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ceciliatan · 3 months

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Are we in a Golden Age of Queer & Trans SF/F?

Hello and welcome to another ctan monthly update! It’s Pride Month, so today let’s talk about queer science fiction and fantasy. First some housekeeping: Mailchimp has been driving me nuts, with the newsletter sometimes displaying so tiny on mobile devices it was illegible. I’m trying on a new template today, with new fonts. Please let me know if this one looks better to you (or worse!) than before so I can keep improving it. Second, my apology this is a bit later than I intended, but I had knee surgery on Wednesday and as you can imagine it’s put a bit of a cramp into my schedule. I’ve discovered I would rather have my knee hurt and my brain work than be “pain free” but feel seasick from narcotics. Apparently opioids are not my friends! Bleah. And now to my slightly linkbait-y topic: are we in a “Golden Age” of queer and trans SF/F? Yes, yes we are, end of essay. Just kidding, of course I’m going to explain WHY my answer is yes. For the SFWA Nebulas Conference this month, I had proposed this question as a panel topic and was highly gratified it got chosen—even better, they let me moderate the panel, and SFWA populated it with a terrific slate that included Jordan Kurella, Charlie Jane Anders, Zabé Ellor, and L.P. Kindred. (I had also proposed “are we in a golden age of Asian SF/F?” which I also believe has a yes answer, but that one didn’t make the slate, so I’m trying to arrange it as a Zoom panel for later this summer for Capricon’s online programming. Stay tuned.) Jordan unfortunately had to miss the Nebs, so the other four of us soldiered on without him. One terrific thing about the slate of panelists is we had basically three generations represented. (If only we’d had a Boomer, we could have had four generations!) We each had different entry points to SF/F. So when I asked “Who was the first character in SF/F you read who you knew was queer?” we had four drastically different answers. Illustrating how far we’ve come: I, the Gen X “elder” on the panel, was the only one whose answer was a villain. Back when, it was a common trope to make a villain “extra evil” by slapping a coating of sexual deviance on them. Baron Harkonnen in DUNE was the first “gay” character I encountered. If only I’d stumbled upon Samuel R. Delany before Frank Herbert, eh? I didn’t get to Delany until I was in college. The first positive depiction of a gay character I could think of I read around 1990, in Ellen Kushner’s lovely book Swordspoint (Amazon, Bookshop), but the gay relationship between Alec and St. Vier is so delicately written there’s a kind of plausible deniability about it. But at least they’re both main characters—heroes, even! That book remains one of my faves to this day. Swordspoint was published in 1987, and right after I read it, another important book was published, Uranian Worlds, a bibliography compiled by Eric Garber and Lyn Paleo. Billed as “A Guide to Alternative Sexuality in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror,” the book had first been published in 1980, and by 1990 needed a new edition because so many examples had to be added. Uranian Worlds was a complete bibliography of EVERY short story, book, or novella that included EVERY bit of representation of LGBTQ characters in sf/f/h for nearly fifty years… and it was only 280 pages long. Think about that. The editors of Uranian Worlds had scoured literature for every possible inclusion, small presses as well as large ones, queer lit mags as well as Asimov’s, for decades. And what they came up with just barely filled one not-that-big book. Nowadays, we have that much queer sf/f/h being published every year. If that ain’t a Golden Age, what is? The panel also talked about who the first SF/F writers were who we knew were queer or trans: for me it was Samuel R. Delany and Rachel Pollack (Rest in Peace, Rachel!) Now, I know more than I can count just from among my Twitter mutuals—and that’s not even counting the hundred-or-so queer writers I edited at Circlet Press! But speaking of writers being out. We discussed whether an author “owes” it to the audience to come out. Short answer: no. If you missed the discourse a few years back about “the helicopter story,” I won’t recap it here, but suffice to say it was just one high-profile example of an author being attacked online for apparently either being insufficiently “out” or not “visibly” conforming to audience notions of queerness, resulting in the author being treated like some kind of interloper or exploitative outsider…. which they might not have been. At this panel was the first time I felt there was consensus in the room that harm has been been done to queer and trans writers (by members of our own communities!) with the incessant questioning of “authenticity” and the demands on the public baring of identity. We’ve sharpened our knives to attack the systems that oppress us, but we can all too easily turn them on each other if/when we judge someone is “part of the problem.” As LP succinctly put it: we have to allow writers some grace. Zabé made an excellent point: you can’t treat sexual identity marginalizations exactly the same way you treat other marginalizations. Sexuality and gender are fluid, complex, and changing. There’s a huge difference between a white author pretending to be an author of color “for clout,” and an author who is in the closet or in transition writing about queer characters as a way to figure out their own sexuality or explore their identity. Charlie Jane mentioned that she and I know multiple writers who started out looking like “straight women getting off on writing about gay men” who are living as gay men now. Give people grace. Not everyone has the same safety, opportunity, or self-awareness to be “out.” In the late 80s and early 1990s, right after Swordspoint we had a small spate of queer flowering in SF/F, with Melissa Scott and Tanya Huff and Mercedes Lackey (Vanyel is the ultimate “bury your gays” trope, though…!) and others. Book publishing in the 1990s also went through a pro-diversity spasm, self-castigating about being too white, and SF/F being too male-dominated, as well. There was much talk about trying to diversify the writers being seen in anthologies, in best-of lists, and on award nomination slates. But the writers couldn’t just appear out of thin air. Not then. But they can now. We literally conjure them out of the aether—the Internet. What’s different now that has led to such increased numbers of queer and trans writers, but also the vastly increased representation of authors of color? It’s the Internet. The same Internet that is problematic as described above, nonetheless allows marginalized writers a visibility we wouldn’t have otherwise. It means that, for example, Hugo awards nominators can discover writers somewhere other than on a bookstore retail shelf. Editors can find and “meet” writers somewhere other than within New York publishing’s white-dominated cocktail circuit. This time when 21st century diversity initiatives have been launched, thanks to the power of the Internet, the writers and editors who emerged have been able to network and build a privilege structure of our own. Some of that happens with the help of SFWA, with things like the AAPI or BIPOC meetups at the Nebulas, and sometimes it happens with us building our own email lists, Discords, online magazines, anthologies, you name it. Instead of backsliding when the industry loses interest in the latest diversity “fad”, we’ve been able to keep expanding the opportunities for each other, to keep pulling each other up the ladder. It’s still not as strong or wide-reaching as some “old boy networks” out there, but SFWA itself is a far more diverse and welcoming place than it was in the 20th century, and the Nebulas conference really demonstrated that. There was much more said on the panel, of course, including what the four of us would consider a Platinum Age to be. (Btw, if you register as a Nebulas online attendee, btw, you can see the archived videos of all the panels from this year’s conference, including ours, and also participate in SFWA online programming all year round.) One final thought: it’s worth remembering that not only is this proliferation of queer and trans voices in the sf/f genres a massive improvement over 35, 25, or even 15 years ago, it’s also happening at the same time as a ton of book banning and book burning all across the USA. In fact, I believe book banning is so hot right now BECAUSE there are so many books coming out that don’t conform to the heterosexual conservative norms. SF/F has always been a place to dream of being different, and the genre is finally realizing its subversive potential. In the 1980s and ’90s we used to march through the streets chanting “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.” It feels to me like within the SF/F world, people finally have. DGC Vol 4 is live! Another month, another new edition! Volume 4 (of 13) is now live in Kindle Unlimited. In book 4, Moondog 3 hits the road for a major cross country tour and Daron must contend with a homophobic opening act, a budding friendship/attraction with a rock journalist, and the inexorable magnetism of Ziggy pulling him into his orbit every night on stage. READ IT NOW IN KU: https://amzn.to/3VuJvxN AND DGC VOL 1 is now WIDE! Book one is now on sale at various other outlets besides Amazon, although check out the “A+ content” I’ve added to the Amazon page, snazzy, no? Find vol one on Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble paperback, Barnes & Noble Nook, and request the ebook to libraries through Overdrive. OR ADD IT TO YOUR GOODREADS TBR: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9447189-daron-s-guitar-chronicles WIP Report I’m excited to report that one of the short stories I wrote while trying to get my brain back in gear after I had COVID in September has sold to Julia Rios for Worlds of Possibility! The title is “This Goodly Frame, The Earth,” which is a Shakespeare quote because I failed to think of anything else and Shakespeare is a good plan B. It’s about intergenerational diaspora trauma among the women of a filipina-american family, eldest daughter syndrome, and what happens when a ship full of humans that can bend space and time returns to an Earth in climate crisis far sooner than expected. It’s kind of hopepunk, I guess? Meanwhile, Windmark, a.k.a. “the unexpected dragon book,” has passed 50,000 words, but I feel like I’ve barely gotten out of act one? But I’m notorious for misjudging how far into a book I actually am. Until I’m actually done I really can’t tell you where the act breaks or beats are. I just know when it is done, then it will be obvious. A wisecracking nonbinary power bottom just showed up to boss around the hero (from the bottom, of course) and is in danger of taking over the story. I think I’m having the problem that both my main characters are suppressing their emotions so much because of the past trauma that made them hate each other, that they are coming across kind of flat and all the secondary characters seem much more colorful and interesting! Clearly something has to crack soon… I’m also having the problem that I’ve set up a really misogynistic culture, which means our heroine and all the female characters are very much living under a constant threat of sexual violence. I know we’re in the post-Game of Thrones era, which was rapey as all get out, but I really did not set out to write what is essentially female body horror with this book. I sidestepped the issue in The Prince’s Boy by having no female characters… except in the end there is the body horror once the villain comes into physical contact with our heroes. I have to figure out where this one is going to land and how exactly my heroine is going to come into her power. It’s funny, I had half convinced myself to just write another all-male cast book… and then this female-bodied character put her foot down and demanded to be written. So I just have to figure out how to do her justice. AND NOW PHOTOS FROM THE NEBULAS CONFERENCE Met Nghi Vo in real life for the first time! Many Circlet Press alums were at the Nebs (and Moniquill won one!) Caught up with David D. Levine (another Circlet alum), here with Vela Roth and Amy Young-Leith (and me) With Kate Pennington. Who knows a lot about whales! And SB Divya. And I have way more photos than this but this is enough picspam, don'tcha think? Tour Dates & Upcoming Appearances 2024: - July 11-14: Readercon, Boston area - August 7-11: SABR National Convention, Minneapolis - October 16-20: World Fantasy Con, Niagara Falls 2025: - January 17-20: Arisia, Cambridge, MA (new hotel: Hyatt Cambridge) - March 12-15: ICFA, Orlando, FL - August 13-17: Worldcon in Seattle, WA Upcoming Cons Readercon last year was a really great time, with a very good outdoor hangout area that turned into a nonstop literary green room party. I just got my schedule and it looks like tremendous fun. July 11-13 in Quincy, Massachusetts (just a few miles south of Boston proper). My reading will be on Thursday night. Should I read from the unexpected dragon book? Or the hopepunk story? Or something smuttier? Hmmm...... Parting Thoughts Okay, no book recs this time, but I will leave you with a link to one recipe, because it is strawberry season here in New England, and that means it is strawberry PIE season, as well. It’s also the season when fresh basil starts showing up in the farmer’s market. Some years ago I took the idea for a dessert we often see: a sort of dessert salad of strawberries served cut up with chopped basil, with a dressing made of balsamic vinegar and maple syrup, but I made it a pie instead. Find the whole recipe at my blog: https://blog.ceciliatan.com/archives/2412 By next month maybe I’ll have read some of the books in my pile and will have some recommendations… I have to finish the proofs and edits on Daron’s books 11, 12, and 13 first, though! Until then! -ctan Read the full article

