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Swords and Spaceships

IKEA Assembly Manuals for Aliens

Happy Tuesday, shipmates! It’s Alex, with a selection of new releases for this week and a few news items for your clicking pleasure. In Colorado, we’re now firmly back into the season where “smoke” is a valid weather condition according to my weather app, so that tells you how we’re doing out here. Stay safe out there, space pirates, read some good books, and I’ll see you on Friday!

Thing that made my weekend: Cat drinking milk, becomes music. And part 2.

Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here’s somewhere to start: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ and anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co


New Releases

Hollywood Heroine by Sarah Kuhn

After years of being legends in the real world, superheroines Aveda Jupiter and Evie Tanaka are about to take the world by storm in their own TV show. But Aveda has a hard time getting excited; there’s Otherworld activity outside the Bay Area, and she still has to worry about the fate of the world. When on-set drama goes supernatural, Aveda and Evie must swing in to save the day again.

Cover of The Freedom Race by Lucinda Roy

The Freedom Race by Lucinda Roy

The second Civil War left behind an America that’s no longer the United States, riven with sickness and radiation and divided into factions. One of these factions, the Homestead Territories, has restarted the slave trade, and the other factions let it. Ji-ji was born enslaved in one of the plantations in the Homestead Territories; her possible way out is the annual Freedom Race. She also unknowingly holds the key to breaking the power of the Homestead Territories. To do so, she must unravel the voices of the dead.

The Justice in Revenge by Ryan Van Loan

Partners in crime-solving Buc and Eld have taken a place on the board of the Kanados Trading Company with the intention of destroying the nobility from within and trying to force a little more equality into the island nation of Servenza. But boardroom politics and mages keep progress slow, and the two reach out to a potential patron — the Doga who rules the nation. If they figure out who is trying to assassinate her, they’ll gain her support; if they fail their deadline, they’ll be exiled to to the ends of the world. (Full disclosure: Ryan and I have the same agent.)

Cover of In Beta by Prescott Harvey

In Beta by Prescott Harvey

In 1993, small-town high school seniors (and total geeks) Jay and Colin discover a disk that contains a computer program that’s a pixel-perfect replica of their entire town. And then they discover that if they alter the program, they alter reality. They react to this knowledge with all the calm thoughtfulness one can expect from two teenage boys. But someone is watching what they do, and that someone has their own way of warping reality.

The Fallen by Ada Hoffman

The planet Jai has now become a chaotic, galactic no-go zone; its laws of physics are forever altered and its inhabitants have all changed. The AI gods that once ruled the galaxy have become Jai’s jailers, and Tiv, who once believed utterly in these gods, turns to helping the survivors and fighting for freedom. Her girlfriend, Yasira, debilitatingly ill, cannot lead the necessary revolution. But somehow together, they must solve the mysteries that fractured their planet — and save it.

News and Views

If you’re quick, you can sign up for a flash science fiction reading courtesy of Space Cowboy Books tonight.

Congratulations to the winners of the 2020 Aurealis Awards!

Video interview with Farah Mendelsohn.

Interview with Cat Rambo.

Interview with Sheree Renée Thomas.

Fantasy Hive has a selection of SFF cover art done by women cover artists.

How to create fantasy villains.

Daario Naharis and The Death of Khans: From the Mongol Empire to Game of Thrones.

Future Lord of the Rings films should acknowledge the book’s queer leanings.

Writing with an emotional landscape.

IKEA made assembly manuals for aliens.

Bezos and Branson are going to space! Or maybe not. If you have paid much attention, you can already guess my opinion of the “billionaire space race.” But this is an interesting article that’s about the definition of space itself — particularly where it actually begins.

On Book Riot

8 female authors like Sarah J. Maas

Everything we know about the Ursula K. Le Guin stamp the USPS is releasing

This month you can enter to win a $250 Barnes & Noble gift card, a Kindle Paperwhite, and a Kindle Oasis.


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.

Categories
Swords and Spaceships

SFF Cures for Summer Boredom

Happy Friday, shipmates! It’s Alex, with a few book suggestions for fighting any summer boredom that might be weighing you down, as well as links to check out. The good news is, after mainlining Benadryl for a day and a half because my mosquito bites were that bad, I am coherent and awake, so any spelling mistakes you find are completely my fault. Stay safe out there, space pirates, and I’ll see you with new releases on Tuesday!

Fun thing for the weekend: This crossover of my two fandoms fills me with delight.

Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here’s somewhere to start: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ and anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co


News and Views

Shortlist for the SFF Rosetta Awards has been announced

Interview with Katherine Addison

Catherynne Valente will discuss her new book The Past Is Red via Zoom on July 20

Troy L. Wiggins: The Necessity of Slavery Stories

Ainehi Edoro: What is Africanjujuism?

Abigail George: Moscow in Autumn

How Marginalized Authors Are Transforming Gothic Fiction

Young People Read Old SFF covers “Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman

This is kind of funny: DC and Marvel superheroes top breached password lists.

