#teixcalaan series

[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

The Luminous Dead - Caitlin Starling

Last Exit - Max Gladstone

Dead Country - Max Gladstone

Read and liked:

The Moonday Letters - Emmi Itäranta

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

Piranesi - Susanna Clarke

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 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

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

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

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

#books #lesbian space atrocities #imperial radch #ann leckie #locked tomb series #the masquerade #baru cormorant #seth dickinson #teixcalaan series #arkady martine #machineries of empire #yoon ha lee #the murderbot diaries #martha wells #broken earth trilogy #nk jemisin #tamsyn muir #this is how you lose the time war #the goblin emperor #katherine addison #aliette de bodard #annalee newitz #paolo bagicalupi #some desperate glory #emily tesh #hannu rajaniemi #a master of djinn #p djeli clark #max gladstone #craft sequence

[tallysgreatestfan]

Of course I was going to draw Three Seagrass and Mahit Dzmare. An ambassador/assistant ship in a polit thriller sci-fi that is actually canon and its wlw too, damn yeah!

#A memory called empire #Teixcalaan Series #Mahit Dzmare #Three Seagrass #Mahit/Three Seagrass #femslash #wlw art #my fanwork #my fanart

[blood-starved-beast]

Three Seagrass is an unhinged bitch she literally just “Slur (affectionate)” at her canon love interest and has no self-awareness as to how fucked up that is. Just this paragraph alone:

#Three Seagrass #Mahit Dzmare #a desolation called peace #Teixcalaan series #d readings #AAAAAAH #im just #the most character of all time

[kammartinez]

#a memory called empire #teixcalaan series #arkady martine #science fiction #scifi #sff #books #colonialism #language

[kamreadsandrecs]

#a memory called empire #teixcalaan series #arkady martine #science fiction #scifi #sff #colonialism #language #books

[liesmyth]

Arkady Martine, A Memory Called Empire.

No one is dead who is remembered

#a memory called empire #words #quotes #teixcalaan #thinking about the other OTHER imperial lesbian series tonight

[aurpiment]

The trouble with baru cormorant is that it gets recommended in the same breath as other contemporary sff that is just sort of good, which may lead you to believe that it is also only sort of good when the reality is that it’s excellent. This is why I put off reading it for two years. If baru cormorant has been on your sff tbr for a while, move it right to the top right now

#mt #no shade to the locked tomb and the teixcalaan series which are an enjoyable just sort of good #extreme shade to murderbot which has no substance

[ghost--witch]

books/movies/tv shows that i love

the hobbit / the lord of the rings

the 10th kingdom

the murderbot diaries

howl’s moving castle

farscape

bob’s burgers / the great north

babylon 5

wayfarers

teixcalaan

gravity falls

adventure time

over the garden wall

#the hobbit #the lord of the rings #lotr #the 10th kingdom #10th kingdom #the murderbot diaries #murderbot #howl’s moving castle #hmc #hmc book #farscape #bob’s burgers #the great north #babylon 5 #wayfarers series #wayfarers #teixcalaan #a memory called empire #a desolation called peace #the long way to a small angry planet

[athetos]

Reading a desolation called peace and I still desire nineteen adze carnally and I’d like three seagrass to be my girlfriend but I think I need three azimuth to beat me up

#buff shortstack hello! #what the hell are these books called like series-wide #teixcalaan duology #?????

[gxldencity]

I can't believe that tamsyn muir tricked a lot of you into reading homestuck (in book form)

#elaine talks #guess who finished what #pausing a bit with lighter novels before i tackle the teixcalaan series #this should go in the book blog but

[chocochipbiscuit]

Fic (and nonfic!) Recs for Pride!

In honor of Pride, have some of my favorite F/F and F/NB reads!

Short stories (available online)

Radcliffe Hall by Miyuki Jane Pinckard - 40k word novella, with a Japanese student attending an American women's college in 1908. It's a Gothic novel with the characters encountering the supernatural, which is no less malevolent than systemic racism and homophobia.

The First Stop Is Always the Last by John Wiswell - Short and sweet time loop flirtation!

Scallop by J.L. Akagi - A woman begins growing eyes all over her body, and struggles to hide them. All the warnings for body horror, eye injury, and referenced sexual assault.