#monthlyupdate #nebulas #queerpolitics #sfwa

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cartograffiti · 2 years

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Books that get funky with bisexual mains

...and one movie.

Hi, I'm bisexual and I read a lot! There are a lot of bi characters of sensational quality in books, but this is not a compilation of all the bi characters I have encountered, or even all the ones in books I recommend! Instead, this post is about books (and one movie) that I think do interesting things with writing about bisexuality, whether that's depicting nuanced experiences, or structuring entire plots that wouldn't be possible without a bi main.

I'm also not trying to claim these are higher quality than "bi the way" representation, but I think it's fun to do a roundup of books that go deeper. Some of these write-ups contain spoilers, but I didn't include anything I feel I personally would be disappointed to know going in.

Spotlight on: you know what that is? growth.

These are all books that make me think about bisexuality's journey in popular fiction, as well as being about personal journeys.

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan. This is a very fun YA book that explores, pokes, and sends up tropes of both high fantasy and contemporary coming-of-age stories. It follows Elliot throughout his teen years, including relationships with girls and boys, and growing into his aesthetic tastes and moral compass.

It's funny and heartfelt, and included here because it's unusual both to have a book where such a young person knows he's bisexual before the book begins (Elliot is initially thirteen and has had a crush on a boy before), and where the reader gets to follow a character through the maturation of their queer identity. A lot of YA stories are only about coming out, or only about one relationship, but this is a book about growing into yourself in many ways.

Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner. This is a 1987 cult classic of tremendous influence on the current fantasy scene. GRR Martin, Neil Gaiman, and Megan Whalen Turner are among the authors I know have praised it. It's a fundamental text of the fantasy of manners subgenre, and a great example of the subgenre I wish would coin a name--historical fiction for places that don't exist.

Two of its four core characters are also bi men. One has a variety of relationships, and is our window into the setting's high society, and the other is a professional duelist whose love for a disgraced scholar forces him into a dramatic series of power plays. It's a teacup rose of a book, lots of detail on a small scale, centered on personal stakes. This is a great choice if you want to remember bi representation isn't uber-new, and read about how queerness can be influenced by class.

Slippery Creatures by K.J. Charles. This is the start of a romantic spy thriller trilogy about WWI vet Will Darling, who inherits an antiquarian bookshop and discovers that somewhere in it is hidden a formula that both the government and a criminal organization want.