SFF eBook Deals

The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu for $1.99

Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb for $1.99

Vox by Christina Dalcher for $1.99

On Book Riot

This week’s SFF Yeah! podcast is about SFF that’s perfect for camping.

This month you can enter to win a $250 Barnes & Noble gift card, a Kindle Paperwhite, and a Kindle Oasis.

Free Association Friday: Anti-Boredom SFF

July is apparently National Anti-Boredom Month, which I didn’t even know was a thing. I suppose that makes sense for a month when all the under-18s are out of school and potentially at loose ends. And books are a cure for boredom, right? Especially when they’re out there challenging tropes and doing something different.

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

Bored with quasi-European epic fantasy? This is the start of a series that’s got it all–magic, gods, tons of politics, family drama, giant animals that people ride around on, and a deep history that unfolds without requiring infodumps… and it’s all set in a fantasy Mesoamerica.

(Also check out The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter, which is African-inspired epic fantasy with dragons.)

The Tiger’s Daughter by K. Arsenault Rivera

Bored with fated lovers who always seem to be a heterosexual couple? Here’s Barsalayaa Shefali, a horse-riding female warrior, and O Shizuka, a divine empress, and they have a big destiny together that may be leading them to either their deaths or the godhood they must attain to save the world.

Son of the Storm by Suyi Davies Okungbowa

Bored with fantasy that front and centers fighters? This one’s about a scholar and a politician trying to maintain their places in a crumbling empire… then you throw a mage who shouldn’t exist into the mix, and they’re all sent on dark journey through some even darker history–and deadly secrets.

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

Bored with the AI always being the bad guy? This starts a series about an embodied AI who takes on an empire in her quest for revenge–and then justice.

Also, Martha Wells’s Murderbot series, starting with All Systems Red, scratches this itch nicely as well… and gives us an AI with some severe social anxiety.

The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

Bored with dystopias? Much of Kim Stanley Robinson’s work is quasi-utopic, though in a way that’s very uniquely his. Rather than trying to imagine a future where technology runs everything and resources are abundant, he looks for the ways people can aim for utopia with work and managing scarce resources.

The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons

Bored with chosen ones? Here’s a thief who finds out that he might be the missing son of a prince, but rather than being swept into an epic quest, he’s drafted into his ruthless family’s political machinations. Worse, if he’s got a great destiny at all, it’s not that he’ll save the world — he’s going to be the one to destroy it.


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.

Categories
Swords and Spaceships

Swords and Spaceships for July 6

Happy Tuesday, shipmates! It’s Alex with your new releases for the first Tuesday of July. My Fourth of July was absolutely bonkers; since most of the cities around cancelled their fireworks (with good reason!), we ended up with neighborhoods basically filled with noise and gunpowder smoke as people shot off their own worryingly huge rockets. Not great, when you live in a place that gets bad wildfires. On the other hand, I got to have s’mores with friends! Hope everyone had a good and safe weekend. See you on Friday, space pirates!

Thing I loved this week: this thread of pictures of ship’s cats in tiny hammocks

Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here’s somewhere to start: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ and anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co


New Releases

Cover of We Have Always Been Here by Lena Nguyen

We Have Always Been Here by Lena Nguyen

The Deucalion, a survey ship crewed by human specialists and androids, is sent to the ice planet Eos to assess its potential as a colony world. Dr. Grace Park, a misanthropic psychologist, has been assigned to monitor the crew, but finds herself befriending the androids instead. After arriving at Eos, the crew is trapped aboard the ship by a radiation storm. The androids start behaving strangely, the humans start having waking nightmares, and as the paranoia ratchets ever upward, Grace begins to realize that nothing around her is as it seems.

Capture the Crown by Jennifer Estep

Gemma only appears to be a pampered, vacuous princess; under the carefully crafted persona, she’s a spy and a powerful mind magier. Her current mission: figure out who is stealing tearstone from one of the royal mines. There she encounters Prince Leonidas, her mortal enemy… and of course she promptly gets herself into a bind where she has to join forces with him if she wants to finish her mission and survive all the plots she’s uncovering.

Cover of Summer in the City of Roses by Michelle Ruiz Keil

Summer in the City of Roses by Michelle Ruiz Keil

Iph has always protected her younger brother, Orr. Unfortunately, their father doesn’t agree; he takes Iph to a gala in downtown Portland as a distraction while Orr is taken away to a wilderness survival bootcamp to be toughened up. Iph storms out of the gala and meets up with George, a bicycle-riding queer Robin Hood, who offers her a place to hide while she tracks down Orr. And Orr, in the meantime, has escaped camp and hooked up with an all-girl punk band. Separately, they must navigate their new environs and find each other again.

The Empire’s Ruin by Brian Stavely

The Annurian Empire is falling to ruin, its magical gates becoming defunct and its other advantages falling to pieces. Even the Kettral have been decimated from within, but one of the survivors has a chance to save it all. They must travel beyond the known world to find where the war hawks nest. But the empire’s time is almost up, with an ancient race of god-like beings beginning to stir.

Cover of Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim

Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim

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. 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.

