#ya sff

[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!

[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.

[whilereadingandwalking]

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao is a blaze of female anger and the refusal to bury it for anyone or anything. A mix of Pacific Rim and The Hunger Games, it depicts a world where men grow up to be pilots of Chrysalises, giant transforming robots meant to protect Huaxia from the aliens beyond the Great Wall. 

But to obtain their glory, they take concubines into battle—concubines that they drain and leave for dead to fuel the transformations. But Zeitan is done with it all. Her feet painfully bound, her sister dead at the hands of one of Huaxia's most famous pilots. She wants to see him die. Little does she know she'll emerge as one of the best and most controversial female pilots Huaxia has seen. 

I could not put this book down. It is satisfying and cut-throat. Zeitan is determined to watch this world burn, and so are we. I've been anticipating this one ever since someone at the Hugos told me they thought it was the best depiction of female rage they had ever read, and it filled that bill—everything Zeitan feels is justified from a lifetime of chronic pain and being taught that her life is only meant to serve as a man's energy well. 

The danger feels real, the chemistry in the romances is absolute fire, the twists are exciting, the systemic, structural misogyny is infuriating, and the imagery and action are incredibly cinematic. It's brutal, vivid, and powered by a main character who is cunning, uncompromising, and bold. Can't wait for the sequel. 

Content warnings for violence, domestic and emotional abuse, suicidal ideation and discussion, alcohol addiction, torture, ableism, and references to sexual assault.

[cappuccinoandglitter]

A reminder that I write books. Some of them are even out there for you to read. Currently on Amazon Kindle, Amazon.com: Pike Martell: books, biography, latest update

[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)

[ingloriousgigi]

“The entitled assholes of the world are sustained by girls who forgive too easily.” ― Xiran Jay Zhao, Iron Widow

[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…

[thethiefandtheairbender]

also for newer followers who might not know

i'm writing a book! and it's getting published!

if you just want the immediate details you can click the read and read a short FAQ! if you need more to get sold on it, stick around and check it out!

My YA SFF fantasy debut, ALVOSKIA: Call of the Infrans, follows an Unchosen one named Ally who is struggling to find where she belongs amidst her chosen one found family family when violence arrives at their doorstep, and they're forced to fulfil their duties earlier than expected. There's dragons and child soldiers and subverted fantasy tropes, some tone consistent werewolves, an almost entirely queer main cast with the majority also being characters of colour, and if you've been following my blog for any amount of time, it probably has something for you.

If you like ATLA: "what if there were multiple Avatars running around, and what if they weren't all automatically good people?" + past lives and reincarnation cycles

If you like Derry Girls: hot mess of teenagers getting in and out of trouble together while being ridiculous (and sometimes very sad)

If you like PJO: young teenagers with cool powers going on quests together and coming-of-age. And snark. Lots of snark

If you like Six of Crows: morally dubious collection of protagonists, some heisting may or may not happen, outsiders working together

If you like TDP: elves and dragons and long standing grudges and politics

If you like Star Wars: y'know how the Force like consumes you the farther you wander in? yeah that's the magic system here. + some shadow, death, and shapeshifter stuff

If you like HTTYD: you're here for the found family and fun fantasy aesthetic aren't you

Rep: queer (aro, ace, bi, pan, trans, lesbian, nonbinary, genderfluid, gay main characters, often times overlapping); Asian (Indonesian), Black, Sri Lankan and Pakistani (coded) rep; hijabi rep; one character is an amputee and one main character is Autistic.

The debut month is March 2026! Sometimes there is even very pretty (commissioned or friends) art for it:

If you want more info in the meantime you can shoot me an ask or you can follow this sideblog for it. If you want a taste of my fandom writing first you can check out my AO3 or writing snippets on said side blog, like this one:

Likes and reblogs mean a lot and I hope you enjoy!

[alvoskia]

 “Do you know what an Infran is?”  “Of course I do,” Ally bristled. You couldn’t live in Alvoskia and not know. There were eight different kinds and all of them were famous. The old ones were dead now and had been for a while. The cycle would start all over again soon. “Alright, then. What does an Infran do?” Gisenburg challenged her. Ally thought of the murals at weekly prayers, the sickle-shaped hole in the stone to let the moonlight through. Stories of saints who could walk on water; people who could turn into dragons, although that one was probably a myth. “God things,” she said as confidently as she could. Gisenburg’s lips twitched but it didn’t reach her strange, grey eyes, like she’d asked this question before and hadn’t liked the answer. “Well, Ally—have you ever wanted to be a god?”

—ALVOSKIA: Call of the Infrans

[beaft]

i have said this before and i will likely say it again. but. the public perception of sci-fi/fantasy literature as being somehow "childish" and silly or as having less artistic value than "literary realism" drives me up the fucking WALL

[anghraine]

Occasionally I wonder if I fit the lit-fic bogeyman of the contemptible intellectual weaklings who only read SF/F, and it actually takes a moment to remember that I'm writing a dissertation on 17- and 18th-century British literature that has very little in common w/ SF/F.

[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)