Will only has one love interest in the trilogy, the warm but secretive Lord Arthur "Kim" Secretan, but the fact that he's bi is never an afterthought. His best friend Maisie is a former girlfriend of his, and he expresses attraction in passing to everyone from Kim's platonic fiancee Phoebe to real world fashion designer Edward Molyneux. Some of his close friends are also bi, which makes for lovely conversations about vintage terminology. "We're ambidextrous." "I think she meant ambisexual."

Spotlight on: Cat Sebastian

Cat Sebastian gets a whole section to herself because she writes many bisexual characters. I'm inevitably going to read one of hers I haven't gotten to yet and wish I'd talked about it here. These three are highlights. Even if you pick up a different one of hers, it'll be great: she's one of very few historical romance writers who does not equate being high on the class ladder with being happier or safer, and in fact some of her characters consider it a moral deal-breaker.

The Queer Principles of Kit Webb. This is a duology with the book shown beside it, a pair of books about a set of posh best friends who fall in love with a set of former highwaymen best friends. Kit would never have turned to crime if he hadn't first been widowed, so the fact that he had a beloved wife once is as loadbearing to the plot of this romance as the fact that he's attracted to men, and Percy in particular.

A lot of romance books shy away from letting their mains have been in love before, ever. Whether it's through having characters think they've "never felt this so deeply before" or giving them ex-lovers who turned evil, they like to play up the present relationship at the expense of past ones, and this book doesn't do that. Because it allows Kit to have experienced romantic love for multiple genders in a way the text values and depends on, it does something I think is really special.

The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes. Sequel-companion to the above, can be read in either order but slightly better second. Marian and Rob are both bisexual, and in this book it doesn't affected plot events, but hugely affects their relationship with each other.

Marian has been married once and is a mother. Pregnancy was difficult for her, and she is afraid of dying if she goes through it again. She will not have sex that has a risk of conception, and cannot trust a partner who isn't fully on board with that. Neither of them had to be bi for them to work it out believably, but because they're bi, it lets them talk on terms of shared experience and trust while discussing the ways their histories shaped their relationships with their own bodies and specific acts. Very few books so explicitly address how your orientation can form your opinions about sex and parenthood well before they become relevant.

Unmasked by the Marquess. I haven't read the other two Regency Imposters books, but I think they're all about queer couples who can pass as m/f on paper? This one certainly is. Alistair is a grumpy bisexual nobleman who just wants to be debt-free and never be embarrassed in his life. Robin is...well, she's a nonbinary schemer disguised as her dead first love so she can help his sister find a husband. Also she went to Oxford.

Robin is only interested in men, but because Alistair is bi, they become interested in each other when he only knows her as a man. Neither of them has the vocabulary for the way she feels about her gender, but they work it out in a way I found believable and sensitive. Alistair was probably written as bi to wrap around Robin's arc, because his desire to be with her doesn't change as he learns about her, it just puts legal marriage on the table. Much more important to this book's inclusion in this post is that before Alistair can feel loved and supported enough to be open about his legally accepted relationship, he first has to hear from his family that they support Alistair's queerness. So often bisexuality is portrayed as only needing to be embraced if you're in a (perceived) "opposite sex" relationship; it's refreshing.

Spotlight on: Nonbinary love interests

Obviously, you don't have to be bi to date nonbinary people, but these two communities have a...twirls hair...special relationship!

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey. This is the start of a duology about, uh, hippo cowboys in 1890s Louisiana. It's alternate history inspired by a real proposition once made by the US government, and it's all about a revenge caper to steal a bunch of hippos.

The leader of the heist team is Winslow Houndstooth, a British-Chinese rancher, and he's our bi protagonist. He talks about his exes, has one very plot-important former hookup, and is in love with Hero, the crew's explosives expert. They're black and nonbinary, and the two of them have very moving synergy. A getting-to-know-you conversation has Winslow bracing himself to be asked "So, where are you from?" and Hero bracing themself to be asked "So, what are you?" and neither question ever comes.

Book Boyfriend by Kris Ripper. PK is an aspiring novelist who's hopelessly in love with his best friend Art, whether or not it's reciprocated. To process his feelings, he writes a romance inspired by the two of them, and tries to work out whether there's a way for bookseller Art to figure out it's a declaration of love without having to talk about it. Haha.

Art comes out as nonbinary about halfway through the book, which means there's a very unusual and skillful portrayal of a character in close first person adjusting to the new pronouns of someone he cares about. More pertinently, PK and another man in his social circle talk about how being bisexual/pansexual means sometimes people who are fine with the idea of being gay are awful to them for their actual sexualities. They go on a fake date so this friend can protect his (also bi/pan) girlfriend from scrutiny, it's great.

The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix. A spectacular start to a new urban fantasy series by the author of Sabriel and The Keys to the Kingdom. I love this book, it's so engaging and deft. Alternate 1980s, layered magic and mundane worlds, folklore references--if you like Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London, try this.

Art student Susan Arkshaw is looking for her biological father and instead runs smack into the gorgeous and talented Merlin, a left-handed warrior from an extended family of magical booksellers. He's also figuring out some gender stuff, and considering transition. I would not be surprised if a later book has Merlin come out as a trans woman, but as of book one, I think he's probably nonbinary. Susan is gender nonconforming in her own way, and, like Unmasked by the Marquess, this is a great dovetailing of bi identity with gender exploration--Susan and Merlin know they'll still be into each other however things develop. (This book also has the fastest introduction of transness in anything I've ever read that wasn't primarily about it. Nix emotionally grounds this book in queerness and familial love.)

Spotlight on: it's not straight if it's queer

Bi people deserve happy m/f relationships too!

Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake by Alexis Hall. The start of a romance series about contestants on a fictional equivalent of The Great British Bake Off. Rosaline is competing to better her and her daughter's financial situation, and earns self-confidence as she goes.

That she's bisexual is very important to her, and creates a lot of plot. She faces significant biphobia from her parents and various people she interacts with, and in many ways biphobia is the chief obstacle of her arc. An ex girlfriend of hers is an important supporting (and supportive) character, and Rosaline has two men as love interests, who have very different attitudes to her sexuality. This is the one to grab if you want to scream in recognition and know a happy ending is coming.

A Merry Little Meet Cute by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone. This is SUCH a good book. It's brand new, read it over Christmas if you celebrate. After all, it's a book set at Christmas, during the filming of a parody Hallmark Channel Christmas movie. Bee Hobbes (alias Bianca von Honey) and Nolan Kowalczk (alias Nolan Shaw) are, respectively, a very successful fat porn star trying to expand her casting and an ex-boy band singer trying to keep his star from burning out. They have massive unattainable celebrity crushes on each other, and now they're starring as love interests! What could possibly happen!

Both Bee and Nolan are bisexual and out professionally. They have wonderful conversations about it throughout the book, including talking about how bi stereotypes about men and women differ, how bi people being seen as sexually provocative or edgy has both helped and hurt their careers, and a sweet conversation that put me on the ground, because Nolan was one of Bee's bi icons when she was a wee teen fan. This is a heartwarming pick, but not sicky-sweet.

