#ya sff

[alvoskia]

"WELL, ALLY—HAVE YOU EVER WANTED TO BE A GOD?"

Pitched as QUEER ATLA MEETS PERCY JACKSON, Alvoskia: Call of the Infrans is a YA SFF debut following a group of reincarnated chosen ones. Raised together since childhood and trained to serve and protect the nation of Alvoskia, the Infrans are thick as thieves, but Infran of Life Ally Hatten can't quite seem to get her powers back, and time is running out, especially when the threat of war is brought to her doorstep. To stop the conflict before it begins, she'll have to rely on her vengeful twin sister and one-sided rival—people she both loves and loathes in equal measure.

Mixed with spades of Six of Crows, Call of the Infrans has an emphasis on:

Ragtag group of not squeaky clean, sometimes morally dubious protagonists

Entirely queer (i.e. nonbinary lesbian, trans, asexual characters) / BIPOC main cast

Unique and layered worldbuilding (religion, languages, etc) in a secondary world fantasy

Kaz/Inej's love child as a secondary main character

Friendship and found family

Shapeshifters

Past lives and parallels

It comes out March 3rd, 2026 and you can follow here at @alvoskia for updates in the meantime! I hope to see you there 🌟

[thethiefandtheairbender]

Finally got this off the ground - Spotify podcast for now with youtube to follow, focusing on unconventional writing advice for people who are a few years into their writing journey already (although hopefully helpful for everyone)! Our first podcast episode is about worldbuilding religions! if you want ideas on pantheons to politics to artistic portrayals, this is a nice jumping off point!

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #53 – Binti by Nnedi Okarafor

This is one of those works that has been vaguely on my radar for years and years now – I have entirely lost track of the number of places I’ve seen it recommended as some of the best or most original science fiction of the 2010s. So when my hold finally came in on it, I went in more or less blind – which was, frankly, a fatal mistake. I bounced harder off of this than I have very nearly anything I can remember – if it was any longer I probably wouldn’t have bothered finishing the story. I got the whole trilogy as a compendium, and I’m certainly not going to force myself through the rest of it. Which is a shame, because there are plenty of original ideas in there, but (to me, at least) it’s an absolutely brutal failure of form and execution.

The story follows the eponymous Binti, a prodigy and savant in mathematics and the quasi-magical ‘harmonizing’ – creation and manipulation of electric currents. At age 16, she received accepted into the planet-spanning Oomza University and, despite the clear disapproval of her family and her people’s traditional isolationism, she runs away from home and aboard an interstellar transport to take her away. But when the ship is attacked by the Medusae – an alien species with a grudge against the university – a personal keepsake that turns out to be a powerful ancient relic allow her to survive when every other passenger is slaughtered where they stand – and eventually even communicate with the aliens who have seized the ship. She learns that they attacked as part of a plan to steal back their leader’s stinger, and convinces them to let her be their ambassador and attempt to get it through negotiation with the university administration instead. After she proves her willingness to argue on their behalf, they agree – and once they arrive at the university, the administration does as well. Both she and the young Medusae she forged something of a friendship with are welcomed as students, and she has to reckon with the dramatic changes being tested and healed by the medusae caused in her. Fin.

That is much more of a plot summary than I usually write for these things, but I guess my first big issue with the story is just that that’s basically everything that happens in the book? This feels like it could be quite easily cut down to a tight, compelling short story – or else expanded into a full novel, with enough space to give things time to breathe and allow for foreshadowing with more subtlety than a sledgehammer to the face. As is, the story feels both kind of meandering and like the plot beats are a first draft that never had the space to go back and add any real interest or surprise to them.

Which would honestly have been far more forgivable if not for the prose. This is shelved as young adult but in terms of sentence complexity and the way things are phrased it honestly feels closer to middle grade? Or, at least, every sentence was very simple and very explicit and direct, in a way that I quickly found clunky and then intensely grating to read. A friend described it as reading like it was translated from a different language, which doesn’t seem to be the case but I honestly wouldn’t be at all surprised.

Everything is also just thematically very convenient, I guess? Not even that the random relic Binti found in the sand as a child and keeps as a good luck charm turns out to be a hyper-advanced technological plot device, but that for unclear reasons the otjize dye that she (and the very real Namibian Himba ethnic group she’s a member of) use to plait and colour hair is to the Medusae a miraculous panacea which heals scars none of their own technology (capable of creating interspecies hybrids and inducing mutations with a single injection) could touch. Which is a level of thematic bluntness that’s just much more fitting for a children’s story than what I went into this expecting or hoping for.

I could go on, but there’s not really any point – to be positive, the worldbuilding hinted at is intriguing and evocative like absolutely everyone says it is. The whole reading experience was just a terrible failure of marketing, I think – I can’t recall the last time I read a book I ostensibly should have liked that is quite so forcefully Not For Me. Which is odd, because I actually quite enjoyed the other novella of Okorafor I read. But then, Remote Control was written six years later and for an adult audience.

[virtuallyleslie]

Congratulations Moniquill Blackgoose!

TO SHAPE A DRAGON'S BREATH is on the official reading list for Best First Novel with the Locus Awards

The Locus Awards are reader awards! You decide the winners!

