#Ninefox Gambit

[erraticpulse]

water's final call

take a wild guess what book i devoured in three days

[nellasbookplanet]

Book recs: Queer science fiction, part 1

There is a lot of queer sf out there, and I read a lot of sf. When I started working on this list, I quickly realized it was impossible to include all that I've read and enjoyed in one single rec post. Thus, this is the first of so far three queer sci-fi book rec posts.

A note: queer here does not necessarily mean "guarantee of an f/f or m/m ship with a happy ending", but rather simply a significant presence of queerness. Some of the books feature no romance but has a same gender attracted/trans/a-spectrum lead, or features an m/f relationship with bisexual, trans or aro/ace characters, or simply features a world-building which is heavily queer inclusive in ways that don't always compare to our own ideas of sexuality and gender. I have however disqualified works where the only queer presence is along the lines of "gay best friend" or a blink and you'll miss it confirmation that never comes up again.

Previous book rec posts:

Really cool fantasy worldbuilding, really cool sci-fi worldbuilding, dark sapphic romances, mermaid books, vampire books, many worlds: portal fantasies, many worlds: alternate timelines, robots and artificial intelligences, post- and transhumanism, alien intelligences

For more details on the books, continue under the readmore. Titles marked with * are my personal favorites. And as always, feel free to share your own recs in the notes!

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley*

Dietz is a soldier in the war between Earth and Mars - to travel to the battle front, she and her fellow soldiers are broken down into light to be able to quickly travel across space. But something keeps going wrong with Dietz's travels; her memories don't match up with the mission briefs, as she experiences time itself turning in on itself. Is she going mad? Or are the things she's learning skipping through time the truth - and the war that's stealing her life the lie? A mindfuck of a book that's scathing in its critique of fascism and war. Features a sapphic lead but no romance.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk and Robot duology) by Becky Chambers

Novella. Long ago, robots, upon gaining sentience, simply laid down their work and walked into the wilderness. Long after, a tea monk looking for purpose follows after them into the wilds, where they come across one of the robots seeking its own sort of answers. While not plotless, this story focuses more on character and vibes over plot. Also has a nonbinary main character and features conversations on gender between human and robot.

Meet Me In Another Life by Catriona Silvey*

Thora and Santi are strangers, brought together by a coincidence and torn apart just as abruptly when tragedy strikes. But this is neither the first nor the last time they meet - again and again they encounter each other, as friends, lovers, enemies, family, every time recognizing in each other a familiarity no one else carries. But with every new life, a mysterious danger grows ever closer, forcing them to find out the truth of their connection. This is a puzzle-box of a story that goes some entirely unexpected places in a very wild ride, featuring a bisexual co-lead.

The Archive Undying (The Downworld Sequence) by Emma Mieko Candon

In a world where AI gods sometimes lose their minds and take entire populations down with them, Sunai was the only survivor when his god went down. In the 17 years since, he has wandered on his own, unable to either die or age, drowning his sorrows in drink and men. But his attempts to flee his past comes to a stop as he is forced back into the struggle between man and machine. Featuring some pretty wild world building and narrative techniques, this book will definitely confuse you, but it is worth the experience.

The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart

January Cole works security at the Paradox Hotel, last stop for tourists heading for the timeport, which allows them to travel to and witness any moment in time. But years of proximity to the timeport has left its damage on January, making her unstuck in time, letting her relive memories of her dead lover even as her sanity slips away bit by bit. As she starts witnessing proof of a horrible crime in the hotel that no one else can see, January must race against her own mind, a killer, and time itself to solve it before it's too late.

A Fractured Infinity by Nathan Tavares

Hayes Figueiredo is a struggling film-maker who wants to finish his documentary, whose life gets turned upside down when handsome physicist Yusuf Hassan enters his life, claiming an alternate version of him is a great inventor who’s sent a mysterious device to their universe. As Hayes gets drawn deeper into the conspiracy - and his feelings for Yusuf intensify - he has to decide just how far he’s prepared to go to win the life and the love he wants. Featuring a very gay and very morally dubious lead, this is a creative and strange read.