All the Feels by Olivia Dade. [EDIT 11/7/22: Thanks to e-b-reads, I took a second look at this book and discovered I had misinterpreted something early in the book and spent the rest of it projecting. Alex is not canonically bi, somehow. I’m not deleting my comments on it because I don’t think it would help anyone if I did, but lol this is the funniest thing I’ve ever done, how did I manage this?]

I didn't read the first book in this series and didn't need to. Lauren Chandra Clegg worked as an ER therapist until she burned out, and now she has a temporary gig babysitting impulsive actor Alexander Woodroe out of doing stuff that the tabloids can spin into bad PR for the last season of the Game of Thrones parody he stars in. They hang out and go on a road trip and annoy each other, it's very charming.

Lauren is straight and Alex is bi. It's somewhat unusual in itself to see a story where a bisexual man has a woman love interest, and more so when she isn't also queer. This book makes reference to his bisexuality regularly, but it's all of a piece with his entertaining personality. He has ADHD and a too-big heart and loves attention. I know guys like this and you probably do too. I love them, Lauren loves this one, ya love to see it, folks. This one's a pretty restful read on the bi angle. It's not a source of tension, just affection. These characters are also in their late 30s, making them the oldest in this post!

Spotlight on: you gotta have friends

Community support my beloved.

The Last Sun and its sequels by K.D. Edwards. I'm pretty sure the protagonist of this series, Rune St. John, is gay, but his queerplatonic partner (Brand) and romantic partner (Addam) are both explicitly bisexual. This is an edgy and tremendously inventive urban fantasy set among New Atlantean noble houses and their power struggles. Rune and Brand do detective and mercenary work that puts them in the path of the undead, time magic, schemes, escapes, a dinosaur... They're very cool and the magic is smart as hell.

It's very important to long-running themes of this series (3 books out of 9 planned) that the central cast has the diversity of sexual identities that it does. A major plotline focuses on Rune's revenge quest against his rapists, and the trio and their allies repeatedly invest in protecting other young people from sexual abuse and exploitation. It's a good example of being able to have a variety of orientations among nasty characters and villains without the text making any villainous implications itself. The core group members co-parent, cook food, pick on each other. They're loved and relatable, and it gives the narrative freedom.

A Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows. This is a lush fantasy-mystery-romance about a political marriage between noblemen from neighboring countries just exiting a long rivalry. They're trying to get to know each other, heal after acts of violence, and also figure out who keeps trying to commit murders in the family home--and also eat the most delicious-sounding food I've read in fantasy recently.

Velasin is gay, and his country is a queerphobic environment. He's moved to live with his bisexual husband Caethari and his family in their very open society. A significant part of both men's lives is queer community. Velasin had boyfriends and queer friends even when he had to be closeted, and he and Caethari consider the support of his queer friends and family crucial in navigating their marriage. There's a lot of emphasis on the interconnected nature of queer identities. Their personal growths relied on kinship and affection with trans people in their lives, and the fact Cae and Velasin have distinct sexual identities from each other is explored to a lesser, but still valuable extent. This is also an m/m book that actively ensures women are visible and active in their lives--a surprising number let women become merely incidental.

Bedrooms and Hallways (1998). Here's the one movie! Why is this in a post about books? Well, because it's my blog, and also because when I was selecting books, I kept comparing them to this movie. This is a romantic comedy about a group of friends, and what happens when one of them meets his brother's friends and the two social groups collide.

In particular, it's a story about a few people in their late 20s and early 30s questioning their sexual orientations. I'm not going to tell you who in it turns out to be bi or anything else, because I didn't know, and it was a complete roller coaster working out over 92 minutes who was going to end up together. It's one of the greatest queer romcoms ever made, that's all you need to know.

Last thoughts:

There are some really glaring shortcomings in the assortment here. Romance and gritty genres have always featured queer characters more prominently, and my exposure to bisexual characters is limited by commercial biases. There are fewer published characters of color in romantic relationships than white characters, fewer queer characters of color, fewer f/f relationships than m/m and especially m/f. It may only be because I'm nonbinary and seek out books with nonbinary characters with effort that I could think of four...and none of those have been well-publicized for the fact.

I thought of quite a few bi characters of color and/or bi women in relationships with women in books I considered including but ultimately didn't, because they just didn't do very much with exploring bisexuality. They're about queerness more broadly, address bi identity only in passing, or feature these characters as secondary friends to (often gay white men) protagonists. This is all ~good representation~ a lot of the time, but it shows me two things. One is that the publishing industry needs to take more risks in portrayals of women's sexuality and the sexuality of characters of color, by including more depth and nuance. The other is that I as an individual reader need to put more effort into seeking out what already exists.

#books #book recs #bookblr #bisexual #bisexual characters #queer romance #queer fantasy #lgbtq books #long post

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fourthousandbooks · 7 months

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A new book tonight, we start The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner, the sequel to Swordspoint, which was a book that I picked up for the oddest recommendation given the source material and thoroughly enjoyed and immediately bought the two following books too.

This book is about Katherine, a young woman who is suddenly brought to the city when her uncle, the Mad Duke Tremontaine, decides to have her trained as a swordswoman in exchange for erasing her family’s debts, and presumably continue to fuck with the city a lot since he’s a returning character with charisma, brains and spite. (He was probably my favorite in the previous book, but I haven’t officially been told by the book that it’s him so we shall both be coy for a bit) but I’m still too early to know all the plots spinning around and which things tie to what. I didn’t have most of the twists called till the very climax of the previous book, which is always fun.

I’m currently 80 pages in and it’s in the part of the story where it sets plot threads spinning and drops hints both about the returning characters and their current states, and establishes the new characters and their agenda, but it’s definitely a slower story than some I’ve read. I’m not complaining, I’m enjoying the slow build and time to get to know what’s going on, it’s an intrigue and swashbuckling book so the set up and the deadly dance is the point and so far I’m enjoying it a lot.

We shall see how long it takes me to read it, it would be nice if I finished it by the end of the week, but who knows! Swordspoint I read 3/4s of in less than a week and then needed a whole month to read the last chunk, so we shall see just what the future has in store.

#new reads #the privilege of the sword #ellen kushner #I like Katherine a lot too #she’s a really fun protagonist and good counterpoint to the other characters #and to the leads of the previous book #I look forward to her having more misadventures #and sticking her nose in other peoples businesses

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bentosandbox · 2 years

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better late than never amirite

i think i haven't posted july (cause I thought global would have released TBC by now...) or october (commission) on here/twitter hopefully i remember to sometime this year

bonus chen edition because well i guess she is my cringefail girlboss blorbo

bonus chenswire edition

bonus bonus extremely boring stuff

films i watched in 2022 (tragedy of macbeth out of picture because it was on the next row)

top 10 (in watched order not a 1-10 ranking)

Marketa Lazarova (1967) Friend was streaming it, liked the script so much I asked my friend for the srt file after Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) Rocks Petite Maman (2021) Personal Attack Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000) :) My Life as a Zucchini (2016) Celine Sciamma truly don't miss Saturday Fiction (2019) It's not a 5/5 movie but...the soul... the period noir... Nope (2022) The Spectacle dot jpg Hands Over The City (1963) yes i watched this just before il siracusano Decision To Leave (2022) yuriyaoi straight romance can't elaborate Puss In Boots (2022) i'm so glad i didn't watch this as a kid i would have nightmares, but as an adult i got to see my traumas on the big screen yippee!!!

