#stars reads radch

[ilovedthestars]

of all the fun characters in imperial radch for some reason the one who has been stuck in my brain the most is Seivarden. what is UP with her. I need to see inside her brain so bad. she got dragged off the street by a mysterious stranger who inexplicably knew her name and spent like a week waiting to run away from her and buy more drugs but then she was like. no actually, instead i think i will be sticking to you like a barnacle forever, thanks.

she was also frozen for 1000 years and it's not like the book doesn't acknowledge that but???? she woke up after being frozen for a thousand years and this is a remarkably small deal relative to the main plot. "spaceship captain loses her ship and gets shoved into an escape pod and wakes up a thousand years later" could absolutely be its own whole story, where the spaceship captain then goes on to save the world or something, except instead of saving the world seivarden got addicted to drugs and this is just all happening in the background of breq's own saving-the-world-adjacent adventure.

i mean for goodness sake she was frozen for a thousand years and then got dragged off the street by the one person in the galaxy who knew her a thousand years ago and is still alive. what kind of luck is THAT. she decided she was gonna stick to breq like a barnacle forever before she even knew that. (i mean, arguably you could put that point in a lot of different places, but to me the bridge scene and the picking-her-up-from-jail scene in AJ are both strong candidates.) i NEED to go find some good seivarden POV fic because i need to know what is going on in her HEAD.

[rjalker]

crossover friends

[ID: A screenshot of Data from Star Trek, official art of Laios from Dungeon Meshi, and a digital model of Translator Zeiat/Dlique from The Imperial Radch series, created in Hero Forge, standing next to eachother against a grey background. Data is an android with very pale skin, wearing a yellow and black Starfleet uniform. Laios is a man with pale skin, wearing metal armour over white long sleeves and pants. Translator Zeiat/Dlique has brown skin, with dark hair, and wears an all-white Translator's uniform with boots, long pants, and a coat over a simple shirt. End ID.]

when I actually read Dungeon Meshi I'll probably write a thing lol. they'd enjoy themselves.

if we ever get official art of the Translator I'll redo this

[githjanken]

another new year’s resolution: i wanna read more fic

[alastair-made-me-undo-it]

I love how the radch fandom is just doing our best with the pronouns. 

wanna talk about breq? she’s an it sometimes if you’re gonna get into her themes

wanna talk about sphene? it’s a she sometimes if you wanna piss it off

wanna talk about zeiat? she’s a they depending on which books you’ve read

wanna talk about reet? that one’s easy, he’s a man WHOA SWERVE THEY’RE A THEY NOW

wanna talk about annander mianaai? that bitch loves her a she except whoops she’s they in the most literal definition

and the one constant, the one shining star compass point of stability, is that seivarden is babygirl

[deanmarywinchester]

previous years: 2022, 2021 / list of worst sf/f/horror

the bangers were BANGING this year, I kept mentally readjusting my top 5 list every time I read something good so the honorable mentions are extremely honorable this year. I hope you read anything that sounds good from this list and tell me about it!

top 5:

chain gang all stars by nana kwame adjei-brenyah: when I say that this book is like the hunger games for adults, I’m not making a glib comparison between two books about fighting to the death, I’m saying that I haven’t felt so intensely about a book since I stayed up late to tear through the hunger games and sob about it when I was thirteen. this book is satire as real and devastating as I’ve ever read, with action scenes that feel like they’re being dripped directly into my hindbrain and a unique and believable love story. put it on hold at your library literally RIGHT now.

the actual star by monica byrne: about a post-climate catastrophe utopian society built around a religion started by a teenage girl in 2012 based on mayan traditions, and also about the teenage girl, and also about the maya. this book made me crazy because the future society felt real enough to touch, with its radical openness and collectivity solving problems that exist today but causing new ones that are totally novel and meaty and interesting to dig into. read it if you’re interested in different ways of being.

the spear cuts through water by simon jiménez: really, REALLY good, fresh, original epic fantasy. jimenez picks a few perspectives to stick to but hops fluidly into bystanders’ brains to give you their perspectives, so even background characters feel fleshed-out and no one’s pain is dismissed as a side effect of heroic battles or whatever. highly recommended if you like framing narratives and stories about stories, and like epic fantasy but wish it wasn’t mostly about finding acceptable enemies to slaughter with cool swords

the dispossessed by ursula k. le guin: I love how much this book is about hope as clear-eyed commitment to the boring and difficult work of a brighter and necessary future. sometimes the work of the glorious anarcho-communist revolution is leaving your university post and romantic partner for months at a time to dig irrigation ditches so nobody starves when there’s a drought. read this book for diplomatic conniving, a clash of values between a capitalist planet and its dissident moon, and hope.

