Happy Friday, shipmates! It’s Alex and… you might notice the newsletter looks a little different today. We’re revamping the format, giving it a new coat of paint, tuning it up. So pardon our dust and here we go!
Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here’s somewhere to start: NDN Collective and Jane’s Due Process
Famous Black SF Writers T-shirt
This shirt is simple, stylish, a conversation starter… and a to-read list just in case there’s someone on this shirt you haven’t read yet! $22
New Releases
For a more comprehensive list, check out our New Books newsletter!
Building 46 by Massoud Hayoun
A “social-realist” ghost story that centers around a mysterious death in Beijing just before the 2008 Olympics. This is a queer coming-out-and-of-age story, and also a love letter to Bejing that looks unflinchingly at both its dark and light and the full array of people who inhabit that city.
This All Come Back Now: An Anthology of First Nations Speculative Fiction edited by Mykaela Saunders
This is the first-ever anthology of speculative fiction written exclusively by Aboriginal and Torres Islander writers. They tell stories that mourn what they have lost and attempt to revive what has been taken from them.
Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!
Riot Recommendations
As promised last week, we’re going to dip into the Sir Julius Vogel Award finalists a bit more! Here’s part one of the Best Youth Novel nominees. A lot of these sound so cool!
Fire’s Caress by Lani Wendt Young
Teuila is a brilliant sculptor who has just been “discovered”–and she’s coming home to Samoa. Keahi is a dark secret of her past, and he holds secrets that could destroy them both. But together, they must face down the developer Marc Gold, who wants to make a sanctuary for the world’s rich and powerful–and he doesn’t care if he’s going to wipe out an ancient settlement of Aitu to do it.
Welcome to the Inbetween by Kate Haley
The Inbetween is a world of both chaos and magic, and gender-fluid teen Chris is stuck there after jumping into the Grand Canyon on a geology field trip. It turns out Chris is the last Bone Magician, and there’s a prophecy that’ll hit on their sixteenth birthday. They’ve got a week to figure out their magic and save the world. Shouldn’t be a problem, right?
The Thaumagician’s Revenge by Gareth Ward
This is the sequel to Brasswitch and Bot! With the help of Thirteen, Wrench and Bot are hunting for Plum, who is back to recruiting aberrations and plotting bad things that will culminate in re-opening the rupture. Unfortunately, Wrench has been drained of her magic, and she’s got little time to try to rekindle it if she wants to make it out of this alive.
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.