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excavatinglizard · 2 years

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Lizard’s Queer Space Opera Collection

What time is it? It’s ✨ lizard talks about queer sci-fi ✨ time

My family don’t understand how much joy I get from queer stories, and none of my close friend really read space operas (at least not with the same voracity that I do), so I’m appearing here to pass my knowledge on to you, the void that is my blog.

I read a lot of space operas, and I’ve had the incredible luck that the last handful I’ve picked up have been joyfully queer (or maybe we’re just seeing a shift in the sci-fi publishing world. I love it.). This isn’t a comprehensive list or anything, and this isn’t limited to pure space operas, but they are some of my favorites. Hope I can convince some of you to read a couple (and if you do or have read any, please come and shout at me! I want to talk about them! Always!)

I originally wrote these out for my Instagram, and I can’t really be bothered to retype it all so below the cut are my quick descriptions/thoughts on each of the books, but I’ll chuck the list here too

The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin

Machine, Elizabeth Bear

Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie

Winter’s Orbit, Everina Maxwell

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, Becky Chambers

A Matter Of Oaths, Helen S. Wright

A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine

The Collapsing Empire, John Scalzi

These are just books that I’ve read in the last year or so, and if you have any more recs please tell me!

A couple additions that didn't make it to Instagram:

If you like graphic novels, please give On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden a shot, it's really lovely and quiet and feels like a big warm space hug.

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado is a collection of horror short stories, some of which border on scifi, which is why it didn't make it into the main list, but I highly recommend it. My copy was given to me by the lovely @markcampbells

I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter has a bit of a history due to its presentation of gender, and the author actually asked for it to be removed from the Clarkesworld magazine due to the hate comments she was receiving. Still, if you can find it I highly recommend it, as it is genuinely very good.

The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer is. Wow it sure is a book that emotionally damaged me. It's about two boys (men? they're 17 but it doesn't feel like a YA book, except int he good ways) who are on a spaceship heading out to Titan to attempt a rescue mission on Earth's first extraterrestrial colony. There are a lot of feels and ouch.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, by Claire North. This book isn't a space opera, but it is somewhat sci-fi? anyway, Harry August is one of my favourite books of all time, and it explores a man trapped in what is almost a timeloop, except that time-loop is his whole life. each time he dies he's reborn right back where he started, and it's only through his and the other people like him's actions that the world is ever changed in each repeat.

The Culture series, Iain M Banks. I put this one on the list with a good bit of trepidation and the warning of: these books were written by a (supposedly) cishet white man, and almost all of his protagonists are…nearly cishet white men (with a couple women thrown in in later books). The same can not be said for literally every other character, who are almost entirely trans and bisexual. These books really gave me my love for space operas and if you're a fan of the genre I recommend. Also, the AIs here are amazing. Let us not forget the Ship "Mistake Not My Current State Of Joshing Gentle Peevishness For The Awesome And Terrible Majesty Of The Towering Seas Of Ire That Are Themselves The Mere Milquetoast Shallows Fringing My Vast Oceans Of Wrath". They're great.

(I’m also going to add, I would not recommend his normal fiction. I’ve read two, The Wasp Factory which kind of scarred and disturbed me, and Transitions which was just plain bad. Maybe I picked a bad selection, but I can only in good conscience recommend his sci-fi.)

And that's it my dudes! go forth! read queer space operas!

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valya-dudycz-lupescu · 7 months

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It’s time to unveil the cover of Embroidered Worlds: Fantastic Fiction from Ukraine and the Diaspora, as well as the list of thirty authors and their stories!

Taras Kopansky is the Ukrainian artist who created the art, "Metahutsulka" for the cover. His piece is inspired by Mykola Senkovsky’s famous 1926 photograph “Old Hutsulka” that won the Grand Prix at the European International Exhibition in Paris.