imperial radch trilogy and its spinoffs by ann leckie: what if you were built to be a weapon of the empire, a serene sentient battleship with thousands of human bodies all containing your consciousness, and you lost all bodies but one and had to figure out how to be a person, singular and alone? what if you were a 19th century british military officer and you slept for a thousand years into the decline of the empire? what if you were grown in a vat to be a facsimile of human and then told off for eating all your siblings even though eating them was SO interesting? what then. leckie’s prose is incisive and funny, her unreliable narrators are wonderful, and her stories are intimate even though the backdrops are insanely huge. 👍.

honorable mentions:

house of leaves by mark z. danielewski: guys? anyone hearda this one? anyway. Something Is Wrong With This House horror with themes of storytelling and grief. recommending that you slam this book as fast as possible like I did so you can hold all its layers in your head at once.

the lathe of heaven by ursula k le guin: i thought I didn’t like ursula k le guin, and then I read this book, went OH and immediately devoured the hainish cycle. im so sorry miss ursula. this book about a hapless pacific northwesterner whose therapist is making him dream different realities into being is so sharp and sly and funny. themes of choices, ends and means.

he who drowned the world by shelley parker-chan: I liked the prequel to this addition to the radiant emperor duology. I LOVED this book. parker-chan has invented new and exciting modes of fucked-up codependency and im obsessed. historical light-fantasy with themes of ideals vs what it takes to reach them, gender, and regret.

babel by r. f. kuang: found the didacticism of this book annoying, but i really loved the concept of this novel and the way it slowly ratchets up the stakes. this novel is for people who want to smash the fun of the magic school genre against the reality of universities’ complicity in the imperial machine.

piranesi by susannah clarke: im late to this book but it’s such a weird little gem. peaceful yet unsettling. a man takes care of an endless house with an ocean inside it until he realizes the house is stealing his memories. themes of memory and devotion.

hell follows with us by andrew joseph white: I can only read YA these days if it’s a reread or if it’s genuinely good and really really strange. this is that. weird gory fantasy about a trans teen who escapes his militarized post-apocalyptic christian cult and finds himself turning into something Different. my only gripe is that he uses 2023-perfect language to describe transness and I think he should be inventing genders weve never even thought of. such is YA.

some desperate glory by emily tesch: a rolickin’ good space opera time with terrible women <3. a thriller about how the golden child of her isolated human-supremacist space station cult deprograms and the consequences of it. this feels like a grown-up SPOP until the theoretical physics gets involved. big fan

the library of mount char by scott hawkins: this book is harrow the ninth in suburbia until it becomes a more macabre version of the absurdity of the gomens apocalypse. God raises his children, sometimes brutally, to hone their powers in a neighborhood that mysteriously keeps out outsiders. came for the dysfunctional mess of the god-children and now I can never look at a grill the same way

runners up:

bunny by mona awad: books that make you WISH you were in mona awad’s MFA program where she must have been having a terrible time. the weird one out in an MFA program accepts overtures into the unbearable rich-girls’ clique to find out what they’re Up To. themes of aimlessness and the intersection of class with the art world

camp damascus by chuck tingle: have you ever wished that you were simply too autistic to be successfully demonically brainwashed into not having gay thoughts? horror-flavored thriller that was just fun

light from uncommon stars by ryka aoki: this author put a bunch of genres in a blender and came up with something fun and surprisingly cozy. an immortal woman must sell violinists’ souls to the devil in exchange for their fame, or he’ll drag her to damnation instead. there might be aliens and coffeeshop romance involved. definitely a blender.

the fragile threads of power by v. e. schwab: if you haven’t read a darker shade of magic and you like tightly paced high fantasy and historical fantasy elements, political intrigue, and pirates, read that first. if you have, there’s more now! lila bard are you free on thursday when I am free

the library of the dead & our lady of mysterious ailments by t. l. huchu: a teenage girl provides for her family in soft-apocalypse magic edinburgh with a job carrying messages from ghosts to their living relatives. an ongoing mystery series about the intrigues she uncovers among the dead.

severance by ling ma: this books is on the list of media that is the terror to me: it's about an apocalyptic disease that makes people reenact their routines mindlessly until they collapse. intimate apocalypse novel with themes of late capitalist malaise.

