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bookishfeylin · 1 year

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Black Fantasy TBR Part 1

It's taking so long to compile all my books that I might as well release my tbr one portion at a time. This isn't really that organized, but here's the first part of my fantasy (and a little bit of scifi) tbr listed out for people who are curious and/or want to see more fantasy books with Black protagonists:

The Queens of Innis Lear by Tessa Gratton

Nubia: The Awakening by Omar Epps and Clarence A. Haynes

A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow

Abengoni: First Calling by Charles R. Saunders

Across the Broken Tide by Lakase Cousino

Iron Cast by Destiny Soria

That Self-Same Metal by Brittany N. Williams

Kingdom of Feathers by Deborah Grace White

Priestess of nKu by Milton J Davis

Promise of Shadows by Justina Ireland

The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson

Queen of Zazzau by J.S. Emuakpor

Elysium by Nora Sakavic

Daughters of Jubilation by Kara Lee Corthron

Zahrah the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu

Dream Country by Ashaye Brown

The Reluctant Sacrifice by Kerr-Ann Dempster

She Steals Justice by J. Clark

Skin of the Sea by Natasha Bowen

Queen of the Conquered by Kacen Callender

The Hope of Aferi: The Wolf Queen by Cerece Rennie Murphy

A River of Royal Blood by Amanda Joy

The Blazing Star by Imani Josey

A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne Brown

Bones to the Wind by Tatiana Obey

Treachery of Water by Angela J. Ford

Wings of Ebony by J. Elle

Beautiful Nightmare by L.C. Son

Conquest by Celeste Harte

Blood Scion by Deborah Falaye

The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin

Magic Dark, Magic Divine by A.J. Locke

Shadow's Dissident by Ariel Paiement

War Girls by Tochi Onyebuchi

Mirage by Somaiya Daud

A Conspiracy of Stars by Olivia A. Cole

This was mostly stand-alones and duologies, so the next part of my tbr should be mostly trilogies and longer series.

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aroaessidhe · 9 months

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2023 reads // twitter thread

A Song of Salvation

YA space fantasy adventure

a reborn god in the body of a girl on an isolated planet, a grumpy space pirate, and a famous space-radio podcaster end up together on the run in the middle of an intergalactic war - and they might have the key to end it

m/m and pre f/m, demi MCs

#A Song of Salvation #aroaessidhe 2023 reads #alechia dow #this is. also fine #I like the characters; they’re cool! I think probably my favourite set out of the 3 books.#though it’s very much like; platonic insta-love #i think; as with the other books; the space opera/worldbuilding/vibe is a little too YA for me #FOR ME obviously that’s not a fault of the book since it is YA #something about the brutality of the start of the sound of stars being like………..almost retconned tonally? feels odd.#possibly it’s just that it’s a fun ya series that can’t get too dark but like. it was dark. and then everythign after that....isnt as much #the demi-ness is also p understated but is there #I don’t know what the point of putting zahra with x at the end like…….random as hell soulmate shit. idc #I do also appreciate the existence of a series of 3 books with like four main character couples with fat Black ace-spec/queer people!#like what other YA sff books have that lol #yea so anyway there's lots of good things in here [all 3 books] but i think the overall execution isn't quite for me!

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bookishchef · 2 years

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Going through The Jestivan by David F. Farris for the third time...

And I just want to know: is there a Tumblr fandom out there? Am I the only person on here who has read (some of) the Erafeen series? I know it's selfpub, and therefore a little less well-known and accessible, but it's so entertaining (if a little problematic)!

This is absolutely my guilty pleasure series!

For those of you who aren't in the know:

The Erafeen series consists of 6 books, all of which are easy to get as e-books, and a little harder to get as paperbacks. (I had to import book 2 from Germany, because Dutch Amazon did not sell it).

The books follow Bryson LeAnce, a teenage boy who is trying to live up to the legacy of his deceased father. Him, his best friend Olivia, and some of his classmates get chosen to become part of the Jestivan: a group that is put together in times of trouble to fight against evil.

The story has several mysteries, a lot of twist and turns, some (gay) romance, messages about the damaging nature of toxic masculinity, found family, and a lot of cool fight scenes.

Over all, the books have a very anime feel. While reading, you can imagine the plot playing out in an anime instead. The characters are also very anime-esque. The way they talk, the way they are described, the way the plot plays out; it all feels very cartoony. The characters start off as clichés, but all develop personalities as the story keeps going.

The world building, while clunky at times, is actually quite original and creative if you ignore its infodumpy nature. The Erafeen world is made up of islands that float directly above each other, meaning that the MC, who lives on the middle island, always gets to see another island hovering above him.

The magic system is also quite creative, and while there are clichés such as magic schools, and society being divided by magic classes, the books do dive into what a social hierarchy based on magic would actually entail (and why it would be kind of shit).

As for representation:

There's characters of many different backgrounds. They're all from different social classes.

There's physically strong women, mentally strong women, and innocent women who don't want to fight at all.

There's muscular and callous men, smart and studious men, and sensitive men who don't want to fight at all.

There's a lesbian romance (starting from book 2), and although I haven't finished the series yet, I suspect there might be more queerness ahead.

There's a love triangle (including the lesbian romance).

Besides that, Olivia is selectively mute, has a flat affect, and struggles with showing emotions in any way. Make of that what you will.

Critiques and Covers

Book one is called The Jestivan. It is, in my opinion, quite rough around the edges. The writing takes some getting used to, and the world building can be very infodumpy at times. However, if you manage to look past that, you are in for a wild and fun ride!

Book two is called The Untenable, and absolutely blew me away when I first read it. It was incredibly entertaining and contains a plottwist I didn't see coming. It does have some poor mental health rep unfortunately (and mentions of SA if I remember correctly??).

Book three is called The Uprising, and I'm currently rereading book one as preparation for this one. Shit really hits the fan in the second book, so I can only guess at what this book has in store for me.

These three books can also be bought as a paperback bundle. Depending on where you are located, this can be cheaper!

Book four is called The Chronicle. Because I haven't read it yet, I can't say anything about its contents as of yet.

Book five is called The Sacrifice, and oooohh boy does that title scare me. Knowing this series, the titular sacrifice will be super impactful on the story. It will probably also make me cry.

Finally, there's book six: The Empires. Am I ready? No. Will I be when I've read book five? Also probably no.

As you can probably tell, these covers are absolutely GORGEOUS (The Untenable and The Sacrifice are my favourites). I highly recommend getting the paperback editions if you can. I personally couldn't for the longest time though, so I can confirm that the e-books are magnificent as well.

This series is very quickly becoming my guilty pleasure series, and I think it could be the same for many others.

The Jestivan was available as a free/extremely cheap Kindle e-book once upon a time, which is how I got into the series. As of right now (the 15th of August 2022), the ebook is €2,99 on the Dutch version of Amazon, and $2.99 on the US version of Amazon.

So, if you feel like reading a fun, wild, anime-esque story with creative world building, written by a black author: go for it!

P.S. These beautiful covers were all done by Alessandro Brunelli!

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melanielocke · 10 months

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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

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thethiefandtheairbender · 26 days

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also for newer followers who might not know

i'm writing a book! and it's getting published!

if you just want the immediate details you can click the read and read a short FAQ! if you need more to get sold on it, stick around and check it out!

My YA SFF fantasy debut, ALVOSKIA: Call of the Infrans, follows an Unchosen one named Ally who is struggling to find where she belongs amidst her chosen one found family family when violence arrives at their doorstep, and they're forced to fulfil their duties earlier than expected. There's dragons and child soldiers and subverted fantasy tropes, some tone consistent werewolves, an almost entirely queer main cast with the majority also being characters of colour, and if you've been following my blog for any amount of time, it probably has something for you.

If you like ATLA: "what if there were multiple Avatars running around, and what if they weren't all automatically good people?" + past lives and reincarnation cycles

If you like Derry Girls: hot mess of teenagers getting in and out of trouble together while being ridiculous (and sometimes very sad)

If you like PJO: young teenagers with cool powers going on quests together and coming-of-age. And snark. Lots of snark

If you like Six of Crows: morally dubious collection of protagonists, some heisting may or may not happen, outsiders working together

If you like TDP: elves and dragons and long standing grudges and politics

If you like Star Wars: y'know how the Force like consumes you the farther you wander in? yeah that's the magic system here. + some shadow, death, and shapeshifter stuff

If you like HTTYD: you're here for the found family and fun fantasy aesthetic aren't you

Rep: queer (aro, ace, bi, pan, trans, lesbian, nonbinary, genderfluid, gay main characters, often times overlapping); Asian (Indonesian), Black, Sri Lankan and Pakistani (coded) rep; hijabi rep; one character is an amputee and one main character is Autistic.

The debut month is March 2026! Sometimes there is even very pretty (commissioned or friends) art for it:

If you want more info in the meantime you can shoot me an ask or you can follow this sideblog for it. If you want a taste of my fandom writing first you can check out my AO3 or writing snippets on said side blog, like this one:

Likes and reblogs mean a lot and I hope you enjoy!

#indie author #sff ya #sff #young adult #writeblr #fantasy #original character #infrans #alvoskia #atla #pjo #derry girls #httyd #sw #six of crows

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liesmyth · 9 days

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I have been in a terrible reading slump and am looking for books to pull me out. Do you have any recommendations?

FRANCES HARDINGE. cool heroines, middle grade level that adults will love, cool fantasy premises, perfect balance of quality & light read. my faves are deeplight + cuckoo song.