missed a local screening of My Broken Mariko because it only happened for ONE DAY fucking insane (I recommend reading the original manga it's so good)

Speaking of books hmm

Swordspoint yuriyaoi... Invisible Ink reread. and I think I need to reread again Fire & Blood read it after watching hotd ep 1 pretty good series btw dare i say even ...the best on-screen yaoiyuri of the year... Eagle Shooting/Condor Heroes Book 1 Not bad Water Margin Didn't I write a angry rant on this. rite of passage i guess...... How to Keep House While Drowning its funny because i WILL do chores......still good though What My Bones Know - insane how trauma can be so isolating yet universal lol A Wizard of Earthsea if only i read this instead of harry potter back then lmao wow

you can now basically psychoanalyse my issues from the last three books I think

Uhhhhhhh what else am I missing - oh yeah I did 3 gamejams this year (Art/Design and a liiiiiitle bit of trying to do the UI in Unity myself instead of giving the pngs to my friends)

my abysmal steam stats told me i only played 5 games this year so I need to get back my gamer license, backlog is like 75% VNs though what's up with that (there's only 4 games but. well)

had a really long blogpost (basically a 'look at all the things you did this year you didnt waste it' thing thus the above lists) but i think i'll just keep it to my notion notes lest this post becomes a traumadumping ground ecks dee tl;dr failed a Very Important (to me) Thing early 2022 that kind of shattered any crumb of self-esteem i had and made me question everything i did onwards (especially in regards to doujin stuff) and then basically physical health issues affecting mental health and vice versa which is fun but fuck it we ball.....(try)

don't really have any solid 'resolutions' (that i would remember to do) other than to 'live' more than just 'survive' as edgy as that sounds 🥴oh wait oc zine yea yea and go into illustration full time h-haha........... should really get around to making a patreon/fanbox but i really hate the idea of paywalling

also signed up for a AK doujin event in Nagoya in March so I now have a very heavy motivation to finish the second half of my LGD doujin and hopefully I get to table at AX too dot dot dot

#bentotexto

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sixofravens-reads · 2 months

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BOOK HAUL: USED BOOKSTORE EDITION

What actually motivated me to get off my butt and go to this store was their DVDs - I was hoping they'd have Mullholland Dr or Picnic at Hanging Rock but alas they didn't. So I was forced to buy as many books as I could carry 🤷🏼‍♀️

(and for the record, I got all of these for less than half of what I paid for 10 new books when I got birthday presents last month. so don't judge meeeeee)

More excited rambling under the cut:

Made some progress on my sidequest to collect beautiful old editions of Pierce books. I now have the entire Circle of Magic quartet in the covers I originally read them in, which I vastly prefer over the newer ones (I mean, look at them!). I did accidentally get a second copy of Daja's Book but. I might just have multiples of it now because I don't think I could bear to evict one)

Got a couple more de Lints: Spiritwalk which I hadn't heard of and a beautiful copy of The Ivory and the Horn, which I already own but this cover was too beautiful to pass by (I have a problem).

A couple Madeleine L'Engles: A Ring of Endless Light which I vaguely remember reading as a child, and Troubling a Star which I hadn't heard of before

Basilisk, an anthology edited by Ellen Kushner (also almost got a second copy of Swordspoint but I RESISTED!!)

The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay, because I've been meaning to read him and dat cover 👀)

Another volume in the Dragonlance Crossroads series. I read The Thieves Guild as a teen but haven't read any others yet, and well. The cover.

The Blue Roan Child I remember reading as a kid and kind of liking but thinking the writing was difficult, which I've realized is a sign I'll like it more as an adult, so I decided to get a copy to try rereading

A whole fuckton of random Jane Yolens because apparently in the past I just missed her books, right at the end of the very bottom of the last Children's shelf

The Fantastic Imagination II, which is an anthology I hope will be interesting. I think I had a different volume of this series once but got rid of it unread when I moved out of my parents place

A couple Patricia C. Wredes, including The Thirteenth Child which I remember liking as a teen. I was really disappointed when the rest of the series didn't get published.

Od Magic by Patricia McKillip. The store was sadly short on McKillips and McKinleys today, but I still found that one and the cover is gorgeous.

Silver on the Road, which I rented from the library recently and loved

Annnnd finally I got a new copy of Mrs Dalloway, because the copy I owned previously ended up being full of someone's scribbled essay notes and I found them too distracting.

#books #book haul #used books #trade paperback #now i have to figure out. shelving these. hmmm

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ladyinbooks · 1 year

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Hey Lady, just curious. If you don't mind sharing, what are some of your favorite books?

Also, I love, love your stories. Thanks for sharing them.

Aw, thank you! ❤️🤗

Favourite books. Hmm, this is a tough one! I think it depends what mood I'm in, but I'll give it a go:

Swordspoint (Ellen Kushner) - I mentioned this book in the previous ask I responded to, but it's just a gorgeous book about love, politics, and devotion vs honour. Couple it with a main m/m romance and it's honestly a book I've never got tired of.

The Song of Achilles (Madeleine Miller) - I'm... probably going to be hunted down by fans of TSoA, so I'm going to preface this by saying: I love this book. I adore the prose; I love the romance. My academic background is Classics, and this is the first book I can remember that properly and explicitly deals with the Achilles/Patroclus romance. All that said, I do have quite a few nitpicks about her Patroclus portrayal, so although I absolutely recommend this, it's a book I have to put aside some of my own Patroclus preferences to enjoy.

Fire from Heaven (Mary Renault) - While I'm on a Classics kick: this book. It's an old-y, but a good-y. Non-explicit queer romance, but it's all about the early life of Alexander the Great. Hephaistion my beloved. You have to take it for what it is, but there's a reason Renault is still referred to as the queen of Alexander fiction. Is her depiction of him romanticised and often misty-eyed? Yes. Is it still eminently readable? Also yes. No, seriously, Hephaistion my beloved.

Rivers of London (Ben Aaronovitch) - Wonderful, wonderful set of books about a PC in the Met who ends up in the secretive (and tiny) magical investigative branch. Fantastic characters, fun murder mysteries and magic. Some of the later books in the series began to feel a little slow and same-y for me, but the first three are absolute wonders. Peter Grant is a phenomenal main character.

Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien) - I know, I know, this is predictable, but... I love it. I love it so much. I love the theme of kindness outlasting evil; of good triumphing not because of the strongest person, but because of the idea that anyone can stand up and make a difference. Also I love Boromir. I said what I said. 🤣

That's all I've got for now - I read a lot, but tend to be really, really picky, so something has to have a huge impact to stay on my 'absolute must-reads' list forever. However, I'm curious if anyone has any recs they'd like to send - I'm always up for hoarding more books!