The translated stories have working titles, since our translators are working on them at the moment, but they will give you an idea of what you have to look forward to:

TATIANA ADAMENKO | Kestrel Travel Agency

VOLODYMYR ARENEV | There, Where the Garden Will Be

VIRA BALATSKA | Following Revenge

KÁROJ D. BALLA | In the Belly of the Dinosaur

ELIZABETH BEAR | Lest We Forget

ANATOLY BELILOVSKY | Iron Feliks

ÉVA BERNICZKY | Dreamers of Uzhhorod

OLHA BRYLOVA | Iron Goddess of Compassion

DAVID DEMCHUK | Three Forest Tales

VASYL DUKHNOVSKYI | A Hole in the Shape of God

OLEKSIY GEDEONOV | The Midst of Snow

MYROSLAVA HORNOSTAYEVA | The Stray Tram

YARYNA KATOROZH | The Bike Spirit

MAX KIDRUK | Closer to the Pole

OLENA KRASNOSELSKA | Scream

R.B. LEMBERG | Geddarien

HALYNA LIPATOVA | The Last of the Beads

VALYA DUDYCZ LUPESCU | Honey

ASKOLD MELNYCZUK | A Brief History of the Little : People

MIKHAILO NAZARENKO | Big-Nose and the Faun

IRYNA PASKO | The Rainbow Bridge

STEFAN O. RAK | The Long Black Veil

N.R.M. ROSHAK | Bitter Thing

IHOR SILIVRA | Family v1.1

OLEH SILIN | To See Jupiter

A.D. SUI | Svet

SVITLANA TARATORINA | Battle of the Gods

OSTAP UKRAINETS | Neptune’s Day

YURIY VYNNYCHUK | An Embroidered World

OLEKSIY ZHUPANSKYI | Havrylovna

You can read the rest of the update here:

Just a few days left to become a backer! The campaign ends on September 30th! Please help us to spread the word!

Дуже дякую! Слава Україні!

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torpublishinggroup · 2 years

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Queer Books Coming from Tor Books in 2022 🏳️‍🌈

We’re very gay! We publish a lot of books!

The (also gay) mad scientists behind this account have combined the above truths into one post. Feel the mitest bit queer? Got a gay hankering for LGBTQIA+ books?

Check it out 😎

The Thousand Eyes by A. K. Larkwood

Two years after defying the wizard Belthandros Sethennai and escaping into the great unknown, Csorwe and Shuthmili have made a new life for themselves, hunting for secrets among the ruins of an ancient snake empire. Along for the ride is Tal Charossa, determined to leave the humiliation and heartbreak of his hometown far behind him, even if it means enduring the company of his old rival and her insufferable girlfriend. All three of them would be quite happy never to see Sethennai again. But when a routine expedition goes off the rails and a terrifying imperial relic awakens, they find that a common enemy may be all it takes to bring them back into his orbit.

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

The Alexandrian Society, caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity, are the foremost secret society of magical academicians in the world. Those who earn a place among the Alexandrians will secure a life of wealth, power, and prestige beyond their wildest dreams, and each decade, only the six most uniquely talented magicians are selected to be considered for initiation. When the candidates are recruited by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they are told they will have one year to qualify for initiation, during which time they will be permitted preliminary access to the Society’s archives and judged based on their contributions to various subjects of impossibility: time and space, luck and thought, life and death. Five, they are told, will be initiated. One will be eliminated. The six potential initiates will fight to survive the next year of their lives, and if they can prove themselves to be the best among their rivals, most of them will. Most of them.

Last Exit by Max Gladstone

Ten years ago, Zelda led a band of merry adventurers whose knacks let them travel to alternate realities and battle the black rot that threatened to unmake each world. Zelda was the warrior; Ish could locate people anywhere; Ramon always knew what path to take; Sarah could turn catastrophe aside. Keeping them all connected: Sal, Zelda’s lover and the group’s heart. Until their final, failed mission, when Sal was lost. When they all fell apart. Ten years on, Ish, Ramon, and Sarah are happy and successful. Zelda is alone, always traveling, destroying rot throughout the US. When it boils through the crack in the Liberty Bell, the rot gives Zelda proof that Sal is alive, trapped somewhere in the alts. Zelda’s getting the band back together.