The World Ends in Salty Fingers and Sugared Lips by Jen Reese - Time loop story about the end of the world and the ways we try to deal with the crushing uncertainty of the inevitable.

Romance

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston - Subway time travel romance! August moves to New York and meets Jane, a butch punk from the 70s who’s trapped on the subway. It’s warm and sweet and funny, with all the feels and queer found family goodness.

Fatal Fidelity by Rien Gray - Dark romance/erotic suspense featuring a bi femme fatale and a nonbinary assassin! The series begins with Love Kills Twice, in which Justine hires an assassin to get rid of her abusive husband…unaware that Campbell was also hired to kill her. Absolutely delicious.

Feminine Pursuits series by Olivia Waite - While I’m listing it as a series, each novel is entirely stand-alone! These are a set of historical F/F novels featuring women in arts and science (and beekeeping!) making their way and falling in love with one another!

Mrs. Martin’s Incomparable Adventure by Courtney Milan - Historical romance as two older women (73 and 69 years old, respectively!) plot the downfall of an absolutely Terrible Nephew who deserves everything that happens to him. An absolutely delicious comedic romp.

The Cybernetic Tea Shop by Meredith Katz - An AI repair technician and an autonomous robot who runs a small tea shop, set in a retro-futuristic America. It’s warm and gentle and yearning in very good ways.

Horror/Suspense

Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin - Gender apocalypse featuring trans women! A virus has turned anyone with over a certain level of testosterone into cannibal rape monsters, so we’re following our trans protagonists as they try to survive feral men, murderous TERFs, and a sociopathic bunker brat. This deserves a LOT of content warnings but it’s also been blurbed as a ‘bleeding love letter to trans women’ and it really is.

Blackwater Sister by Zen Cho - A Malaysian-American lesbian moves to Malaysia with her family, where she is haunted by her grandmother’s ghost. Her grandmother is out for supernatural revenge, involving our protagonist with gangsters and a terrifying goddess.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters - Historical crime novel in which a thief poses as a lady’s maid for a con, and ends up developing feelings for the mark. Except the lady’s not as innocent as she seems, and it’s difficult to add more without spoiling the novel but it’s good!

Science fiction

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine - Ambassador Mahit Dzmare travels to the capital of the interstellar Teixcalaanli Empire, discovers that her predecessor has died, and must find not only who murdered him, but why—while trying not to get murdered herself, and trying to maintain her small station’s independence from Teixcalaan’s ever-expanding empire. And there is a sequel but that has its own plot and requires you to read this one anyway!

Passing Strange by Ellen Klages - Set in San Francisco, built on artifice and delight as we follow a group of queer women both present and in the 1940s. Central story is a romance, two women trying to navigate both joy and the brutality of the worlds they inhabit.

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone - An epistolary love story across time and space, in far futures and alternative pasts as two rival agents—post-singularity Red and bio-consciousness Blue—foil and thwart one another.

Fantasy

The Burning Kingdoms by Tasha Suri - Indian-inspired fantasy trilogy (third book coming in 2024!) that follows a captive princess and a maidservant with forbidden magic who navigate the the tension between their different loyalties and the politics of empire. Just! So good!

The Kingston Cycle by C.L. Polk - A fantasy trilogy (that’s actually complete!) set in a world where witches are persecuted and placed in asylums…while secretly, the witches of elite families use that power in service of the crown. The first book (Witchmark) starts with a murder mystery and a doctor with PTSD who follows that mystery to government secrets that force him to confront his estranged family. It’s also M/M, but the sequels (Stormsong and Soulstar) center around F/F and F/NB main pairings, respectively. 

The Locked Tomb by Tamsyn Muir - The first book starts with swordjock butches and lesbian necromancers in space going through (essentially) a haunted mansion together, and it just keeps going after that! It’s delightful, deranged, and full of fantastic characters I want to gnaw on!

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo - A beautiful frame story with a very fairytale feel, where the cleric Chih is telling the story of a tiger and her lover, a female scholar, to a trio of hungry tigers who threaten to eat them if Chih tells the story incorrectly!

A Master of Djinn by P. Djeli Clark - Mystery and magic and suspense in a steampunk Cairo, set forty years after magic returned to the world! The first female agent for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities is assigned to discover who murdered members of a secret cult. In addition to solving the case, she’s also assigned a rookie partner to train, and navigating the surprise return of her girlfriend, who has her own secrets! This is a really fun romp, full of joy and wonder. (And Fatma’s fabulous suits!)