If you don't like fantasy then my beloved herotic stories for punjabi widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal. everyone should read it I'm not kidding I love it to bits.

more ideas:

beach reads!! these are all fun engaging types of books:

fantasy: a deadly education by naomi novik

thriller: the it girl by ruth ware

thriller but comedy: Finlay Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano

horror: My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix. the coldest girl in cooldown by Holly Black

litfic: Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

romance (F/F): Hotshot byClare Lydon

romance (het): Last Tang Standing by Lauren Ho (contemporary). Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore (historical). Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood (YA)

prose so good you want to eat it. (words are pretty but the book is a bit heavier to stomach! depends on your tastes)

matrix by lauren groff. into the woods by tana french. my dark vanessa by kate elizabeth russell. The Cherry Robbers by Sarai Walker.

engaging nonfiction

humble pi by matt parker. the code book by simon sigh. if you wanna go heavier, I really loved Black AF History by Michael Harriot

shorter stuff

short stories! I've loved everything I've read that was short by Tamsyn Muir, but the collection Heiresses of Rust (2016) she's featured in also has an incredible mix of short stories by various authors. the theme is lesbian fiction. another sff author I love for short stories is James Tiptree

tiny books! chaptered but on the shorter side. Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand. Houston, Houston, Do You Read? by James Tiptree Jr. One Day All This Will Be Yours by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower by Tamsyn Muir. The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson

#ask #anonymous #book talk

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melodylsimpson · 3 months

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Book-to-Movie/TV Adaptations From Black Writers

Did you know that only 160+ movies/shows have been adapted from books by Black authors since 1908? 4 of these were sci-fi/fantasy. Of the 160+ adaptations, 61 are adaptations of 2 books. Meanwhile, in YA alone, 50+ adaptations have been released in the past 20 years, half of which were sci-fi/fantasy. But that's not all.

My findings can be found in the essay, "Dear Hollywood, Where Are the SFF Book-to-Movie/TV Adaptations From Black Writers?" over on Reactormag.com, previously Tor.com.

Also, be sure to check out:

My Spreadsheet of ALL Black Book-to-Movie/TV Adaptations From Black Writers

My Letterboxd List of ALL Black Book-to-Movie Adaptations From Black Writers

Happy Black History Month!

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olderthannetfic · 9 months

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The previous convos about sensitivity readers and purity culture in booktwit types definitely feels familiar. I'll never forget when I was querying agents a few years ago with a novel I wrote, and I was told my writing "caused discomfort," was "problematic" and could be seen as racist/anti-black and having a lot of instances of queerphobia and misogynoir. The novel was a horror-fantasy story that actually was based on the transatlantic slave trade but on a different planet (So, yes, I would hope that this kind of story would be disturbing and cause discomfort in the reader. Mission accomplished). The plot covered several generations of the captured aliens who were enslaved (a la A Hundred Years of Solitude), the fallout of their enslavement, and the mistreatment of the enslaved people as a result. Most of the agents who requested the full manuscript said they liked the story, but I was met with many intrusive questions about my identity, race, gender, and sexuality and urges to work with a sensitivity reader should we progress forward as agent and writer. I am a Black, femme nonbinary, bisexual person. This was all fine and dandy with them, so they wanted to make this information about my identity public for consumers to appease the Twitter crowd and dissuade callout posts from the functionally illiterate. I wanted to maintain my dignity and not disclose any personal information. (They assumed it was because I was in the closet or something. I was not then and am not now. My identity just isn't anyone's business if they want to read a book, simple as that. This was also especially because there are mentions of sexual assault of some characters, and that kind of information definitely isn't anyone's business to know about an author. Period.) I also didn't want to hire a sensitivity reader because they were advertised to me as someone who performed outrage at works for a living (It also didn't help that I was linked to a few sensitivity readers who were very vocal on YA book Twitter and SFF Twitter. No thank you.). This was, apparently, a problem. That was when I decided publishing may not be for me, at least traditional publishing.

Yeah, sadly, I feel there is an audience for that book, but you're going to have to find it yourself. Anything YA adjacent is too outrage-driven without the necessary nuance, but a lot of more oldschool SFF circles are too full of the kind of sensitive, delicate white guys who wouldn't get this book either. Maybe an indie black press? Somewhere with a more literary bent that thrives on controversial books? Depending on how horror-y it is, maybe there's an avenue to pursue there. Horror fans do include a lot of manbabies too, but those circles can be more open to actually dark stuff.

At least self publishing is easy now, but self publishing and then getting a significant number of people to buy and read the book is hard.

I promise that decent sensitivity readers exist, but the ones that crowd is going to send you to are... not equipped to deal with dark horror fantasy, in my opinion.

And as a writer, I wouldn't work with anyone I didn't know pretty well anyway. How are you supposed to evaluate the feedback of a rando? What if they fundamentally don't get your genre?

If you do decide to press on, I think I'd look for like-minded fellow writers to begin with. Start a club. Serialize your stuff in the same place. IDK. There are plenty of grown-ass adults who buy books and who like nuance. There's got to be some way to find your audience.

It would be a pity to give up just because publishing is full of cowards.

