Harley Quinn #41 by Tini Howard, Natacha Bustos, Gretchen Felker-Martin and Dani. Variant cover by (1) W. Scott Forbes (connecting cover for DC Pride with Poison Ivy #23). Main cover (2) by Sweeney Boo. Out in June.

"There ain’t nothin’ like villainy! The sweet sound’a bank alarms, the wind blow’n through yer hair in a stolen car, not ta mention the discounts ya get buying “bang” flags in bulk—but every now’n’again, the sweet candy of crime has one heck of a sugar crash! I’ve gone and got myself noticed by some cold-hearted types—here’s ta hopin’ I don’t get ICED!

But don’t ya dare think that’s all! We also got a tale of a nightmare that RUINED my sleep the day before I took my driver’s license photo, as told by two real cool folks who did NOT like talkin’ ta me at the DMV—Gretchen Felker-Martin and Dani!"

Fave Five: Horror with Trans and/or Nonbinary MCs

The Honeys by Ryan La Sala (Genderfluid, YA) The Sacrifice by Rin Chupeco (YA) Hell Followed With Us and The Spirit Bares its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White (YA) Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin  Tell Me I’m Worthless and Brainwyrms by Alison Rumfitt, by Alison Rumfitt Bonus; Coming in 2024: Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin and The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo Double Bonus: These are all…

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Cuckoo will be published on March 19, 2024 via Tor Nightfire. It’s the second book by Gretchen Felker-Martin, whose Manhunt ranked #1 on Vulture’s list of best books of 2022.

The 320-page horror novel will be available in paperback, e-book, and audio book. Set in the late ‘90s, the story follows a group of queer kids as they attempt to survive in a conversion camp.

Cuckoo is a searing new novel from Manhunt author Gretchen Felker-Martin, where a motley crew of kidnapped kids try to stay true to themselves while serving time in a conversion camp from hell. In the late 90s, five queer kids, whose parents want them “fixed,” find themselves thrown together at a secretive "tough love" camp deep in the scorching Utah desert. Tormented and worked to the point of collapse by hardline religious zealots intent on straightening them out, they slowly become aware that something in the mountains north of the camp is speaking to them in their dreams, and that the children who return home to their families have...changed.

Pre-order Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin.

Midnight Pals: Mr Electric

Ray Bradbury: Submitted for the approval of the midnight Society, I call this the tale of the eternal summer, the last vestiges of muggy august giving way to the bluster of autumn, the twinkling lights of town below in the humid night, young lovers stealing kisses in the dark, old men on the porch, jawin and chewin and chuckling at remembrances of romances long past Barker: you’re literally just describing a Thomas Kinkade painting Poe: clive

Stephen King: wow ray you really come up with some evocative imagery! King: whatever inspired you to become a writer anyway? Bradbury: well, it all started when I went to the county fair and met a wizard Koontz: whoa! A real wizard! King: no dean he’s talking about a magician Bradbury: [chuckling] am I? Bradbury: mr electrico was no mere magician! Bradbury: he had the REAL power!!! Bradbury: the power Bradbury: to fire a young boy’s IMAGINATION! Neil Gaiman: [clapping] right, right! Good show! Right on!

Ray Bradbury: and Mr Electrico pointed a flaming electrical sword at me and said Bradbury: “LIVE FOREVER!!” Bradbury: now I cannot be killed Gretchen Felker-Martin: oh yeah, big mood

Bradbury: Mr Electrico said “Live Forever!” Bradbury: Now I cannot be killed Bradbury: and it’s true Bradbury: c’mon try it out Stephen King: no no I couldn’t Bradbury: c’mon Bradbury: c’mon!!! Bradbury: come at me bro!!! Bradbury: I can take it!!

Bradbury: [slapping chest] c’mon, take a swing at me! Stephen King: I really don’t want to fight you Ray Bradbury: do it! Do it! Barker: I’ll do it Poe: clive Barker: I’m just giving him what he wants! Poe: clive Poe: clive he’s like 100 years old

Mary Shelley: sup fuckers Bradbury: mary!!! Come at me! Mary Shelley: okie dokie [immediately shivs Bradbury, blade snaps] Mary Shelley: what the fuck Bradbury: ha! this isn’t even a tenth of my power!!! Bradbury: what did I tell you?! Bradbury: not a single one of you could defeat you!! Mary Shelley: oh yeah? Mary Shelley: guess we’ll have to gang up on you!! Get ‘im boys! [Ann Radcliffe and Monk Lewis approach with chain and billy club respectively] [Bradbury effortlessly blocks roundhouse kick by Wrath James White] Bradbury: ha! Laughable! [Bradbury effortlessly sidesteps kung fu chop by Alan Baxter] Bradbury: ha! Pathetic!