City of Iron and Dust by J.P Oakes

At the end of a war that the goblins won against the fae, they built the Iron City as both prison and industrial blight. But life still struggles to break free there, where a multitude of stories tangle together around one bag of Dust, the only drug that can still give the fae magic. And that collision of lives will change the Iron City for all time.

News and Views

Congratulations to the nominees for the 2020 Shirley Jackson awards!

Sad news: Lovecraft County was not renewed for season 2

First teaser trailer for 大怪獣のあとしまつ, a movie about the aftermath of a kaiju attack when the people of the city have to figure out what to do about the giant corpse.

The History of Papercutting and the Magic of The Chosen and the Beautiful

Janelle Monáe has a collection of cyberpunk short ficton coming!

The History of Politics and Wuxia

On Book Riot

On Wednesdays, we read Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings fandom in 2021

This month you can enter to win a $250 Barnes & Noble gift card, a Kindle Paperwhite, and a Kindle Oasis.


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.

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Swords and Spaceships

Swords and Spaceships for July 2

Happy Friday, shipmates! It’s Alex, with some award-nominated books for you to check out (and they’re not all the usual suspects) and some SFF links to click. If you’re in the US, we’re headed into a holiday weekend–please be safe and have fun! (And if you live in the Western US, I beg of you, no fireworks.) May we all be headed into a relatively cooler start to July. See you on Tuesday for new release day, space pirates!

Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here’s somewhere to start: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ and anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co


News and Views

When Sword & Sorcery Cast a Spell in the 1980s

The Ghost Work Behind Artificial Intelligence

Queer readings of The Lord of the Rings are not accidents

CW for discussions of transphobia, but this long piece on Isabel Fall’s “Helicopter Story” and the Twitter implosion around it is, in my opinion, worth reading: How Twitter can ruin a life. I will note that yes, I have read the story, and I found it very meaningful to my experience as a trans person; your mileage may vary and that’s all right.

A roundup of indie spec fic for the month of June

Camestros Felapton has collected chapters 1-33 of the Debarkle in one volume, for free

Loving Sally Ride

What Venus has instead of plate tectonics

SFF eBook Deals

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse for $1.99

Tooth and Talon by Alex Hernandez for $0.99

The Stones of Resurrection by Tameri Etherton for $0.99

On Book Riot

This week’s SFF Yeah! is about LGBTQ+ SFF

15 adult fiction books from Bookfest that go straight to the TBR pile

18 of the best trans fantasy and sci-fi books

6 SFF books with genderfluid characters

Free Association Friday

The shortlist for the 2020 Kitschies is out, and I want to shine the spotlight on some of the books they’ve named, which I don’t think we’ve ever had in the newsletter before. (Also on the shortlist are Piranesi, The City We Became, The Ministry of the Future, and Raybearer, all of which we’ve talked about multiple times.) The Kitschies are a juried award that focus on “progressive, intelligent, and entertaining” speculative fiction, and tend to have a pretty eclectic and fun shortlist. (Full disclosure from me: I won a Kitschie for my debut novel in 2017, so I may love them a little extra.)

Cover of A Tall History of Sugar by Curdella Forbes

A Tall History of Sugar by Curdella Forbes

This is the story of two soulmates who live in Jamaica, starting just four years before the end of colonial rule. Moshe was born without skin; his strange appearance makes it impossible to tell what race he is. Arienne is his soulmate and does her best to protect him from the social and emotional burden of looking like he does.

The Lost Future of Pepperharrow by Natasha Pulley

A translator named Thaniel and a watchmaker who can remember the future named Mori travel to Japan together on separate business. While there, they begin to experience ghostly apparitions together–and then Mori vanishes. As the ghosts begin to haunt more of the country, Thaniel concludes that this has something to do with Mori–and that his friend is in danger.

Cover of Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara

Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara

Jai is a boy who lives at the end of the Purple metro line in a tin-roofed home, so far removed from the high-rises of the city that they might as well be a different planet. When a classmate goes missing, he decides to put all of the skills he’s learned by watching far too many reality police shows to use in solving the disappearance. It seems like a game at first… until other children start disappearing and rumors of soul-snatching djinn begin circulating around.

The Animals in That Country by Laura Jean McKay

Jean is a foul-mouthed, no-nonsense grandmother who works as a guide in an outback wildlife park. Then a pandemic begins sweeping across the country, with its main symptom that its victims can understand the language of animals until the rising tide of unstoppable voices drives them mad. When Jean’s son, Lee, goes missing in this madness, she sets off to find him, with a dingo named Sue riding shotgun.

Cover of Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn

Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn

As a seven-year-old, Nainoa fell overboard from a cruise ship, only to be rescued and delivered back to his mother by a shark. This miracle marks the beginning of strange powers for Nainoa, ones that eventually drive his family apart and leaves him struggling to understand himself as he works as a paramedic in Portland. More supernatural events push his scattered family back together in Hawai’i, where they must reckon with the cost of survival and what heritage means.