The Discord of Gods by Jenn Lyons

Relos Var’s final plans to enslave the universe are on the cusp of fruition. He believes there’s only one being in existence that might be able to stop him: the demon Xaltorath. As these two masterminds circle each other, neither is paying attention to the third player on the board, Kihrin. Unfortunately, keeping himself classified in the ‘pawn’ category means Kihrin must pretend to be everything the prophecies threatened he’d become: the destroyer of all, the sun eater, a mindless, remorseless plague upon the land. It also means finding an excuse to not destroy the people he loves (or any of the remaining Immortals) without arousing suspicion.

The Origin of Storms by Elizabeth Bear

Hugo Award-winning author Elizabeth Bear returns to conclude her acclaimed epic fantasy trilogy of the Lotus Kingdoms, which began with The Stone in the Skull and The Red-Stained Wings, bringing it all to a surprising, satisfying climax in The Origin of Storms. The Lotus Kingdoms are at war, with four claimants to the sorcerous throne of the Alchemical Emperor, fielding three armies between them. Alliances are made, and broken, many times over—but in the end, only one can sit on the throne. And that one must have not only the power, but the rightful claim.

The Grief of Stones by Katherine Addison

In The Grief of Stones, Katherine Addison returns to the world of The Goblin Emperor with a direct sequel to The Witness For The Dead…

Celehar’s life as the Witness for the Dead of Amalo grows less isolated as his circle of friends grows larger. He has been given an apprentice to teach, and he has stumbled over a scandal of the city—the foundling girls. Orphans with no family to claim them and no funds to buy an apprenticeship. Foundling boys go to the Prelacies; foundling girls are sold into service, or worse.

At once touching and shattering, Celehar’s witnessing for one of these girls will lead him into the depths of his own losses.

The love of his friends will lead him out again.

A Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows

Velasin vin Aaro never planned to marry at all, let alone a girl from neighboring Tithena. When an ugly confrontation reveals his preference for men, Vel fears he’s ruined the diplomatic union before it can even begin. But while his family is ready to disown him, the Tithenai envoy has a different solution: for Vel to marry his former intended’s brother instead.

Caethari Aeduria always knew he might end up in a political marriage, but his sudden betrothal to a man from Ralia, where such relationships are forbidden, comes as a shock. With an unknown faction willing to kill to end their new alliance, Vel and Cae have no choice but to trust each other. Survival is one thing, but love—as both will learn—is quite another.

The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean

Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book’s content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries. Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon—like all other book eater women—is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairytales and cautionary stories. But real life doesn’t always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger—not for books, but for human minds.

Dance with the Devil by Kit Rocha

Tobias Richter, the fearsome VP of Security of TechCorp is dead. The puppetmaster is gone, and the organization is scrambling to maintain control by ruthlessly limiting access to resources to Atlanta, hoping to quell rebellion. Our band of mercenary librarians have decided that the time for revolution has come. Maya uses her wealth of secrets to weaken the TechCorps from within. Dani strikes from the shadows, picking off the chain of command one ambush at a time. And Nina is organizing their community—not just to survive, but to fight back. When Maya needs to make contact with a sympathetic insider, Dani and Rafe are the only ones with the skill-set and experience to infiltrate the highest levels of the TechCorps. They’ll go deep undercover in the decadent, luxury-soaked penthouses on the Hill. Bringing Dani face-to-face with the man who turned her into a killer. And forcing Rafe to decide how far he’ll go to protect both of his families—the one he was born to, and the one he made for himself. Victory will break the back of Power. Failure will destroy Atlanta.

The Genesis of Misery by Neon Yang

An immersive, electrifying space-fantasy, Neon Yang's debut novel The Genesis of Misery is full of high-tech space battles and political machinations, starring a queer and diverse array of pilots, princesses, and prophetic heirs. It’s an old, familiar story: a young person hears the voice of an angel saying they have been chosen as a warrior to lead their people to victory in a holy war. But Misery Nomaki (she/they) knows they are a fraud. Raised on a remote moon colony, they don’t believe in any kind of god. Their angel is a delusion, brought on by hereditary space exposure. Yet their survival banks on mastering the holy mech they are supposedly destined for, and convincing the Emperor of the Faithful that they are the real deal. The deeper they get into their charade, however, the more they start to doubt their convictions. What if this, all of it, is real? A reimagining of Joan of Arc’s story given a space opera, giant robot twist, the Nullvoid Chronicles is a story about the nature of truth, the power of belief, and the interplay of both in the stories we tell ourselves.