Bridge by Lauren Beukes

When she was little, Bridge and her mother Jo used to play a game - one where they traveled to other worlds, inhabiting the bodies of their other selves. Now Jo is dead, and as Bridge is cleaning out her apartment she finds a strange device: a dreamworm, the very thing that supposedly makes inter-dimensional travel possible. Suddenly faced with the possibility that multiverse travel is real, Bridge is struck by a different question: could her mother still be alive? Scifi spiced with a healthy dose of body horror and some absolutely wild twists, Bridge also features a bisexual lead (however this is a blink and you’ll miss it moment) and a nonbinary co-narrator.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers series) by Becky Chambers

Rosemary Harper just got a job on the motley crew of the Wayfarer, a spaceship that works with tunneling new wormholes through space. With a past she wants to leave behind, Rosemary is happy to travel the far reaches of the universe with the chaotic crew, but when they land the job of a life time, things suddenly get a lot more dangerous. A bit of a tumblr classic in its day, this is a cozy space opera with an episodic feel and vividly realized characters and cultures. While pretty light on romance and focusing found family, there is a main f/f relationship.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Life on the lower decks of the generation ship HSS Matilda is hard for Aster, an outcast even among outcasts, trying to survive in a system not dissimilar to the old antebellum South. The ship's leaders have imposed harsh restrictions on their darker skinned people, using them as an oppressed work force as they travel toward their supposed Promised Land. But as Aster finds a link between the death of the ship's sovereign and the suicide of her own mother, she realizes there may be a way off the ship.

Ninefox Gambit (The Machineries of Empire trilogy) by Yoon Ha Lee*

Military space opera where belief and culture shape the laws of reality, causing all kinds of atrocities as empires do everything in their power to force as many people as possible to conform to their way of life to strengthen their technology and weapons. It’s also very queer, with gay, lesbian and trans major characters, albeit little to no romance.

The Left Hand of Darkness (Hainish Cycle) by Ursula K. Le Guin

1969 classic. Genly Ai is an emissary sent to the planet of Winter, meant to help facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But he's unprepared for Winter's citizens, who spend much of their time genderless or switching between genders, making for a culture wildly different from that Genly is used to.

Too Like the Lightning (Terra Ignota series) by Ada Palmer*

Centuries in the future, humanity has deliberatly engineered society to be as utopian as possible, politically, socially, sexually, religiously. Written in an enlightenment style and featuring questions of human nature and whether it’s possible to change it, and what price we’re prepared to pay for peace, this book is simultaneously very heavy and very funny, and written in a very unique style. While still human, the society presented often feels starkly alien.

The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley

This book fucked me up when I read it. It’s weird, it’s gross, there’s So Much Viscera, there are literally no men, it has living spaceships and biotech but in the most horrific way imaginable. Had I to categorize it I would call it grimdark military sf. It’s an experience but not necessarily a pleasant one.

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling*

Possibly one of the most unsettling books I’ve ever read, and definitely the most claustrophobic. Gyre, a caver on an alien planet, ventures into the dark and dangerous underground, guided only by a woman who has no compunctions on using and manipulating Gyre as she sees fit to obtain her secretive goals down in the caves.

Escaping Exodus (Escaping Exodus series) by Nicky Drayden

While my feelings on Escaping Exodus were mixed, it cannot be denied that the dynamic between the two leads and the way they go from childhood best friends to enemies on different sides of a class and power struggle is very delicious. It also features some really cool worldbuilding of living, alien generation spaceships and the human culture that has developed inside them.

The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky*

The Doors of Eden is something of an experiment in speculative biology, featuring versions of Earth in which various different species were the one to rise to sentience, from dinosaurs to neanderthals. Now, something is threatening the existence of all timelines, dragging multiple different people and species into the struggle, among those a pair of cryptid hunting girlfriends and a transgender scientist.

Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi

Ascension follows Alana Quick, an expert Sky Surgeon who stows away on a spaceship in hopes of landing herself a job. But the ship and its crew are in deeper waters than she expected, facing threats emerging from a whole other universe, all of them searching for the same person: Alana’s spiritually enlightened sister. Undeniably a bit of an odd read, Ascension is also very creative and features polyamorous lesbian relationship.