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

Okay yes, you got me, I have mentioned this book a zillion times before, so I should have put the link in the opening paragraph. TOO BAD, MY NEWSLETTER, MY RULES. I will take every opportunity to tell you how freaking amazing this book is if you haven’t read it yet. Beautiful prose! A different take on parallel worlds! Complex and conflicted characters! This was my favorite book of 2020, dangit.


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.

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Swords and Spaceships

Swords and Spaceships for June 29

Happy Tuesday, shipmates! Here we are, already at the end of June, and it’s Alex with the last new releases for the month. If you’re getting hit by the heat wave out there, I hope you’ve found a way to stay cool. Please take care of yourselves, space pirates. I’ll see you on Friday as we head into July.

Thing that made me happy this week: I listened to the audiobook of The Witness of the Dead by Katherine Addison in basically one day, and it was pretty much everything I wanted except I wanted it to be twice as long.

In non-SFF news, if you have not seen the trailer for The Harder They Fall, YOU NEED TO.

Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here’s somewhere to start: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ and anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co


New Releases

Cover of Gearbreakers by Zoe Hana Mikuta

Gearbreakers by Zoe Hana Mikuta

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.

When the Sparrow Falls by Neil Sharpson

Agent South works just hard enough to make no enemies in the Caspian Republic, the last bastion of humanity that’s run by an artificial intelligence that allows no deviation. Then a Party official is killed and discovered to be a “machine” and South is given the task of chaperoning his widow–also a “machine,” and someone who bears a strange resemblance to South’s deceased wife.

Cover of The Return of the Sorceress by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Return of the Sorceress by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Yalxi was the Supreme Mistress of the Guild of Sorcerers until her love took both her throne and the diamond heart, which gave Yalxi her magical powers. Now Yalxi is on a mission to get her power and her place back, but making allies isn’t easy; she forged her path to power in blood, and the consequences are coming home to her now as well.

Double Threat by F. Paul Wilson

In the desert of the American Southwest, a cult prays that the “Visitors” will return, vigilant for signs of the “Duad” that will stand in their way. A woman named Daley wakes to find an alien consciousness in her mind that gives her the gift of healing–and won’t shut up. Daley tries to hide her new power, but when the cult discovers her, they decide that she must be the Duad they have to defeat.

This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron

Briseis has an unusual gift: she can grow plants from tiny seeds to maturity with just a touch of her hand. Which sounds like a great power… if she could control it. When her aunt in rural New York dies, Bri and her parents head to the woman’s dilapidated estate for the summer to get a little breathing room. What they find there is a mystery that centers on a walled garden filled with deadly plants, a place only Bri can enter. Soon strangers are arriving, asking for medicines and potions, and Bri discovers she has a talent for making those, too. But the community has its own dark secrets, and there are those who would harness Bri’s power to make an elixir for mortality, whether she’s willing or not.

A War of Swallowed Stars by Sangu Mandanna

A massive beast is devouring stars one by one as war rages through the galaxy. An exiled prince must face the consequences of his mistakes while a princess has vanished without a trace… and a sleeping god stirs on a hidden planet.

News and Views

Congratulations to the winners of the 2021 Locus Awards!

The 2020 Kitschies short list is out

Accelerated History: Chinese Short Science Fiction in the Twenty-First Century

Stealing Science Fiction : Why the Heist Works So Well in Sci-Fi

SFF has some people on this list: The Early Careers of 12 Famous Novelists

Chris Carter (creator of The X-Files) weighs in on the UFO report that just came out

The Kyo Come to Visit: Clearing Up Some Important Questions in CJ Cherryh’s Foreigner Series

LeVar Burton is going to teach a Masterclass on “the Power of Storytelling”

Vin Diesel wants to do a Fast and Furious musical

On Book Riot

30 must-read queer fairytale retellings for Pride

You have until tonight to register to win copies of My Lady Jane and My Contrary Mary by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows

This month you can enter to win a 1-year subscription to Audible, a Kindle Paperwhite, your own library cart, a $250 gift card to Powell’s Books, an iPad Mini, and a summer reading prize pack.


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.

Categories
Swords and Spaceships

Swords and Spaceships for June 25

Happy Friday, shipmates! It’s Alex, and for the last Friday of Pride, I’m coming at you with some books that have genderfluid protagonists and a little handful of links to check out. I’m still watching the Loki series–Infinity War broke my Asgard-loving heart–and so far, so good. Also, I have the audiobook for Witness for the Dead and I am unspeakably excited to start it! If you’re in the northern hemisphere, I hope you’ve been staying cool as we crossed over the longest day of the year. Stay safe out there, space pirates, and I will see you again on Tuesday!

Non-SFF-related, but I cannot get over the Big Breakfast song

Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here’s somewhere to start: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ and anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co


News and Views

NPR wants you to tell them about your favorite new SFF books

Interview with Rin Chupeco

Adam Nimoy: I absolutely adored Spock. Loving Dad was much more complicated.

Looking for Body Positivity and Fat Protagonists in YA Fantasy

Wellington Paranormal is coming to America

The Trouble With Writing (Too) Smart Characters

The Personal Impact of Doctor Aphra

SFF eBook Deals

Wild Seed by Octavia E. Butler for $1.99

Not So Stories edited by David Thomas Moore for $0.99

Noumenon Ultra by Marina J. Lostetter for $1.99 (full disclosure: Marina and I share an agent.)