#lady replies

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haveyoureadthisqueerbook · 5 months

Note

Hello! First of all: love this blog! Second: I read a lot of queer books and as it turns out a lot of them weren’t already on your spreadsheet so uh. Sorry in advance for what I’m about to do to your inbox/queue 😅

Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders

The Time Slip Girl by Elizabeth Andre

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree

The Queen of Cups by Ren Basel

Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust

Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron

This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron

This Wicked Fate by Kalynn Bayron

Werecockroach by Polenth Blake

In the Vanishers’ Palace by Aliette de Bodard

Wain: LGBT Reimaginings of Scottish Folktales by Helene Boppert and Rachel Plummer

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan

Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown

Tremontaine: The Complete Season One by Patty Bryant, Malinda Lo, Racheline Maltese, Joel Derfner, Ellen Kushner, Paul Witcover, and Alaya Dawn Johnson

This Other World by AC Buchanan

In Memoriam by Nathan Burgoine

The Dark Beneath the Ice by Amelinda Bérubé

Felix Ever After by Karen Callender

Last Bus to Everland by Sophie Cameron

Out of the Blue by Sophie Cameron

Once & Future by AR Capetta and Cory McCarthy

The Brilliant Death by AR Capetta

XX by Angela Chadwick

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers

The Vela by Becky Chambers, Rivers Solomon, Yoon Ha Lee, and SL Huang

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho

The True Queen by Zen Cho

The Terracotta Bride by Zen Cho

The Water that Falls on You From Nowhere by John Chu

The Shape of My Name by Nino Cipri

A Dead Djinn in Cairo by P. Djèlí Clark

Girlhood by Cat Clarke

Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova

Dreadnought by April Daniels

Sovereign by April Daniels

Thornfruit by Felicia Davin

Nightvine by Felicia Davin

Shadebloom by Felicia Davin

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson

Stay Another Day by Juno Dawson

Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

Bitter by Akwaeke Emezi

The Drowning Eyes by Emily Foster

Bingo Love by Tee Franklin

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

Knit One, Girl Two by Shira Glassman

The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez

We Go Around in the Night and Are Consumed by Fire by Jules Grant

Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant

The One Hundred Nights of Hero by Isabel Greenberg

Keeper of the Dawn by Dianna Gunn

The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall

The Outside by Ada Hoffman

The Fallen by Ada Hoffman

The Infinite by Ada Hoffman

Mindtouch by MCA Hogarth

Sing the Four Quarters by Tanya Huff

The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza by Shaun David Hutchinson

The City of Woven Streets by Emmi Itäranta

Godkiller by Hannah Kaner

Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann

The Beast of Callaire by Saruuh Kelsey

The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion by Margaret Killjoy

An Excess Male by Maggie Shen King

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

Crimson by Niviaq Korneliussen

Godsgrave by Jay Kristoff

Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner

The Faerie Godmother’s Apprentice Wore Green by Nicky Kyle

Avi Cantor Has Six Months to Live by Sacha Lamb

When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb

Goldie Vance Vol. 1 by Hope Larson

Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie

Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie

Not Your Sidekick by CB Lee

Not Your Villain by CB Lee

Not Your Backup by CB Lee

The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee

The Fever King by Victoria Lee

The Fox’s Tower and Other Tales by Yoon Ha Lee

Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee

Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger

Adaptation by Malinda Lo

Inheritance by Malinda Lo

Natural Selection by Malinda Lo

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

The Hand, the Eye, and the Heart by Zoë Marriott

Luna: New Moon by Ian McDonald

Luna: Wolf Moon by Ian McDonald

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire

Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire

Come Tumbling Down by Seanan McGuire

Forbid the Sea by Seanan McGuire

In Sea-Salt Tears by Seanan McGuire

The Unbinding of Mary Reade by Miriam McNamara

An Accident of Stars by Foz Meadows

A Tyranny of Queens by Foz Meadows

All Out: The No-Longer Secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages ed. Saundra Mitchell

Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott

Princess Princess Ever After by K. O’Neill

The Tea Dragon Society by K. O’Neill

The Tea Dragon Festival by K. O’Neill

The Tea Dragon Tapestry by K. O’Neill

Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta

Heartstopper by Alice Oseman

Loveless by Alice Oseman

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

Stormsong by CL Polk

Soulstar by CL Polk

She Drives Me Crazy by Kelly Quindlen

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

The Tiger’s Daughter by K Arsenault Rivera

The Phoenix Empress by K Arsenault Rivera

The Warrior Moon by K Arsenault Rivera

A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland

Birthday by Meredith Russo

If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo

The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski

A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon

Dying for a Living by Kory M. Shrum

Two Dark Moons by Avi Silver

History is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera

More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera

The Abyss Surrounds Us by Emily Skrutskie

The Edge of the Abyss by Emily Skrutskie

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

The Summer of Jordi Perez (and the Best Burger in Los Angeles) by Amy Spalding

The Traitor’s Tunnel by CM Spivey

Nimona by ND Stevenson

Chameleon Moon by RoAnna Sylver

Small Changes Over Long Periods of Time by KM Szpara

As I Descended by Robin Talley

Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley

Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh

Drowned Country by Emily Tesh

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull

Crier’s War by Nina Varela

Iron Heart by Nina Varela

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo

Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo

On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden

Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

System Collapse by Martha Wells

A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White

The Black Tides of Heaven by Neon Yang

The Red Threads of Fortune by Neon Yang

The Descent of Monsters by Neon Yang

The Ascent to Godhood by Neon Yang

Waiting on a Bright Moon by Neon Yang

Taproot by Keezy Young

Phew! Finally got all of these queued! Thank you so much for the list, and for arranging them so neatly, which definitely made it easier to transfer over to a spreadsheet!

#Anonymous #submissions

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ellen-shame · 8 months

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About me

I'm taking you at your word @yabagofmilfs and considering myself tagged by you!

List 3 ships you like: sidgeno, nptk, jdtz

First ship ever: harry/ginny lol

Last song you heard: Say Don't Go (Taylor's Version) (From The Vault)

Favorite childhood book: Harry Potter series, Saffy's Angel, Twilight series and (when I was older, about 16ish) Swordspoint

Currently reading: Pagan Britain by Ronald Hutton - very interesting but very dense so I'm reading it slowly. He comments on trends in academic archaeology as much as the archaeological sites/objects themselves in a very perceptive way.

Currently watching: Mmm I don't really watch much telly but slowly picking my way through The Crown and Our Flag Means Death

Currently consuming: I am almost constantly nibbling at fancy little chocolates

Currently craving: a secure romantic relationship

#about me

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magpiefngrl · 1 year

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mid-year book freak out tag

Let's talk about books! Thanks for tagging me @bloody-wonder ❤️😘

1. Best Book You’ve Read So Far in 2023?

I've read 48 books till now but nothing leaps to mind as The Best. Like a novel that knocked me out, you know? If I had to choose one, I'd say Seven Summer Nights, a romance by Harper Fox, because I adored the first half and because it's the only book so far that gave me a book hangover.