ocean’s echo by everina maxwell: i didn't really like winter's orbit because i'm just not a romance guy, but this second novel stands alone and the romance is more insane and less of the entire point of the novel. (also it's between essentially Discworld's Carrot and Moist Von Lipwig, which is. really something.) in the Space Military, a buttoned-up mind controller must pretend to bend a socialite with illegal mind-reading powers to his will. what if fake relationship but the relationship they have to fake is "brain linked master/servant pair."

the murderbot diaries by martha wells: novellas about a misanthropic security android who jailbroke itself in order to watch tv. the name "murderbot" is a joke but it very much did kill people <3 themes of paranoia and outsiderhood, corporate wrongdoing, repentance, and trust

black water sister by zen cho: zen cho is good at any kind of fantasy she writes, including this, her first modern fantasy novel. a closeted lesbian has to move in with her family in malaysia after college in the US, only to discover that her dead grandmother has some unfinished business involving a local goddess and a conniving real estate developer. themes of family, gender, and place.

the way inn by will wiles: a man who’s paid to pretend he’s other people to attend conferences in their place gets trapped in an endless Marriott. has the sharp humor of a colson whitehead corporate satire until it becomes more straightforwardly horror-flavored.

[ojirocardigansniper]

Terra Ignota fucked up my whole brain (positive). I think it's either the deepest or most pretentious (more likely both) works of fiction I've ever encountered. Ada Palmer is my new god. These books are so gender and strange and interesting and horrifying and political.

My favourite genre is Scifi Where Your Favourite Character Is A Queer War Criminal (or other monster beyond comprehension) (Machineries of Empire, The Locked Tomb, etc). In this area, Terra Ignota is a holy book.

Canner and Sniper are my precious innocent friends who can do no* wrong.

*all

(I deeply love these books, I'm just very insane about them)

SAME SAME SAME SAME SAME SAME SAME. YOURE IN SUCH GOOD COMPANY. i first read too like the lightning in 2017, promptly shoveled seven surrenders in my mouth, got the will to battle for christmas, and then spent the next three-and-change years rereading them multiple times and collecting a small cadre of weird friends i could convince to attempt it. perhaps the stars permanently rewired my brain on first readthrough. terra ignota kinda one of the lenses through which i see most things cus it came to me at the right time. touchstone of my brain and heart. also MASSIVE UPS FOR MACHINERIES OF EMPIRE AND LOCKED TOMB ASWELL LETS GOOOOOO!!!!! also off the top of my head i'll point to ann leckie's imperial radch & related books, kameron hurley's stars are legion, seth dickinson's exordia which im reading rn, and on the fantasy side of the same trope we got seth dickinson's traitor baru cormorant, n.k. jemison's broken earth trilogy, fuckin, don't feel like going upstairs to remind myself of more but yeah. i slurp compellingly fucked up people with strong motivations/principles with a straw. And good god if you like those terra ignota has like fifty of them ! Yay! christ i love these books. if you want to marinate your brain in thoughts about them i have a "ti tags" tag which is a lot of stupid memes and also some very juicy thoughts..... things to rotate... i have been rotating it all for so many years in my mind

[augustinajosefina]

A request

Please suggest books to me! Preferably in the glove kink/lesbian space atrocities, urban fantasy or dark academia genres but I'll happily try any SF/fantasy at least once.

So far I've read and loved:

Before 2023

The Imperial Radch (Ancillary Justice/Sword/Mercy) - Ann Leckie

Jean le Flambeur (The Quantum Thief/The Fractal Prince/The Causal Angel) - Hannu Rajaniemi

The Windup Girl/The Water Knife - Paolo Bagicalupi

Memory of Water/The City of Woven Streets - Emmi Itäranta

2023

The Locked Tomb (Gideon/Harrow/Nona the Ninth) - Tamsyn Muir

The Masquerade (Traitor/Monster/Tyrant Baru Cormorant) - Seth Dickinson

Teixcalaan series (A Memory Called Empire/A Desolation Called Peace) - Arkady Martine

Machineries of Empire (Ninefox Gambit/Raven Stratagem/Revenant Gun/Hexarchate Stories) - Yoon Ha Lee

The Murderbot Diaries (All Systems Red to System Collapse) - Martha Wells

The Broken Earth (The Fifth Season/The Obelisk Gate/The Stone Sky) - N. K. Jemisin

Klara And The Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro

Xuya universe (The Citadel of Weeping Pearls/The Tea Master and the Detective/Seven of Infinities plus short stories) - Aliette de Bodard

