#PARADOX PLANET

[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.

[wonartarts]

Me: I'm gonna make a meme draw over about Raging Bolt

Also Me: *blacks out and does this*

also yes this is based on the Dreadnoughtus fight in Prehistoric Planet

[uncanny-tranny]

When you grow up, you might feel afraid that you would hate your older self if you met them. It's weird to imagine that you could be so different than who you are now.

I think it's freeing, though, to have grown so much that you would almost be unrecognizable. There are still glimmers of who I was in the mosaic of who I am today, but I have grown and developed in such a way that... I am not just me anymore. I think that's a big aspect of growing. You won't always be this way, and that realization can make it easier to embody everything you want to be because now you aren't chained to the idea that you can only be one way, that you are beholden to everything around you.

[sallyastral]

Tonight I started reading theories about extraterrestrial life. I am an extremely paranoid person and these theories certainly don't help, but I enjoy reading them and so I do it.

According to the Drake equation, there should be about 20 extraterrestrial intelligent civilizations in the Milky Way alone. And we're off to a bad start.

There are two possible reasons why we have never encountered even one: the Dark Forest hypothesis or the Great Filter theory.

Let's start from the first: let's say that a person is in a dark forest, aware of the fact that there are other predators around whose existence, however, has no proof whatsoever. This is the same situation in which humanity finds itself according to the Fermi paradox. Humans live in a world where there is a very high probability that other forms of life exist, but of which there is no actual proof.

Now: would this person ever scream for help? Probably not, because they would let other predators know their location. And that's what these possible extraterrestrial presences are probably doing: they hide, because they are afraid and paranoid that other forms of life may be stronger than them.

The problem? Humanity is literally playing the person screaming in the forest. For more or less 100 years now, so since radio was invented, we have been transmitting every aspect of our life into space. This applies to radio, TV, phone calls and chats.

If there is a civilization out there, in 100 light years it will know what happened on our earth this year, and right now it knows what happened 100 years ago.

We are extremely stupid.

The theory of the Great Filter, on the other hand, states that no civilization is yet equipped with the necessary "colonising" technology since there is an obstacle to achieving this goal, a great filter, which makes the "interplanetary colonization" scenario extremely implausible.

If we want to be optimistic, the filter is "in the past", in the sense that it is very rare that intelligent life forms develop and therefore we, as human beings, have already overcome the obstacle and are about to colonize the Universe. This scenario would be all the more probable the more habitable planets were discovered but devoid of intelligent life forms and would have as a consequence the fact that one day we will probably find ourselves sailing alone in the infinite night (so sad, eh?).

Thinking pessimistically, however, the filter is "in the future", in the sense that, like us, billions of intelligent species exist and have existed, but they have all failed in their attempt to colonize the Universe: this could mean, for example, that it is not possible to colonize planets between one star and another and therefore the fate of each civilization is inextricably linked to the fate of its mother star, or even that all intelligent civilizations arrive at self-destruction before being able to reach a certain technological level, or so many other things… anyway, if that were the case, we should start preparing ourselves as a species to face some great obstacle that could spell our end.

Also, any contact with an alien civilization could only indicate one thing: we'd all be screwed, human and alien, because it means the filter is in the future for both of us.

But why hasn't it happened yet? Well, if at this precise moment someone were looking at the Earth from the Andromeda Galaxy, they would see the earth of 2,537,000 years ago: therefore, as for us some habitable exoplanets appear uninhabited, the Earth would also be devoid of intelligent life forms for them, making it impossible to establish a contact.

[jumpscaregoose]

omg guys I can't believe shaman king flowers predicted cozmez in 2014

[claires-audience]

I like to think that there’s aliens out there watching us wrap our heads around trying to figure out time paradoxes the way animals react to seeing their own reflection, and finding it cute. They are probably laughing their assess off on alien instagram on every frickin time travel conspiracy page.

[voidarkana]

I keep forgetting to post in here, so let's just pretend I don't, have this past paradox Furret as an apology 👐 But anyways, let's talk about it!

As I already said, Long Fangs is the past paradox form for Furret, and it's mainly based off of Carnotaurus, but also just some cartoon prehistory tropes in general, like the horns and the saber teeth.

