#the stars are legion

[nellasbookplanet]

Book recs: Queer science fiction, part 1

There is a lot of queer sf out there, and I read a lot of sf. When I started working on this list, I quickly realized it was impossible to include all that I've read and enjoyed in one single rec post. Thus, this is the first of so far three queer sci-fi book rec posts.

A note: queer here does not necessarily mean "guarantee of an f/f or m/m ship with a happy ending", but rather simply a significant presence of queerness. Some of the books feature no romance but has a same gender attracted/trans/a-spectrum lead, or features an m/f relationship with bisexual, trans or aro/ace characters, or simply features a world-building which is heavily queer inclusive in ways that don't always compare to our own ideas of sexuality and gender. I have however disqualified works where the only queer presence is along the lines of "gay best friend" or a blink and you'll miss it confirmation that never comes up again.

Previous book rec posts:

Really cool fantasy worldbuilding, really cool sci-fi worldbuilding, dark sapphic romances, mermaid books, vampire books, many worlds: portal fantasies, many worlds: alternate timelines, robots and artificial intelligences, post- and transhumanism, alien intelligences

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!

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley*

Dietz is a soldier in the war between Earth and Mars - to travel to the battle front, she and her fellow soldiers are broken down into light to be able to quickly travel across space. But something keeps going wrong with Dietz's travels; her memories don't match up with the mission briefs, as she experiences time itself turning in on itself. Is she going mad? Or are the things she's learning skipping through time the truth - and the war that's stealing her life the lie? A mindfuck of a book that's scathing in its critique of fascism and war. Features a sapphic lead but no romance.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk and Robot duology) by Becky Chambers

Novella. Long ago, robots, upon gaining sentience, simply laid down their work and walked into the wilderness. Long after, a tea monk looking for purpose follows after them into the wilds, where they come across one of the robots seeking its own sort of answers. While not plotless, this story focuses more on character and vibes over plot. Also has a nonbinary main character and features conversations on gender between human and robot.

Meet Me In Another Life by Catriona Silvey*

Thora and Santi are strangers, brought together by a coincidence and torn apart just as abruptly when tragedy strikes. But this is neither the first nor the last time they meet - again and again they encounter each other, as friends, lovers, enemies, family, every time recognizing in each other a familiarity no one else carries. But with every new life, a mysterious danger grows ever closer, forcing them to find out the truth of their connection. This is a puzzle-box of a story that goes some entirely unexpected places in a very wild ride, featuring a bisexual co-lead.

The Archive Undying (The Downworld Sequence) by Emma Mieko Candon

In a world where AI gods sometimes lose their minds and take entire populations down with them, Sunai was the only survivor when his god went down. In the 17 years since, he has wandered on his own, unable to either die or age, drowning his sorrows in drink and men. But his attempts to flee his past comes to a stop as he is forced back into the struggle between man and machine. Featuring some pretty wild world building and narrative techniques, this book will definitely confuse you, but it is worth the experience.

The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart

January Cole works security at the Paradox Hotel, last stop for tourists heading for the timeport, which allows them to travel to and witness any moment in time. But years of proximity to the timeport has left its damage on January, making her unstuck in time, letting her relive memories of her dead lover even as her sanity slips away bit by bit. As she starts witnessing proof of a horrible crime in the hotel that no one else can see, January must race against her own mind, a killer, and time itself to solve it before it's too late.

A Fractured Infinity by Nathan Tavares

Hayes Figueiredo is a struggling film-maker who wants to finish his documentary, whose life gets turned upside down when handsome physicist Yusuf Hassan enters his life, claiming an alternate version of him is a great inventor who’s sent a mysterious device to their universe. As Hayes gets drawn deeper into the conspiracy - and his feelings for Yusuf intensify - he has to decide just how far he’s prepared to go to win the life and the love he wants. Featuring a very gay and very morally dubious lead, this is a creative and strange read.

Bridge by Lauren Beukes

When she was little, Bridge and her mother Jo used to play a game - one where they traveled to other worlds, inhabiting the bodies of their other selves. Now Jo is dead, and as Bridge is cleaning out her apartment she finds a strange device: a dreamworm, the very thing that supposedly makes inter-dimensional travel possible. Suddenly faced with the possibility that multiverse travel is real, Bridge is struck by a different question: could her mother still be alive? Scifi spiced with a healthy dose of body horror and some absolutely wild twists, Bridge also features a bisexual lead (however this is a blink and you’ll miss it moment) and a nonbinary co-narrator.