Contagion (Contagion duology) by Erin Bowman*

Young adult. After receiving an SOS, a small crew is sent on a standard search-and-rescue mission. But what they find are not survivors awaiting help, but an abandoned site, full of dead bodies and crawling with something... monstrous. No romance, but features one sapphic co-lead and one who can easily be read as demisexual (however this doesn't show up until book two, which has more romance).

A Memory Called Empire (Texicalaan duology) by Arkady Martine

Mahit Dzmare is an ambassador sent to the center of the multi-system Teixcalaanli Empire, where she discovers that her predecessor has died. Trying to protect her home, an independent mining station, from being taken over by the empire, Mahit struggles to find out the truth of her predecessor's death while carrying the voice of his ghost in her head, guiding her as best he can. Light on the romance but does feature a sapphic relationship.

The Outside (The Outside trilogy) by Ada Hoffman*

AKA the book the put me in an existenial crisis. Souls are real, and they are used to feed AI gods in this lovecraftian inspired scifi where reality is warped and artifical gods stand against real, unfathomable ones. Autistic scientist Yasira is accused of heresy and, to save her eternal soul, is recruited by post-human cybernetic ‘angels’ to help hunt down her own former mentor, who is threatening to tear reality itself apart. Sapphic main character.

Dawn (Xenogenesis trilogy) by Octavia E. Butler*

After a devestating war leaves humanity on the brink of extinction, survivor Lilith finds herself waking up naked and alone in a strange room. She’s been rescued by the Oankali, who have arrived just in time to save the human race. But there’s a price to survival, and it might be humanity itself. Absolutely fucked up I love it I once had to drop the book mid read to stare at the ceiling and exclaim in horror at what was going on. Queer in the sense that the Oankali doesn't follow human ideas of gender and relationships, which is mirrored in their romantic relationships with humans. It is, however, pretty dark, with examinations of agency and consent, so enter with caution.

Remnant by Kate Genet

One day, Cass wakes up and finds everyone else is gone. Not dead, just gone, leaving her in a world which nature starts taking back with a dangerous, unnatural speed. But as she tries to survive this new normal, Cass realizes she may not be alone after all - but who else is out there, and are they a threat?

The Scorpion Rules (Prisoners of Peace duology) by Erin Bow*

Young Adult. Featuring a dystopian future in which an AI forcibly keeps world peace by holding the children of world leaders hostage. If anyone attempts to start a war, their child will be executed. Greta is one of these children, kept in a school with others like her. But things start to change one day when a new, less obedient hostage arrives. A unique, slowburn take on the YA dystopian craze, also featuring a bisexual love triangle.

Iron Widow (Iron Widow series) by Xiran Jay Zhao

Young adult. Zetian is a citizen of Huaxia, where mecha aliens are constantly trying to breach the Great Wall. To keep them at bay, couples of men and women pilot so called Chrysalises, giant transforming robots. But the pilots are not equal - the women almost always die, sucked dry by their co-pilots. When Zetian sets herself up to become a concubine-pilot, she does so with the plan to assassinate the male pilot who caused her sister's death. Features a polyamorous main relationship.

Bonus AKA I haven't read these yet but they seem really cool:

Survival Instincts by May Dawney

Lynn Tanner has been surviving the post-apocalypse alone with only her dog for a long time, trusting no one. But when she's forced to travel the dangerous remains of New York City alongside another woman, her priorities are challenged. Is staying alone really the best way to stay alive?

These Burning Stars by Bethany Jacobs

When con-artist Jun Ironway gets her hands on possible proof of the powerful Nightfoot family, controllers of interplanetary travel, committing genocide, she has in her hands a chance of taking them and their monopoly down. But the family and their allies won't go down easily, and sends two brutal clerics to stop her.

Everfair by Nisi Shawl

A neo-victorian alternate history, in which a part of Congo was kept safe from colonisation, becoming Everfair, a safe haven for both the people of Congo and former slaves returning from America. Here they must struggle to keep this home safe for them all.