Nonfiction

In the Dream House by Carmen Machado - A memoir about surviving domestic abuse, with each chapter using a different trope or genre convention to not only explore the way the relationship affected her sense of self, but also about trying (or failing) to find that representation in cultural history. It’s a rough read in places, but absolutely worth it if you’re in a space to handle that sort of content. (And in case it’s not obvious: her ex was another woman. Abuse isn’t limited by gender.)

#pride #book recs #story recs #f/f #f/nb #genre fiction #I wanted to keep this list short'n punchy but if you have questions or want to know about content warnings hmu!

[duckprintspress]

Happy International Women’s Day! Enjoy these 13 Queer Books Starring Women!

Today, March 8th, is International Women’s Day. Duck Prints Press challenged our rec list contributors with a Herculean task: to pick one, and only one, favorite queer book starring a female character. Thirteen contributors rose to this challenge, and this rec list is the result! The contributors to this list are Shadaras, Polls, Alex, boneturtle, Alessa Riel, Dei Walker, Nina Waters, Maggie Page, and four anonymous contributors.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant (The Masquerade series) by Seth Dickinson

Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin

Harrow the Ninth (The Locked Tomb series) by Tamsyn Muir

Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know by Cyan Wings

A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan series) by Arkady Martine

Alanna: The First Adventure (Song of the Lioness Quartet series) by Tamora Pierce

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

The Tiger’s Daughter (Their Bright Ascendency series) by K. Arsenault Rivera

She Wears the Midnight Crown edited by Nina Waters

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

Rust in the Root by Justina Ireland

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

A Restless Truth (The Last Binding series) by Freya Marske

How about you? Can you pick JUST ONE favorite queer book starring a female character?

You can view these recommendations, and many others, by visiting the our shelves on Goodreads.

New! Duck Prints Press is now a Bookshop.org affiliate! We are still in the process of turning all our rec lists into browsable shopping lists, but we’re working on it. See a book on this list, or any of our other lists, that you’d like to buy? Make us your Bookstore on Bookshop.org to support indie book stores and indie press: you get a great book at a great price, and part of your purchase goes to supporting Bookshop.org and Duck Prints Press!

Love queer books? Want an awesome community to talk about queer books with? Join our Book Lover’s Discord Server!

#duck prints press #book recommendations #queer book recommendations #international women's day

[spiritintheinkwell]

Happy Pride! Featuring my nine favorite wlw books.

Mahit/Three Seagrass from the Teixcalaan series by Arkady Martine

Catherine/Lucy from The Lady's Guide To Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite

Kath/Lily from Last Night At The Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

Zanja/Karis from the Elemental Logic series by Laurie J. Marks

Jude/Síle from Landing by Emma Donoghue

Ead/Sabran from The Priory Of The Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

Emi/Ava from Everything Leads To You by Nina LaCour

Thenike/Marghe from Ammonite by Nicola Griffith

Red/Blue from This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Ordered by theme, not by preference.

#wlw art #wlw book fanart #teixcalaan #the lady's guide to celestial mechanics #last night at the telegraph club #elemental logic #landing emma donoghue #the priory of the orange tree #everything leads to you #ammonite nicola griffith #this is how you lose the time war #pride art #gilbert baker diversity pride flag #lesbian #bisexual #queer

[blood-starved-beast]

Reading a Desolation Called Peace rn and Three Seagrass sounds like she’d be voiced by that one chick who did a voiceover of Nemona pokemon over on the bird app.

#Three Seagrass #a desolation called peace #a memory called empire #Teixcalaan series #d musings #d readings

[its-yashas-strong-arms]

#i know not all of these are lesbian space atrocities and i know there's probably stuff I've missed but. this is the genre #also YES im pitting bad bitches against each other i know #imperial radch #the locked tomb #teixcalaan #baru cormorant

[catboymettaton]

hi gamers my book blorbos got out of hand for a venn diagram so here's a spreadsheet instead! please note that I haven't read Baru, Poppy War, or Teixcalaan in many months. book series for those who don't know: Machineries of Empire, Baru Cormorant, The Poppy War, Teixcalaan, The Locked Tomb

extremely open to discussion and debate on this. please tell me your thoughts. if you have any questions feel free to ask and I will be happy to clarify!

light spoilers for Harrow the Ninth, very vaguely spoilers for later books of Baru/Poppy War

[ID: spreadsheet comparing Cheris, Baru, Rin, Mahit, Gideon, and Harrow. Full transcript under cut + in alt text.]