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.

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 work force as they travel 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.

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

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 gay, lesbian and trans major characters, albeit little to no romance.

The Left Hand of Darkness (Hainish Cycle) by Ursula K. Le Guin

1969 classic. Genly Ai is an emissary sent to the planet of Winter, meant to help facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But he's unprepared for Winter's citizens, who spend much of their time genderless or switching between genders, making for a culture wildly different from that Genly is used to.

Too Like the Lightning (Terra Ignota series) by Ada Palmer*

Centuries in the future, humanity has deliberatly engineered society to be as utopian as possible, politically, socially, sexually, religiously. Written in an enlightenment style and featuring questions of human nature and whether it’s possible to change it, and what price we’re prepared to pay for peace, this book is simultaneously very heavy and very funny, and written in a very unique style. While still human, the society presented often feels starkly alien.

The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley

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.

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling*

Possibly one of the most unsettling books I’ve ever read, and definitely the most claustrophobic. Gyre, a caver on an alien planet, ventures into the dark and dangerous underground, guided only by a woman who has no compunctions on using and manipulating Gyre as she sees fit to obtain her secretive goals down in the caves.

Escaping Exodus (Escaping Exodus series) by Nicky Drayden

While my feelings on Escaping Exodus were mixed, it cannot be denied that the dynamic between the two leads and the way they go from childhood best friends to enemies on different sides of a class and power struggle is very delicious. It also features some really cool worldbuilding of living, alien generation spaceships and the human culture that has developed inside them.

The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky*

The Doors of Eden is something of an experiment in speculative biology, featuring versions of Earth in which various different species were the one to rise to sentience, from dinosaurs to neanderthals. Now, something is threatening the existence of all timelines, dragging multiple different people and species into the struggle, among those a pair of cryptid hunting girlfriends and a transgender scientist.

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.

Contagion (Contagion duology) by Erin Bowman*

Young adult. After receiving an SOS, a small crew is sent on a standard search-and-rescue mission. But what they find are not survivors awaiting help, but an abandoned site, full of dead bodies and crawling with something... monstrous. No romance, but features one sapphic co-lead and one who can easily be read as demisexual (however this doesn't show up until book two, which has more romance).

A Memory Called Empire (Texicalaan duology) by Arkady Martine

Mahit Dzmare is an ambassador sent to the center of the multi-system Teixcalaanli Empire, where she discovers that her predecessor has died. Trying to protect her home, an independent mining station, from being taken over by the empire, Mahit struggles to find out the truth of her predecessor's death while carrying the voice of his ghost in her head, guiding her as best he can. Light on the romance but does feature a sapphic relationship.

The Outside (The Outside trilogy) by Ada Hoffman*

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

Dawn (Xenogenesis trilogy) by Octavia E. Butler*

After a devestating war leaves humanity on the brink of extinction, survivor Lilith finds herself waking up naked and alone in a strange room. She’s been rescued by the Oankali, who have arrived just in time to save the human race. But there’s a price to survival, and it might be humanity itself. Absolutely fucked up I love it I once had to drop the book mid read to stare at the ceiling and exclaim in horror at what was going on. Queer in the sense that the Oankali doesn't follow human ideas of gender and relationships, which is mirrored in their romantic relationships with humans. It is, however, pretty dark, with examinations of agency and consent, so enter with caution.

Remnant by Kate Genet

One day, Cass wakes up and finds everyone else is gone. Not dead, just gone, leaving her in a world which nature starts taking back with a dangerous, unnatural speed. But as she tries to survive this new normal, Cass realizes she may not be alone after all - but who else is out there, and are they a threat?

The Scorpion Rules (Prisoners of Peace duology) by Erin Bow*

Young Adult. Featuring a dystopian future in which an AI forcibly keeps world peace by holding the children of world leaders hostage. If anyone attempts to start a war, their child will be executed. Greta is one of these children, kept in a school with others like her. But things start to change one day when a new, less obedient hostage arrives. A unique, slowburn take on the YA dystopian craze, also featuring a bisexual love triangle.