The Genesis of Misery is on sale 9/27/22

Ocean’s Echo by Everina Maxwell

When Tennal—a rich socialite, inveterate flirt, and walking disaster—is caught using his telepathic powers for illegal activities, the military decides to bind his mind to someone whose coercive powers are strong enough to control him. Enter Lieutenant Surit, the child of a disgraced general. Out of a desperate need to restore a pension to his other parent, Lieutenant Surit agrees to be bound to Tennal and keep him conscripted in the army, a task that seems impossible even for someone with Surit’s ability to control minds. Tennal just wants to escape, but Surit isn’t all that he seems. And their bond may just be the key to their freedom.

Ocean’s Echo is on sale 11/1/22

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

The much-beloved BookTok sensation Legends & Lattes is Travis Baldree's novel of high fantasy and low stakes. *The new paperback edition will include a very special, never-before-seen bonus story, 'Pages to Fill.'* After a lifetime of bounties and bloodshed, Viv is hanging up her sword for the last time. The battle-weary orc aims to start fresh, opening the first ever coffee shop in the city of Thune. But old and new rivals stand in the way of success — not to mention the fact that no one has the faintest idea what coffee actually is. If Viv wants to put the blade behind her and make her plans a reality, she won't be able to go it alone. But the true rewards of the uncharted path are the travelers you meet along the way. And whether drawn together by ancient magic, flaky pastry, or a freshly brewed cup, they may become partners, family, and something deeper than she ever could have dreamed.

Legends & Lattes is on sale 11/8/22

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babydollxxblood · 4 months

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Pale bones stretching her skin gorgeously. Tendons popped as she flexed her fingers. The shape she wore was dough-pale, sticky and soft, but hunger made it leaner. Not enough leaner.

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evenaturtleduck · 4 months

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"You know we're missing something."

"We're always missing something." The Dead Man shrugged. "We're not the heroes of the story. Of any story. We're those guys who wander in during the third act to pick up the dirty work."

#i love the dead man and the gage #the stone in the skull #elizabeth bear #currently reading #the lotus kingdoms

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sapphicshart · 7 months

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hammered by elizabeth bear is like,

'i'm a woman, in toronto, learning how to walk again! thanks to doc valens and my new cyborg legs! this city's no match for a woman like me! take that toronto! from now on im calling this city' *passes out*

#mine #jenny casey #maker #hammered #elizabeth bear #trina vega

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a-ramblinrose · 2 years

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JOMP Book Photo Challenge || October 11 || Diversity: Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear

#Karen Memory #Elizabeth Bear #justonemorepage #jompbpc #book photo challenge #book photography #books #Not Out of Void But Out of Chaos #bpc catch up

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snakegirllovehandles · 1 year

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"Machine", by Elizabeth Bear

It's a love letter to James White's "Sector General" series. I'm three quarters in and the deliberate parallels and contrasts were clear before I was a quarter done. I'm simply luxuriating in this. It's positively incredible writing and I love every inch of it. If you like space medical mystery thrillers this is absolutely the novel for you.

#Machine #Elizabeth Bear #Sector General #James White #White Space

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ninja-muse · 1 year

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Ok I'm asking another one - 53!

New Amsterdam by Elizabeth Bear - I encountered one of the short stories in this on … Podcastle? Gigonotosaurus? One of those SFF podcasts, way back in the day. It was a fun steampunk mystery, and then I discovered there was a whole collection of them! It's been on my physical TBR for a good while too. I picked up a copy at Powell's.

Thanks for asking!

Ask me things!

#the tbr list of doom #answered asks #new amsterdam #elizabeth bear #steampunk

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parsleysagerosemarytimemachine · 2 years

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'The Origin of Storms' caps off the Lotus Kingdoms trilogy, and really, if you enjoy epic fantasy with queer characters and fantastic non-European settings, you owe it to yourself to give this a read -- it's great and creative and really just wonderful writing, and I'd love if more people got into Bear's work. :)

#books #reading #mtg custom #The Origin of Storms #Elizabeth Bear #I've been reading #but not as much as I'd like lately #and it's been even more difficult to find the brains to actually post about it too #so here's a dump of stuff

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excavatinglizard · 1 year

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What time is it? It’s ✨Lizard talks about queer sci-fi✨ once again!