Just go through the poll: https://poll.voting.locusmag.com

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Walking In Two Worlds & The Everlasting Road

YA sff set in the near future where an opensource augmented reality is commonly used like social media, and there’s also a completely virtual fantasy game version

follows an Anishinaabe girl who who’s the top player in the VR game, and is constantly fighting to keep her place against the misogynist neo-nazi group in second place

as well as her real life, dealing with being a shy and self-conscious teen growing up on the Rez, and her brother having cancer

and a Uyghur boy who’s moved to her community from China after finding acceptance in an online community (even when he doesn’t agree with their more extreme views) - but when he gets to know Bugz, he has to decide who truly deserves his loyalty

great mix of sff and culture, the future while also very real community traumas of the past (and present)

[lexalovesbooks]

Going from a robin hobb book straight to a ya fantasy might have been a mistake…

[valleyofthesilksky]

Hi, remember this comic? I don’t blame you if not, I haven’t been able to work on it for awhile. The last time I penciled a page was in January 2022, and chapter 13 of Valley of the Silk Sky has sat at 75% penciled ever since.

In the intervening time I spent 6 months in physical therapy (two rounds, somewhat different issues, the bulk of it focused on getting my drawing arm in working order again). And so VotSS has sat on my cork board, those penciled pages staring at me every day, waiting for the will to work on it to return.

Well, it didn’t return, so I did what you sometimes have to do as a creative professional, and decided to pencil the next page anyway. I can’t make any promises as to when I will actually publish chapter 13. But I do still very much intend to finish this book, and I’m hoping knocking the rust off will help me get it running again. Onward!

[bookcub]

as much as i love open ended assignments, i sometimes get overwhelmed with assignments. like i have an upcoming assignment where i need to choose any fantasy or scifi book and merely explain why they fit in the genre. . . *galaxy brain*

i wont make any promises, but you can vote on my current options below!

[lgbtqreads]

Exclusive Cover Reveal: Trailer Park Prince by Andre L. Bradley

Today on the site, I’m delighted to reveal the cover of Trailer Park Prince by Andre L. Bradley, a YA fantasy adventure releasing June 11, 2024 from Tiny Ghost Press! Here’s the story: A decade ago, a rift tore open the Kaydan sky, pulling twin princes, Noan and Jormon, plus thousands of their people, from their home world and dumping them in the American South. In the years since, they’ve grown…

[alvoskia]

George was always tinkering with something, usually clocks, and the only one Ally could regularly rely on to be any fun. They stole sweets from the pantry together when they were both on their periods, even if Ally had to make sure he didn’t leave grease stains anywhere as they tiptoed away with their stashes.

[thethiefandtheairbender]

I am far more neutral. You have a funny way of showing it. Well, you were always one to appreciate a good joke, Alliccon. I don’t appreciate being laughed at.

[literary-illuminati]

At the point in The Golden Enclaves where they visit New York and the book's doing something I love (and was one of my favorite things in Pact and Pale), where El just kind of incidentally walks past a bunch of the enclaves heavy-hitters who each dress like characters from entirely different anime and have little hints of whatever their own shit going on is, but provide no further details whatsoever.

It's a fun way to make the world seem a bit bigger than just the protagonist, you know? (Which a special issue for this book because El now pretty literally is the most powerful thing on earth and it doesn't seem to be especially close)

[virtuallyleslie]

⭐TO SHAPE A DRAGON'S BREATH⭐

🍾 Congratulations Moniquill Blackgoose 🥂

Qualified for all 2024 awards for Fantasy, YA, and Debut Novel!

Now on the 4th printing and being featured on Best Book of the Year lists, such as:

Washington Post's 10 Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels of 2023

https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/11/14/best-science-fiction-fantasy/

Chicago Public Library Must-Read Books of 2023: Fantasy, Horror & Sci-Fi https://chipublib.bibliocommons.com/list/share/199702383/2422351289

NPR's Book We Love

https://apps.npr.org/best-books/#year=2023&book=336

Pop Sugar's Best New Fantasy Books

https://www.popsugar.com/entertainment/best-new-fantasy-books-2023-49056293

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks

YA contemporary + a little sff

follows a boy who suddenly finds himself able to teleport when he walks through doors, often against his will

and has to figure that out while dealing with a new crush, the end of high school and the queer club, and figuring out whether he definitely wants to train to be an ASL interpreter like his father

[nona-gay-simus]

It's been 2 days since i finished The Midnight Lie and I'm only growing more resentful. How dare this book trick me into thinking it might be good with its lush writing and a sexy butch love interest, and promise of a complex abusive mother/daughter dynamic just to end up give me nothing in terms of an actual plot progression, boring and cliché reveals, two dimensional villains and a ship so heavily weighted in one direction as to be completely unavailable.

And then everyone on goodreads was all 'nirrim and syd this, nirrim and syd that'... Y'all were bamboozled by pretty writing and the presence of lesbians. There's nothing fun in shipping a wet sponge with someone who is literally perfect human (except maybe being a little bit arrogant.)

And why did we need homophobia? As if this relationship wasn't already unequal enough, we gotta add extra stress into it and get a lesbian version of the rake and the blushing virgin trope. Newsflash, but i never wanted a lesbian version of that trope. Some tropes aren't better by being made gay, actually. And why did we need to dress the butch character in dresses which she hates? Icky, gross. Go to jail.

[checkoutmybookshelf]

2023 SFF New Releases that I am PSYCHED for:

The Blood Gift by NE Davenport (out April 18)

The Surviving Sky by Kritika H. Rao (out June 13)

Dark Water Daughter by HM Long (out July 11)

Immortal Longings by Chloe Gong (out July 18)

The Jasad Heir by Sara Hashem (out July 18)

The Water Outlaws by SL Huang (out August 22)

The Phenix King by Aparna Verma (out August 29)

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree (out November 7)

The Ashfire King by Chelsea Abdullah (out November 14)