Iron Widow (Iron Widow series) by Xiran Jay Zhao

Young adult. Zetian is a citizen of Huaxia, where mecha aliens are constantly trying to breach the Great Wall. To keep them at bay, couples of men and women pilot so called Chrysalises, giant transforming robots. But the pilots are not equal - the women almost always die, sucked dry by their co-pilots. When Zetian sets herself up to become a concubine-pilot, she does so with the plan to assassinate the male pilot who caused her sister's death. Features a polyamorous main relationship.

Bonus AKA I haven't read these yet but they seem really cool:

Survival Instincts by May Dawney

Lynn Tanner has been surviving the post-apocalypse alone with only her dog for a long time, trusting no one. But when she's forced to travel the dangerous remains of New York City alongside another woman, her priorities are challenged. Is staying alone really the best way to stay alive?

These Burning Stars by Bethany Jacobs

When con-artist Jun Ironway gets her hands on possible proof of the powerful Nightfoot family, controllers of interplanetary travel, committing genocide, she has in her hands a chance of taking them and their monopoly down. But the family and their allies won't go down easily, and sends two brutal clerics to stop her.

Everfair by Nisi Shawl

A neo-victorian alternate history, in which a part of Congo was kept safe from colonisation, becoming Everfair, a safe haven for both the people of Congo and former slaves returning from America. Here they must struggle to keep this home safe for them all.

#nella talks books #the light brigade #a psalm for the wild built #meet me in another life #the archive undying #the paradox hotel #fracture infinity #bridge #the long way to a small angry planet #an unkindness of ghosts #ninefox gambit #the left hand of darkness #terra ignota #the stars are legion #the luminous dead #escaping exodus #the doors of eden #the outside #xenogenesis #remnant #the scorpion rules #iron widow #survival instincts #these burning stars #everfair

[thelastofthebookworms]

Feel free to make suggestions. I may make another poll if there are enough candidates.

More polls.

#polls #sapphic reads #queer reads #lgbt reads #sapphic leads #teixcalaan #a memory called empire #a desolation called peace #arkady martine #the stars are legion #kameron hurley #this is how you lose the time war #amal el mohtar #max gladstone #the priory of the orange tree #samantha shannon #ninefox gambit #yoon ha lee #the privilege of the sword #ellen kushner #down among the sticks and bones #wayward children #seanan mcguire #the long way to a small angry planet #the wayfarers #becky chambers #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #the locked tomb #tamsyn muir

[thefiresontheheight]

Forever salty that my least favorite example of the "sapphic sff imperial deconstruction novel" microgenre that hit the scene in the late 2010s seems to have by far been the most popular.

#least fave is to be clear though it is still okay #the locked tomb #read other ones instead #a memory called empire #the stars are legion #the traitor baru cormorant

[thesupergirls]

Apparently my favourite genre is sapphics with brain ghosts and a side order of medical trauma

#please let me know if i missed any ajkskj mostly because i would like to read it #the locked tomb #baru cormorant #harrow the ninth #wlw books #a memory called empire #the serpent gates #ninefox gambit #the stars are legion #foundryside #the unspoken name #books #liv.txt

[robotshellyeah]

just finished reading The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley and it was really good, but when I went to go look at reviews/analysis, everyone was just fixating on the fact that all the characters were female, which is tbh the least interesting thing about the book (because there's a lot of much weirder stuff going on)

the fact that there are no male characters is part of the basic premise, just like the fact that it takes place in space or the fact that it's narrated in the present tense. that's just the VERY first step before you get into, like, the actual plot and the things that are genuinely interesting and unusual about the book, which most of the reviewers did not even get into because they spent the entire time talking about how there were no men

every single review was like "if you like feminist sci-fi, you'll love this story where there are no men! now as a male reviewer I found this a bit hard to swallow at first, but eventually I realized that it was necessary to the plot. people who love women will love this book!" one reviewer said that the absence of men was "the elephant in the room", which, like, it definitely was NOT. that elephant was not in the room, and if you could chill the fuck out and stop thinking about the elephant that would be obvious. like grow up.

yeah clearly the purpose of it is to make you think about how it's unremarkable to read a sci-fi book with no female characters (which there are a lot of) even though that's just as much of a choice, but that's not nearly as groundbreaking as people seem to be treating it. we can make that choice effective by reacting to it as if it IS unremarkable