Bradbury: come on! Come at me! Robert E Howard: you sure about this pardna? Howard: this ain’t no pea shooter hombre Bradbury: [slapping chest] what’s the matter, ya pussy? Bradbury: Fuckin do it!! Howard: hold on thar pardna Howard: I think ya might wanna calm down Bradbury: [grabbing gun and pulling Robert E Howard closer] Bradbury: DO Bradbury: IT Howard: [aiming gun] okay pilgrim you asked fer it Poe: bob Poe: bob this is getting ridiculous Poe: bob don’t Howard: [cocking gun] sorry pardna Howard: I gotta Howard: it’s the law of the west

Ray Bradbury: [flexing] Behold!!! The power of Mr. Electrico!!! The electric man!!! Barker: so ray Barker: I hear this magician’s fake Poe: clive Bradbury: he’s a real magician Barker: is he now Barker: then why hasn’t anyone ever heard of him Bradbury: he Bradbury: he lives in Canada

kinda wish I could find a mildly critical take on manhunt that’s not written by terfs upset that rowling dies in it

idk it just left me with a really bad taste in my mouth in terms of *gestures vaguely* trans stuff

I’m not talking about the gore or sexual assault or anything; almost all of the media I consume is horror and I have a really high tolerance for that kind of thing

anyways I just want to see an analysis of it by a trans person that’s more than just ‘best thing I’ve ever read’ (but also I’m happy that they enjoyed it! I’m not trying to rain on anyone’s parade and if nothing else, I’m glad that there’s a piece of critically acclaimed horror media by a trans creator)

hmu if you know of any eta: I’m tme and so this book maybe... kinda wasn’t meant for me, which again is fine! I just would like to hear other trans people’s perspectives

Manhunt is beautiful, raw, and cruel, finally a speculative fiction novel that treats chromosome-based biological catastrophe in a way that's actually compelling. Gretchen Felker-Martin's writing is excellent and awful in its excellence, because this book is terrifying, visceral, and violent. In it, a disease (dubbed "t.rex") transforms people with the right amount of testosterone (primarily cis men) into rabid, murderous, sex-crazed zombies. Gangs of TERFs, cis women tattooed with XX, police gender and seek out and murder any person who they decide is 'secretly a man' or a gender traitor. Meanwhile, a few queer people try to survive in an apocalyptic world, hunted by everyone. It's been a minute since a book made me cry, but this one did, more than once. Felker-Martin's characters are compelling: crossbow-welding Beth, always-longing Fern, fat doctor Indi who refines their estrogen, and Robbie, a trans man who joins their squad to try and find safety. It's an excellent book about zombies and the power dynamics in apocalyptic worlds in general—but more than that, it's a horror story about the arguments that TERFs and other transphobes use to insist that there are "real women," on the violence of that point of view, of the endless damage of turning on our most vulnerable while there is a (in this case, extremely literal) seething crowd of patriarchy that we'd be better off fighting together. It goes hard, poking at the kind of women or queer people who still think there's a way to blend, to survive within the TERFs' world, instead of resisting against it. Manhunt is bold, and it is at turns grotesque, funny, extremely sexy, graphic, horrifying, and devastating. Warning: I think anyone who does not want to encounter scenes of graphic rape or violence should stay far away from this book, and it is questionable whether the rape scene was gratuitous. I don't think it needed to have not happened, but I question how graphic that scene needed to be. It's possible that within the zombie-apocalypse genre of blood and gore and guts, Felker-Martin felt that scene should also be 'honest' to the violence of what's happening. But I thought it was excessive. Other complaints: the timeline of the narrative got pretty intensely mixed up several times, which was confusing. The logistics were often suspect. (I'm not mad at "coincidences"—one character shows up in the nick of time, etc—for me those are a classic part of the zombie apocalypse genre so they didn't bother me. I'm referring to like, timelines, distances, that kind of thing.) One of the main characters is a TERF. Some people think she has a redemption arc. I personally don't think it is one. She is not exactly forgiven at the end. I think she's there more to reveal the rot at the very core of the TERFs' own ideologies. This idea that none of them truly believe what they spew, most of them just want the power the divisions would give them, want others not to have what they've been told is theirs to have. I think it was effective, but I'm willing to debate it. All around, I really enjoyed this book, but the parts I didn't like really stick in the seams. I wouldn't recommend this one to everybody, but I do hope we get more fiction that does as good of a job talking about TERFs and why their rhetoric is so dangerous for people of all genders. Content warnings: Extreme: body horror & violence, transphobia, rape (graphic) Also: suicide, gender dysphoria, deadnaming, fatphobia, anti-Semitism, self-harm.