[aroaessidhe]

Sci-fi books where a queer woman has the ghost of an annoying dead guy in her head

*Misery is nonbinary (she/they) and who’s in her head is not dead or a guy but I’m counting it, okay

[queer-book-character-tournament]

Character, book, and author names under the cut

James St. Clair- Dark Rise Series by C.S. Pacat

Shuos Jedao- Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee

Jack Alston/Lord Hawthorn- The Last Binding Trilogy by Freya Marske

Alastair Carstairs- The Last Hours by Cassandra Clare

[excavatinglizard]

What if you were a guy who was actually a girl who was actually kind of the guy

And they were both war criminals <3

(Or, I hyperfixated on the Machineries of Empire series for a week and all I got was a handful of new blorbos and a desire to do more linear algebra)

There were a couple versions of this drawing before this one, here:

First sketch, first digital drawing, finished the sketch since I didn’t like the digital version, did another digital version based off the finished sketch

Anyway

I love her <3 and her gender and identity fuckery <3

[lilyblisslys]

obsessed conceptually with a fire emblem 3 houses style murder academy sim, except you’re Jedao teaching ethics to Shuos assassins. Mikodez can still turn into a dragon for some reason though

[thelastofthebookworms]

Feel free to make suggestions. I may make another poll if there are enough candidates.

More polls.

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

[proto-language]

ninefox gambit: there is a bisexual guy in my head when there shouldn't be, and it is making my life hard

a memory called empire: there isn't a bisexual guy in my head when there should be, and it is making my life hard

[a-green-onion]

Formal Sexybeing Contest Intro Post

Greetings, citizen, and welcome to the Glove Kink Cinematic Universe Sexybeing Contest, run by our Most Glorious and Immortal Emperor, @a-green-onion (you can also call me Tooth; pronouns he/him).

What is the Glove Kink Cinematic Universe? More commonly called Lesbian Space Atrocities, or "that microgenre in contemporary queer sci-fi/fantasy, yeah you know, that one", it consists of books like Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee, the Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson, or the Murderbot books by Martha Wells (and many more--these are just my favorites).

If you don't want to see this, the tag to block is #gkcu sexybeing contest. If things get too busy I'll make a separate sideblog for it.

Authors of books being discussed are welcome to participate in any way they want.

Current Status: Nomination form is open until 3/8/2023 or sometime around then-ish.

If you want to be @-mentioned when polls open, you can put your url in the nomination form or reply to this post.

Rules:

Submit characters you personally are attracted to: sexually, romantically, sensually, affectionately, aesthetically, familially, out of a sick sense of horrified fascination, etc. Anyone whose magnetic presence generates desire for you.

Submit as many characters as you like, but one character per form, please! I know we all love a well-functioning bureaucracy.

Only characters from contemporary novels in the sci-fi/fantasy/speculative fiction literary movement sometimes called Lesbian Space Atrocities/Glove Kink Cinematic Universe/etc. This literary movement is nebulously defined and I reserve my right as Emperor to be arbitrary, ridiculous, and unfair in what I include and exclude. You can find some of my personal criteria in the nomination form.

No characters from the Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir. There are too many fans of that series and I want this to be a chill low-volume tournament.

Nominations close in a week or whenever I remember to close them.

I'll make brackets of some kind using the answers and then you can vote on them by Tumblr poll. Which characters do or don't make it into the contest will depend in part on how many nominations each character gets, so nominate characters even if you're confident someone else has already nominated them.

Corruption: This genre is all about the uses and abuses of power! As such, it is my duty as Emperor to abuse my limited power. If your favorite book doesn't quite meet my personal criteria for inclusion? If your favorite character got eliminated but it was really close you swear, maybe Tumblr glitched and counted it wrong? Something else you want from me? I'm morally flexible. Do not threaten or blackmail me; I'm pretty sure that's against Tumblr TOS and also it's not fun. Bribes are welcomed; do not spend real actual money to bribe me. Seduction is technically possible but I'm in a sexually and romantically monogamous relationship so you'll have to get creative.

Rules are subject to change whenever I feel like it.

Have fun!

[haveyoureadthisscifibook]

vote YES if you have finished the entire book.

vote NO if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

[tin-tweezers]

read “Ninefox Gambit”

I’m dead serious. the “Machineries of Empire” series - buy and read them immediately.