On Book Riot

10 great middle grade superhero books

15 books like A Court of Thorns and Roses

This week’s SFF Yeah! is about favorites from the last five(ish) years

You have until June 29 to register to win copies of My Lady Jane and My Contrary Mary by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows

This month you can enter to win a 1-year subscription to Audible, a Kindle Paperwhite, your own library cart, a $250 gift card to Powell’s Books, an iPad Mini, and a summer reading prize pack.

Free Association Friday

Hello friends! For this last Friday of Pride Month, let’s get in some SFF with genderfluid characters.

The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

Two unlikely friends meet on the pirate ship Dove. Flora becomes Florian in the brutal life of a pirate, which is still better than being a starving street urchin. Lady Hasegawa is en route to an arranged marriage she doesn’t want, carrying her own casket with her. Soon they go on a series of wild adventures, including freeing a captured mermaid, finding an opportunistic witch, and going up against the Pirate Supreme.

No Man of Woman Born by Ana Mardoll

A collection of short stories with trans, nonbinary, and genderfluid characters that fulfill–and subvert–gendered prophecies.

Cover of Mask of Shadows by Linsey Miller

Mask of Shadows by Linsey Miller

Sallot is a genderfluid thief who wants to use the skills they’ve developed in highway robbery to get closer to the nobles that destroyed their life. Their chance comes in the form of a chance to join the Queen’s personal assassins, but the audition is more than Sal bargained for. Their common criminal childhood didn’t prepare them for circus acrobats, apothecaries, and ex-soldiers, but they have to figure it out if they want to survive–and win the heart of the scribe they’ve fallen in love with.

Nine of Swords, Reversed by Xan West

Dev and Noam have lived a good life together for years, practicing magecraft together, caring for each other when their disabilities flare up, with Noam acting as Dev’s service submissive. But when Dev’s arthritis worsens, xe is unable to shield properly, which means xe can’t touch Noam without transferring too much of their pain via xyr empathy. Together, Dev and Noam must navigate this change in their relationship, with the help of a timely tarot reading.

Cover of No More Heroes by Michelle Kan

No More Heroes by Michelle Kan

Young Vigilantes across the world keep watch over cities. A new enemy comes onto the scene, identity and motive unclear, but one thing’s for certain: they’re killing Vigilantes. When someone wants to disturb the peace in a city where the gifted make the rules, who will stop them?

Sing for the Coming of the Longest Night by Katherine Fabian and Iona Datt Sharma

Layla and Nat have nothing in common except a deep, mutual dislike–and a boyfriend named Meraud. But when Meraud vanishes during a magical experiment, they must work together to follow the cryptic clues and deadly obstacles that will lead them to him… and then possible let him get back home. Worse, their time is growing short–if they don’t get him home by the winter solstice, Meraud will be lost forever.


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.

Categories
Swords and Spaceships

Swords and Spaceships for June 22

Happy Tuesday, shipmates! It’s Alex, with a selection of new releases for you to peruse and some genre-related links. I finally gave in and watched the first two episodes of Loki last night after avoiding the show for complicated nerd feelings reasons I won’t bore you with here. But it’s actually so good that I’m kind of mad about it? Also, I just sat down and inhaled Courtney Milan’s The Devil Comes Courting in less than a day because it was excellent if you’re in the mood for something non-SFF and romance (it’s the third book in a series, but I honestly think you don’t need to have read the others). Hopefully you’ve had equally good things to read and watch over the weekend! Stay safe out there, space pirates, and I will see you on Friday–the last Friday of Pride this year!

Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here’s somewhere to start: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ and anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co


New Releases

Note: The new release lists I have access to weren’t as diverse as I would have liked this week.

Star Eater by Kerstin Hall

Elfreda is part of the Sisterhood of Aytrium; to go with her gruesome daily duties, another hangs over her–she’s to get pregnant and preserve the Sisterhood’s magical bloodline. Willing to do anything to escape that fate, she leaps at the chance to become a spy for a shadow faction. Her new job puts her into the highest reaches of the Sisterhood, filled with opulent parties, danger, and blood.

The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addision

After helping the young emperor Maia solve the mystery of the bombings that killed his father and half-brothers, Thara Celehar chose to leave the court and go to Amalo, where he could serve the common people of that city. Still acting as a Witness for the Dead, one who can speak to the recently deceased, his skills lead him into a tangle of murder, injustice, and treachery that he must untangle as he seeks to stand with those in greatest need.

Cover of Rising Like a Storm by Tanaz Bhathena

Rising Like a Storm (The Wrath of Ambar #2) by Tanaz Bhathena

Gul and Cavas have had their victory; King Lohar is dead, and they had no small part in his demise. But the usurper queen that takes the throne after is just as bad, and she won’t stop until she sees them killed. Because Gul and Cavas have a connection that runs strong with magic, and they may well have the power to end her reign. When Cavas is captured, Gul must continue the fight alone, not only to defeat the queen and save Cavas, but to build a just world as well.