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lesbianboyfriend · 2 months

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can i ask for lesbian book recommendations 🥹🕺

yeassss ofc my love <3

erm and obligatory disclaimer for any who might read that i don’t think “queer” or “lesbian” is a necessarily coherent category of books or adequate descriptor for a novel which is why i’ve also provided the actual genres here (sorted into which ever one i felt best fit) and descriptions. and these books have much more going on than just being about lesbians. however all books are undeniably awesomer with lesbians so yayyyyy

FANTASY:

-the salt grows heavy by cassandra khaw: fantasy horror; murderous mermaid and plague doctor come across a cult of children (could be read as not lesbians bc one character is nonbinary but i choose to read as. lesbians)

-the empress of salt and fortune by nghi vo: political fantasy; monk unravels the tale of exiled empress’ rise to power

-when the the tigers came down the mountain by nghi vo: political fantasy; monk unwinds the tale of a tiger and her scholar lover to prevent other tigers from eating them (stand alone sequel to empress of salt and fortune)

-ship of smoke and steel by django wexler: ya fantasy; girl has to steal a ghost ship to save her sister’s life

-the mermaid, the witch, and the sea by maggie tokuda-hall: ya fantasy; pirate falls in love with one of the ship’s hostages, a girl being sent to an arranged marriage against her will

-tremontaine created by ellen kushner: political fantasy; there’s a lot going on in this one okay just trust me that it’s really good esp if you love political intrigue (this was released serially and is easiest to acquire an electronic version)

-the deep by rivers solomon: fantasy/spec fic; African slave women thrown overboard gave birth to mermaid-esque descendants. one holds these traumatic memories for her whole people and must grapple with that pressure

-wild beauty by anna-marie mclemore: ya magical realism/fantasy; a family of women who can create flowers and whose lovers always tragically vanish fight to keep their land and to unravel the mystery of a strange boy who appeared

-siren queen by nghi vo: historical magical realism/fantasy; girl’s rise to stardom amidst the monsters of hollywood back in the days of the studio system

-gideon the ninth by tamsyn muir: sff; um. how to explain briefly. gideon wants nothing more than to leave the ninth house, but her nemesis harrowhark needs her sword skills to pass the emperors trial and become immortal. sure. (caleb i know you’ve read this just adding for any other viewers yayyy)

HORROR:

-white is for witching by helen oyeyemi: horror fantasy/magical realism; a house with women in its walls calls to miranda silver while the people she leaves behind struggle to make sense of what happened to her

-plain bad heroines by emily a. danforth: historical horror; when filming a movie about the macabre history of a boarding school, its past starts to become the reality for the stars and author of the novel it’s based on

LITFIC:

-girl woman other: contemporary litfic; the intersecting stories of Black british women told in verse

-nightwood: classic literary; i feel like i can’t describe this one well but nora and jenny are obsessed with robin, whose penchant for wandering and inability to commit drives them crazy. toxic dyke drama at its best

-the thirty names of night: lit fic; transmasc syrian american unravels the history of artist laila z who encountered the same rare bird his mother saw right before her death and realizes their pasts are intertwined

-under the udala trees: historical lit fic; coming of age set against the backdrop of civil war in Nigeria, two girls from different ethnic communities fall in love

-everyone in this room will someday be dead: contemporary lit fic; that moment when your ocd lands you a job at the catholic church even though you’re an atheist and also your relationship is falling apart

-stone butch blues: historical lit fic; butch lesbian realizing and grappling with her identity throughout the 40s-70s

-the color purple: classic lit fic; story of two sisters separated in their youth—one is forced into an abusive marriage and falls in love with her husbands mistress, wondering what became of her sister

-oranges are not the only fruit: semi-autobiography with slight fantasy elements; exploring growing up lesbian in a deeply religious pentecostal sect

SCI-FI:

-the weight of the stars: ya sf romance; aspiring astronaut is forced into friendship with a girl who waits on the roof every night for radio signals from her mother in space

-the seep: sci-fi/spec fic; what if aliens invaded and formed a hive mind of everyone and also your girlfriend turned into a baby again. wouldn’t that be fucked up

-the stars are legion: political science fiction; an awakes with no memory amid a group of people calling themself her family who claim she is the only one who can save their world

-not your sidekick: ya sci-fi; superheroes are real and they fucking suck

SHORT STORIES:

-sarahland: contemporary/spec fic short story collection; various stories about people named sarah

#jules.txt #asks #bookshelf

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swallowtailed · 6 months

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palisade 31

the interesting thing about listening to a season as it releases is that, by presumably deliberate omission, arc pacing is functionally a black box--there's no way to tell when an arc will end until it's done. to the extent that, like, seeing a slightly shorter episode runtime makes me want to guess that a plot beat has occurred unexpectedly early or late. pacing!

i'm not sure i agree with that ruling re boxcars on number of the beast, but it does lower the probability of cashing out. (although. you know. lol.) i still haven't quite convinced myself what the probability of hitting 666 on any given 3d6 actually is, but with that ruling i'm thinking it's about 1.5% all told, which has a 60% chance of occurring in 60 rolls.