2. Best Sequel You’ve Read So Far in 2023?

The 2nd novel of Alexis Hall's trilogy, How To Blow It With A Billionaire, was delightful. Judging by the title I'd braced myself for angst, but instead 90-95% of the book was Arden and Caspian falling in love and getting closer (until the last chapter and the inevitable heartbreak). It is one of the most skillful, heartwarming and sexy relationship progressions I've read.

3. New Release You Haven’t Read Yet, But Want To?

This has been on my sights since 2021 but still haven't got around to it: She Who Became The Sun.

4. Most Anticipated Release For Second Half of 2023?

There's nothing that I'm truly impatient about. The first that comes to mind is KJ Charles's A Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel.

Also, A Power Unbound by Freya Marske. I can't say I was blown away by the first two novels, but I have a feeling the ship in this one is my kind of ship.

I'm curious for a lot of books, but not eagerly anticipating them.

5. Biggest Disappointment?

Oh boy. I left a long review on GR about it and I still cry bitter tears about how let down I was by Alexis Hall's third installment of his Billionaire series. Like I said above, I really enjoyed the second book. It ended in heartbreak but I assumed we'd see the pairing work their way through their issues together and end up HEA. What I did NOT expect was that they'd be apart for most of the novel, only getting together at 90%. I don't want to be (even more) spoilery so I'll say nothing more. Just that this book had the promise of being truly spectacular and it turned out all over the place, and it hurts.

6. Biggest Surprise?

The Lodestar of Ys by Amy Rae Durreson, a short novel I got because a GR pal left an enthusiastic review and said that it was available for free. I don't know the author and mostly read it for research and was not prepared to enjoy it as much as I did. The writing is solid, the worldbuilding fascinating, the rivalry between the ship is realistic and convincing as is their growing attraction to each other. Good smut, which isn't normally the case with pub romance. Becomes a tad too cute for my tastes towards the end, but still a great read. And free!

7. Favourite New Author?

No one stands out. I guess Amy Rae Durreson (see above) is a new to me author that made me go and check out her other books, so let's go with her.

Oh I'm also really enjoying The Scottish Boy by Alex de Campi so her too.

8. Newest Favourite Character?

Bucky Iain from The Scottish Boy, I guess?

9. Newest Fictional Crush?

No one. How weak has my reading year been??

💕Best Ship💕

Richard and Alec from Swordspoint. I refuse to read the sequels where they (I think?) break up. NOPE.

10. Book That Made You Cry?

I cry pretty easily and I'm sure I cried at a novel this year (if not more) but for the life of me I can't remember which.

11. Book That Made You Happy?

I had the most fun during my reread of Scum Villain's Self-Saving System. Gods, what I wouldn't give for more authors having so much fun with their stories.

12. Favourite Book Adaptation You Saw This Year?

I watched the final season of BBC's The Dark Materials early this year. It makes me happy to have such a great adaptation of one of my fave series of all times.

13. Favourite Review You’ve Written This Year?

I haven't written a lot of reviews this year. In the past there were times when I'd write long essays; now I'm all for short and sweet. Can't be arsed for more tbh. Unless I disliked the book and I need to rant.

14. Most Beautiful Cover?

I mostly read ebooks and I rarely notice covers. I did, however, notice the stunning cover of A Taste of Gold and Iron, which turned out to be a book I hated, so I'm even more distrustful of covers now.

15. What Books Do You Need To Read By The End of The Year?

I have a bunch of unfinished series to complete (see 2023 reading goals), so that's my first goal. My second target is reading some of the dozens of unread books I own (both on the shelves and my ereader). I do need to finish Checkmate, this is getting ridiculous, but I keep getting distracted by romance.

++++++

Overall, it hasn't been a spectacular year. I've read a LOT--esp in June I couldn't stop reading--but I've reread a few series to complete them, which ranged from meh (The Nikolai trilogy and Darker Shades of Magic) to flawed-but-interesting (The Dreamer trilogy) to seriously uneven (the Billionaire series). Early in the year I finished JS&MN and Spinning Silver which were great, but they feel a long time away and nothing amazing has come since. Idk. Some of my reads were unusual and made an impression, but can't say I enjoyed them fully. The most satisfying books these past few months have been a few romance novels. Fingers crossed for a more exciting second half of 2023.

++++++

follow me on goodreads!

2022 mid year book tag

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tagging: @lettersbyelise @tackytigerfic @julcheninred @lqtraintracks @shealwaysreads @the-starryknight @wolfpants @violetclarity

#tagged #books #mid year book tag #booklr

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pentanguine · 8 months

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Favorite Books of 2023

So I didn’t quite get to it in January, but I did finally finish this list!! (And as always, I'm longwinded)

My reading taste was all over the place last year. I intended for it to be the year I read neglected fantasy trilogies gathering dust on my bookshelf, but instead I joined a book club for grad school and got shoved out of my comfort zone; ended up with a boyfriend (now ex, aka EBF) and read anything and everything he recommended; suddenly got into nonfiction and horror for no explicable reason; joined another book club for work and ended up reading even more books outside my wheelhouse; and discovered that I enjoyed hate-reading books during slow periods at work and on my lunch break. It was a mess. But somehow, a few favorites came out of it!

1. The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles by Jason Guriel– What the fuck even is this book. It’s a book about a book about teenage werewolves on a quest to outwit some pirates and recover a lost treasure. It’s the story of a young woman in a post-climate crisis earth living in a Gothic mansion in Japan and questing for her favorite author inside a high-tech diorama. It’s about the aftermath of environmental destruction, invasive technology and autonomy, the power of fandom and transforming stories through your love for them, fathers (love for, betrayal by, forgiveness of), and worlds within worlds. It asks meaty questions about the role of technology in generating change for the better and creating hope when that same tech is eroding what it even means to be human and experience reality. It’s the kind of cli-fi that offers hope, that’s warm, that makes you think of alternatives. It’s dense with speculative worldbuilding and plays dizzyingly with metafiction, and the whole damn thing is written in couplets!!

I feel like I can’t adequately express how much I love the things this book does. It experiments with form and language, which would be cool enough, except it goes on to explore complex themes in a thought-provoking way while throwing in a bizarre and delightful clusterfuck of elements like robot werewolves and tree furries. Most importantly, it was just so much fun to read. I want a sequel with these characters. I want to go to a con dressed as one of the garden wolves. I want to study this book for English class and write an essay on it in rhyming couplets. I did not at all expect this to be my favorite book of the year, but it absolutely is. (It also only has 19 ratings and 4 reviews on Goodreads, so if it sounds at all up your alley, please read it!!)

2. The Mask of Mirrors by M. A. Carrick– What many of my favorite books have in common this year is that they were incredibly fun to read. Mask of Mirrors is entertaining from start to finish, as schemes that would fill a lesser book are introduced and then resolved in mere chapters, and the climax is nothing but action-packed chaos. The world-building is dense and rewarding, the plot is twisty, and Ren is conning everyone, all the time, in at least 6 different ways, which of course makes it more satisfying when she ends up conning herself into actually caring about her marks. You'll like this if you enjoy a TTRPG flavor of storytelling (it started as an RPG, which makes sense once you know it), or if you enjoyed the basics of Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint but wished it had more action and large-scale worldbuilding. There is a lot going on in these books, in the best possible way.