This Fragile Earth by Susannah Wise

In a near-future London, Signy and Matthew are a couple staying together only for their six-year-old son and quietly miserable about it. Then one day, all the electricity and gas cuts off in the city. There’s no more running water. The pollination drones that have replaced the now-extinct honey bees are acting strangely. With soldiers in the streets and people going missing, the couple flees the city with their son, but they have no idea if things are worse outside…

Cover of Artifact Space by Miles Cameron

Artifact Space by Miles Cameron

Greatships are the lifeblood of human space, transporting incalculable volumes of goods in their massive, city-sized holds from station to station to world. Their ultimate destination is Tradepoint, where an unknowable alien species waits to exchange trade with them. Marca has just achieved her dream of joining the crew of the Greatship Athens and escaping her world and her upbringing. But leaving her old life and scandals behind won’t be so easy, and there’s a whole new set of perils waiting for her out in the black.

News and Views

Premee Mohamed announced the final title of her trilogy

A profile of Tigrina, pioneering lesbian SFF poet and activist

Jews in Space: On the Unsung History of Jewish Writers and British Science Fiction

Interview with K.W. Jeter

Interview with Lois McMaster Bujold

Interview with J.C. Kang

Ngo Vinh-Hoi writes about Lin Carter

How Wilson Cruz went from playing ‘white girls’ best friends’ to ‘the queerest “Star Trek” in history’

Nerds of a Feather has a short fiction roundup for May

Phil Plait on how long it would take for an alien civilization to populate an entire galaxy

There is a Doom-themed dating sim and I need that in my life

Is there a queer future without queerphobia?

Okay, do superheroes bone or not?

On Book Riot

8 stellar sci-fi manga titles

This month you can enter to win a 1-year subscription to Audible, a Kindle Paperwhite, your own library cart, a $250 gift card to Powell’s Books, an iPad Mini, and a summer reading prize pack.


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.

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Swords and Spaceships

Swords and Spaceships for June 18

Happy Friday, shipmates! It’s Alex with a bit of Friday news for you, and week three of the Pride Month celebration, where we’re throwing the focus onto books with intersex characters and/or by intersex authors! If you’re in the northern hemisphere, I hope you’ve been doing whatever is necessary to beat the absolutely terrible heat that seems to be rolling across the world this week. May the weekend bring cooler breezes and maybe a bit of rain for us all!

Thing that made me smile: this is some AMAZING stick work

Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here’s somewhere to start: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ and anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co


News and Views

An interview with none other than Chuck Tingle

Interview with P. Djèlí Clark

Interview with Kerstin Hall

Interview with Indra Das

How Loki became a genderfluid icon in Marvel fandom

Cora Buhlert talks about some old SFF

Fireside Fiction is attempting a comeback.

Episode 1 of the SF Sparkle Salon

First look at John de Lancie returning as Q in Star Trek: Picard. I gasped.

Aliens wouldn’t need warp drives to take over an entire galaxy, simulation suggests

Some cool Sun stamps coming from the USPS

SFF Ebook Deals

Smoke Eaters by Sean Grigsby for $0.99

Moonshine by Jasmine Gower for $0.99

Dahlgren by Samurel R. Delaney for $1.99

On Book Riot

Be LGBTQ+, do other stuff: 4 anticipated queer fantasy novels

Too weird or not weird enough: what is slipstream?

6 of the best fantasy books to listen to again and again

This week’s SFF Yeah! podcast is a book vs movie look at Howl’s Moving Castle

You have until June 21 to enter to win a copy of The Age of the Scions by J.V.A. Young.

This month you can enter to win a 1-year subscription to Audible, a Kindle Paperwhite, your own library cart, a $250 gift card to Powell’s Books, an iPad Mini, and a summer reading prize pack.

Free Association Friday: Pride Month Week 3!

Here’s another part of the LGBTQIA+ rainbow that I want to see get more love: intersex! Below are SFF books either with intersex characters, by intersex authors, or both. And if you want to find more reading by intersex authors and with intersex themes (particularly short stories and poetry), the website of Bogi Takács is or a great resource. E does a massive amount of work for intersex and trans (and neuroatypical) visibility and is an all around lovely person.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Aster is an intersex, nonbinary woman who lives in the slums of a generation ship stratified very much like the antebellum South. Investigating the mystery of what happened to her mother and what is going wrong with the ship–two things that may be more linked than she first realizes–she finds she has the power to destroy the unjust world around her.

Basically, you should check out everything Rivers Solomon has written; fae writes a lot of work with intersex and nonbinary and otherwise queer characters. See also The Deep and Sorrowland.

The Weight of the Stars by K. Ancrum

In a very near future, two young women, Ryann and Alexandria, become friends after a terrible accident that leaves Alexandria’s arm broken. Ryann, who has always dreamed of being an astronaut, and tried to force herself to give up that dream because poor girls don’t become astronauts–finds out that Alexandria’s mother is an astronaut who volunteered for a one-way mission. Now, Ryann helps Alexandria up onto her roof every night to search for radio signals sent back by her mother.