Hello hello, after well over six months I’m back with another set of book recommendations! Trying to pull this together was honestly a good way of convincing myself to read more, and since the last installment I’ve read…41 books? So you know, it worked.

Do you like queer sci-fi? Do you see the same books recommended everywhere? Well I’m here to scour local bookshops and slowly consume their entire stock for you!

Anyway, this is another ten books I’ve loved, and specifically my:

Top ten queer speculative fiction (since April)

(Speculative fiction because even this many books isn’t enough to have ten good queer space operas. In fact, I’ve only read seven space operas in general!)

This list includes:

Last Exit, by Max Gladstone

A Psalm for the Wild-Built, by Becky Chambers

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

Ancestral Night, by Elizabeth Bear

Even Greater Mistakes, by Charlie Jane Anders

The Darkness Outside Us, by Elliot Schrefer

Murderbot, by Martha Wells

Someone In Time, edited by Jonathon Strahan

Our Wives Under the Sea, by Julia Armfield

Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir

Once again, I originally wrote this on my Instagram so some of my thoughts and reviews are below the cut :)

(This time with alt text!!)

If you’ve read any of these or read any because of me, feel free to come chat!! And if you have any suggestions for me I’ll totally check them out too (thank you to everyone who hounded me into reading Gideon, it’s now the defining facet of my personality /half joking)

Now go forth, and read!

#queer scifi #book recs #Gideon the ninth #Murderbot #Becky chambers #dumb shit i do #yup here’s some more books. if you enjoy any come and scream in my inbox I will gleefully scream back #elizabeth bear #our wives under the sea #the darkness outside us #someone in time #charlie jane anders #max Gladstone

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lizabethstucker · 2 years

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The Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy 2022 edited by Rebecca Roanhorse (guest) & John Joseph Adams

4 out of 5 stars.

This is a collection of twenty of the best science fiction and fantasy short stories published in North America during 2021 as selected by guest editor Rebecca Roanhorse, author of "Black Sun", among other books.

A Netgalley ARC provided courtesy of HarperCollins, the scheduled publication date is November 1, 2022.

Contents:

"10 Steps to a Whole New You" by Tonya Liburd "The Pizza Boy" by Meg Elison "If the Martians Have Magic" by P. Djeli Clark "Delete Your First Memory for Free" by Kel Colman "The Red Mother" by Elizabeth Bear "The Cold Calculations" by Aimee Ogden "The Captain and the Quartermaster" by C. L. Clark "Broad Dutty Water: A Sunken Story" by Nalo Hopkinson "I Was a Teenage Space Jockey" by Stephen Graham Jones "Let All the Children Boogie" by Sam J. Miller "Skinder's Veil" by Kelly Link "The Algorithm Will See You Now" by Justin C. Key "The Cloud Lake Unicorn" by Karen Russel "Proof by Induction" by Jose Pablo Iriarte "Colors of the Immortal Palette" by Caroline M. Yoachim "The Future Library" by Peng Shepherd "L'Esprit de L'Escalier" by Catherynne M. Valente "Tripping Through Time" by Rich Larson "The Frankly Impossible Weight of Han" by Maria Dong "Root Rot" by Fargo Tbakhi

A fantastic collection of stories with varying degrees of fantasy and science fiction woven within. The collection, in my opinion, tends to lean more towards fantasy or a mixture of the two rather than pure SF. A couple even have subtle touches of horror elements.

The main focus of all the stories is people, not hardware, not technology, and not magic, although all three do enter into the kickoff of many of the stories. People, as all really good SF and Fantasy should center on, their emotions, their reactions to what is happening, and their interpersonal relationships to others. Some of these stories touched me deeply, one made me cry, and all made me think.

In all honesty, I couldn't pick a favorite. In various ways they all had something important to say, many of them falling under the increasingly popular and widespread environmental science fiction subcategory. Would I recommend this collection and to whom? Yes, most definitely I would to all readers who like thought provoking fiction, no love or even experience with SFF required.

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