Criminals – Marked for Plot

Private Eye – Memes in a Post-Internet Noir

I picked up Private Eye as a text for the Queer Comics elective that I get to teach when student interest is high enough. While there are plenty of breakout hits in that space, I also force students to expose themselves to a broad variety of stories for our independent exploration units. This was one of the few queer noir comics I’d heard about. It was fun and irreverent, great for helping me manage stress at the start of the school year – probably a running theme in my reviews in the next month or so. Unfortunately, and unfairly, I kept comparing this to Watchmen, and it just isn’t on the same level as the greats in the comic space.

The Premise: a private investigator in a world where masks and pseudonyms are part of everyday life sees his most recent client brutally murdered. Now, the target is on his back as both a suspect of her death and as a mysterious criminal seeks to tie up loose ends.

Read if You Like: weird imaginings of humanity’s future, dynamic characterization (in writing and art), stories that push a little bit on the edges of absurdity

Avoid if You Dislike: classic noir structures, books without a ton of thematic heft, ambiguous endings

The Dawnhounds – Fungal Cities & Fascism

The Dawnhounds was the Beyond Binaries Book club pick over on r/fantasy. We had our midway discussion last week and will be wrapping it up on August 27th! This is a book that feels extremely ahead of its time, and fans of Perdido Street Station are going to enjoy it greatly. It’s the type of unapologetically political Fantasy that has been getting more and more traction, but this was written in 2019. I left feeling mixed about this book overall, but I got my concussion right around the halfway point, which definitely is when I started enjoying the book less. For those whom are drawn to the weird worldbuilding and ardently political themes, I think it brings a lot to the table.

The Premise:
Yat is a police officer in a city that has adopted biotechnology to replace the steel and iron of its former oppressors. She tries to do right by the city, but as a queer woman, she gets little respect from other officers. After she is murdered and comes back to life with the blessing of some eldritch power, she gets wrapped up in a conspiracy far bigger than she can imagine. Her path takes her to a pirate crew that has answers about what happened to her, and a realization about the system she worked inside.

Read if You Like: vaguely indescribable interludes, weird cities, characters having a crisis of faith, insect bullets

Avoid if You Dislike: spores, negative depictions of police, the power of LOVE, authors refusing to explain everything

Villain – Psychologically Delightful

Hench is the book that relaunched my interest in Superhero media. It wasn’t the first to deconstruct whether or not the heroes are the good folks, not by any stretch of the imagination. However, it brought a modern take to the genre and reveled in delicious ambiguity. Villain was one of the releases I was most excited about this year. I think Hench is the stronger novel overall, but the highs in Villain are much more delicious and psychological.

This review will include plenty of spoilers for Hench, so I’d avoid continuing unless you’ve read it. See my review for that book here.

The Premise
Supercollider is nothing more than a ball of flesh, and isn’t long for this world. Leviathan and Anna (though now Auditor is more appropriate) have set their sights on The Draft, which is putting together a fresh response to the new strategies put forward by this villainous duo.

Read If You Like: the horror of involuntary medical procedures, competence porn, passing the point of no return, casual inclusion of mobility aids

Avoid If You Dislike: whiny antagonists, toxic romances, mandibles

Novella Readathon #26: Queen O’Nine Tails

The third and final of my purchases from the now defunct Hedone Press, which unfortunately means you can only get this via Audible at the moment. I participate in this r/Fantasy’s yearly Bingo as well as the r/QueerSFF Reading Challenge, of which one of the prompts is ‘Sapphic Swashbuckler’ which this book definitely fits. However, I think this book does a poor job of marketing what it actually is, which is mostly a fantasy romance on a pirate ship, with only a smattering of the horror story I thought I was walking into. Actually, don’t read the official blurb at all. I started sketching out my initial thoughts for this review at page 100 (of 180), and the blurb spoils a major plot event that hadn’t happened yet.

The Premise:
Gloria Vane is an aspiring con woman, though mostly because it’s the path in life her uncle has set for her. On her way to swindle a new husband in America, she gets captured by pirates, immediately pisses off half the crew, and starts romantically taunting the captain Valentina Mallozzi. This book isn’t quite action, isn’t quite a romance, isn’t quite adventure, but something living in a space between all three.