#the stars are legion #kameron hurley #sci-fi #science fiction

[theskyexists]

The thing about Kameron Hurley's books so far is that they lure you in with a really interesting sci-fi premise and some really decent horror. But the story feels unfinished by the end. Why are the planets in the Legion rotting? This is the essential conflict! It's implied that is because they are exchanging genetic material, but this strategy has allowed worldships to survive so far. Why would genetic exchange be a bad biological strategy - this is basically never the case in real life. What are the witches? How come the daughters of one world look so similar? If the skeleton of a world is metal, and the rest is organic, humans in them being in some sort of symbiosis with this organic landscape, were they all made for some purpose? Is there no record of this? What ARE the worldships? Are they parasites or great eldritch monsters that take control of your body to perpetuate themselves? What truth is there to other-worlders not being able to birth any kind of 'useful' component - when Das Muni had extremely useful edible restorative spawn even on this other world. How is one even impregnated if one is not on the world one belongs to? Are there no psychological effects to not being on your own world? (I say this because I would have liked to see that). Why did Jayd have a womb that only produced blood? How did Das Muni recover - what was that about a spirit??? How many days IS A CYCLE REALLY. How come there are so many different kinds of humans on different levels - what is their history. How come the people on the first level are convinced they rule over the worldship. It's apparently because of their armies, i.e. their ability to use force to recycle people or recruit them from slightly lower levels. What are the relationships of oppression between these levels. By the end of the book these armies seem to be composed of at most 20 people. Why do the Bhajavas have completely different gun technology - or why are they the only ones with squid gun technology? Did Jayd ever realise that being a remorseless killer of bottom-worlder peasants might be bad? (This is more of a criticism of her non-existent arc). How does the core of the Legion compare to the Outer Rim? What are the dynamics of war within the set trajectories of its worldships? How and when can any other world be attacked and stripped based on the distance that can be travelled by space vehicles. was there communication between anyone but the two rival families we see? Why is it called the Legion? Why leave the Legion at all if your worldship can simply be revitalised by throwing a newly birthed world into it? Why did Lord Mokshi want so badly to leave.

So many questions. And I really feel like a science fiction book shouldn't just present an interesting world, but also allow the reader to see its workings. Now it's less a science fiction book and more of a mystery set in a science fiction setting...

It really does feel like the book could have benefitted from another edit also. Like where did those communication worms go.

#my stuff #personal #vidi #the stars are legion

[corgiteatime]

It has literally only occurred to me right now that these two works have a lot of similar themes/motifs and are, in general, extremely wet and squishy and gross.

#hot take #actual hot take #bloodborne #fromsoft wetness scale #the stars are legion #kameron hurley

[sapphicbookoftheday]

The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley

Today's sapphic book of the day is The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley!

Summary: "Somewhere on the outer rim of the universe, a mass of decaying world-ships known as the Legion is traveling in the seams between the stars. For generations, a war for control of the Legion has been waged, with no clear resolution.  As worlds continue to die, a desperate plan is put into motion.

Zan wakes with no memory, prisoner of a people who say they are her family. She is told she is their salvation - the only person capable of boarding the Mokshi, a world-ship with the power to leave the Legion. But Zan's new family is not the only one desperate to gain control of the prized ship. Zan finds that she must choose sides in a genocidal campaign that will take her from the edges of the Legion's gravity well to the very belly of the world.

Zan will soon learn that she carries the seeds of the Legion's destruction - and its possible salvation. But can she and her ragtag band of followers survive the horrors of the Legion and its people long enough to deliver it?

In the tradition of The Fall of Hyperion and Dune, The Stars are Legion is an epic and thrilling tale about tragic love, revenge, and war as imagined by one of the genre's most celebrated new writers."

#lesbian #sapphic #wlw #books #lgbtq #book recommendations #queer #book recs #queer lit #lgbt books #booklr #lgbtqia #lgbt #science fiction #scifi #sci fi #speculative fiction #space opera #the stars are legion #kameron hurley

[kalamitykas]

I just finished The Stars are Legion

About a month ago a friend of mine gifted me a book, saying it had blown his mind and he suspected I might enjoy it. I grew up reading sci-fi and I’m always game for new stories. And since a year ago I made the commitment of reading only female authors for a while (no manhating, just for variety and to discover new authors).

