Happy Friday, shipmates! It’s Alex, and I’ve got two more new releases for you…and some recently banned books I want to spotlight, which is a far less happy occurrence. (I doubt it will come as any kind of surprise that I’m finding the ongoing campaign against particularly LGBTQ+ books…upsetting.) Please support your local libraries, fight back however you can, and read a banned book. Also, please have as good of a weekend as you can. Stay safe out there, space pirates, and I’ll see you on Tuesday.
Book Riot’s editorial team is writing for casual and power readers alike over at The Deep Dive! During the month of September, all new free subscribers will be entered to win Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler plus five mystery books from The Deep Dive. To enter, simply start a free subscription to The Deep Dive. No payment method required!
Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here’s two places to start: Maui Aloha: The People’s Response, which sends support to those affected by the wildfires on Maui, particularly first responders; and Entertainment Community Fund, which supports entertainment workers who are striking for living wages and a future where humans can continue to create art for each other.
Bookish Goods
LGBTQIA+ Books Save Lives T-shirt by angiepea
This shirt is not particularly SFF in its theme, but very in keeping with the books in the recommendations this Friday. It’s not an exaggeration to say that giving people books they can see themselves in (and books where they can learn to empathize with people unlike them!) saves lives. A T-shirt isn’t going to fix what’s happening right now, but it sure doesn’t hurt to make a statement. $30
New Releases
Champion of Fate by Kendare Blake
The Aristene are an order of female warriors, but they are never the ones immortalized in legend. It’s their task to lead others to their victorious path. Reed is a young trainee in the order who wishes to be initiated. The only task left to her is to shepherd her first hero to glory. Too bad her assignment is both infuriating…and intriguing.
The Land of Lost Things by John Connolly
Ceres’s 8-year-old daughter Phoebe lies in a coma after a car accident, her spirit having fled her body. Ceres tries to call her back by reading fairy stories, but with little success…until an old house on the hospital grounds, which is connected to a book written by an author since mysteriously vanished, calls to Ceres and offers her a passage to the Land of Lost Things, where she just might find her lost daughter.
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.
Riot Recommendations
I think we’re all aware at this point of the deeply gross right-wing push to ban books; SFF isn’t immune from that. There’s now a library in Virginia that may get shut down because its funding is being withheld over LGBTQ books. You can read more at The Guardian (and get the recommended reading list of books these total jerks are mad about). If you want to keep up with stories like this, subscribe to our Literary Activism newsletter.
There are quite a few titles that are familiar to me on the list, but I want to call out three in particular…
A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger
This is a story about a Lipan girl named Nina and a cottonmouth named Oli who comes from the land of spirits and monsters. After a catastrophe on Earth, the two will find each other and bring their worlds together in ways not seen in centuries. Darcie pointed out on Bluesky that this is the first book by a Native writer to win a Newbery honor…and that all three complainants against it admit to not having actually read the book.
Pet by Akwaeke Emezi
Jam is a young girl in the city of Lucille, raised to believe that monsters no longer exist after the revolution that happened not long ago. But then she meets Pet, a creature who comes from one of her mother’s paintings, who has come to hunt a monster in Lucille…and the monster resides in her best friend Redemption’s house. I love this book in a very personal way, and like Darcie’s book, it’s one where there is zero sexual content. Its “sin” is the existence of queer people at all.
Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
This is another book I absolutely love, which dares to feature queer characters and traditions outside the (white) (Christian) American mainstream. And it’s worth noting that this was the first time a book by an openly trans author about an inarguably trans character made it onto the NYT Bestseller List. This book is about Yadriel, a trans boy from a family that’s a long line of Brujas and Brujos, a lineage of very gendered magic that his existence challenges. In his quest to have his identity respected, he summons a ghost who refuses to leave— and, in doing so, stumbles into a mystery and a romance.
See you, space pirates. If you’d like to know more about my secret plans to dominate the seas and skies, you can catch me over at my personal site.