Swords and Spaceships for May 21

Jordan has anything a woman could want in 1920s America: money, education, social clout, a great talent with golf. But as a Vietnamese adoptee who is also queer, she also gets treated like an exotic pet by her peers and finds many doors are closed to her. Her world isn’t just money and parties though–it’s also ghosts, magic, and infernal pacts. And Jordan has always been a fast learner.

Godolia warlords are tightening their tyrannical rule on the Badlands using mechanized weapons called Windups. Eris is a gearbreaker who specializes in destroying Windups, but she ends up in a Godolia prison when a misson goes awry. There she meets Sona, a Windup pilot. While at first they seem to be enemies, they soon learn they’re fighting the same enemy… and maybe falling in love.

Shiori’anma is a princess, and one with forbidden magic. Her determination to keep it a secret ends on the morning of her wedding day when she loses control of her magic. She’s not sorry to miss out on the wedding, but her stepmother Raikama, also secretly a sorceress, banishes her and turns her brothers into cranes with a special curse that means if Shiori ever speaks of it, with each word, one of her brothers will die. Destitute and voiceless, Shiori must save both her brothers and her kingdom before it’s too late.

When a bandit attack leaves an eighth-born son destined for greatness and his second-born sister destined for nothing orphaned, it’s another trick of fate that the son dies. The daughter takes on her brother’s name, Zhu, and in an attempt to escape her own fate, enters a monastery masquerading as a male novice. But when the monastery, too, is destroyed, Zhu must fully take her brother’s fate of greatness and make it her own.

The Wild Ones are girls who have seen the words of the world, girls who have gained access to the place of pure magic called the Between, girls who refuse to be silenced. Together, they will rescue Taraana, a boy with stars in his eyes who helped them gain their magic.