Trans Space Octopus Congregation by Bogi Takács

This is Bogi Takács’s first collection, and e includes stories with intersex themes ranging into the far future–as well as the aforementioned space octopus. I also definitely encourage you to check out the books e has edited over the years, including the Transcendent anthologies.

Lord of the Last Heartbeat by May Peterson

Mio is an intersex, nonbinary sorcerer who wishes only to be freed from the political machinations of his mother. He puts his trust in Rhodry in a desperate bid for his own murder… but Rhodry can’t bring himself to do the deed, and instead takes Mio to his home, an estate where they might be safe if they can survive the curse placed on it.

Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire

Regan is a young, intersex girl who makes the mistake of trusting the wrong person with knowledge of her identity. Fleeing from someone she once believed was a friend, a mysterious door takes her to the Hooflands, a place of centaurs and kelpies and a destiny as a hero that everyone expects her to fulfill–and Regan isn’t sure she wants.

Trans Liberty Riot Brigade by L.M. Pierce

Andi is a “Transgressor,” an intersex woman who has chosen to buck the system in a society where surgical assignment is mandated by law for people like her. She joins up with the titular Trans Liberty Riot Brigade to fight back against a government that wants to mandate what ‘legal’ genitals must look like–and the next step in their desperate war is getting past the wall barricading the United Free States’ borders and keeping out all outside communications.


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.

Categories
Swords and Spaceships

Swords and Spaceships for June 15

Happy Tuesday, shipmates! It’s Alex, with a weekly selection of new releases and some links for you to check out. It is solidly summer here, which is to say it’s freaking hot out. The squirrels are practically melting on my porch. It’s also an appropriate time of year for the movie version of In the Heights to come out, and I can’t recommend it enough if you’re in a place where it’s safe to go to the movies. (Lin Manuel Miranda has a minor part in it as the shaved ice man and that alone is delightful.) Stay safe out there, space pirates, and I will see you on Friday!

Thing that made me smile: This amazing Astronomy Picture of the Day

Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here’s somewhere to start: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ and anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co


New Releases

Cover of The Tangleroot Palace by Marjorie Liu

The Tangleroot Palace by Marjorie Liu

The debut short fiction collection from the author of Monstress, filled with dark magic and dangerous women. Stories of witches, body-stealing sorceresses, bodyguards, mystical warriors, and princesses in stories of love and revenge. The collection is made of short stories and a full-length novella.

The World Gives Way by Marissa Levien

Myrra is a contract worker who was born into servitude, her labor owed to whoever is the highest bidder when her contract comes up. In fifty years, she’ll be free; in the meantime, she works. But when the family that most recently bought her contract is found dead, she gets her freedom early in the most technical sense–but she must take their orphaned daughter and run from the terrible secret that killed them.

Cover of Blood Like Magic by Liselle Sambury

Blood Like Magic by Liselle Sambury

Voya has waited years for her Calling, the trial she must pass as a witch to come into her power, and when her time comes the unthinkable happens–she fails. Then an ancestor of hers offers an unprecedented second chance at the Calling…but the price this time will be sacrificing her first love, and if she fails her entire family will lose their magic.

The Ice Lion by Kathleen O’Neal Gear

Earth 1000 years from now is covered with miles-thick glaciers, its oceans buried in green slime, all of these the results of attempts to ameliorate climate change gone wrong. The humans who saw the disaster coming tried to save Earth by recreating the species that dominated the previous ice ages. Their descendants try to survive in this impossibly hostile place, surrounded by the remnants of a civilization they’ve long forgotten–including the last true god, a quantum computer.

Cover of The Colours of Death by Patricia Marques

The Colours of Death by Patricia Marques

A small percentage of the population in Lisbon are found to be “Gifted,” meaning they have powers beyond the ordinary, ones that invite stigma and suspicion. When a man is found dead on a train, killed by being repeatedly thrown against the glass, a bizarre suicide may actually be a murder. It’s up to a Gifted inspector to solve this case.

Beyond by Mercedes Lackey

Duke Kordas Valdemar rules a small duchy in the Eastern Empire, but he knows that the peaceful existence for him and his people will not last for long. He quietly begins gathering magicians against the day that he and his people might have to escape the empire’s tyranny as the emperor’s own mages delve more deeply into blood magic and Abyssal deals. One of Valdemar’s mages figures out how to gate his people away–just in time for the duke to be summoned to the capital, where he will have to put on the performance of his life while he buys time for his people to flee.

News and Views

A profile of S.B. Divya

Shaun Duke has a list of 10 Caribbean books you should read, which has a healthy helping of SFF in it

5-star books in 5 words for Pride Month

Mind Meld: One Spot Holodeck

This is fascinating and cool: The Show Is Fake. The Fandom Is Real.

Five SFF characters you should never, ever date

Shadow and Bone will be getting a second season

Sex is great, but have you ever seen your real-life relationship depicted in fiction

Falcon and the Winter Soldier’s Anthony Mackie and Carl Lumbly discuss the impact of Isaiah Bradley

Season 2 teaser for The Witcher and some other news about it…

What makes quantum computing so hard to explain?