3. Starling House by Alix E. Harrow – There’s so much I loved about this book: the slow Gothic creep, the stories within a story, the eerie illustrations, the immersive sense of place. Surprisingly, it was the grounded, realistic parts of the book that were the most compelling to me. This is a fantasy, but it’s also a small-town family drama and coming of age story that could have been literary fiction with a few changes. The prose is just gorgeous, beautiful without ever getting purple. This is ultimately the story of the most bloody-minded woman in Kentucky slowly finding a home in the place she’s lived her whole life, while she falls in love with an equally bloody-minded man. Like The Raven Cycle as haunted house story, with overtones of Hades and Persephone and Beauty and the Beast.

4. The Necessity of Stars by E. Catherine Tobler – This is an 80 page novella that I usually wouldn’t count as a book, but it’s simply too good to leave off this list. It’s a strange and beautiful story about aging, climate change, sexism and exploitation, memory and language and how they shape our identities, and how we move through time. In such a short page count, there are so many powerful images that have stuck with me over six months later, including a sea of deep purple irises and a woman and an alien making love under…amidst…as? the stars. There’s something very Le Guin-like about this story with its setting of stars, shadows, and trees, and its sense of humanity. Mind-blowingly good; I highly recommend anything from Neon Hemlock Press.

5. Heir’s Game by suspu– This is a webtoon and not a novel, but I included a 100k Sherlock fanfic in my best books of 2017, so I’m also counting this. It’s a fluffy, bloodthirsty, melodramatic, swashbuckling high adventure found family story with an entertainment value off the charts. It balances a lot of different story elements and tones, each character and arc is developed so well, and there’s a truly satisfying number of pretty men covered in blood. If you’re devouring it over the course of a few days like I did, you also get to watch the author’s art style improve over the course of the four years it took them to write this. I’m morbidly impressed by the amount of effort that goes into panels I read in 2 seconds. Disclaimer that I read this alongside EBF, which may have biased my feelings towards it.

6. Bloom by Delilah S. Dawson – A lovely blend of sweet(?), sexy romance and lush description with visceral horror, creeping menace, and strong dramatic irony.* The last chapter I found a little dumb and overly conclusive, but I’m willing to forgive that due to the immersive atmosphere and tension for most of the book. Ro, the protagonist, is heartbreakingly vulnerable in her twisted justifications for why her first sapphic relationship is actually so Beautiful and Good, and Ash feels like a good depiction of a non-traditional abuser. It’s indulgent and suspenseful, and it’s also got Things to Say.

*(In response to people complaining on Goodreads that the “twist” is obvious, I would like to say: Ash is a baker/cook, the jacket contains the word “consumes” and “devouring,” and there’s a flayed body on the cover. I think a blurb may have comped it to Hannibal. If you read all that and think the publishers are spoiling the “twist” of the book instead of just advertising what the book is about, that’s a you problem. This is not a thriller trying to set up a shocking twist and leave you guessing; it’s horror, and the horror comes from knowing what’s coming and watching Ro stumble right into it with nothing we can do to stop it. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.)

7. The Dawnhounds by Sascha Stronach– The thing I loved most about this book is that it’s truly, delightfully original. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything remotely like it. There’s living technology that’s based on plants and syncs with human biology, a fresh system of gods and resurrection, a found family pirate ship, and some viscerally disturbing body horror. I often found myself sitting still for a minute with my mouth open, head tilted slightly to the side, thinking “…how the fuck did she come up with that.” This is also such a satisfyingly queer book. It very much centers found family, and unapologetic abundance saves the day. I wish I could remember more specifics of this book, but mostly what stuck with me is that it’s weird as shit and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

8. This is Ear Hustle by Nigel Poor and Earlonne Woods –This is the book form of an award-winning podcast discussing the realities of life in the American prison system, from those on both the inside and outside. It’s an often intense read, which I took in pieces over two months, but the storytelling is so engrossing, and introduces its audience to people and circumstances they most likely wouldn’t have encountered otherwise. I would never have guessed that San Quentin has skill-building and education programs, including the media lab where the Ear Hustle podcast is produced, or that at least one woman began a relationship with someone already in prison, moved her entire life to a desert prison town, and raised a family there. Each story in this book humanizes people who are often given little sympathy or understanding by society (even if they have been or are cruel and violent; redemption is not the point). The system they live in is definitely cruel and violent, but they are, like everyone, multifaceted people with loved ones and hobbies. Everyone has a story. This is the best kind of nonfiction to me, the kind that alters your view of the world and is still cropping up in your thoughts over six months later.

9. They Were Here Before Us by Eric LaRocca – I went through a big Eric LaRocca phase last fall, and I think this is overall the strongest of his works. The stories range from existentially shocking tales of nature at its darkest and most unnatural(?), to grotesque body horror, to unsettling tension that creeps across the pages like a serial killer stalking outside your window. A lot of the stories deal with the desperation, grotesqueness, and violation that comes with loving another person, and there’s a recurring contrast between bodies as vessels for love and as simply meat. Bearing in mind that I once said, in bemused shock, “Is Gideon the Ninth horror??”: it pushed against the boundaries of what I was comfortable reading and thinking about, without being shock for shock value. His writing is just viscerally fucked up.

10. The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer – This is a fucking dark and bleak book that officially hooked me at the end of Part One, when what I thought would be the reveal of the entire book…happened. And so I said “well, now what??” And plunged into a brutally depressing, borderline nihilistic, violently hopeful story about the nature of humanity and finding purpose in life. There are heartwarming moments in this book too, and also some funny or trivial moments that remind you this book is, for some random reason, YA.* If you enjoy sci-fi that grapples with the dizzying feeling of our microscopic place in the unending void of the cosmos, I highly recommend this one. And if you read Emma Newman’s Before Mars and want more in that vein, you’ll find a lot to love here.

*Unlike some people on Goodreads, I do see a reason for the protagonists to be teenagers, but you can very much write an adult book about teenagers

11. So You Want to be a Wizard by Diane Duane – I regret not discovering this book as a child, because I would have loved it. It’s the story of two children who teach themselves wizardry and become embroiled in an ongoing struggle for the fate of the world. The poetic writing, the way trees are held in reverence, and the way language is magic in and of itself are all things that appeal to me as an adult, but would have been even more meaningful when I was younger. I especially loved how matter of fact the children are about discovering magic: of course there’s magic in the world. They’re children, and they can believe in anything.

Honorable Mentions:

The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu by Tom Lin

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

Smiler’s Fair by Rebecca Levene

#personal #an inexhaustable source of magic #one day. i will change that tag. but that day is not today.#further notes on fmw: i went to nd this summer where it's (partially) set #and seeing that landscape and culture depicted in the book (as irrevocably altered by/lost to climate change) added to the experience for m #also i'm so proud of myself for putting 11 books on this list #i spent so long trying to find one to cut and then i spent so long trying to justify bumping an honorable mention up a spot #but there were really only 11 books in favorite territory for me #sometimes things can be odd inauspicious numbers and it's fine #also i did not bother to put links in. forgive me. you can find them if you want them

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