This is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

The Goblin Emperor/The Witness for the Dead/Grief of Stones - Katherine Addison

Some Desperate Glory - Emily Tesh

2024

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - V. E. Schwab

The Craft Sequence (Three Parts Dead/Two Serpents Rise/Full Fathom Five/Last First Snow/Four Roads Cross/Ruin of Angels) - Max Gladstone

Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution - R. F. Kuang

Dead Country - Max Gladstone

Hands of the Emperor - Victoria Goddard

Read and liked:

The Moonday Letters - Emmi Itäranta

Piranesi - Susanna Clarke

Great Cities (The City We Became/The World We Make) - N. K. Jemisin

Autonomous - Annalee Newitz

Dead Djinn universe (A Master of Djinn/The Haunting of Tram Car 015/A Dead Djinn in Cairo/The Angel of Khan el-Khalili) - P. Djèlí Clark

Even Though I Knew the End - C. L. Polk

Station Eternity - Mur Lafferty

The Mythic Dream - Dominik Parisien & Navah Wolfe

Shades of Magic (A Darker Shade of Magic/A Gathering of Shadows/A Conjuring of Light/Fragile Threads of Power) - V. E. Schwab

The Luminous Dead - Caitlin Starling

Last Exit - Max Gladstone

The Stars Are Legion - Kameron Hurley

Ninth House/Hell Bent - Leigh Bardugo

Machine - Elizabeth Bear

Our Wives Under the Sea - Julia Armfield

She Is A Haunting - Trang Thanh Tran

Sisters of the Revolution - Jeff & Ann Vandermeer

Station Eleven - Emily St John Mandel

Nettle & Bone - T. Kingfisher

Monstrilio - Gerardo Samano Córdova

Was uncertain about:

Light From Uncommon Stars - Ryka Aoki

The Kaiju Preservation Society - John Scalzi

Paladin's Grace - T. Kingfisher

The House in the Cerulean Sea - TJ Klune

In the Vanishers Palace - Aliette de Bodard

Uprooted - Naomi Novik

What Moves The Dead - T. Kingfisher

All The Birds In The Sky - Charlie Jane Anders

And read and disliked:

To Be Taught, if Fortunate - Becky Chambers

A Psalm for the Wild-Built - Becky Chambers

The Priory of the Orange Tree - Samantha Shannon

The Calculating Stars - Mary Robinette Kowal

The Space Between Worlds - Micaiah Johnson

How High We Go in the Dark - Sequoia Nagamatsu

Shadow and Bone - Leigh Bardugo

The Passage - Justin Cronin

In Ascension - Martin MacInnes

(My pride insists I add that I have, in fact, read other books as well. Just to be clear.)

[nellasbookplanet]

Book recs: Space!! part 1

We all love space, right? I certainly love space, and I'm always on the hunt for a good space book. What you've got here is a pretty wild mix of everything from fun and adventurous space opera to horrific and brutal space horror - hopefully all the space fans can find something to enjoy!

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!

If you want more book recs, check out my masterpost of rec lists!

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.

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.

Illuminae (The Illulminae Files) by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff*

Young adult told through the medium of transcripts, text messages and the like (this is one of few books where I highly recommend reading a physical copy over a digital or audio copy as the visual aspect is much more enjoyable like that). After their colony is attacked, the surviving inhabitants flee on spaceships, attempting to avoid the pursuing killers while also dealing with a deadly maddening plague on board and a ruthless ship AI seemingly losing its mind.

Kea's Flight by Erika Hammerschmidt & John C. Ricker

Young adult. Kea has been in exile since before she was born. In a future where abortion has been forbidden, Earth has found a new way of handling unwanted children: send them off to space to colonize new planets. Kea has lived her entire life on a spaceship, surrounded by other kids rejected for 'flaws' in their genetic makeup, Kea herself being on the autism spectrum. The ship follows a strict authority, but when a new threat appears, Kea and her friends must rise up to ensure they make it to their new home.

The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James*

Young adult. Romy is the only survivor on a spaceship headed toward a new planet, her only contact with other people being messages sent to and from Earth which take months to arrive. Then she receives news: another ship has been sent, one which is more advanced than hers and will eventually catch up. Ecstatic about the prospect of meeting other people, Romy begins communicating with J, the sole passenger of the other ship, and finds herself developing feelings for him. But Romy knows nothing about J, and have begun receiving worrisome messages from Earth...

Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch universe) by Ann Leckie*

A space opera in which sentient spaceships can walk the ground in stolen human bodies, so called ancillaries. One of these ancillaries, the sole survivor after the complete destruction of her ship and crew, is on the hunt for revenge against the leader of the Empire for her crimes. This series does very cool things with gender and culture!

The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley

Zan wakes without memory, a passenger aboard one of the living world-ships of Legion, a fleet of decaying generations ships. Told she's the salvation meant to free them from the fleet, Zan is flung head first into a brutal and bloody conflict. 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.

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

Disgraced Captain Kel Cheris is given a second chance by allying with and becoming the host for undead Commander Shous Jedao, who in life never lost a battle, but also went mad and massacred his own army. Now, Cheris must decide just how far she can trust him, with her forces as well as with her sense of self. 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 major gay, lesbian and trans characters, albeit little to no romance.

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 workforce as they travel through space 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.

172 Hours on the Moon by Johan Harstad*

Young adult horror. NASA is finally returning to the moon, and to gain the needed funding and attention they hold a world-wide lottery: three teenagers will get to travel to a recently revealed moon base alongside the trained astronauts. For Antoine, Midori, and Mia, this is the chance of a lifetime. But there's a reason NASA stayed away from the moon for so long, and while three teens may be going there, only one will return... This book scared the shit out of me as a teen, recommended for slowburn mix of supernatural and sci-fi horror.

Children of Time (Children of Time series) by Adrian Tchaikovsky*

Millennia and generation spanning sci-fi. After the collapse of the earthen empire, a planet once part of a project to uplift other species to sentience is left to develop on its own, resulting not in the intelligent monkeys once intended but in sentient giant spiders. Millennia later, what remains of humanity arrives looking for a new home, only to be met by the ancient, artificial remains of the woman who once led the uplift project - and she is not willing to let them disturb her spiders, or her planet, no matter how desperate they are.

All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries) by Martha Wells*

After having hacked its own governor module, SecUnit uses its small amount of new freedom to secretly download and watch as much media as it can between doing its job guarding humans. But when the scientists it’s been charged with keeping safe come under attack, it must make a choice about whether to continue keeping its freedom secret or risk it all to save them. The series features both novellas and full length novels, and balances humor with scathing critique of capitalism.

Dust (Jacob's Ladder series) by Elizabeth Bear

In a dying spaceship, orbiting an equally dying sun, noblewoman Perceval waits for her own gruesome death. Having been captured by an opposing house, her wings severed and life forfeit, Perceval's execution is imminent - until a young servant charged with her care proves to be Perceval's long lost sister. To stop a war between houses likely to doom them all, the two flee together across a crumbling, dangerous spaceship. And at its core waits Jacob Dust, god and angel, all that remains of what the ship once was. And he wants Perceval.

Binti (Binti trilogy) by Nnedi Okorafor

Young adult novella. Binti is the first of the Himba people to be accepted into the prestigious Oomza University, the finest place of higher learning in all the galaxy. But as she embarks on her interstellar journey, the unthinkable happens: her ship is attacked by the terrifying Meduse, an alien race at war with Oomza University.

A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe (The Salvagers) by Alex White

In a universe where science and magic work hand in hand, Boots Elsworth makes a living selling fake treasure maps and Nilah Brio is a racer. When one of Boots' maps turns out to be more real than expected and Nilah has to go on the run after having been framed for a murder, the two find themselves on the same spaceship, working with Boots' old captain to find the rumored treasure and reveal the conspiracy it's hiding before the people hunting them catch up. Features a main f/f relationship.

The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez

A strange child lands on an isolated planet, scaring its inahbitants into handing him over into the hands of Nia Amani. As captain of a transport ship, Nia is not only the planet's only contact with the outside world, she is also a woman outside of time, years compressing into months as she travels through space at high speed. Now responsible for a child who doesn't speak and in a galaxy that wishes them ill, she must rethink exactly what she wants to do with her life, and what she's prepared to give up. Features multiple major queer characters.

Eacaping Exodus (Escaping Exodus duology) by Nicky Drayden

Seske is the heir to the leader of a clan living inside a gigantic, spacefaring beast, of which they frequently need to catch a new one to reside in as their presence slowly kills the beast from the inside. While I found the ending rushed with regards to plot and character, the worldbuilding is very fresh and the overall plot of survival and class struggle an interesting one. It’s also sapphic!