Do you like intricate genderfucked sci-fi world building powered by arcane mathematical space magic

Do you like raw characters careening back and forth between despair and mania, who want to make the world a better place, but commit atrocities and sacrifice the lives of millions in the name of that dream

Do you like piercing analysis of imperialism, empire manifested both in violence and in culture, the ways entire cultures are swallowed by empire but also resist and thrive in hiding and exile

Do you like mind control

Do you like characters who crave mind control and the security of conformity, a found family that would die for you, and have it taken all away

Do you like people being made into weapons, objectified to the point they can’t conceive of themselves any other way

Do you like immortals playing games of mutually assured destruction, cat and mouse enemies-to-allies-to-I-would-kill-you-but-I-need-you-you-are-the-only-one-who-understands-me-and-I-love-the-way-you-hurt-me

Do you like quiet little green onions growing in quiet little pots, kept on the desks of dictators to remind themselves that they are human

Do you like questioning the definition of human

Do you like unreliable narrators

Do you like conflicting factions and political alliances and backstabbing and assassins

Do you like canonical edge play dubcon sex scenes that expand the reader’s understanding of the characters’ emotional topography and motivations, and which ALSO scratch a deep and vicious Dead Dove Don’t Eat itch deep inside you

Do you like cats

Listen to me. This series is 50 content warnings in a trench coat. I read all the books and short stories in two weeks over the summer. I think they rewrote me on a chemical level.

You need to read “Machineries of Empire”

I am extremely normal about this

[catboymettaton]

hi gamers my book blorbos got out of hand for a venn diagram so here's a spreadsheet instead! please note that I haven't read Baru, Poppy War, or Teixcalaan in many months. book series for those who don't know: Machineries of Empire, Baru Cormorant, The Poppy War, Teixcalaan, The Locked Tomb

extremely open to discussion and debate on this. please tell me your thoughts. if you have any questions feel free to ask and I will be happy to clarify!

light spoilers for Harrow the Ninth, very vaguely spoilers for later books of Baru/Poppy War

[ID: spreadsheet comparing Cheris, Baru, Rin, Mahit, Gideon, and Harrow. Full transcript under cut + in alt text.]

Transcript: format is the title of the row, with the characters' entries below

Lesbian

Cheris: Yes, sort of word of god but like you can tell

Baru: Yes - major plot point

Rin: No, definitely likes men

Mahit: Definitely likes women but unsure if she likes men

Gideon and Harrow: Yes

Ethnic minority

All are marked yes except Gideon and Harrow are marked No (in universe)

Autism

Cheris: I don't remember but probably tbh

Baru: Yes

Rin: Probably not? Again don't remember

Mahit: Probably not?

Gideon: idk

Harrow: Yes

Belonging as a theme

Cheris: Yes - Cheris feels like an outsider and that's why she's a Kel

Baru: No. Baru has a place where she belongs and she chooses to leave it

Rin, Gideon, Harrow: Yes

Mahit: Yes - one of the major themes of the book in fact

Empire

All are marked yes

Part of the empire

Cheris, Rin, Gideon, Harrow: yes

Baru: Yes, due to being colonized

Mahit: No - major theme is her being an outsider

Works against the empire

Cheris and Rin: Yes

Baru: Yes in her own special way

Mahit: No - she doesn't really do much about the empire as a whole iirc

Harrow and Gideon: No

Originally fights for the empire

Cheris, Rin, Harrow: Yes

Baru: Yes but like. In her own special way

Mahit: No, see above

Gideon: Not really

God(s)

Cheris: Nope only math

Baru, Rin, Gideon, Harrow: Yes

Mahit: No

Family plays a meaningful role

All are marked Yes except Mahit, who is marked No

Good relationship with family

Cheris and Baru: Yes

Rin, Gideon, Harrow: No

Mahit: Unsure

Poor relationship with family

Cheris and Baru: No

Rin, Gideon, Harrow: Yes

Mahit: Unsure

image two

Person in Head

Cheris, Mahit: Yes

Baru, Harrow: Yes (second book onwards)

Rin: Yes (second book onwards, debatable. he's more of a dream that haunts her than a real person but he comes up a decent amount)

Gideon: No

Bi guy in head

Cheris, Mahit: Yes

Baru, Gideon, Harrow: No

Rin: Possibly

Person in head is supposed to be there

Cheris, Mahit: Yes

Baru, Rin, Gideon: No

Harrow: Yes but like she didn't install quite right

In Space!!!!!