I was not prepared for this book.

While the political plot is something that felt more familiar, the characters and the world building were really cool. It was an interesting story, which I was enjoying, but not crazy about until…

[Spoilers]

Until it starts talking about body autonomy, about the experience of feeling the world needs you to be a 3D printer for it’s needs regardless of your will, of the deep connection between mothers and their offspring, of the burden of memories and our choices.

That’s when it hooked me to the bone.

I’m a trans woman, so I didn’t grew up with a lot of the pressures and expectations female presenting people have to endure. Since I began my transition I have been reading and learning about them, both to prepare myself and to be a better ally. This book put all that in such a clear and brutal perspective. It’s not even subtle about it, and I’m glad it isn’t. Because the world is not subtle about those pressures neither.

I think I’ll need many days, if not weeks, to process everything, but damn, what a wild and amazing ride this has been.

#the stars are legion #book recommendations #scifi #my mind is blown

[augustinajosefina]

The Stars Are Legion is definitely an addition to the "lesbians with brain damage" subgenre of scifi. I did quite enjoy it although the logistics of the worlds somewhat disrupt suspension of disbelief: there are no children. It is repeatedly made clear that the worlds are dying and babies (and women capable of bearing them) are rare. Why do they then keep sending out armies to take a world that's already conquered? Like, people are a scarce resource here, stop wasting them!

(Also, pregnancy is already body horror as it is. Pregnancy you have no control over and end up giving birth to a giant organic cog is absolutely terrifying.)

#kameron hurley #the stars are legion

[genspiel]

jayd in chapter 16: "and i find i have another long cycle of nothing before me" (reads as if a cycle is like a day)

zan in chapter 18: "we walk for many cycles" (also reads as if a cycle is about a day)

jayd in chapter 22: "she visits at least once every cycle" and "i will give birth in one hundred and thirty cycles" (yet again, sounds like one cycle = one day)

vashapaldi in chapter 26: "there are sixty heartbeats in a minute, sixty minutes in an hour, six hours in a period, six periods in a day, six hundred days in a cycle."

...

........

.................

what the fuck???

#tre reads #the stars are legion #dude this book is so fucking weird #i feel like i should've put it down like a hundred pages ago lmao #but here we are #(i do have Thoughts about the writing in general but that is. perhaps best left for my private goodreads notes? idk #feels like it would be rude to just throw it out into the fandom void lmao #but if anyone is actually interested then like??? hmu i guess???) #also: what the heck is a turn??? #“a turn is one sleeping and waking period. [...] a rotation is four hundred turns” bitch what is HAPPENING in this BOOK???? #like i know that i'm kind of bad with time stuff but i literally have no idea what any of this is supposed to mean LMAO

[leahikol]

#almost cried while drawing this #anakin skywalker #darth vader #star wars clone wars #sw clone wars #star wars the clone wars #501st battalion #501st legion #star wars anakin #star wars fanart #star wars #leahikol

[blitzink]

a huge project i’ve been working on all semester!

Star Wars The Clone Wars Poster Collection<3

#star wars #sw #disney #the clone wars #tcw #sw tcw #captain rex #commander cody #the 501st #501st legion #212th attack battalion #212th battalion #obi wan kenobi #commander thorn #gregor #lieutenant waxer #clone trooper #clone commando #the bad batch #tbb #tbb wrecker #tbb tech #tbb crosshair #tbb hunter #tbb echo

[thefiresontheheight]

Sometimes in life you have to be insane for a weird as fuck gay as hell gross as shit fucked up space book that no one else has read and accept that no one else is gonna care.

#the stars are legion #the light brigade #this is how you lose the time war #am I talking about one? psych I’m talking about all of them #just not Gideon the ninth plenty of you like that too and it’s like…fine

[braindamagelesbian]

#polls #book recs #kameron hurley #adrian tchaikovsky #linden a lewis #the first sister #the stars are legion #the final architecture

[the-book-of-captain-rex]

The War Is Not Over 

captain rex  👑

art : @5healthMONO

#star wars #the clone wars #captain rex #lucasfilm #the clone boys #ahsoka tano #commander cody #501st legion #arc trooper fives #empire #temura morrison #the bad batch