Dead Silence Here by S.A. Barnes

Horror. As her current mission as team leader for a small repair crew in distant space nears its end, Claire grows desperate to find a way to not have to return to a life on Earth. When the crew picks up a distress signal from Aurora, a luxury cruise ship thought lost decades ago, she sees a chance to make enough money on salvage to buy her own ship. But Aurora is housing horrifying secrets beyond its cold hull, and Claire's own past is coming back to literally haunt her. If she wants to survive, dangerous truths must be revealed.

Activation Degradation by Marina J. Lostetter

Unit Four comes to life in the middle of a war. The mine it was created to care for is under attack, and as Unit Four is activated with the memories of its predecessors, it is thrown into the task of protecting it at any cost. When the battle leads to its capture, it is prepared to do anything to stop its captors, even as their very presence causes it to question all that it knows. Includes multiple major intersex characters.

This Alien Shore by C.S. Friedman

Space opera in which humanity found a way to faster than light travel and began establishing colonies all over the galaxy, only to belatedly realize the method of FTL caused irreversible mutations and disabilities and leaving their nascent colonies to die. Much later, many of the colonies have survived and thrived, and one has found a new method of FTL travel, allowing an interconnected space society to grow. However, Earth is on the hunt for their method and is prepared to do anything to steal it. Trapped in the middle of all this and forced on the run is young Jamisia, who is little by little coming to realize that not only might she be the very solution Earth is after, she’s also not alone in her own mind and body.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir*

Ryland Grace just woke up from a coma, unable to remember anything. He finds himself alone on a spaceship, the rest of the crew dead, and as his memories slowly trickle back, he realizes he’s been sent on a mission: to find a solution to the impending doom of the earth. Still struggling with holes in his memories, Ryland tries to fulfill his mission, but as he gets closer to his goal, he discovers someone else got there first. And they aren’t anything close to human. Funny, heartfelt, and heavy on the science.

House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds

Six million years in the future, humanity has spread across the entire Milky Way galaxy. Purslane and Campion are both clones of the same woman, sent into the galaxy millions of years ago to explore along with almost a thousand clones like them. Every 200 000 years they all meet to compare memories and experiences. But this time Purslane and Campion arrive late - and discover that a secret millions of years in the making has led to an extinction level attack against their kind. Now they must find out the truth before their line is completely wiped out. Absolutely wild world-building, featuring various kinds of posthumans (among which the clones are, shockingly, the most similar to people of our time).

Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone

Vivian Liao is a highly successful innovator, but she may have bitten off more than she can chew and fears the government is coming for her. As she goes into hiding, she attempts to pull off one last stunt that could fix everything - but something goes wrong, and suddenly Vivian finds herself waking up in the far future, under attack by an army of robots in space. Hoping to find her way back home, Vivian must assemble a crew of dangerous outlaws and outcasts to help her hunt down the Empress of Forever, the all-powerful entity who pulled her into the future. Lesbian main character.

Finder (Finder Chronicles) by Suzanne Palmer

Fergus Ferguson is a finder, and his latest job has just taken him to a small colony in the farthest corner of inhabited space. There he's searching for a stolen spaceship, what he thinks will be an easy job. But things become complicated as Fergus' arrival inadvertently sets off a civil war, forcing him to ally with the thief's enemies to get out alive with his prize. And beyond it all, the ships of a dangerous and mysterious alien species watches over it all, picking people off when least expected.

Space Opera (Space Opera duology) by Catherynne M. Valente

Eurovision in space! If you lose, humanity is doomed! Good luck! The sentient species of the galaxy have chosen to face each other not in war but in a musical contest, and now humanity is invited to partake. The problem? If we lose, our species as a whole will be exterminated. While I found this book as a whole slightly gimmicky, it’s a fun and flashy experience with some wild and creative alien species.

Blindsight (Firefall duology) by Peter Watts*

Vampires and aliens and questions of the nature of consciousnesses, oh my! A ship is sent to investigate the sudden appearance of an alien vessel at the edge of the solar system, but the crew isn’t prepared for the horrors awaiting them. No, seriously, this book will fuck you up, highly recommend if you’re okay with a lot of techno babble and existential horror.