Read If Looking For: sapphic pirates with a strong romance subplot, jealous crewmates, magic that isn’t always explainable

Avoid If Looking For: gore, terror, or grotesqueness, detailed sex scenes

Novella Readathon #16: Brimstone Slipstream

I underestimated Brimstone Slipstream, and for that I think I owe Matt Weber an apology. I looked at the cover of this novella and assumed it would be a high-octane dragon racing story; Nascar meets Fantasy. I would have enjoyed this of course, otherwise I wouldn’t have bought the book. Instead I got a delightful epistolary novel masquerading as a long-form news story, one whose political undertones are far more interesting and serious than my expectations. In fact, it looks like book 2 in the series, a full-length novel, is going to be more traditionally structured and plotted. Goodness knows I’ll find out before too long, because this kind of knocked my socks off. Finished the whole thing after driving for 5 hours, when I should have been asleep and bone tired. At ~50 pages, this is probably more a novelette than novella proper, and it is well worth the time. Plus, it works well as a standalone, not requiring sequels for the story here to feel like a complete product. Plus it only has five ratings on goodreads. Be a trendsetter! Dragon lovers unite!

The Premise:
Zaya and Kiriki are the rising stars of Brimstone Slipstream. Notably, their success hinges on a whip-smart ground crew and their mastery of psionics. Anyone can become empaths, but the skill comes more naturally to their ethnic group, who form the majority of the working class but almost never the financially stable. This report chronicles moments from their rise to fame and success, their support team which is akin to family, and the history of both the city and dragon racing.

Read If Looking For: narrative reporting, the brutal exhaustion of a culture without maternity leave, evocative infodumps, transparent portrayals of well-meaning people with biases

Avoid If Looking For: flashy dragon racing sequences, fully explained worldbuilding, books that follow the laws of physics

Novella Readathon #12: A Necessary Chaos

I have not yet read a proper Romance for this project, though plenty of the novellas feature romantic subplots. A Necessary Chaos entered my TBR when it was described as ‘Mr. and Ms. Smith, but Fantasy and Gay.’ This pitch combines three of my favorite things – I don’t know why I love that movie so much, sue me – and I hoped it would be a nice tonal change after The Lathe of Heaven. The two had a pretty stark contrast; as A Necessary Chaos is, quite frankly, a bit of a mess. It was a mess that worked for me however, because it was so tailored to the things that I enjoy. As it stands though, I can only recommend this for people for whom the premise is immediately exciting.

The Premise:
Vade is a Whisper, a member of the Empire’s magical secret police, seeking revenge on the rebels who killed his sister. Althus is an anarchist in the Phantom Dragon, hoping to bring the system crashing down. The two have been lovers for years, meeting up to spy on each other. Just as they start thinking that their feelings are too serious for a fake relationship, however, they each receive the needed push to finally commit to killing the other. Perhaps them being honest with each other about who they are was the key to unlocking a true relationship all along, and it will bring an Empire to its knees.

Read If You Like: steamy action romance, cool magic powers, torture demons, love was the real magic all along

Avoid If You Dislike: unredeemably evil villains, abrupt changes in allegiance, typos

Novella Readathon #10: North Continent Ribbon by Ursula Witcher

North Continent Ribbon went on my reading list after it got shortlisted for the Ursula Le Guin prize. Those books tend to be hit or miss, but always have a strong sense of identity and something new to bring to the genre. Ribbon was no exception; I’m sure the structure of this novella has been done before, but I haven’t read one like it. It lives in an in-between space between a short fiction/mosaic novel and a more cohesive novella, which was a really cool experience. This story isn’t the densest thing I’ve read, nor the most profound. It has lingered with me, however, and I think that’s the sign of something really special. I think I’d have picked it to win over Rakesfall, which won that year.

The Premise:
North Continent Ribbon covers ~450 years of a far flung planet, initially settled as a location to build faster-than-light ships. Each story is a discrete piece of short fiction, focusing on its own characters and conflicts. However, they layer on top of each other to tell a larger story of cultural formation and change.