"the shield is attached to the cannon" feels like a very figure thing

was having my usual think about brnine's relationships with their divines and reached a conclusion which i will summarize as: hey brnine are you adopting divine dogs because you miss a wolf prophet

that also led me back to thinking about autonomy again--i think autonomy could justify using asepsis.

want to congratulate keith on felling a pillar immediately and singlehandedly. incredible. 10/10.

the gamesmanship between eclectic and connadine was also so fun. they should start a gravity clock

thinking about the spy novel set at the paint shop where they discover their co has just sold them all out. i'm a little sad we didn't get an infiltration of the paint shop/steeple catterick--coolass setting.

thisbe wanting things so strongly that she accidentally summons illusions of them... love her. it's a fantastic next beat in her arc--she's built so much around communication and interpretation, and now she's influencing other people's interpretations of the world. (would love to see her meet another iconoclast now.)

nideo drawing on medieval/classical/fantastic influences is always so fun. there might be an argument to be made that in the palisade era, each stel has entered a different sff subgenre, but honestly the main reason i'd be making that argument would be to say that i think apostolos is paranormal ya.

#fatt #palisade #palisade spoilers #hello world #fatt lb #have been trying to phrase a 'fell a pillar' joke re eclectic and connadine since last week and i still can't figure it out #suggestions welcome

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spaceshipkat · 1 month

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oh fuck. what happened this time?

the usual things (i’m tired of the selfpub to tradpub pipeline, but i’ll spare the rehash of why) (also it’d be great if trends didn’t make or break an author’s chances of 1. selling a book in the first place and 2. doing well enough to earn back an advance so an author can start to receive royalties) and a new thing i learned of today (some of tradpub has apparently begun making some of its authors print their own physical ARCs, since they’re more expensive than eARCs and unfortunately ARCs don’t have a great return rate—aka not enough people leave reviews or spread the word about a book they’ve read an ARC of. yet another problem is that publishers can’t distribute the author-printed ARCs for the author because the publisher didn’t print them itself)

but also what’s going on with Bethany Baptiste. if y’all haven’t seen, i’ll try to sum up what i know of the present situation: she sold her debut years ago and was supposed to also publish years ago (i think around 2022?). her editors fucked it. (from what i’ve heard over the years, sourcebooks is notorious for fucking it. this is not a new phenomenon where they’re concerned, but it’s double fucked because Bethany is Black and as we all know publishing caters first and foremost to white people.) then she was supposed to debut earlier this month (March 2024) but “printing issues” forced sourcebooks to push her release date back to the end of this month. this week, she tweeted that sourcebooks has continued to fuck it, and today (3/21/24) sourcebooks tweeted that her new pub date is this May, again citing the aforementioned “printing issues” (whatever the fuck that actually means with regard to Bethany’s specific situation is anyone’s guess)

it’s just…very, very disappointing for countless reasons: that tradpub is willingly fucking over an incredibly important voice in publishing overall, but especially YA SFF; that publishing continues to undervalue Black voices; that time and time again anyone who is not cishet and white (and, more often than not, a man) will get the shaft; that tradpub continues to prove it is literally falling apart at the seams and no one is actually sure how to fix it. for instance, apparently S&S sent out an email to agents apologizing for editors who are “unresponsive,” except whoever made the decision to send that email thinks “unresponsive” means three weeks, which is just absurd given how overworked editors are. by this, i take it to mean S&S is gonna try to push editors to reply to submissions within three weeks, which is fucked. (i hope i am misreading what this means, but i am pretty sure i’m not.) not only will that harm editors who are already overworked and underpaid, it’ll likely have detrimental effects on authors since it’s unlikely an editor will be able to make a sound decision in that timeframe and get their entire editorial staff (anyone who participates in acquisitions meetings, when editors bring a book they want to buy before their publisher on the whole) on board. i have watched this industry change so goddamn much over the last decade, to the point i barely recognize it anymore. i remember when the Big Five was the Big Six. i remember when an author could hit a bestseller list through quality rather than the volume of noise surrounding their book. i remember when publishers still did marketing for their authors (and even then it wasn’t great, but the fact that was better than it is now? dear fucking god authors are so fucked). i remember when an author’s advance was based on the quality of their book, rather than the number of followers an author has—i remember when the latter was the goddamn exception to the norm. i remember when an author could be sent on tour by their publisher rather than paying out of pocket if they wanted to meet readers. i remember when an author could dream of making a living through their writing. now that’s fucking laughable. now you’ll be lucky to make north of a nice deal ($1 - $49,000) and you’ll barely see a sniff of publisher-led marketing on that money—on any money. (remember, that’s why tradpub is snapping up selfpub successes and popular fanfic with the serial numbers filed off. those won’t require as much marketing because the author has already personally done the heavy-lifting.)

now to be fair, tradpub is a little better in some ways: representation is a bit more common now, for instance, even if still woefully sparse—on every side, from authors to agents to editors to publicists etc etc; john green isn’t topping the bestseller lists for years and years (though CoHo and sjm are)—and bestseller lists are a bit more fluid, even if they don’t seem to carry as much weight and still largely ignore anyone who isn’t cishet and white (and likely a man) (go look at Kennedy Ryan’s insta post from the past week when she hit the NYT list); and it’s good that most of editing is done virtually rather than by hand, since we need to save trees (however much i would have loved getting a physical copy of my book in the mail sprinkled with editorial notes). but overall? tradpub is on fire and im so fucking tired.