The Outside (The Outside trilogy) by Ada Hoffman*

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

Honorary mentions AKA these didn't really work for me but maybe you guys will like them: Dare Mighty Things by Heather Kaczynski, Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes, Medusa Uploaded by Emily Devenport, We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor, The Genesis of Misery by Neon Yang

[imaginariumgeographica]

Got tagged by @jazzhandsmcleg!

rules: choose 4 of your favourite characters from 4 pieces of media as options and let your tumblr pals decide which one most suits your vibe

I have lost all memory of anyone ive ever known so im gonna do a classic 'if you're reading this and want to do the thing im tagging you' thing

[ilovedthestars]

i started reading ancillary justice because so many people said it was like Murderbot and so many people who liked Murderbot liked imperial radch but somehow none of that prepared me for

Page one Breq: “Sometimes I don’t know why I do the things I do. Even after all this time it’s still a new thing for me not to know, not to have orders to follow from one moment to the next.” [decides to stop and help a random half-dead human for "no reason"]

Page three breq: I could kill these annoying humans if I wanted, but I’m prioritizing protecting this other human

Page seven Breq: [paying an enormous amount of conscious attention to her expression]

[theygotbitchesinmedia]

okay now that the hades 2 fury has simmered down to the embers after several dozen hours of intense gameplay im ready to return to "reading" "books" again. I don't remember if I said this here already and am too lazy to double check, but since my old phone broke I'm starting fresh with no epubs and taking that as a sign from God not to bother with the rest of murderbot.

I'm going to star the imperial radch series now, which I'm gonna liveblog. I know almost nothing about this series so I'm excited to see what goes on here. I'm pretty sure this is the one where everyone is she/her due to imperialism or something? Let's find out.

[rjalker]

and again The Murderbot Diaries fails the Farscape test, which of course The Imperial Radch series passes with flying colors. Which is the reason Martha Wells failed. Just like she failed to take away any of the statments this series has to say about gender or disabled people.

no you don't get to know the question for the Farscape test until you've watched Farscape. then you can figure it out for yourself.

[duckprintspress]

Celebrate Agender Pride Day with 11 Stories Featuring Agender Characters!

Agender Pride day was just a couple days ago – May 19th, 2023! Last week, we asked our Press folks for their favorite stories with agender characters, and here we are – a handful of novels, a few volumes of manga, and three of our very own short stories with agender rep! Here they are: 11 books with agender characters, recommended by our contributors: @unforth, @shadaras, @ramblingandpie, @dei2dei, and an anonymous contributor.

“On Not Going to Parties” by Stephen G. Krueger from the anthology He Bears the Cape of Stars

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE by Clamp

Ancillary Justice, volume 1 of the Imperial Radch series by Ann Leckie

The Black Tides of Heaven, volume 1 of the Tensorate series by Neon Yang

Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee

Fortune Favors Felines by R. L. Houck

RG Veda by Clamp

All Systems Red, volume 1 of The Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells

Chobits by Clamp

“Breaking Bread” by Beth Lumen from the anthology Add Magic to Taste: A Spellbinding (and Scrumptious!) Collection of Heartwarming Queer Stories

You can read the blurbs for all these books on our website!

What are your favorite books with agender characters? Tell us about them!

Who We Are: Duck Prints Press LLC is an independent publisher based in New York State. Our founding vision is to help fan creators publish their original works. We are particularly dedicated to publishing art and fiction featuring characters from across the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. Want to always hear the latest? Sign up for our monthly newsletter! Want to support the Press, read about us behind-the-scenes, learn what’s coming down the pipeline, get exclusive teasers, and claim free stories? Back us on Patreon monthly!

[booksandchainmail]

Hugo Award Nominees Thoughts

Best Novel:

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty

The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

Starter Villain by John Scalzi

Translation State by Ann Leckie

Witch King by Martha Wells

Largely makes sense to me: Saint and Glory were my nominees as well, and probably the strongest on my short list. Witch and Translation were on my longlist, both good and unsurprising nominees. Adventures I haven't read but have heard good things about, I wasn't a fan of the author's early work so I hadn't picked it up but it sounds fun. Villain I don't know about but I'm willing to try.

I'm not surprised that my other nominees didn't make it: Chain-Gang All-Stars I think was billed more as literary fiction than sci-fi, He Who Drowned the World I thought might be on the list but I imagine missed the cut, and Furious Heaven was never going to make it (second book in a series, less-known author, lengthy military sci-fi)

Best Novella:

“Life Does Not Allow Us to Meet”, He Xi / 人生不相见, 何夕, translated by Alex Woodend

Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo

The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older

Rose/House by Arkady Martine

“Seeds of Mercury”, Wang Jinkang / 水星播种, 王晋康, translated by Alex Woodend

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

Thornhedge, Mammoths, and Mimicking were all on my longlist. Rose/House has been on my "want to read" list for a while, but is bafflingly unavailable at the library. Seeds and Life I don't know, but am excited for.