Read If Looking For: unique worldbuilding that doesn’t feel gimmicky, nuanced anticapitalist themes, interpersonal conflicts framed through systemic pressures, collective bargaining

Avoid If Looking For: the protagonists always winning, traditional story structures, conflict resolution via combat, romance-free books

Novella Readathon #8: Party of Fools

When I saw that one of the bingo squares for this year’s bingo focused on food, I knew that I would be reading Party of Fools for this readathon. What a better choice for the Feast Your Eyes on This than a series called Empire of Eats? This book is marketed as a comedy, but come expecting silly rather than a full-on comedy. It had a surprising amount of anti-imperialist content than I was expecting. This is not a farce with food; it’s something more akin to how Discworld uses comedy to explore real issues – though stylistically the two are different styles of comedic fantasy. The blurb says ‘Make sure you have some good food on hand, because you’re bound to get hungry along the way‘ and truer words have never been written.

I came looking for a light read after Autobiography of Red, and I left with some of the most fun I’ve had in ages.

The Premise:
Reed and Gladys are retired from their day jobs. Now the Bard and Barbarian moonlight as members of the Resistance, which makes it quite the coincidence when the Immortal Emperor walks into the bar that Gladys’ son runs. Vallora is looking for a break from the life of nobility and to try good food, her chief guard Andromeda is frantically searching the city for her, and the two rebels see an opportunity to strike a blow against the empire. But first, we must eat!

Read If Looking For: charcuterie boards, autistic viewpoint characters, breezy prose, D&D misadventure vibes

Avoid If Looking For: books that demand attention to understand, trope-free stories, realistic dialogue

Novella Readathon #3: The Flesh of the Sea

The best book I read last year was How to Survive this Fairytale by SM Hallow. It was by a new indie publishing house, so I decided to pick up a few other of their titles. Unfortunately, Hedone Books has gone under, because I very much would have been interested in more of books they put out. Currently, you can only read The Flesh of the Sea via Audible; I was lucky enough to have purchased my physical copy before the publisher went under. This won’t be my favorite read of the year (or even this project), but it was very enjoyable. It’s a quick read – even in the context of novellas – and I think it would be a fairly good palette cleanser, especially when paired with other weird-nautical series like Tide child.

The Premise:
Wilford is a natural scientist who, after getting rejected by the Royal Society in London, ends up on a really weird pirate ship. He sends letters of his misadventures to a fellow naturalist, Jean Baptiste, whom he had been avoiding after a drunken kiss. On his travels, Wilford encounters all sorts of disturbing and disgusting creatures, befriends his crewmates, and generally tries to prove his worth to himself, Jean Baptiste, and the Society. Meanwhile, Jean Baptiste’s journal shows his life feels empty without Wilford in it, and he gets very upset about an overprotective pirate who has been making moves on Wilford.

Read If Looking For: weird travelogues, disaster academics, yearning and pining, epistolary novels, quirky pirate crews

Avoid If Looking For: intense horror and gore, bespoke prose, Romantasy

Comparable Media: Tide Child, Memoirs of Lady Trent, Someone to Build a Nest In

The Disco at the End of the World – Too Much Boogie!

Nathan Tavares has more or less cemented himself as an instabuy author for me, and Disco at the End of the World continues placing him near the top of my favorite author’s list. The early reviews for Disco had me hesitant: several readers I trust DNFd, and a 3.5 rating on Goodreads typically indicates that a book has some fairly major flaws. Like with most of Tavares work, I think my love for it is going to be higher than most people’s. He speaks to my soul in a way that few authors do. This book has some significant rough patches, but it also filled a void that I’ve been searching for: speculative fiction that seriously engages with historical underground queer spaces in America. If that isn’t something that immediately gets you excited though, there probably isn’t enough here for me to recommend it to the average reader.

The Premise:
Mitch is a member of the Spaceguard, which has replaced Nasa in this version of the Cold War with more of a military emphasis than exploratory. He works on the moon base, where he’s known as a queer who doesn’t get a hard time only because he also smuggles contraband in for everybody else. He gets reported for morality breaches and is sent back to Earth, where he and his fellow servicewoman Gloria (not that most soldiers used that name for her) helped open an underground Disco outside Hollywood. Strange things are happening to Mitch however, and he ends up being a contact point for Aliens who are threatening to destroy Earth, unless he, Gloria, and his new family can bougie hard enough to change history.

Read If You Like: portrayals of underground gay culture, alternate space-race history, queer acid trips, disco ball spaceships

Avoid If You Dislike: characters facing homophobia, long stretches without speculative elements, the power of LOVE, intense tonal shifts

Comparable Media: Welcome to Forever, Exit Stage Left: Snagglepuss Chronicles, Disco Witches of Fire Island