#ask #anonymous #publishing industry #i don’t wanna talk too much about how sourcebooks fucked it because #some of what i know is through a friend w the publisher and bethany hasn’t shared everything #so some of my understanding is based on assumption #BUT it is true about the pub dates/‘printing issues’. you can look on her twitter for proof.#also i have it on good authority about her release date getting pushed back and back and back #i trust the person who told me—not only personally but for knowing what happened #wrt how sourcebooks fucked it

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bookishfeylin · 1 year

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Black Fantasy TBR Part 3

Part 1 is here.

Part 2 is here.

This portion of my tbr has a few more sci-fi books than fantasy books, but I felt it still belongs :) So here is the third and final part of my Black fantasy TBR. You guys knows the drill--please look up all age ratings and trigger warnings, and ofc there is no particular order to this list.

The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton

Flameborn by Jamel Cato

Sweep of Stars by Maurice Broaddus

The Record Keeper by Agnes Gomillion

Fate of Flames by Sarah Raughley

Tentacles and Teeth by Ariele Sieling

Earthrise by M.C.A. Hogarth

Girl of Flesh and Metal by Alicia Ellis

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

Updraft by Fran Wilde

The Blood Trials by N.E. Davenport

The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow

The Wonder of All Things by Jason Mott

To Find You by Cerece Rennie Murphy

The Kindred by Alechia Dow

Awakening by Rebel Miller

Immortal Plunder by Kelly St. Clare

Kill Three Birds by Nicole Givens Kurtz

The Dream Weavers by Chantae Oliver

Niko by Kayti Nika Raet

#black books #black authors #black sff books #black fantasy books #black ya books #ya books #bookblr #book tumblr #diverse fantasy books #diversity in fantasy #diverse books #fantasy #fantasy books #ya fantasy #diverse fantasy #TBR #booklr #representation matters #bookish rambles

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aroaessidhe · 5 months

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aro & ace book lists masterpost

#aspec books / aro & ace books database (tinyurl.com/aspecbooks)

A couple notes:

These are books I have read, with the occasional exception. I always state when I have not read a book I’m including in a post. May add to and edit posts when I read more relevant books.

I mostly include books I recommend, but to varying levels (and sometimes I'll include some I dislike but they might be worthwhile for someone else) There will of course be some of my personal bias to what I prefer (SFF, YA contemporary)

I prioritise books with aspec main characters. Will include the occasional side character if I have a gap to fill and it’s reasonably significant and/or the author is aspec. Like, would it be worth it to read the book just for this character?

The things I am choosing to group on are based on commonalities I’ve noticed. If I group by one thing but not something similar it's because there's not enough I've read to make a worthwhile post!

Most posts encompass ace & aro & the spectrums (because there's a lot of overlap in the books) but some are one or the other, and I've generally marked them as such here

under the cut, as I will be frequently updating as I post more

asterix* & smalltext means the same post is being linked for a second time (for example if it's gender and genre specific, it might be under both sections)

identity

gender/sexuality

trans part 1 / part 2

aroallo books

aroace girls (contemporary YA)

ace girls (contemporary YA)

ace girls (YA low sff)

relationship

queerplatonic

f/nb

m/nb

other

autistic aspecs

aro books by authors of colour

aro books by Black authors

genre

broad

Graphic novels

YA contemporary (aro)

YA contemporary (ace girls)*

YA contemporary (aroace girls)*

YA low sff (girls)*

YA speculative fiction (aro)

YA dark high fantasy

middle grade (aro)

adult: high fantasy (aro)

adult: historical/contemporary fantasy/etc (aro)

historical (1900-1990)

space (opera, or general space setting)

specific

assassins

dragons

fey

ghosts

robots/cyborgs

other/misc

some no-romance books centering a friendship

a few fav aro books

#aspec books #asexual books #aromantic books

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lgbtqreads · 11 months

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Do you have any recommendations for books with Hawaiian/Māori/Pacific Islander rep (or fantasy equivalent)? Wanting to start a summer book club with the youth organization i run and want to bring in some local rep if possible :] (if not - what are some of your fave sf/f young adult must-reads?)

Ooh, you could try The Dawnhounds by Sascha Stronach with them - Māori-inspired fantasy by a Māori author. It's not YA, but I don't know of any queer NH/PI rep in YA, unfortunately. I'll give a mention to The Girl From Everywhere by Heidi Heilig, though - Hawaii is very relevant to the book, and the author grew up there as well.