None of my nominees made it in, which I'm sad about. Keeper's Six, The Twice-Drowned Saint, The Narrow Road Between Desires, and Lost in a Moment and Found were all excellent. I nominated less than my total number of slots in an effort to avoid just filling my ballot with everything good that was eligible in a category I don't read much in.

Best Novelette, Best Short Story: I have read none of these, though many of the authors are familiar

Best Series:

The Final Architecture by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Imperial Radch by Ann Leckie

The Last Binding by Freya Marske

The Laundry Files by Charles Stross

October Daye by Seanan McGuire

The Universe of Xuya by Aliette de Bodard

Last Binding was one of my nominees, glad to see it made it. I'd completely forgotten that Imperial Radch would be eligible again, happy that others remembered. October Daye is a perennial favorite, though not a nominee of mine this year. Xuya is a personal pet-peeve: every book of it sounds amazing, and they never work for me, and I keep reading them and being frustrated. Architecture I haven't read, but I've loved everything of Tchaikovsky's I've read. Laundry I'm dubious about, given how hard I bounced of his other series.

My other nominees were the Craft series, which I'd love to see get more attention, Unconquerable Sun, which is my personal darling blorbo books that I desperately want people read and love, and Kushiel's Legacy, which was newly re-eligible thanks to the publication of a companion novel, and never got the critical sff attention it deserved.

Best Graphic Story, Best Related Work: haven't read any of these, but it looks like interesting nominees

Best Dramatic Presentations: I don't really care about these

Best Game or Interactive Work:

Alan Wake 2

Baldur’s Gate 3

Chants of Sennaar

DREDGE

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

New category! I don't know enough about games of 2023 to speak on these nominees, but it looks good at a glance? and it's clearly better than the steam awards at least

Best Editors, Zines, Artists, Writers, and Casts: I don't follow these fields enough to have opinions

Lodestar (not a Hugo):

Abeni’s Song by P. Djèlí Clark

Liberty’s Daughter by Naomi Kritzer

Promises Stronger than Darkness by Charlie Jane Anders

The Sinister Booksellers of Bath by Garth Nix

To Shape a Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose

Unraveller by Frances Hardinge

Shape was one of my nominees, one of my favorite books of the year all over. Very glad to see it here. Since it was published and marketed aimed at adults, even though it's about teenagers at magic school, I imagine we'll see a repeat of the Scholomance eligibility discourse. Booksellers was... fine? But nothing particularly noteworthy to me. Abeni and Liberty I don't know, but like the authors. Unraveller I don't know, but have heard good things about the author. Promises I am going to preemptively not read given how much I disliked (and DNFed) the first two.

I'm sad to see my other two nominees, The Shape of Drowning and The Spirit Bares Its Teeth not on here. Drowning reminded me very sharply of Diana Wynne Jones, and Spirit was one of my best books of the year, with an excellent narrative voice. Maybe teen horror isn't doing that strongly now?

Astounding (not a Hugo):

Moniquill Blackgoose (1st year of eligibility)

Sunyi Dean (2nd year of eligibility)

Ai Jiang (2nd year of eligibility)

Hannah Kaner (1st year of eligibility)

Em X. Liu (1st year of eligibility)

Xiran Jay Zhao (eligibility extended at request of Dell Magazines)

So can we just go ahead and call this one for Xiran Jay Zhao already? Even leaving aside that they are a strong nominee, I can't imagine voters not using this as a protest against last year's scandal. Of those I've read, Blackgoose is my favorite, and was one of my nominees. Kaner and Liu both had good first novels/ellas and are solid nominees, though not my picks. Dean and Jiang I don't know.

My other nominees were Isabel J. Kim, Maya Deane, Vajra Chandrasekera, and C. E. McGill.

Overall:

This is a very reassuring ballot, after last year. Nothing here is deeply surprising, nothing is deeply surprising to be missing. The announcement also included an explanation of nominees that declined (Martha Wells continues to be classy in declining further nominations for Murderbot) or were ineligible, and why.

I have ~15 fiction books to read for voting, which is very manageable. In particular, already having read 4/6 of the series is a major help.

[mechanist901]

Forgive me if I have asked this already.

Do you have a favourite book?

I think it's hard to pick a favourite tbh, they've all got their own strengths.

But if I had to choose from recent memory, I'd go for Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie. It's the 2nd book in her Imperial Radch trilogy and I adore it and the other books in the series. Really reignited my love for sci-fi after recent disappointments with Star Wars and Star Trek.

I'm actually reading Translation State atm which is a separate story set in the same universe because I am absolutely obsessed with this world that's been created.