Unlike regular Furret, Long Fangs can run very fast, not just walk, mainly because of the already stablished Carnotaurus inspiration, who were really fast.

That's it from me for now, also as always here is its cry ✨

[aidenwaites]

Actually I think one of my favorite tropes as a whole is "small cast of characters trapped in very isolated, very small setting during a horrific/dangerous/impossible scenario" its just that the stakes are much higher when they're in space

[dougielombax]

DON’T make me anchor your thread I swear to GOD!

[howlingaround]

If I had a nickel for every time the higher dimensional antagonists of a high concept sci fi story are ambigously described as Giant Invisible spiders, I would have two nickels

Which isnt a lot but its weird how it happened twice

[raurquiz]

#happybirthday #elizabethdebicki #actress #Ayesha #GuardiansoftheGalaxyVol2 #gotgvol3 #TheGreatGatsby #Macbeth #TheManfromUNCLE #Everest #ValerianandtheCityofaThousandPlanets #TheCloverfieldParadox #Widows #PeterRabbit #Tenet #TheNightManager #TheTale #TheCrown

[eampro-blog]

Writing Prompt #28 The Orb of Time

[In 2082, a team of human colonizers on a distant planet uncover a mysterious ruin of a long-lost alien civilization. As they explore, they discover a dangerous artifact called the Eve Orb that has the power to control time itself. They face a moral dilemma. Keep it or destroy it.]

Write a short story based on the writing prompt. Challenge your writing abilities and see where your imagination takes you.

[queenerdloser]

did a trivia game with my fam over the holidays and a question came up about fermi's paradox (what is the thing fermi's paradox is supposed to describe or s/t like that). i immediately knew the answer and not one of my family members knew. when trying to explain why i knew what the hell fermi's paradox was, i was struggling not to bring up a poem about loneliness that made me so insane about fermi's paradox i wrote my own poem in response which is one of my few published poems and probably my favorite thing i've written in the last five years.

but yeah. i just. know about it mom, lol.

[nonstandardrepertoire]

sometimes techno-utopian bullshit artists or whatever get in a real tizzy because they assume that any technologically capable species would just be ~driven~ to set out and build a galaxy-spanning civilization, and cite as evidence the tendency of life on Earth to spread out into new niches over time

and like, sure, yeah, if the moon and Mars were temperate, habitable places with balmy seas and rich soils, i wouldn't be surprised to see people living there permanently some day, but like

consider Siberia. consider Antarctica. certainly, people do live there! but they have never been Hot New Places for real estate booms, and the Antarctic outposts are not exactly self-sustaining places. to a first degree of approximation (and, let's be real, to a second and third degree too — at its yearly peak, about 0.00006% of the world's population lives there), no one wants to live at the south pole, and setting up shop down there is generally considered far too difficult and impractical to be worth it, which is why almost all of the people there are doing government-funded science and not privately owned business

next to the moon or Mars, Antarctica is the Garden of Eden. the gravity is right! the atmospheric pressure is right! the atmosphere is breathable! there's water all around you that you don't even have to mine for! there are fish and seals and penguins and other edible things right there in the sea! even if we can solve the engineering problems of keeping people alive on Mars, who would want to go there? it sounds fucking miserable. sure, some scientists, probably! but finding enough people to set up even one measly city on Mars? come the fuck on

space is viciously hostile to human life. science fiction likes to gloss over the tedious misery of it because science fiction is first and foremost about telling stories, and you can tell much more interesting stories when you don't get bogged down in the details of practicality of physical limitations. but life isn't a science fiction story. there's every reason to believe living on the moon or Mars will always be a perilous, difficult, Earth-dependent thing to do, and until i see a booming society flourishing on Antarctica, i simply cannot believe that it will be remotely appealing to the number of people you'd need to build a multi-planetary population

[little-dikdik]

Thank God I installed Win 11 on my laptop. It pissed me off so much I saved money on buying Win for my new PC.

Today is the day I said auf wiedersehen to Windows 11. It's just way to annoying to deal with.

See you in the next week when I'll get everything I need to work properly.

[deadman-is-a-moron]

Nothing matches the high of integrating a subject in Stellaris and seeing all of your resources instantly drop into a deficit