Separately, some of my fave queer YA SFF includes Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust, The Disasters by MK England, Black Wings Beating by Alex London, The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski, Crownchasers by Rebecca Coffindaffer, and The Witch King by HE Edgmon.

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absolutebl · 2 years

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One year ago I had never read or watched anything in the romance genre and I have now hit 150 BLs, so I’ve been thinking about how I got here!

Until I was in my early 20’s I only read litfic, sci-fi and fantasy, never romance…. Then I started reading fanfiction but again, only based on sci-fi or fantasy shows/books - and I always rejected the coffee shop or university AUs - why take characters who can do magic or are vampires and make them normal humans who work in a library? So again, I missed out on all the romance tropes.

Then, during the pandemic I started reading Shameless fanfic and perhaps because the characters are humans who live in our world, I ventured into the AUs for the first time and discovered that I love all the romance tropes! Give me all the enemies to lovers, forced proximity and arranged marriages please…

Finally, this led to BLs and for the first time in my life almost all the media I consume is romance and I love it so much! What a weird journey… I’d love to hear if you’ve always enjoyed romance and how you got here?

Oh my goodness what a fun question, okay let’s hit it...

My Journey to BL via SFF, Yaoi & M/M Romance

So way back at the dawn of time I was once a hard-core fan, specifically in the science fiction and fantasy realm and specifically around 90s franchises that had to do with bad ass female warrior characters, so think Xena: Warrior Princess, Farscape, Buffy, Firefly. I did cosplay and crossplay (although we didn’t really call it that, then). I went to my first SFF con as a minor actually, as soon as I got my driver’s license and some autonomy I was out and about doing cons, ST:TNG Creatathons (is that what they were called?) and such.

I was of the right age, but that was also how I found and got involved with queer fandom, ren faires, and kink. First prides, first alliances, first marches, first dungeons, first orgy - ya know, as ya do. I sexually matured super early and ya know what? It was fine, I’m fine. It all worked out. I regret nothing and stayed healthy emotionally, mentally, and physically, probubly as a result of the companion friendship groups I was forming, so... win win!

And all because I read books like... THIS:

I’m a FAST AF reader and super advanced, I read Tolkien at like age 8, and came to fandom via books more than TV or film. (Please don’t take this as a brag because I skim and retain NOTHING, so it’s not exactly a life advantage.) By high school I was into primarily fantasy, and always wanted/liked/preferred a romantic arc and some kind of found family element (so friendship groups = a big WIN). I also really gravitated to any authors who dealt with or mentioned queer characters (like Mercedes Lackey). That’s also when I first started noticing the “kill the gays” trope.

I was always a really voracious reader. I read pretty much all the fantasy that my local library had, and then (partly because of Anne McCaffrey and a few other authors who also wrote romance), with no where else to go I moved into the romance genre. I actually got into romance before I got into science fiction. I was reading bodice rippers at age 10. Again, it was FINE. Some of us mature real early. Also I was living in the UK when Queer as Folk was doing its thing while reading lots of Mills & Boon.

Then in the early 2000s I started actively looking for consumable queer literary media. By that I mean: anything that had queer characters as the main characters. However, I really don’t like literary fiction (too depressing), and I really wanted that romantic arc. I wanted stories that gave the queer characters happy endings TOGETHER, and also that didn’t gloss over the sexual side of being queer.

This basically led me to Japanese yaoi. I don’t recall exactly how I found my first one, but I do remember the hunting.

I had to either find them and get them shipped to me via weird black market back channels, or I eventually started ordering them off Amazon. In fact, the first thing I ever bought on Amazon was a yaoi manga in dead tree form - so they might be why I opened the account. Only a few publishers were producing yaoi in translation back then, a name I particularly remember was DramaQueen. I actually even owned some yaoi publisher merchandise, which means I had an account WITH the publisher. I mean, who does that?! I had a T-shirt that said “seme” on one side and “It’s tough at the top” on the other side. I was so proud! I would wear it to sci-fi conventions, but was so obscure then that nobody I ran into ever knew what the shirt meant. I mean us geeks knew anime and even some manga, but yaoi? Not so much.

Honestly, I still only really enjoy consuming manga in printed form (I struggle with webtoons), which is one of the many reasons I haven’t followed it (or manwha) closely in recent years.

Meanwhile, at the same time I was being a yaoi fan (without a fandom) I was getting into the Hollywood indie gay romcom phase, so like Latter Days, and Shelter, and some of the other queer indie movies I talk about in this post:

Old Guard Queer Cinema for BL Lovers

So now we’re in mid 2000s and there just wasn’t a lot of manga in translation, let alone yaoi, thus I kept hunting for a more queer romance fiction to read.