Cheris, Mahit, Gideon, Harrow: Yes

Baru, Rin: No

Can't go home again

Cheris, Baru, Mahit: Yes

Rin: No home to return to

Gideon and Harrow: They're not supposed to but they do

Plot relevant sex

Cheris: No, with other characters there is though

Baru: Yes :(

Rin: No but there's plot relevant kiss?

Mahit: Yes

Gideon: No

Harrow: Depends on if you count regrowing an arm as sex

War

All marked yes

Attends Special School™

Cheris, Baru, Rin: Yes

Mahit: We really don't know much about her upbringing

Gideon and Harrow: Is Canaan House "school"?

Dreams of person in head

Cheris: Depends on if you count the Jedao flashback montage

Baru: Yes

Rin: Yes, major way he manifests

Mahit: Not that I recall but she gets some of his memories

Gideon: No

Harrow: Yes

Body weirdness related to person in head

Cheris: Yes - she feels like her center of mass is wrong

Baru: Yes, half blind

Rin: No

Mahit: Yes

Gideon: No

Harrow: Spoilers.

Fights with a sword

Cheris, Rin, Gideon: Yes

Baru: When the situation calls for it

Mahit: No

Harrow: She tries

Full of gender

Cheris, Mahit: Yes (head induced)

Baru, Gideon: Yes (lesbian)

Rin: No

Harrow: Not to me personally but maybe for lesbians

[excavatinglizard]

✨ Hello all it is that time once again!! ✨

Do you like queer sci-fi and fantasy? Do you see the same books recommended everywhere? After a year I’m back with a collection of strange and sometimes dark books that you may have heard of, but I hope I’ve found a few you haven’t! I’m just chucking these into the void so if you enjoy these recs or have read any, let me know!

Meet Us by the Roaring Sea, Akil Kumarasamy

Honeycomb, Joanne M Harris

Hot Head, Simon Ings

Are You Listening, Tillie Walden

Hell Followed With Us, Andrew Joseph White

Enigma, Peter Milligan and Duncan Fegredo

Ninefox Gambit, Yoon Ha Lee

Salt Slow, Julia Armfield

Never Have I Ever, Isabel Yap

All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From, Izzy Wasserstein

I’ll put the full descriptions below the cut, but as always I’d love to hear if you have any more recommendations!

Meet Us by the Roaring Sea, by Akil Kurasamy

Meet Us by the Roaring Sea by Akil Kumarasamy was one of the strangest books I’ve read this year, but also one of my favourites by far. This is a story within a story, following both the near-future second-person narration of a woman training an AI while grieving her mother, and the lives of a group of Tamil medical students. This is a story about grief and the sensationalization of war and the things we do to live each day—but at its heart, it’s a story about women who love each other in whatever way they can. This book has some of the most gorgeous prose I’ve encountered in a long time, and it’s strange and meandering and contemplative.

Honeycomb, by Joanne M. Harris

Honeycomb by Joanne M. Harris follows the well-trodden path of fairy stories—a child swapped, a woman seeing what she was never meant to and being blinded for it—and slowly expands into an intricate web of stories and characters. Worlds within worlds within stories make up this book, and the illustrations by Charles Vess bring everything to life. The characters in these stories feel ancient in a way I can’t explain, and if you enjoyed the Starless Sea you’ll almost certainly enjoy this.

Are You Listening, by Tillie Walden

Are You listening is a book that I’ve picked up over and over again—it’s a graphic novel which I can finish in one sitting, and each time I have to sit and think and just feel afterwards. This is a story of a girl who’s run away from home, and who encounters another woman heading on her own way. What started as an escape becomes a road trip across Texas full of cats and shifting roads and tiny quiet moments. Strange and dreamlike at times, this book manages to make me cry over each character and their individual stories every time.