DC's Pride Anthology returns in 2024 with a celebration of Rachel Pollack and more!

DC's Pride Anthology returns in 2024 with a celebration of Rachel Pollack and more! #comics #comicbooks #lgbt

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I've got another one for my horror girlies!

Already a contender for best book of the year. Unfathomably good. Terrifying, heart breaking, incredible prose, and so much messy, difficult love.

can’t believe I have to say this but! a queer novel not having your individual preferred level of purity or positivity does not make it a terrible book…

How everyone complaining about challenging trans art is gonna sound once the systematic violence starts and they don't want to look like they were calling for it the whole time.

Harley Quinn #33 by Tini Howard and Sweeney Boo. Backup by Gretchen Felker-Martin and Hayden Sherman. Variant covers by (1) Jenny Frison, (2) Gabrielle Dell'Otto and (3) Caspar Wijngaard. Out in October.

"Big ears, even bigger feet, big cartoon peepers. I’d know this dame anywhere. It was me and I was dead and a dang ol’ bunny rabbit! Oh no, not again!!! As if moonlighting as a community college professor wasn’t time-consuming enough, I decide to dip my pinkie toes into the metaphysical private investigation game… all while babysitting a literal princess! Good thing I am not at all stressed out by my life. PLUS: Get ready for a special Halloween story cooked up by my pals Gretchen Felker-Martin and Hayden Sherman that’s sure to make your skin crawl so hard it tears itself right off yer body."

New Releases: January 2024

The Curse of Eelgrass Bog by Mary Averling (2nd) Nothing about Kess Pedrock’s life is normal. Not her home (she lives in her family’s Unnatural History Museum), not her interests (hunting for megafauna fossils and skeletons), and not her best friend (a talking demon’s head in a jar named Shrunken Jim). But things get even stranger than usual when Kess meets Lilou Starling, the new girl in town.…

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Untreated and encouraged mental illness is a sad sight indeed.

GET BOOKT

A guide of books to gift the people in your life and yourself!

For the people looking to put a different kind of magic into their holidays…

The Fragile Threads of Power by V. E. Schwab

For the genre connoisseur with a love for high concepts in short form… 

Africa Risen edited by Sheree Renée Thomas, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, & Zelda Knight (now in paperback!)

For the treasured party member who’s saved your character’s life many times on TTRPG night…

Bookshops & Bonedust by @travisbaldree

━ ˖°˖ ☾☆☽ ˖°˖ ━

For those who love (or possibly are 👀) gay werewolves

Wolfsong by TJ Klune

For the mutual who devoured the epic highs and lows of Riverdale and craves more…

The Luminaries by Susan Dennard, now in paperback!)

━ ˖°˖ ☾☆☽ ˖°˖ ━

For your brave and luckless friend, constantly trapped in transit purgatory and upset about it…

The Dead Take the A Train by Cassandra Khaw & Richard Kadrey

For the true buckaroos trotting beside you…

Camp Damascus by @drchucktingle

For the friend who says “but have we considered burning it all down?” on an alarming and refreshingly regular basis…

Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

━ ˖°˖ ☾☆☽ ˖°˖ ━

For the friend who has a hot date on Friday night (with their book)...

Fall of Ruin and Wrath by Jennifer L. Armentrout

For the avid doodler who sketches plans for their future volcanic villain lair equipped with a space laser…

Starter Villain by @jscalzi

━ ˖°˖ ☾☆☽ ˖°˖ ━

Not enough books? We agree. Check out our other GET BOOKT guide.

Review: Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

Review: Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

Author: Gretchen Felker-MartinPublisher: Tor NightfireReleased: February 22, 2022Received: NetGalleyWarnings: Transphobia, racism, graphic violence, gore Okay, there was no way that I was going to skip out on Manhunt, not after that pitch. I mean, a combination of Y: The Last Man and The Girl With All the Gifts? Yes, please! Written by Gretchen Felker-Martin, this book had big shoes to fill. Oh,…

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Preview: Harley Quinn #33

Harley Quinn #33 preview. Harley dives into the metaphysical private investigation game plus a special Halloween story! #harleyquinn #comics #comicbooks

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