a backdrop for the characters who matter.
The book fits into the honourable tradition of modern SFF with cool-eyed and unsentimental portrayals of feudalism/imperialism, war crimes and general oppression (including in this case very plot-relevant and character-informing ableism) but only a vague and attenuated sort of 21st century homophobia, if that. Like all modern queer genrefic it’s also at least kind of in conversation with the looming shadow of Burying Your Gays, with a bait and switch tragic heroic sacrifice that seemed very conscious and pointed.
The framing devices lend themselves well to the book being written in a kind of mythic register, which I very much enjoyed. The epilogue felt like an intrusion of history on mythology, and I do mean that as a compliment, full of messiness and ambiguity and short on heroes and golden ages or utopias. Overall very much enjoyed the book, perfect reading for being stuck in a waiting room for a passport renewal.
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2023 Book Review
Photo Credit (original): Ed Robertson
I read 95 books this year. Here's some of what I enjoyed and what I didn't, in genre or arbitrary categories:
Fave SFF books
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Susanna Clarke)
Spinning Silver (Naomi Novik)
All Systems Red (Martha Wells)
The Library at Mount Char (Scott Hawkins)
Mammoths at the gates (Nghi Vo)
Gideon the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir)
Amberlough (Lara Elena Donnelly)
Fab m/m romances
Seven Summer Nights (Harper Fox)
The Lodestar of Ys (Amy Rae Durreson)
The Scottish Boy (Alex de Campi)
Magician (KL Noone)
Heated Rivalry (Rachel Reid)
Also Role Model and The Long Game (Rachel Reid)
The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen (KJ Charles)
The older ones
(recently published books can feel very samey after a while. The irony of these being old books but feeling like a breath of fresh air)
Tam Lin (Pamela Dean) (1991)
Swordspoint (Ellen Kushner) (1987)
Wise Children (Angela Carter) (1991)
Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) (1981)
(more books under the cut)
Best atmosphere
The Likeness (Tana French)
The fun rereads
Scum Villain's Self-Saving System (MXTX_
Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (MXTX)
The King of Attolia (Megan Whalen Turner)
Empress of Salt and Fortune (Nghi Vo)
The Ruin of a Rake (Cat Sebastian)
The unexpected delight
(it's a biography, and I never anticipated feeling so engrossed in one of them)
The invention of Angela Carter (Edmund Gordon)
The one that hurts so good
Checkmate (Dorothy Dunnett)
Didn't quite love the books but adored the characters
The Dreamer Trilogy by Maggie Stiefvater (my typical experience of her stories)
The meh
Bardugo's Nikolai duology
Schwab's Darker Shades of Magic
The dreadful and my only DNF
A Taste of Gold and Iron (Alexandra Rowland)
Most bitterly disappointing
The third installment of Hall's billionaire series How to Belong with a Billionaire.
Biggest book hangover
Seven Summer Nights and Heated Rivalry
Best book boyfriend
ILYA ROZANOV
Most bonkers book
The Library at Mount Char (Scott Hawkins)
The "not sure I liked it but it'll definitely stay with me"
Some Desperate Glory (Emily Tesh)
The writing craft book that actually offered a new insight
The Heroine's Journey (Gail Carriger)
Overall, a decent year. My goal of completing series I'd started in the past and hadn't finished meant I subjected myself to some less enjoyable books, but I also read some excellent romances and fantasy novels, and I really enjoyed reading some older books, a practice I plan to continue.
#books#2023 books#year in review#2023 in review#posted early bc I'm ill and I doubt I'll finish another book before Sunday#i'm prob going to read fic or binge netflix#booklr#reading
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Do you have any tips for getting back into reading?
I do, anon!
So for context, as I said previously, I went from reading 50+ books a year to 5-6 a year max for about half a decade. Most of this related to a longterm downswing in my overall health and my executive dysfunction specifically. I would pick books up and never finish them; my attention span was dead in the water, as was my motivation to even try half the time. It took a couple years of active effort to get back to a 3 book a month average. So here's a few subjective tips I personally found helped. They may not be useful for everyone, but this is what personally helped me!
Some of the techniques I used:
Follow your interest and enthusiasm, and don't be afraid to hop around books. I was stuck in a rut for ages where I'd start a book, lose steam, and vaguely want to read another one instead... but I insisted to myself 'no, I need to FINISH this one, I can read that one when I'm finished!' Obviously, I just never finished the books period, rather than methodically finishing everything one at a time, as I'd hoped I would. I read less, not more. The most important thing period is getting momentum back up; better 4 'still not finished'-s on the way to the book you unexpectedly finish in one sitting than nothing finished, and just a vague sense of guilt. If a new book calls to you and your current one feels interminable, seize that urge and start the second book so you can keep your motivation going. At least you're reading something then; the alternative was usually just not reading either book, for me.
Try some shorter books. I read a lot of novellas to get myself going again last year especially, and it was fantastic. Again, it helps get the momentum going, to be continually working up to longer stuff. (Plus novellas are just a great medium in their own right! Length =/= depth. SFF especially is having a real Novella Moment rn!) Hell, read short story collections, read poetry chapbooks, read plays- if you can only read 75 pages before losing steam, find a 75 page book worth reading. There's tons of them.
Try and carve out reasonably consistent times to read. For me, I started saying that after work most evenings if I was still awake really late, that was now book time, not Twitter/etc time. I read on my lunch a lot at work, and on Sunday afternoons. You don't need to be rigid, that can just be restrictive, but make it a routine you can easily make time for on a predictable basis without hoping you'll spontaneously 'feel like it'.
Read shit you love. This sounds obvious but like. You can't easily branch out of your comfort zone into more challenging-to-you stuff til you have the momentum going, IME. Start off reading the shit you know you like, heady intellectual ambitions be damned. Yeah yeah, reading outside your usual lane is often rewarding, but it'll wait a year til you get back in the swing of it. Read 50 romance novels in a row if that does that for you. The other books will wait. Likewise: reread shit you know inside out. Your to-read list will be here once you got a few of those old familiar faves in.
Those are the big things I guess. A lot of it was locating what really resulted in bottlenecks for me and tailoring what and how I read to them, instead of trying to force past them. Finding the books that fit what I could manage helped me reach a point now where I can read more broadly again. It's like building endurance, you can't start at 110%, I found.
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