Tw for references to SA

Hell Followed With Us

Hell Followed With Us is one of those books that I didn’t realize how hard it was hitting me until I finished and couldn’t function for two hours. This book follows a young man in a world plagued by a disease that makes mindless monsters out of its victims—only he’s been infected by the church he was raised under, and he’s slowly turning into something much worse. Benji tries to escape, but his past isn’t ready to let him go just yet and the infection is only getting worse. The author describes this book as beginning as a ‘fit of rage’, which is truly the only way to describe it. While this is technically a YA book, beware of body horror, transphobia, religious extremism and disease. Somehow this book managed to look inside me and see so many things I’d never been able to put into words, all bundled up in a mass of viscera and grieving boys.

Enigma, by Peter Milligan

I discovered this comic through a newsletter from Charlie Jane Anders, and then proceeded to absolutely lose my mind over it and have to tell everyone I know about it. Enigma is a story about a man stuck in a dead-end job and a dead-end relationship, who suddenly finds that the characters of his favourite childhood superhero comic have come to life. The art style is gorgeous though it changes throughout the book, and Enigma swerves between a vast and bizarre story of gods in wells and far too many lizards, to incredibly intimate moments and interesting characters. Be prepared for body horror and a constant general sense of unease.

Ninefox Gambit, by Yoon Ha Lee

If last year was giving in to reading Gideon, this was my year of going insane over Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee (this is sadly the only space opera on this year’s list). Ninefox Gambit has everything I love in science fiction—casually queer characters, intricate universes, strange definitions of self and TRAUMA. Someone please get these two some therapy. When a major position of power is attacked, Kel Cheris finds herself with a promotion to general and the disgraced strategist who massacred his crew inside her head. The thing that stands out to me about Yoon Ha Lee’s work is his characterizations—even the most minor character has quirks to make them feel like a person, which is only stronger in the main characters.

Salt Slow, by Julia Armfield

Saltslow is the first of three anthologies on this list, and it’s the debut collection by Julia Armfield (who wrote Our Wives Under the Sea. For an idea of what you’re getting into). Following the trend of strange and a little dark this year, a lot of these stories border on horror and explore experiences like losing your ability to sleep, shape shifting through puberty and being a roadie to a band that leaves mass violence in its wake. While Our Wives Under the Sea will definitely stay my favourite Julia Armfield book, Saltslow managed to pack a whole lot into such short stories full of queer women and trans feels.

Never Have I Ever, by Isabel Yap

I picked up Never Have I Ever on a whim and I’m so glad I did, since it definitely ranked in my top anthologies of the year. Never Have I Ever is a collection of short stories, often centered around Filipino and Japanese folk lore (although there is one story about a wizard in San Francisco making a love potion, what of it). This collection ranges from funny to sad and explores Filipino culture, the anti-drug campaigns and the horror that is growing up. Often short stories feel unfinished but every part of this collection felt well thought out and polished, plus the cover is gorgeous.

All the Hometowns you Can’t Stay Away From, by Izzy Wasserstein

The final anthology, All The Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From is mostly sci-fi with a handful of fantasy-leaning stories, though whatever technology there may be takes a back-seat to the characters who stood out as the heart of each piece. Unplaces, a story set up as a researcher’s notes in the margins of an atlas, desperately trying to make the world a better place in whatever way she can, and Everything the Sea Takes, It Returns—a story about living after the end of the world—were the two that really stuck with me. The writing here is perhaps more straightforward than some other entires on the list, but each story is a perfect little piece of character and emotions which truly make an excellent anthology.

Anyway, that’s this year’s list! Go forth and read more strange queer books, and support your local libraries!

[azurevoltage]

Shuos Mikodez. Also a war criminal.

[fuwafuwashi]

I just think I just think I just think that in the beginning she wanted to be a part of something larger than herself so badly, she wanted to conform in the matrix of the larger Us and even through all that she was still so human she couldn’t help but listen to the ghost in her head and realized he was human too. in the end she again gave up who she was for the hope of something greater

she was such a good Kel but god she was a better Person