On Book Riot

8 queer SFF romantic reads

You have until June 16 to enter to win Amber & Clay by Laura Amy Schlitz (US and Canada only).

This month you can enter to win a 1-year subscription to Audible, a Kindle Paperwhite, your own library cart, a $250 gift card to Powell’s Books, an iPad Mini, and a summer reading prize pack.


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.

Categories
Swords and Spaceships

Swords and Spaceships for June 11

Happy Friday, shipmates! It’s Alex, and we’re continuing our Pride Month journey with some books with aro-ace protagonists! May your days be long and your allergy season as short as possible. Stay safe out there, space pirates, and I’ll see you on Tuesday!

Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here’s somewhere to start: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ and anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co


News and Views

Martha Wells on her Nebula win for Network Effect

Charlie Stross writes about Heinlein

Ingenuity does it again!

I admit, I am way more interested in watching Tig Notaro getting digitally added to Army of the Dead than actually watching the movie.

I’m glad Tom Hiddleston is at least talking about Loki being genderfluid (happy Pride to me!)

Live action Cowboy Bebop is coming…

Microscopic animals from Siberia’s icy permafrost revived after 24,000 years. You know, in case you weren’t already worried enough about climate change.

SFF Ebook Deals

Cast in Wisdom by Michelle Sagara for $1.99

On Borrowed Luck by TJ Muir for $0.99

Chasing Shadows by K.N. Salustro for $0.99

On Book Riot

Meet the winners of the 56th Annual Nebula Awards

Percy Jackson character quiz: who are you?

This week’s SFF Yeah! podcast is about SFF with monsters

This month you can enter to win a 1-year subscription to Audible, a Kindle Paperwhite, your own library cart, a $250 gift card to Powell’s Books, an iPad Mini, and a summer reading prize pack.

Free Association Friday: Pride Month Week 2!

Last week, we dove into the delightful world of books with bi characters. This week, I’m shining the spotlight on books with aro or ace characters, because those are identities that deserve more love and visibilty!

Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger

Ace protagonist! Ellie is a teenager in a world just a little different from our own, one where paranormal activity is real and she can raise the ghosts of dead animals. When her cousin dies in an apparent car crash, his ghost warns her that he was actually murdered. Assisted by her family and best friend, she sets out to crack her first case as an investigator and uncovers something far darker and older than she could have imagined.

Beneath the Citadel by Destiny Soria

One of the protagonists is ace–and fat! Eldra is a city governed by ancient prophecies, which also have kept the high council firmly in power. But now that the last of the prophecies has come to pass, unrest spreads, murders abound, and rebels rise–and the orphaned daughter of two of those rebels is determined to take down the high council once and for all.

Cover of Hullmetal Girls by Emily Skrutskie

Hullmetal Girls by Emily Skrutskie

Protagonist is aro-ace and happy about it! To help pay her brother’s medical bills, Aisha volunteers to become a cybernetically enhanced soldier sworn to protect the Fleet her family calls home. She awakens from enhancement with only hazy memories of why she made her choice–but if she makes it through training and beats out her rivals for top placement, she might regain that lost part of herself and forge new loyalties as well.

From Under the Mountain by C.M. Spivey

Multiple ace characters! Guerline is the second child of the imperial family, and thus she has very few responsibilities–be quiet, don’t make waves, and don’t fall in love with her low-born companion. The last of these directives is the one that gives her the most trouble… and then she’s abruptly forced into the role of empress and has far more than love to worry about.

Cover of Eidolon by E.S. Yu

Eidolon by E.S. Yu

Protagonist is ace and gay! A cyborg assassin without a past named Vax is sent by Cyrex Corp to assassinate a troublesome journalist who seems to know more about him than he should. The job should be easy. But first Vax somehow fails at the hit and ends up the next target of his employer… and then worse, he might be falling in love with the person he failed to kill.

Secondhand Origin Stories by Lee Blauersouth

Ace POV character who is also Deaf! Opal has always dreamed of joining the elite superhero team called the Sentinels, but when her superhero dad is unjustly arrested, she also wants to tell the world about the murky actions of the Altered Persons Bureau who made him disappear into prison. Then in the Sentinels, she finds not a while-oiled machine, but a young team on the verge of breaking apart due to corruption, danger, and family secrets.

Cover of The Dragon of Ynys by Minerva Cerridwen

The Dragon of Ynys by Minerva Cerridwen

Aro-ace protagonist here! Sir Violet’s main job is to go talk to the local dragon every time something in his village goes missing and retrieve the item. This time, however, it seems the dragon has taken the town baker–only when Sir Violet shows up, the dragon is innocent and there’s a much more complicated mystery to be solved.

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

Ace protagonist (who is seen again in other books in the series)! Hopefully you’ve already heard of this one–it’s the start of a delightful novella series about Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, where children and teens who have gone through a portal to a fantasy world and returned to their own deeply altered by the experience try to build new homes and families–or find their way back to the realm of magic where they truly fit in.


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.