Which is how I became a really early adopter of the very first, what was called back then, m/m romance. There were only a few houses producing for the American market, small publishers like Loose ID. I bought and read a ton of them in physical form, and then was super early on the e-book bandwagon because of this market almost entirely. I mean, we are talking early e-books that I had to go to the publisher’s website to buy and download - this is in the days of Sygil and Calibre. You had to read them on your laptop. I owned a FIRST generation Kindle.

At this point I’m reading mostly romances and no longer any SFF. And then recently (within the last 10 years, the two have started cross pollinating again, although now I only read SFF that has a strong romance thread and a happy ending for the queers. No exceptions will be made.

Gotta have my standards!

So I become a romance reader mostly because of yaoi, and now I do read other queer romances (not just gay ones) but before we didn’t have a choice. (Although gay romances still dominate the market.)

I kind of left mangas behind for a long time.

So when I discovered BL, and I think SOTUS was my first one (?), although it might’ve been Love by Chance or Love Sick, or... (honestly when I jump into an obsession I JUMP TF IN so early 2019 when I discovered BL I tried to watch EVERYTHING I could all at once), I brought all of this baggage and affection (and forgiveness) from my history with yaoi and early mm romance (which get a lot of things WRONG not just about being gay and queer identity but also about sex and relationships and communication) to my interpretation of the BL genre.

(Well, that’s a massive run-on sentence I’m not bothering to fix. nash)

So there it is. A very long way of saying:

because of yaoi I got into m/m romance

because of m/m romance I became an ebook romance reader

because of gay romance I have strong standards for my happy ever afters

and because of THAT I got into BL and that history still dictates the KIND of BL I prefer

TA DA!

*insert twirling flourish here*

And then, because I am an obsessive completest, I have been systematically using all of lock down to try to watch every BL ever made. Some of us don’t, ya know, stay still very well. I needed a QUEST.

Notice what’s missing? Fanfic. Yeah I have never been into it. It’s all good, I’m not against it or anything like that, just like D&D or Star Wars or electrical play... not my thing.

(source)

#yaoi and bl #live action yaoi #adapted from a manga #japanese yaoi #my fandom #A Man Who Defies The World of BL #thai bl #japanese BL #Love Sick #Love by Chance #SOTUS #Latter Days #DramaQueen #Queer as Folk

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starrlikesbooks · 2 years

Text

Happy May!

May is the best month- AKA my birth month- and it's also full of really incredible books this year!

As always, check under the cut for more on each~

Book of Night by Holly Black is the amazing Holly Black's adult debut! This is a dark fantasy novel of literally shadowy thieves and magic, and I've heard nothing but fantastic things!

The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas is a modern Gothic Horror piece, set in Mexico after the War. It's supposed to be a bit of a mash up between the classic Rebecca and Mexican Gothic.

I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston is McQuiston's YA debut, and since I was lucky enough to score and advanced copy, I can tell you it's great! Part indie movie mystery, part queer culture celebration, all love, it's going to be a lot of people's all time favorite very soon. I also wouldn't be surprised to see it get a movie deal!

Seasonal Fears by Seanan McGuire is the sequel/companion to the phenomenal Middlegame, an SFF books of twins and alchemy. That's one of my favorite books, and Seanan McGuire is an excellent fantasy writer, so consider me pumped!

When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill is a feminist magical realism story with actual DRAGONS. Sign me up, immediately.

Cafe Con Lychee by Emery Lee is Lee's sophomore novel after their very trans romance "Meet Cute Diary". This one is looking to be just as queer, and has some fun rivals to lovers.

Dead End Girls by Wendy Heard is a sapphic story of faking your own death, running from the cops, and also running from some people who might want you actually dead, and uhhh accidentally maybe causing some people to be actually dead. This is also one I've already read, and I can tell you it's a RIDE.

See You Yesterday by Rachel Lynn Solomon is for all the time loop fans out there! (Me.). This is a time loop romance about a girl reliving her awful first day of college.... with her nemesis.

Milo and Marcos at the End of the World by Kevin Christopher Snipes is one of my favorite books of the year! This one is a queer story of internalized homophobia and religious trauma- it's heavy and messy, but it's also got SUCH a good romance to balance it out. If I could shove this book into every queer teen and young adult's hands I would.

Queer Ducks (and Other Animals) by Eliot Schrefer is another book I'd love to shove into people's hands- it's also the only nonfiction book on this list! This is a study on queerness in nature, firmly and humorously shutting down arguments that queer living is "unnatural". It's also by the author of the phenomenal queer scifi thriller "The Darkness Outside Us".

The Fae Keeper by HE Edgmon is the long awaited sequel to The Witch King! This book promises a follow up to those truly divine vibes!

Together We Burn by Isabel Ibanez is about- wait for it... both dragons and flamenco dancers. There's also enemies to lovers!

#bookblr #booklr #book blog #book rec #ya books #book list #lgbt books #starr likes books #new books #book recs #may books #the witch king #i kissed shara wheeler #casey mcquiston #milo and marcos at the end of rhe world

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