Transcript: format is the title of the row, with the characters' entries below

Lesbian

Cheris: Yes, sort of word of god but like you can tell

Baru: Yes - major plot point

Rin: No, definitely likes men

Mahit: Definitely likes women but unsure if she likes men

Gideon and Harrow: Yes

Ethnic minority

All are marked yes except Gideon and Harrow are marked No (in universe)

Autism

Cheris: I don't remember but probably tbh

Baru: Yes

Rin: Probably not? Again don't remember

Mahit: Probably not?

Gideon: idk

Harrow: Yes

Belonging as a theme

Cheris: Yes - Cheris feels like an outsider and that's why she's a Kel

Baru: No. Baru has a place where she belongs and she chooses to leave it

Rin, Gideon, Harrow: Yes

Mahit: Yes - one of the major themes of the book in fact

Empire

All are marked yes

Part of the empire

Cheris, Rin, Gideon, Harrow: yes

Baru: Yes, due to being colonized

Mahit: No - major theme is her being an outsider

Works against the empire

Cheris and Rin: Yes

Baru: Yes in her own special way

Mahit: No - she doesn't really do much about the empire as a whole iirc

Harrow and Gideon: No

Originally fights for the empire

Cheris, Rin, Harrow: Yes

Baru: Yes but like. In her own special way

Mahit: No, see above

Gideon: Not really

God(s)

Cheris: Nope only math

Baru, Rin, Gideon, Harrow: Yes

Mahit: No

Family plays a meaningful role

All are marked Yes except Mahit, who is marked No

Good relationship with family

Cheris and Baru: Yes

Rin, Gideon, Harrow: No

Mahit: Unsure

Poor relationship with family

Cheris and Baru: No

Rin, Gideon, Harrow: Yes

Mahit: Unsure

image two

Person in Head

Cheris, Mahit: Yes

Baru, Harrow: Yes (second book onwards)

Rin: Yes (second book onwards, debatable. he's more of a dream that haunts her than a real person but he comes up a decent amount)

Gideon: No

Bi guy in head

Cheris, Mahit: Yes

Baru, Gideon, Harrow: No

Rin: Possibly

Person in head is supposed to be there

Cheris, Mahit: Yes

Baru, Rin, Gideon: No

Harrow: Yes but like she didn't install quite right

In Space!!!!!

Cheris, Mahit, Gideon, Harrow: Yes

Baru, Rin: No

Can't go home again

Cheris, Baru, Mahit: Yes

Rin: No home to return to

Gideon and Harrow: They're not supposed to but they do

Plot relevant sex

Cheris: No, with other characters there is though

Baru: Yes :(

Rin: No but there's plot relevant kiss?

Mahit: Yes

Gideon: No

Harrow: Depends on if you count regrowing an arm as sex

War

All marked yes

Attends Special School™

Cheris, Baru, Rin: Yes

Mahit: We really don't know much about her upbringing

Gideon and Harrow: Is Canaan House "school"?

Dreams of person in head

Cheris: Depends on if you count the Jedao flashback montage

Baru: Yes

Rin: Yes, major way he manifests

Mahit: Not that I recall but she gets some of his memories

Gideon: No

Harrow: Yes

Body weirdness related to person in head

Cheris: Yes - she feels like her center of mass is wrong

Baru: Yes, half blind

Rin: No

Mahit: Yes

Gideon: No

Harrow: Spoilers.

Fights with a sword

Cheris, Rin, Gideon: Yes

Baru: When the situation calls for it

Mahit: No

Harrow: She tries

Full of gender

Cheris, Mahit: Yes (head induced)

Baru, Gideon: Yes (lesbian)

Rin: No

Harrow: Not to me personally but maybe for lesbians

#mine #tlt #the locked tomb #baru cormorant #the poppy war #teixcalaan #a memory called empire #ninefox gambit #machineries of empire #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth