K.A. Doore's Blog

First off, happy belated Winter Solstice! The shortest day is past and it only gets brighter from here*.

Growing up in Florida, the winter solstice held little significance to me — winter days are bright and sunny, so why did I need to celebrate the light’s return? If anything, I celebrated the summer solstice with more gusto, as it meant the overwhelming heat would slowly (s l o w l y) recede.

Now that I’ve lived up North, I understand that desire for light at a cellular level. The Solstice is an ever-returning promise, a hope that, even as your world gets darker, colder, warmth and sun will return. This too shall pass.

You can stay literal with it or you can get all metaphorical about it, and the direction I choose largely depends on the year I’ve had. This year? This year, I need the metaphor. I need to know things will get better.

First, the good: DON’T TOUCH THAT! a science-fiction and fantasy parenting anthology was released as an ebook in November and we have approved the physical proofs for a paperback release early January. I have held the book in my hands and, while this journey from idea in early 2020 to full physical realization in 2023 will have been a long one, I think it’s worth it. These stories are so desperately needed.

But maybe next time three parents with fulltime kids and dayjobs shouldn’t be left in charge of a Kickstarter. TBF, none of us could have predicted the pandemic and that threw a wrench in everyone’s lives.

2022 started out promising. It’s hard to feel anything but joy when you can go strawberry-picking in January, when little girls get pink teeth from eating berries and pink hands from the cold. We lost a chicken to the foxes and I had to hurriedly pen them in, but we haven’t lost one since. I was writing, if haltingly – but I had a proper plan to finish this story I’d been working on since 2020 by August. I stopped drinking alcohol in January and stayed dry all year. Cabin Girl was in Pre-K and we were all gearing up for Kindergarten in the fall. We went to the beach and Cabin Girl learned how to swim and we picked blueberries and I ran a 7k and we went to festivals and Baby learned how to walk, then run. I even weaned off my anxiety meds (with the blessing of my doctor). It was getting hotter, but the nights were still cool.

Then 2020 finally came for us.

My wife had a conference at the end of June and we struggled with whether she should go. Virologists, right? Of anyone, they’d be vaccinated. They’d wear masks. We were more worried about the flights than the conference, but my wife would wear a tight-fitting, high-grade mask from drop-off to her hotel room and she’d be fine.

Except someone came to the conference with COVID, didn’t wear a mask, gave a big speech when their spouse was isolating for COVID upstairs in their shared hotel room, and proceeded to give everyone attending a fun little present. Including my wife.

July 2nd we both tested positive, as did Baby Doore.

COVID hit like a train. We had chills but no fever, couldn’t go from one room to another without getting winded, and food tasted awful — even coffee. We wore masks around the house and set up an air filter and somehow, Cabin Girl stayed healthy. But even though the worst of COVID only last 48 hours, the fatigue and brain fog persisted.

I was out of commission for four weeks. I could perform basic chores, do some stuff at work, but every meeting felt like forcing hard cheese through a flour sifter; my brain could only process so much. COVID also wrecked my immune system and in the span of three weeks, I had a cold that became a persistent fever that became pneumonia. My goal of finishing my WIP by the end of August became impossible.

October, November, life got a little easier, but while I was fully recovered, my wife kept dipping back into periods of fatigue and brain fog, which may or may not be COVID-related. Between that and a certain Baby’s sleep regression, my window to write got squeezed down to a sliver. I made progress, but…

December is not over yet, so I can’t say for sure how this month will be, but I can certainly say the second half of 2022 sucked. 2020 snuck up behind us and stabbed us all in the back. We’re a lot more cautious — again — and it’s hard to feel hopeful when you’re exhausted and there’s no end in sight.

But… that’s the point of the Solstice, isn’t it? At least the meaning we’ve collectively created. That even when it’s darker than ever before, the sun will still rise. We will get through this. It will get better. I have to hold that hope close. I have to hope that 2023 will be better. That it will bring its own challenges, but we’ll get through them like we have these.

May the rest of your 2022 be restful and kind and may we find each other anew in 2023.

*Only available in the Northern Hemisphere. Happy Summer Solstice to those south of the equator, but now your days get shorter.

Welcome to my ongoing and somewhat-regularly updated list of queer adult science-fiction and fantasy books published in 2022!

If you haven’t been around for my previous lists, this list and the ones before (see: 2021, 2020, 2019) – and the ones that will come after – are my answer to every, “Where are all the queer/LGBTQIA/QUILTBAG fantasy and science-fiction adult books?” or, worse, “only Young Adult (YA) has any queer representation.”

This is my fourth year creating and maintaining this list and even with publication delays, stuck ships, and paper shortages, I’m delighted to share an even bigger list than before. Queer sci-fi and fantasy is here, y’all, and we ain’t going nowhere.

The list is sorted by publication date. When possible, I included the specific queer rep, along with any side characters. “Queer” here is used as the inclusive umbrella term for anyone on the LGBTQIA+/QUILTBAG spectrum. The representation on this list is gleaned from reviews, readers, and the authors themselves and, even though I try my absolute best to get it right, sometimes I do get it wrong. Additions and changes can be found in a change-log at the end of this post.

Now that all of that admin stuff is out of the way:

Onto the list!

JANUARY RETURNING HEROES by Harry F. Rey:
Pub Date: 1/7/2022
– m/m(/m), all-queer cast
– sixth and final in super queer space opera
– a captain returns home, changed, to galaxy in flux
– threatened by disastrous politics and immortals, war is inevitable BATTLE OF THE LINGUIST MAGES by Scotto Moore:
Pub Date: 1/11/2022
– f/f
– in a rave-themed VR game, words can kill
– smash morphemes and punctuation together for a c-c-COMBO
– but can the queen of the game do anything in the real world? SERVANT MAGE by Kate Elliott:
Pub Date: 1/18/2022
– polyamory, bi
– lamplighter becomes a reluctant revolutionary
– magic inherited from dragons, mages forced into servitude
– portals and demons and soul-wraiths, ohmy SEVEN MERCIES by Laura Lam and Elizabeth May:
Pub Date: 1/25/2022
– f/f, trans, bi, & ace
– sequel to SEVEN DEVILS
– queer found family traveling through space and rebelling against empire
– seven queers vs a rogue AI GOLIATH by Tochi Onyebuchi:
Pub Date: 1/25/2022
– m/m established couple
– in the 2050s, those who can flee our poisoned Earth, do; those who can’t salvage what they can
– disparate narratives weave together to create a dystopia… or our inevitable reality? LIGHT YEARS FROM HOME by Mike Chen:
Pub Date: 1/25/2022
– f/f
– brother disappears on a camping trip, only to reappear years later talking about an intergalactic war
– what’s worse: the FBI or a space armada?
– family-focused scifi, as Chen does best FEBRUARY AZURA GHOST by Essa Hansen:
Pub Date: 2/1/2022
– ace-spec MC, nonbinary and genderfluid side characters
– sequel to NOPHEK GLOSS
– epic space opera!
– mysterious ships with souls!!
– big tech and bigger world-building BASE NOTES by Lara Elena Donnelly:
Pub Date: 2/1/2022
– pan/poly, enby MC
– a perfumer drowning in debt branches out into scents that can recreate memories
– except to distill a moment, one must also distill a person
– murder, that means murder
– and so much of it BLUEBIRD by Ciel Pierlot:
Pub Date: 2/8/2022
– “lesbian gunslinger fights spies in space!”
– srsly do you need anything else
– really???
– taser-wielding! librarian!! girlfriend!!!
– just gotta save the twin sister while traversing a war-torn galaxy BLOOD LEGACY by Tej Turner:
Pub Date: 2/11/2022
– m/m/m, gay + bi + pan MCs
– sequel to BLOODSWORN
– shape-shifting monsters made from corpses + evil magicians + can’t trust no one vibes = dark high fantasy with class THE THOUSAND EYES by A.K. Larkwood:
Pub Date: 2/15/2022
– f/f main, m/m disaster
– sequel to THE UNSPOKEN NAME
– Orc priestess turned mercenary turned adventurer Csorwe helps her girlfriend wield eldritch and necromantic power
– FUCKING TAL MOON WITCH, SPIDER KING by Marlon James:
Pub Date: 2/15/2022
– m/m in original story, which this holds up a mirror to
– sequel to BLACK LEOPARD, RED WOLF
– everything you know is wrong
– a century-long feud, a search for a missing boy, and a metaphorical spider SISTERS OF THE FORSAKEN STARS by Lina Rather:
Pub Date: 2/22/2022
– lesbian space nuns!!, come on
– sequel to SISTERS OF THE VAST BLACK
– how to keep your faith after witnessing atrocities
– keep fighting fascism, that’s how THE MAGIC BETWEEN by Stephanie Hoyt:
Pub Date: 2/15/2022
– bi MC, m/m
– magic demands a bond, and opposites quite literally attract
– the ocd pop star who can disappear and the hockey player who can see anything accidentally magically bond, oops DEAD COLLECTIONS by Isaac Fellman:
Pub Date: 2/22/2022
– transmasc MC
– an eccentric archivist and a grieving widow form a surprising bond
– and the surprise isn’t that one of them is a vampire
– a gentle book about the stories we leave behind MANHUNT by Gretchen Felker-Martin:
Pub Date: 2/22/2022
– trans MCs
– dystopian world where trans women are forced to hunt and harvest the organs of feral men to survive
– actually considers trans folks in a sex-based apocalypse
– tw: lots of gore INHERITORS OF POWER by Juliette Wade:
Pub Date: 2/22/2022
– ace rep in an ongoing queer-informed world
– third book in Broken Trust series
– trash hauler becomes the center of a political clash after he stumbles somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be SCORPICA by G.R. Macallister:
Pub Date: 2/22/2022
– 2 sapphic POVs and 1 pan guardswoman
– women are in charge & “some are cinnamon rolls and others like to do murders”
– every queen for herself, but especially the near-immortal sorcerer demigodMARCH THE ATLAS SIX by Olivie Blake:
Pub Date: 3/1/2022
– sapphic, bi, poly
– dark academia that’s gay for itself
– six of the most talented magicians have been selected for the most prestigious secret society, but only five will make it
– IF they survive (dun dun duun) LAST EXIT by Max Gladstone:
Pub Date: 3/8/2022
– f/f
– the adventuring kids failed, but as adults they have a chance to set it right
– world-jumping to stop a rot that unmakes realities
– muscle cars, cowboys, and mathematical magic
– shove this in my veins THE CIRCUS INFINITE by Khan Wong:
Pub Date: 3/8/2022
– ace MC
– gravity mage catches the attention of a crime boss in charge of a circus who forces the mage to do some terrible stuff
– but the queer found family is about to take on the mob, together PENNYBLADE by J.L. Worrad:
Pub Date: 3/15/2022
– sapphic
– a disgraced elf mercenary is forced to work among the humans who despise her for whom she loves
– literally haunted by her past
– betrayal’s only the first of many problems THE CITY OF DUSK by Tara Sim:
Pub Date: 3/22/2022
– sapphic, queer
– “queer goth metal fantasy” w/ necromancy, bone dresses, shadow familiars, & murderous gods
– the gods have withdrawn their favor from the world, but their heirs will keep fighting for it WILD AND WICKED THINGS by Francesca May:
Pub Date: 3/29/2022
– f/f
– Great Gatsby retelling, but make it sapphic
– oh, and witches
– do you really need anything else
– FINE, blood magic TOOAPRIL THE BLADED FAITH by David Daglish:
Pub Date: 4/5/2022
– f/f (wholesome lesbians, even)
– revolutionaries create a hero to strike fear into the empire that conquered them
– but creating a hero turns out to be the work – and blood – of many IN A GARDEN BURNING GOLD by Rory Power:
Pub Date: 4/5/2022
– queer (unspecified)
– twins use their magic to protect their country
– but is their country worth protecting?
– season & tide magic, international conspiracies, and the limits of familial bonds SANCTUARY by Andi C. Buchanan:
Pub Date: 4/12/2022
– enby MC
– when the haunted house is your home
– up until new haunts are delivered
– why is this man hoarding ghosts??
– and why is he trying to take our beloved haunted home??? THE LANGUAGE OF ROSES by Heather Rose Jones:
Pub Date: 4/14/2022
– f/f, aro protagonist
– beauty and beast retelling, but this time with Fae!
– grapples with the importance of different forms of love
– maybe forcing a random peasant to marry you isn’t the way to fix things, hmm? SPEAR by Nicola Griffith:
Pub Date: 4/19/2022
– sapphic
– King Arthur retelling
– a young woman chases a vision of her destiny at the court of King Artos with only a broken spear and mended armor FEVERED STAR by Rebecca Roanhorse:
Pub Date: 4/19/2022
– bi MC, queer cast
– sequel to BLACK SUN
– the sun is the Crow God’s now
– what happens to the living avatars of gods when their prophesies are realized? KAIKEYI by Vaishnavi Patel:
Pub Date: 4/26/2022
– ace MC
– Ramayana retelling
– the gods never seem to hear Kaikeyi’s calls, so she discovers magic on her own and transforms her own world
– but her forged path clashes with destiny, demons, and the divine THE DISCORD OF GODS by Jenn Lyons:
Pub Date: 4/26/2022
– bi MC, plus queertastic cast
– omfg the last book in the CHORUS OF DRAGONS series
– it’s the end times, people! get with it
– prophecies and rituals and gods and demons collide in this epic conclusionMAY WHEN WOMEN WERE DRAGONS by Kelly Barnhill:
Pub Date: 5/3/2022
– sapphic MC
– MASS DRAGONING
– no really, thousands upon thousands of afab folk turned dragon in 1955
– and now: the repercussions
– did I mention MASS DRAGONING?? VOWS OF EMPIRE by Emily Skrutskie:
Pub Date: 5/3/2022
– m/m main
– third in the BLOODRIGHT TRILOGY
– space opera with star-crossed heirs to warring empires MISRULE by Heather Walter:
Pub Date: 5/10/2022
– sapphic MC
– sequel to MALICE, Sleeping Beauty retelling
– the princess sleeps and the sorceress who loves her must become the monster to wake her ADRIFT IN STARLIGHT by Mindi Briar:
Pub Date: 5/10/2022
– enby and ace MCs
– seducing the archeologist was never going to go well
– wait this museum piece is alive
– and now we’re having an illegal adventure together
– maybe we should,,, fall in love??? SIREN QUEEN by Nghi Vo:
Pub Date: 5/10/2022
– sapphic
– Hollywood is racist as ever but it also runs on blood and ancient magic
– when the monsters are real, does it matter if you play a monster or become one THE HOURGLASS THRONE by K.D. Edwards:
Pub Date: 5/17/2022
– ace, m/m
– third in the Tarot Sequence, about the survivors of a magical Atlantis
– found family, dark secrets, and the challenges of power HER MAJESTY’S ROYAL COVEN by Juno Dawson:
Pub Date: 5/31/2022
– sapphic, queer
– Queen Elizabeth I established covert gov’t coven
– witchcraft + bureaucracy + trying to help witches become more inclusive
– old friends redeciding their loyalties to each otherJUNE WRATH GODDESS SING by Maya Deane:
Pub Date: 6/7/2022
– trans MC, f/m, m/m
– what if Achilles were a trans woman
– who still went into battle and slayed
– and the gods actually fed off of human sacrifices
– and Helen was immortal? UNDER FORTUNATE STARS by Ren Hutchings:
Pub Date: 6/7/2022
– bi MCs, mostly queer cast
– stuck in a rift, a space ship runs into history dorks from the future
– but their story doesn’t line up with the future’s version and they’re both running out of time & power THE DAWNHOUNDS by Sascha Stronach:
Pub Date: 6/14/2022
– sapphic
– Maori-inspired fantasy
– oh shit I’ve found a body
– oh shit I’ve been murdered
– haha oh shit for them, death didn’t stick
– pirates & necromancy & plague, yesss THE GRIEF OF STONES by Katherine Addison:
Pub Date: 6/14/2022
– gay MC
– sequel to THE WITNESS FOR THE DEAD
– everything you loved about the GOBLIN EMPEROR’s softness, continued
– MC can converse with the recently dead
– and thereby uncovers terrible things JANUARY FIFTEENTH by Rachel Swirsky:
Pub Date: 6/14/2022
– f/f
– the day all Americans receive their annual UBI payment
– the day four individuals’ lives will change
– how status quo can become change A MIRROR MENDED by Alix E. Harrow:
Pub Date: 6/14/2022
– queer MC (f/f?)
– sequel to a SPINDLE SPLINTERED
– instead of saving Sleeping Beauties, MC gets to save the Evil Queen from Snow White THE SLEEPLESS by Victor Manibo:
Pub Date: 6/21/2022
– queer MC
– 1/4 of the world stops sleeping w/o health problems
– some people revere the Sleepless, others fear them, and others..
– want to become them
– scifi noir mystery about capitalism and hustle culture WHAT ROUGH BEAST by Michael R. Johnson:
Pub Date: 6/21/2022
– established m/m couple
– sequel to THE BLOOD-DIMMED TIDE
– space opera with a massive conflict between humans and the Zhen Empire A TASTE OF GOLD AND IRON by Alexandra Rowland:
Pub Date: 6/21/2022
– m/m
– fealty and queer yearning abound
– beefy bodyguards who have to protect cold yet handsome ambassadors
– princes can touch-taste metal which makes counterfeiting… interesting… THE FINAL STRIFE by Saara El-Arifi:
Pub Date: 6/23/2022
– f/f
– society stratified by blood – literally.
– giant, rideable lizards in a desert world
– a chosen one who didn’t save the world
– it’s time to let the blood flow THE BALLAD OF PERILOUS GRAVES by Alex Jennings:
Pub Date: 6/21/2022
– queer MC
– a magical piano maintains the city of Nola’s beat and without them, the city will fall
– a failed magician and his sister have to find the songs and save the city A PSALM FOR THE WILD-BUILT by Mike Brooks:
Pub Date: 6/21/2022
– m/m, multiple queer MCs
– third in the GOD-KING CHRONICLES
– scholarly thief and his murder husband
– war dragons will continue until morale improves
– as will your friendly neighborhood sea raiders The Origin of Storms by Elizabeth Bear:
Pub Date: 6/28/2022
– 3rd gender / trans MC
– final in LOTUS KINGDOMS trilogy
– four claimants to a throne that only one can sit
– dragons, automatons, and wizards – epic fantasy at its finest LOCKLANDS by Robert Jackson Bennett:
Pub Date: 6/28/2022
– f/f main, established
– 3rd in FOUNDERS TRILOGY
– magic is a series of increasingly complex definitions
– except now that same magic is being used to possess people and destroy reality
– nothing a heist can’t stopJULY SILK FIRE by Zabé Ellor:
Pub Date: 7/5/2022
– m/m
– oops this dying god gave me magic-breathing powers
– and now I’m knee-deep in the politics I’ve been trying to avoid
– male courtesan MC, dragons, NECROMANCERS, army of undead, hold me daddy A PRAYER FOR THE CROWN-SHY by Becky Chambers:
Pub Date: 7/12/2022
– nonbinary, queernorm in general
– 2nd in MONK & ROBOT series
– when a tea monk and a robot on a quest to find out what humanity really needs become friends, you get a quiet, hope-driven story WHAT MOVES THE DEAD by T. Kingfisher:
Pub Date: 7/12/2022
– enby MC
– Fall of the House of Usher retelling
– now with fungal overgrowth, possessed wildlife, and a lake wot pulses!!
– are you ready to have fun because I’m a fungi AUGUST KITKO AND THE MECHAS FROM SPACE by Alex White:
Pub Date: 7/12/2022
– gay MC
– an army of giant robots want to destroy Earth
– except some team up with a jazz pianist to stop the destruction instead
– um did you read the part about the SPACE MECHAS??? ION CURTAIN by Anya Ow:
Pub Date: 7/19/2022
– queer enemies to lovers
– space opera + spy vs spy
– Russia has come out ahead in the space race and now contends with the UN in a new, interstellar Cold War
– a salvage crew discovers a mysterious AI that threatens the knife’s edge peace – and all of humanity A STRANGE AND STUBBORN ENDURANCE by Foz Meadows:
Pub Date: 7/26/2022
– m/m
– well, if you don’t want to marry the girl, marry her brother, ok?
– romantic af fantasy, with a queer marriage of convenience, but let’s also Have a Murder, too THE HALF LIFE OF VALERY K by Natasha Pulley:
Pub Date: 7/26/2022
– m/m
– instead of serving out your prison term in this Siberian gulag, come to this mysterious city and study radiation effects
– just don’t ask any questions, mmkay comrade?
– oh and don’t fall for your security officer OF CHARMS, GHOSTS, AND GRIEVANCES by Aliette de Bodard:
Pub Date: 7/28/2022
– m/m
– a restful holiday becomes anything but when a dragon prince and his husband stumble upon a corpse
– the scariest challenge might not be the family politics, the hungry ghosts, or the bloodthirsty paper charms, but the question of their shared future
– part of the Dominion of the Fallen series, but functionally a standaloneAUGUST FAULT TOLERANCE by Valeria Valdes:
Pub Date: 8/2/2022
– bi/pan MC
– 3rd in CHILLING EFFECT series
– is the universe being trolled by creepy monoliths or is their message of doom legit?
– up to the crew of the La Sirena Negra to find out
– psychic space cats!!!! UNWIELDY CREATURES by Addie Brook Tsai:
Pub Date: 8/2/2022
– sapphic MC
– Frankenstein retelling, but make it queer
– told by the Dr’s intern
– tale of loss, revenge… and murder (dun dun duuun)THE JAGUAR PATH by Anna Stephens:
Pub Date: 8/4/2022
– multiple bi and gay MCs
– sequel to THE STONE KNIFE
– Stephens’ classic creepy af fantasy
– the Empire of Songs used magical music to bind its people together, but others can singTHE BOOK EATERS by Sunyi Dean:
Pub Date: 8/9/2022
– sapphic MC
– title is literal
– eaters remember everything in the books they eat
– things get dark af when one eater is born able to eat minds instead
– don’t take a baby mind eater from their mom, k?HIGH TIMES IN LOW PARLIAMENT by Kelly Robson:
Pub Date: 8/9/2022
– f/f
– ok I’ll deliver this message for you, just give me a kiss first
– fuck, I got cursed by a fairy
– a human scribe sent to fairy Parliament has to save humanity from a hung vote, or else war THE OLEANDER SWORD by Tasha Suri:
Pub Date: 8/16/2022
– f/f
– ancient magic has returned in time for a people to reclaim their country
– the mad emperor isn’t about to let them go without blood
– but his sister has broken free of his grip and she’s PISSED
DANCE WITH THE DEVIL by Kit Rocha:
Pub Date: 8/16/2022
– bi MC
– 3rd in MERCENARY LIBRARIANS series
– super-powered clone and her two best friends try to maintain a post-apocalyptic library, but shit keeps getting in the way
– it’s time for a REVOLUTION FURIOUS HEAVEN by Kate Elliot:
Pub Date: 8/23/2022
– f/f
– sequel to UNCONQUERABLE SUN
– gender-swapped space opera inspired by Alexander the Great!!
– wait do I need to say anything else?? srsly???
– space battles and space mysteries and space ambition! AN ARCHIVE OF BRIGHTNESS by Kelsey Socha:
Pub Date: 8/30/2022
– m/m, f/f, overall queer
– lobstermen in a secret relationship, homes built from scorpion shells, lonely architects, and painful transformations
– all narrated by a flock of crows overly willing to break the 4th wallSEPTEMBER NOTORIOUS SORCERER by Davinia Evans:
Pub Date: 9/13/2022
– m/m main
– magic was cool until it started causing earthquakes
– now it’s priced out of most folks’ lives
– until the MC commits some impossible magic
– and threatens to, uh, shake things up NONA THE NINTH by Tamsyn Muir:
Pub Date: 9/13/2022
– sapphic, queertastic
– third in the LOCKED TOMB series
– Nona wants a birthday party, but there’s zombies, a giant blue sphere menacing her world, and, uh, this isn’t her body
– GAY BONES GAY BONES GAY BONES THE UNBALANCING by R.B. Lemberg:
Pub Date: 9/20/2022
– queer and enby MCs
– set in the entrancing Birdverse
– magic keepers must come together to save their islands from catastrophe
– ghosts and giant constructs and – Atlantis??!! NO GODS FOR DROWNING by Hailey Piper:
Pub Date: 9/20/2022
– f/f
– serial killer is trying to bring back the old gods to save their sinking city
– but maybe the old gods didn’t leave willingly
– and the serial killer is bringing back the wrong gods THE GENESIS OF MISERY by Neon Yang:
Pub Date: 9/27/2022
– enby MC
– Joan of Arc retelling
– but it’s a space opera
– and there are giant robotsOCTOBER DEADBEAT DRUID by David R. Slayton:
Pub Date: 10/18/2022
– gay MC
– sequel to TRAILER PARK TRICKSTER
– cinnamon roll magician continues saving the world, after dealing with his family, of course THE ENDLESS SONG by Joshua Phillip Johnson:
Pub Date: 10/18/2022
– f/f
– sequel to THE FOREVER SEA
– ships sail upon an endless grassland, but what lies beneath the surface, while a mystery, could be their undoing
– pirates and unfathomable plants and magical hearthfires, oh yes INTO THE RIVERLANDS by Nghi Vo:
Pub Date: 10/25/2022
– sapphic MC
– third in the SINGING HILLS CYCLE
– wandering cleric travels to record tales of near-immortal martial artists
– in learning about their history, they also become itNOVEMBER A FRACTURED INFINITY by Nathan Tavares:
Pub Date: 11/1/2022
– gay MC, queer cast
– save your boyfriend, but wreck the multiverse
– is it even a question
– timey wimey shenanigans OCEAN’S ECHO by Everina Maxwell:
Pub Date: 11/1/2022
– m/m
– set in same universe as WINTER’S ORBIT
– a rich, inveterate flirt has telepathic powers
– which of course he misuses
– so they bind his mind to another
– this will definitely go as planned *exaggerated wink* A RESTLESS TRUTH by Freya Marske:
Pub Date: 11/1/2022
– f/f
– sequel to A MARVELLOUS LIGHT
– stuck on a ship with a dead body, a disrespectful parrot, and a scandalous stranger, you can’t help but fall in love
– murder on a boat, yesssssssss EVEN THOUGH I KNEW THE END by C.L. Polk:
Pub Date: 11/8/2022
– f/f
– you can have your soul back AND live out your life with your sweetheart
– you just have to track down a notorious serial killer
– who’s a vampire
– did we mention they’re a vampire?
– good luck!DECEMBER THE IVORY TOMB by Melissa Caruso:
Pub Date: 12/6/2022
– f/f
– sequel to THE QUICKSILVER COURT
– when you can kill with just your touch, its inevitable that you get blamed for murder
– in trying to clear her name, Ryx has opened a door that should never have been openedAWAITING PUB DATE A NECESSARY CHAOS by Brent Lambert:
Fall 2022
– gay MCs
– two mages assigned to spy on each other
– catch feelings instead
– ok but now they’ve been told to kill each other
– spy vs spy but make it hot THE SURVIVING SKY by Kritika H. Rao:
Fall 2022
– queer MCs in a m/f relationship
– floating jungle city above a raging Earth
– magical architects keep it afloat, until suddenly they can’t
– a struggling marriage, illegal magic, and misplaced reverence!

A well-meaning question that’s just as hard to answer. Sometimes I can truthfully answer — after a few solid 5am writing sessions — “good.”

Lately… it’s more complicated. “It’s going,” suffices for both of us, and is equally true.

But what I really want to say, and what no one has the time for, is that the baby was up for three hours on Friday night, so I slept in until 6.30. I had just enough time to finish one cup of coffee and open my laptop before I heard a tiny “mama Kai?” from the hallway. Cabin Girl is up. I tell her good morning and she sits on the chaise under the window and tells me about her dreams last night.

Then I let her have her tablet so I can finish a second cup of coffee and try to write, but I can never manage the latter once she’s up. Instead, I make her breakfast (cracking egg, scrambled eggs), go to the backyard to put some plants in the ground, and then the baby’s stirring and it’s 8am??

I get the baby dressed and snacked, I get CG dressed, and we’re on our way to get some bagels for my wife. I forget to wipe the dirt from my cheek, but someone helpfully points it out in line.

A chocolate muffin for CG, bites of my bagel for the baby, we sit at a booth and I try to strategize the morning. If I can wear out both kids, I might have time to write while they charge in the afternoon. Should I try to make the plant sale at the Natural History Museum? Maybe they’d have the flatwoods plum I really wanted. But before I float the possibility of hey, plants! with CG, I get a text from a mom friend — can we come over for a bit? She’s still feeling out of sorts from the flu (that we gave her, whoops) and her sitter canceled.

Of course! Soon I’m outside with four kids and a box of chalk but only the baby’s playing with the chalk; CG and her friend, 6, are in my car pretending to drive and the fourth child, 3, is sulking because she wants to go inside. What about a walkabout? “Yeah!!” shout the kids in the car and then there’s a rush to get shoes on.

We walk to 6’s elementary school and back — CG will be starting there in just a few months and wanted to see where it was. The baby walks for a little bit, but his short legs simply can’t keep up with the older kids, so I strap him to my chest for most of it. 3 gets tired, too, so I put her on my shoulders for the last stretch. She squirms off just when we reach their home and all three older kids run inside together.

I walk the baby inside and find the girls on their tablets already. I make popcorn for the girls and then hang out with the baby until it’s time to take CG to gymnastics. Her gym is packed, the busiest I’ve seen on a Saturday in a while. I bring the baby’s carrier because I’m not sure how he’ll be during the hour of gymnastics. CG runs off to warm up. I try to get the baby to settle in my lap, but he’s decided my lap is a slide. When I get tired of this, I put him in the carrier and bounce around and — oops, he’s asleep. Maybe he won’t sleep long?

Nope, he’s completely out for nearly the whole hour of gymnastics. So that’s his nap for the day. At least I get to watch CG tumble and jump and flip on the bars — as well as run around, be silly, and ignore her instructors. Ah well.

Home again and now both children are hangry. I give the baby to my wife and grab lunch and get CG fed. Then I tap out. I only mean to close my eyes for a few minutes and daydream of plot but I conk completely out instead. Whoops.

When I rise, the baby still hasn’t napped and CG is putting together a puzzle in her room. I try to put together the pieces of my brain and realize we should probably offer to bring desert when we go over to our friends’ later. They’re going to feed us dinner, after all. I spend too much time trying to find the Best Dessert nearby while CG plays with the baby and oh shoot, we should’ve left already.

CG is excited to see her friend, 5’s, house. CG and 5 start playing boardgames on the floor, the adults actually manage some conversation while corralling the 2 year old and bouncing the baby into a 2nd nap.

Then we go outside and the baby learns how to crawl up the baby slide and sliiiiiiiiiiide down and he’s living his best life and 5 teaches CG how to use her (kid-friendly) bow and shoot an (kid-friendly) arrow, and my wife delights in all the plants they have and I delight in the hundreds of lovebugs and the kids try to fly a kite but just tangle themselves up and then their mom shows me all the grubs in their compost.

Then it’s dinner time and two pairs of parents try to get two pairs of kids to eat. We end up trading off until CG and 5 had their fill and now they’re out front, playing with the neighbor kids. I lure them back inside with cookies. It’s getting past the baby’s bedtime, but the girls want to play one last boardgame, and then one last game. Fine, fine, but we have to go right after —

And we do, with the normal amount of goodbyes and we’ll see you agains and no really, CG, put your shoes on.

The baby is loopy. So are the mommies. We make it home, put the baby down only an hour late, and then work on CG. She’s tiiirred and dragging but we get her in jammies and in bed. When only one mommy is needed, I stumble into our room and fall face-first into bed, promising myself I’ll write in the morning.

*

The baby wakes up at 4.30. He’s just chattering, so I grab the monitor to let my wife keep sleeping and start the coffee brewing. He keeps chattering. I give him a bottle, change his diaper, he goes back to sleep. For 5min. Then he’s up and down, fussing but not really, and I’m trying to write, but not really, because is this the time his fusses turn to cries? It’s 6am and he’s still going so I hold him and pat him and rock him until his body is floppy with sleep. Now it sticks.

I promised myself I’d go for a run this morning so it’s now or never. I put on shoes and headphones and head out the door. It’s a Zombies, Run! ending episode, so it’s all very exciting but also longer than usual.

CG is up when I return — whoops, that was an hour — playing games with other mommy. I make breakfast just as the baby wakes up. We take our time getting ready as I coordinate with my sis-in-law about meeting up to go blueberry picking. Pack up the car, tell CG to get her socks on (“but where ARE my socks??” they’re in her room, they’re always in her room), pack snacks that will never be the right ones or enough, put ice in the water because it’s going to be hot, wipes, extra clothes, swim suits because maybe we’ll stop by the lake after?, which also means towels, CG’s floaties, goggles, flip flops —

— and oh shoot, we were supposed to be in the car by now. We strap all the children in, doublecheck we have everything, grab that one last thing, and finally we’re gone.

The blueberry picking place is well-signposted and soon we’re pulling in just as my SIL and parents get there. Baby goes in the stroller and CG’s already running off with her cousin, 6. The bushes are full and the berries are ripe and the two girls have Been Here, Done This, so it’s the first year I’m not holding CG’s hand and showing her which to pick. Instead, she’s two rows over, competing with her cousin. I get to pick all by myself and it’s… a little lonely, actually.

With two fully capable kids and several adults, we soon have enough blueberries to last at least a week (in our house, anyway), and it’s getting hot and the girls are overheated, so we head in. But not without picking one last blueberry. No really, this is the last one. No, this is.

The field owners brought in a shaved ice truck because they’re wise, so we settle down in the shade while the girls (and the baby) eat shaved ice. There’s a breeze and it’s not too humid and it’s a perfect moment of exhausted while loading up on sugar.

There’s an animal sanctuary nearby and it closes soon! They have rescue pigs and cows and chickens and turkeys and goats and even a horse, as well as a new beehive that’s busy with activities. The girls head straight for the playground.

After a little bit of cajoling, they’re getting overexcited about the pigs (“there’s a pig! THERE’S ANOTHER PIG!!11”) and a little freaked out by the turkeys. There’s even a tractor ride (“I SEE A PIG!!!”). Then we have to pry the girls off the playground again because it’s two hours past this baby’s naptime and he’s getting slap happy.

The baby does not fall asleep on the drive back, which is probably for the best. I drop him and my wife off at home so they can both nap, then take CG the short distance to the massive pool at my parents’ apartments. There is Food and I am relieved I don’t have to figure out lunch. The girls eat all on their own and then play together on the floor and I have a moment where I just sit and stare at the wall for a while, the fact that I’ve been going since 4.30am catching up to me. My brain goes blissfully quiet.

Then it’s Pool Time!! so we get the girls in bathing suits. Sunscreen applied, towels and floaties and pool noodles grabbed. It’s just me and grandpa and two little girls. Can’t be that bad, right?

I forget that 6 can actually swim and soon I’m being attacked below by one child and attacked above by the other. We play keep away for a bit, where I’m the thing being kept away, then I get grandpa to come in and play with them so I can just ,,, float.

The water is a bit cold, because nights are still mild, so when the clouds roll in, both girls start complaining. We rinse off and head back for ice cream — grandpa has special color-changing spoons and it breaks the girls’ minds — and then CG’s cousin has to leave because school tomorrow and I’m fading faster than cheap hair dye.

We’re home again and now it’s a race to get the baby to bed and CG in jammies. I manage to help with dinner and putting the baby down a second time, and then I’m done. It’s barely 8pm and CG wants to do a puzzle and my wife tells me it’s ok, she’s got this, go to bed.

I’ll write in the morning, right?

*

“How’s the writing going?”

I want to say all the above and more. That in theory I have the time, that I have the drive, that I have the want. That I plan on writing every morning. And I do…. sometimes.

And to be fair, not all weekends are like this. Sometimes both kids sleep in until 8am. Sometimes I run away for a few hours to a cafe with my laptop.

My WIP sits at 60k on its fifth rewrite and I hit my goal of 500 words more often than not. But the days that are “not” often look like the above and then Monday morning I’m riding a weekend hangover and still have to dayjob.

Like with the baby years, this won’t last forever. I can’t deny I’m not envious of those writers who can take a whole weekend to stew on their plot, to badger their characters, to rustle up complications. But I love this life and wouldn’t change it for the world. 

“How’s the writing going?”

“It’s going.”

Welcome to my ongoing and somewhat-regularly updated list of queer adult science-fiction and fantasy books published in 2021!

If you haven’t been around for my previous lists, this list and the ones before (see: 2020, 2019) – and the ones that will come after – are my answer to every, “Where are all the queer/LGBTQIA/QUILTBAG fantasy and science-fiction adult books?” or, worse, “only the Young Adult (YA) has any queer representation.”

So I’m doing my bit to prove that yes, the books are here and they’re queer.

The list is sorted by publication date. When possible, I included the specific queer rep, along with any side characters. “Queer” here is used as the inclusive umbrella term for anyone on the LGBTQIA+/QUILTBAG spectrum. The reported representation on this list comes from reviews, readers, and the authors themselves. Additions can be found in a change-log at the end of this post.

All of that admin stuff out of the way?

Onto the list!

PERSEPHONE STATION by Stina Leicht:
Pub Date: 1/5/2021
– f/f main, plus multiple queer perspectives
– grimdark feminist space opera western
– “beneficent criminals, wayward assassins, & washed up mercenaries” fight the MAN LAVA RED FEATHER BLUE by Molly Ringle:
Pub Date: 1/5/2021
– m/m sleeping beauty retelling
– oks i found this hot prince and woke him out of an enchanted sleep
– oh shit I also woke the fairy queen?? oh shit oh siht oh stih BLOODSWORN by Tej Turner:
Pub Date: 1/8/2021
– m/m with bi and pan secondary characters
– make a blood pact with a god? cool. break that pact? well, that’s going to cost you…
– the start of epic magical fantasy series where friends living a sheltered life get dragged into a magical conspiracy ACROSS THE GREEN GRASS FIELDS by Seanan McGuire:
Pub Date: 1/12/2021
– intersex main, with affirming parents
– every horse girl’s dream world!!
– exploiting prophecy loopholes
– part of the Wayward Children series, but also a great entry point with all new characters THE RUTHLESS LADY’S GUIDE TO WIZARDRY by C.M. Waggoner:
Pub Date: 1/12/2021
– f/f
– thief becomes bodyguard for a rich young lady and falls for… another bodyguard?? *fans self*
– I mean do you need to know anything else
– necromancy and an undead! mouse!! named Buttons!!! THE FOREVER SEA by Joshua Phillip Johnson:
Pub Date: 1/19/2021
– bi MC, f/f romance
– epic environmental fantasy?? where ships sail on an endless grass sea???
– what lurks in those tall prairie grasses: politics, intrigue, deadly beasts, grandmother, all of the above? WE COULD BE HEROES by Mike Chen:
Pub Date: 1/26/2021
– pan MC
– a super-powered vigilante and bank robber meet at a memory-loss-support group and become friends
– wholesome adventure with superheroes, villains, dastardly plots, and rooftop chases THE MASK OF MIRRORS by M.A. Carrick:
Pub Date: 1/21/2021
– queernorm world, multiple queer characters
– orphan thief risks conning the upper class, only to discover everyone is hiding something: it’s cons all the way down, friend
– Venetian-inspired setting A DOWRY OF BLOOD by S.T. Gibson:
Pub Date: 1/31/2021
– everybody’s bi!!
– dracula’s bride realizes her husband is hiding something dark & sinister and plots with her co-wives & husbands to undo him
– vaaaaaaaampiiiiiiiiiiiiiireeeeeeeeees WINTER’S ORBIT by Everina Maxwell:
Pub Date: 2/2/2021
– m/m
– rushed marriage for political reasons!!! Distrust turning to love?? Put in my FACE
– all the best parts of fanfic
– cozy space opera political fantasy THE WITCH’S HEART by Genevieve Gornichec:
Pub Date: 2/9/2021
– f/f
– sapphic yyyeeeearnning
– Norse myth reimagining
– Loki is a terrible boyfriend
– a woman declares war against the gods for her children VELOCITY OF REVOLUTION by Marshall Ryan Maresca:
Pub Date: 2/9/2021
– poly/pan + queer found family
– dieselpunk fantasy!! Motorcycles and magic!!!!
– the faster you ride, the stronger your magic FIREHEART TIGER by Aliette de Bodard:
Pub Date: 2/9/2021
– f/f
– Goblin Emperor meets Howl’s Moving Castle in a precolonial Vietnamese inspired universe
– former lover is the princess to the colonial power, ahah this reunion got awkward WONDERSTRUCK by Allie Therin:
Pub Date: 2/9/2021
– m/m
– magic and mayhem and the Paris World Fair – oh my!
– last book in the Magic in Manhattan series, a paranormal historical romance THE GALAXY AND THE GROUND WITHIN by Becky Chambers:
Pub Date: 2/16/2021
– nonbinary, queernorm
– fourth in the Wayfarers series, aka cozy space stories
– FOUR STRANGERS ENTER A ROOM!! AND! – all of them leave, just a little more knowledgeable about dessert and love SOULSTAR by C.L. Polk:
Pub Date: 2/16/2021
– bi, m/m and f/f from previous books
– third & final in the Kingston Cycle, a series about the consequences of persecution
– also SNOW STORMS and BIKE CHASES and ASSASSINS THE BLACK COAST by Mike Brooks:
Pub Date: 2/18/2021
– multiple queer MCs
– war dragons!!!
– end of the world prophecies
– maybe this time the sea raiders are your friends OUT PAST THE STARS by K.B. Wagers:
Pub Date: 2/23/2021
-f/f + queer in general
-final in the Farian War trilogy, epic space opera
-supposed to be rebuilding your empire, not stopping interstellar wars UGH TRANSGRESSIONS OF POWER by Juliette Wade:
Pub Date: 2/23/2021
– bi MC
– sequel to MAZES OF POWER
– delicious political machinations
– underground alien city straining under an untenable caste system
– when everything you do seems to be part of someone else nefarious plan SYMBIOSIS by Nicky Drayden:
Pub Date: 2/23/2021
– bi MC, poly relationships
– sequel to ESCAPING EXODUS
– humans have colonized space-faring beasts in matriarchical societies
– what if WE were the microbiome?? SUN-DAUGHTERS, SEA-DAUGHTERS by Aimee Ogden:
Pub Date: 2/23/2021
– trans and bi MCs, queernorm world(s)
– space roadtrip to find a cure for a disease and also your old relationship
– also a Little Mermaid retelling?? what if Ursula was your old fling??? THE COUNCILLOR by E.J. Beaton:
Pub Date: 3/2/2021
– bi MC, m/m side characters, queernorm world
– scholar turned politician has to appoint the next monarch, while balancing her own ambition and hiding her drug addiction
– maybe wants to throttle the morally gray ruler, maybe wants to kiss them?? A DESOLATION CALLED PEACE by Arkady Martine:
Pub Date: 3/2/2021
– f/f
– mysterious alien threat
– your gf is now the envoy to those aliens
– and you love an empire that doesn’t love you back
– sequel to the award-winning A MEMORY CALLED EMPIRE BLOOD MOON by Catherine Lundoff:
Pub Date: 3/15/2021
– f/f
– middle-aged women who become werewolves – YES PLEASE
– found a body in the trunk of your car? maybe don’t confess to a murder you don’t remember
– a little murder, a little smalltown domestic dispute, a little ticking clock until the next full moon to figure it all out
– sequel to Silver Moon GALACTIC HELLCATS by Marie Vibbert:
Pub Date: 3/9/2021
– f/f
– “female space biker gang rescues gay prince”
– space heist!! while evading space repo men!!!
– quirky and fun adventure with a wannabe gang of thieves THE UNBROKEN by C.L. Clark:
Pub Date: 3/23/2021
– f/f
– those ARMS are REAL
– 1 queen fighting for her throne + 1 conscript fighting for her soldiers + 1 revolution = lots of romantic tension + a side of betrayal THE PRINCESS AND THE ODIUM by Sam Ledel:
Pub Date: 4/1/2021
– f/f
– final book in the Odium trilogy
– a princess and her social-outcast lover fight the fae to save their kingdom
– swords and silk fantasy FIRST, BECOME ASHES by K.M. Szpara:
Pub Date: 4/6/2021
-m/m
-you’re part of a secret group to fight monsters with magic, but what happens when you find out it was all a lie?
-& you still want to fight monsters?
– heed the content warnings! PEACES by Helen Oyeyemi:
Pub Date: 4/6/2021
– m/m
– fever dream mix of literary & fantasy
– boyfriends on an odd train journey with their pet mongoose and a stranger who knows more than she should THE LIGHT OF THE MIDNIGHT STARS by Rena Rossner:
Pub Date: 4/13/2021
– f/f
– girl who falls in love with a star
– three Jewish sisters with magic fight the darkness spreading across their land MALICE by Heather Walter:
Pub Date: 4/13/2021
– f/f
– dark retelling of Sleeping Beauty
– when you’ve cursed ALL the princesses but oh shit, you might have fallen in love with this one THE HELM OF MIDNIGHT by Marina J. Lostetter:
Pub Date: 4/13/2021
– bi MC, pan second, queernorm world
– the death mask haunted by the soul of a famous serial killer has been stolen
– and now it’s stalking the city, looking for answers
– intricate magic plus steampunk plus Jack-the-Ripper-esque murder spree = yes please DEFEKT by Nino Cipri:
Pub Date: 4/20/2021
– sequel to the exceedingly queer and anti-capitalism FINNA
– MC’s loyalty to his job is questioned when he takes a sick day
– now he has to hunt defective products like killer toilets
– with a team who looks… like… him? FIREBREAK by Nicole Kornher-Stace:
Pub Date: 5/4/2021
-aro/ace
-platonic m/f friendships yes!!
-post-corporate-apocalypse sci-fi where bucking the system will get your water cut but you also can’t pretend to believe the lies anymore BLACK WATER SISTER by Zen Cho:
Pub Date: 5/11/2021
– f/f
– grandma’s great until she’s literally haunting you
– now grandma wants to highjack your body when you move back to Malaysia so she can fight a gang boss who offended a god EREBUS DAWNING by A.J. Super:
Pub Date: 5/11/2021
– generally queer
– villain origin story!!
– Nyx is an AI/human hybrid who’s wanted by a power-hungry queen
– space pirates, AI gods, uncontrollable power – oh my! WE ARE SATELLITES by Sarah Pinsker:
Pub Date: 5/11/2021
– f/f family
– everybody’s getting the brain implant, why aren’t you?
– what happens when clearly invasive tech becomes the norm and you’re one of the few who says no A MASTER OF DJINN by P. Djèlí Clark:
Pub Date: 5/11/2021
– f/f
– we met Agent Fatma in A DEAD DJINN IN CAIRO, now we get a full novel to enjoy her grump and excellent fashion sense
– your hero is now a murderer – or IS HE? THE HOUSE OF ALWAYS by Jenn Lyons:
Pub Date: 5/11/2021
– bi MC, plus many other queer folk
– 4th in the Chorus of Dragon series, a subversion of epic fantasy, with dragons, prophesies, and KRAAAKEEN
– maybe your MC is really the antagonist?? BLACKHEART KNIGHTS by Laure Eve:
Pub Date: 5/13/2021
– queer Arthurian urban fantasy
– with motor bikes?? And illegal magic???
– and your knights compete in televised fights????
– and your girl just wants VENGEANCE THE LIGHTS OF PRAGUE by Nicole Jarvis:
Pub Date: 5/21/2021
– bi MC with m/f romance
– gaslamp fantasy with creeptastic monsters!
– secret society of lamplighters fighting the good fight!! HARD REBOOT by Django Wexler:
Pub Date: 5/25/2021
– f/f
– a junior researcher visits the ruins of earth
– finds herself betting on mech fights with university money
– and falls in love with one of the mech pilots, whoops THE KINGDOMS by Natasha Pulley:
Pub Date: 5/25/2021
– m/m
– alt-history quiet time travel adventure
– London is ruled by France and Scotland is full of rebels
– MC has amnesia and only clue to his identity is a postcard of a lighthouse signed by “M” THE CHOSEN AND THE BEAUTIFUL by Nghi Vo:
Pub Date: 6/1/2021
– f/f
– queer fantasy reimagining of the Great Gatsby
– do you really need anything more??
– all the glitz and glam and glitter of the jazz age but now! with!! black magic and demons!!! FUTURE FEELING by Joss Lake:
Pub Date: 6/1/2021
– gay, trans
– when you hex a pic of an aloe plant but it curses the wrong person
– now you have to rescue that person
– and along the way you create your own trans family THE JASMINE THRONE by Tasha Suri:
Pub Date: 6/1/2021
– f/f
– a maidservant and a captive princess go on an adventure!
– morally grey lesbians just want to set an empire ablaze
– enemies to lovers, wet sari scene, and REVENGE BLEEDING HEARTS by Ry Herman:
Pub Date: 6/10/2021
– f/f
– relationship problems are a bother, but they’re even worse when your girl is (un)dead and you’re dealing with your own strange new powers
– sequel to LOVE BITES STAR EATER by Kerstin Hall:
Pub Date: 6/22/2021
– bi MC
– star-eating, cannibalistic nuns who fight zombies!!
– when one nun is done with the cannibalism, she jumps at the chance to become a spy instead
– and discovers more political intrigue than she can stomach THE ALL-CONSUMING WORLD by Cassandraw Khaw:
Pub Date: 6/22/2021
– “gay lady criminals in spaceships”
– gays vs AI in a race to find their missing comrade
– sentient spaceships, a universe controlled by AI, and space brawls CATALYST GATE by Megan E. O’Keefe:
Pub Date: 6/24/2021
– casually queer universe
– third in Protectorate Series
– ragtag crew of hackers, fighters and spies + alien intelligence bent on humanity’s destruction + a determined captain and her sentient ship = an explosive ending to fabulous space opera THE BONE WAY by Holly J. Underhill:
Pub Date: 6/26/2021
– f/f retelling of the orpheus and eurydice myth
– stubborn women
– creepy kingdom of the dead
– plus facing the princess of the dead CINDERS OF YESTERDAY by Jen Karner:
Pub Date: 6/29/2021
– f/f
– slow burn
– two girls fight together against necromancy
– plus dysfunctional families, paranormal hunters, and facing your trauma THE BLOOD OF THE CHOSEN by Django Wexler:
Pub Date: 7/8/2021
– f/f & m/m, queernorm world
– sequel to ASHES OF THE SUN
– oops let my terrifying warrior magician sister free
– still got a civil war on our hands
– CONSEQUENCES A PSALM FOR THE WILD-BUILT by Becky Chambers:
Pub Date: 7/13/2021
– queer solarpunk
– the self-aware robots that left us behind are BACK
– and they want to check in on us?
– this sounds like a cup of warm tea when we need it most SHE WHO BECAME THE SUN by Shelley Parker-Chan:
Pub Date: 7/20/2021
– m/m, genderfluid MC
– a monk claws fate into her own hands, daring to steal her brother’s greatness
– even if it means taking on ever increasingly dangerous roles for that power
– so. much. pining. HOLD FAST THROUGH THE FIRE by K.B. Wagers:
Pub Date: 7/27/2021
– nonbinary MC
– sequel to the very queer A PALE LIGHT IN THE BLACK
– coast guard in SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE
– ruthless trade deal threatens space peace THE SEA WOLF by Anna Burke:
Pub Date: 7/27/2021
– f/f
– sequel to COMPASS ROSE
– man-eating squid, jellyfish swarms, and hurricanes – oh my!
– a captain with an uncanny sense of direction must face her own worst enemy – herself WINDFALL by Shawna Barnett:
Pub Date: 8/12/2021
– bi MCs, plus asexual side character
– pirate escaping her past as a princess
– when she’s blackmailed into protecting another princess, she hopes to discover who killed her parents
– lightning magic! love triangles!! deadly secrets!!! PIRATES!!!! THE SECOND REBEL by Linet A. Lewis:
Pub Date: 8/24/2021
– f/f, other queer characters
– sequel to THE FIRST SISTER
– dystopian space opera with Handmaid’s Tale overtones
– TIME TO DESTROY THE SYSTEM FROM WITHIN IN THE WATCHFUL CITY by S. Qiouyi Lu:
Pub Date: 8/31/2021
– MC who uses neopronouns
– the city is always watching. for your own good, of course
– MC helps keep that watch – until a stranger comes to town, with curiosities from around the world and a story for each that makes ær start to question everything
–THE ACTUAL STAR by Monica Bryne:
Pub Date: 9/7/2021
– queer MCs
– time-twisty saga of reincarnated souls centered around a missing teen
– traveling from the collapse of ancient Maya to a post-climate-apocalypse utopiaAMONG THIEVES by M.J. Kuhn:
Pub Date: 9/7/2021
– f/f
– gay heist book!!! Slowburn sapphic romance!!!
– a team of queer misfits start to care for each other
– but also each secretly plans to betray the restFIRST LIGHT by Casey E. Berger:
Pub Date: 9/14/2021
– distinguished, functional, AND disaster bisexuals
– space opera with assassins!, shadowy research groups!!, and scrappy underdogs!!!
– political thriller in SPACE about resilience & compassion TRAITORS OF THE BLACK CROWN by Cate Pearce:
Pub Date: 9/22/2021
– f/f main
– duchess falls for a lady assassin disguised as a male knight
– maybe the enemy of our enemy is our friend – or maybe they’re actually our real enemy UNDER THE WHISPERING DOOR by T.J. Klune:
Pub Date: 9/21/2021
– m/m
– cozy story about a ghost and the tea shop owner who he falls for
– except the tea shop owner is also the local ferryman to souls
– learning about love, loss, and life ensues ACTIVATION DEGRADATION by Marina J. Lostetter:
Pub Date: 9/28/2021
– m/m, queer found family including intersex and bi rep
– Unit Four’s orders are to seek and destroy, but Unit Four isn’t so sure about
– a sci-fi thriller with interstellar conflict, misinformation, conflicted robot heroes, and missing primers LIGHT FROM UNCOMMON STARS by Ryka Aoki:
Pub Date: 9/28/2021
– trans MCs
– a sweet , soothing, and unflinchingly real story about three women trying to escape their pasts
– a violin teacher, a teenage runaway, and a space captain walk into San Gabriel Valley TRAILER PARK TRICKSTER by David R. Slayton:
Pub Date: 10/12/2021
– gay MC
– sequel to WHITE TRASH WARLOCK
– cinnamon roll magician, separated from his boyfriend, has to save his family from a dark druid
– with the complication that his father? might still be alive?? but a warlock now??? AZURA GHOST by Essa Hansen :
Pub Date: 10/19/2021
– ace-spec MC, nonbinary and genderfluid side characters
– sequel to NOPHEK GLOSS
– epic space opera!
– mysterious ships with souls!!
– big tech and bigger world-building THE GOD OF LOST WORDS by A.J. Hackwith:
Pub Date: 11/2/2021
– bi MC, multiple queer side characters
– sequel to LIBRARY OF THE UNWRITTEN, our favorite librarian is back to save the library by outwitting hell with the help of a Hero, an angel, and a muse
– “where were you, when the library fell?”
– A MARVELOUS LIGHT by Freya Marske:
Pub Date: 11/2/2021
– m/m
– administrative error makes you the liasion to a secret magic society and of course your counterpart is a sexy prick
– plus homicidal hedge mazes, Houses that Love You, and a murder mystery! THE QUICKSILVER COURT by Melissa Caruso:
Pub Date: 11/9/2021
– bi MC, queernorm world
– sequel to THE OBSIDIAN TOWER
– sure it sounds cool to be able to kill someone just by touching them, but it really complicates relationships
– demons and apocalypses don’t help THE BONE SHARD EMPEROR by Andrea Stewart:
Pub Date: 11/11/2021
– f/f
– sequel to the BONE SHARD DAUGHTER
– animal companions and migrating islands and BONE MAGIC – oh my
– so many questions left unanswered from book 1 omg omg omg THE HOURGLASS THRONE by K.D. Edwards:
Pub Date: Late 2021
– m/m
– third in the Tarot Sequence series
– Atlantis-inspired urban fantasy
– government by Tarot-themed courts
– adventure and mayhem and snarking, oh my

Wow, that sure was a year, huh.

It’s easy to say the year was a dumpster fire and move on. The pandemic ripped through all of our lives and tossed our carefully laid plans for the year into the air like so much poisonous confetti.

It was a year of grief – of accepting again and again that we wouldn’t be able to see/hug/protect our family and friends for days, weeks, months. Of rescheduling and then canceling plans years in the making. Of losing the small moments like sipping coffee in a busy cafe along with the big moments like dancing at your friend’s wedding. Of losing our loved ones.

Our losses this year were uncountable, which makes it harder to count the good, even as it’s more important than ever to take a moment to celebrate them.

We can’t let 2020 take that from us, too.

It feels surreal that I had a book come out this year. Stranger still that Keena Roberts, Mike Chen, and I ran and funded a Kickstarter for an anthology of scifi & fantasy parenting stories, too. In just the past month, the anthology I was a part of last year was finally released. And, I wrote an essay about parenting that was published by Uncanny Magazine, one of those career goals you’re a little afraid of voicing aloud.

On top of that, we moved cross-country from Michigan to Florida during a pandemic with two months notice and a three-day weekend to find our forever-home. Or at least, forever-enough.

On top of that, we’re expecting another member of the Doore family this February.

Phew. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised I didn’t write a lot of words this year, that the book I’d hoped to finish has been stalled on chapter three for months, that the shorts I’d promised and essays I’d dreamed of fizzled into so much nothing. It’s hard not to stack the what-could-have-beens against the what-weres and despair over the difference, but the weres exist despite so much.

And even if all I did was survive, that’s more than enough. 2020 is almost gone and even though it’s an arbitrary marker of time, a number with only the meaning we ascribe to it, that meaning is important to us.

So let’s give 2021 a better meaning.

Hard to believe that I had a book come out this month, huh? Let alone the last book in a trilogy. This month has been a year in and of itself: plague, civil unrest, a reckoning in the SFF sphere, and so many other things.

Kinda makes you feel like a little book birthday isn’t all that important. But, even if our enthusiasm is a bit dampened, it’s still good for us to highlight and celebrate those littler moments. The advent of summer. The slow realization by white America that racism didn’t end in 2008. Fireflies. A coming together of communities big and small to support and protect and uplift one another. Cat snores.

A trilogy, complete.

The Unconquered City is now out there in the world for you to read, review, purchase, request from your library, pose with, sit on, or use for decoupage. If you’ve been waiting these past 15 months for the series to be complete – well, have at it.

I am enthused about this trilogy being out there, I really am. I am relieved, too, because it has been a whirlwind 15 months of promotion and copy edits and page proofs and panels and the realization of a dream. And I am ready to work on the Next Thing, whatever that may be.

While I slink off to do just that during this, Our Year(s) of Pandemic, here’s a round-up of some of the interviews and essays and reviews that went up in the last month:

Interview with the Fantasy Inn – in which Travis and I chat about dvorak, Roman history, and the Fun (TM) of writing a series out of order.

Worldbuilding for Masochists: Take Pride in Your Worldbuilding – in which I chat with Marshall Ryan Maresca and Rowenna Miller about creating a more inclusive world in your fantasy, the importance of queernorm, and the potential pitfalls of not thinking things through.

Interview at Civilian Reader – in which I disclose that I am, in fact, three gators in a dress, the rage that inspired The Impossible Contract, and my opinion of SFF today (hint: it’s glowing).

Author to Author with Jo – in which I talk about hope and trauma, the difficulty of writing a trilogy, and research into climate change mitigation efforts.

Books Within Reach – in which I talk about my early introduction to the SFF genre through the books on our home bookshelf, and the books I hope to keep on my own future bookshelf for my child to discover.

TorCon’s Chaotic Communal Storytime – in which I and several amazing authors must come up with a story line by line from a series of plot twists, sight unseen.

And last, but not least

Undead Camels, Angry Spirits, and Prickly Protagonists – an amazing review of the final novel by the amazing reviewer, Liz Bourke.

 

Plus, of course, there are two short stories (Casting Bones, Cause of Death) and a full novella (The Siege of Ghadid) if you still yearn, as I do, for Ghadid.

In celebration – and anticipation – of the third and final book in the Chronicles of Ghadid series, I’m sharing an in-world novella that takes place sometime during the events of the second book, The Impossible Contract.

That said, if you haven’t read The Impossible Contract: stop. Do not pass go. Do not progress forward. Warning warning, danger danger. Turn back. Read book two first. Then come back. You will thank me.

There are four parts to this novella and I will be sharing them in the days leading up to The Unconquered City’s release (June 16th!!).

Part one, part two, and part three went up earlier. If you’d prefer, you can read the whole thing in pdf.

Today, I present:

The Final Wave

(CW: blood, gore, major character death)

Yugten’s drum smoothed their way.

With the flash of the rings around her neck, watchmen obeyed Tamella’s every order. Even some of the drum chiefs cooperated. In the face of advancing chaos, they were more willing to give up any remaining grains of leadership for the flickering hope of safety.

Within a few hours, they’d established a perimeter of evacuated platforms, their streets barricaded and their bridges cut. They’d scrapped together a moment to plan, to breathe.

But they couldn’t rest for long.

Amastan sat on the top of a barricade, one that would be moved into place to block the road and slow the bound once they left this platform, watching and directing the preparations around him and trying to ignore the smoke curling into the sky. People were in line at the pumphouse to go below and fill their water skins while others gathered supplies from the nearby buildings. They’d need everything they could carry if they were going to survive on the sands for any amount of time. A few days or a few weeks – it was impossible to know. But they’d reclaim the city. They had to.

But first they had to leave. Ghadid’s unique structure had made it unassailable and unconquerable for centuries, but that same structure was now a death trap. Each platform only had three or four bridges, three or four ways on or off. So far, they’d used that to their advantage to corral and contain the bound. But every bridge they cut or burned was another escape route gone. The man controlling the bound only had to wait for them to back themselves into a corner, then he could overwhelm them in a flood of monsters.

Amastan couldn’t let that happen. While they’d cut most of the bridges, there was still a run of untouched ones that would lead them north, to the closest carriage station. Unfortunately, between them and that station were still several platforms teeming with bound. Amastan had to find a way to clear those platforms and get everyone who had survived so far, who had listened, who had been rescued, who had trusted him to gather in these few, safe platforms, to the sands and safety.

“We have to burn it.”

Amastan started but didn’t turn. He hadn’t noticed Menna approach, but then, she’d always been as silent as a kite. Now she settled onto the barricade next to him, her expression guarded.

“I mean the city, of course,” she continued. “Unless you had another plan for clearing out the bound? Because they’re not going to go away, ‘Stan.”

“No,” admitted Amastan. “I’d come to the same conclusion. I’d only hoped someone else would say it first.”

“What would you do without me,” said Menna. “Then I’m saying it: if we just leave, the bound will follow us down as easily as they came up. Even if we behead every single one of them, we still need to do something about their jaan.”

“But it’s blasphemy,” said Amastan dully.

Menna hit his arm. “Don’t you dare.”

Amastan gestured at the expanse of the city. “I haven’t been able to figure out how. It’s too many platforms, too many people, too many bound–”

“There you go, overthinking it like usual,” interrupted Menna. “We just need a committed crew. And I’ve got one.” At Amastan’s surprise, she laughed. “What, you think you’re the only one planning here? You’ve got enough on your hands. Just get everyone to the sands. Let me handle this. I can take on a little more blasphemy.”

“Thank you.”

Menna winced, looking away. “Don’t thank me yet. We’ve got a long night ahead of us. And then…”

She trailed off and the bustle below rushed in to fill her silence. Amastan waited, hands in his lap, feeling the weight of whatever Menna was wrestling with, if not it’s shape. After a while, she took a deep breath and let it out in a long woosh.

“Look, ‘Stan,” she said, her voice pitched low, her words just between them. “There’s something I need to tell you.” She stared at her hands, her fingers fidgeting with the air. “I think… I know how this magic is being transmitted. And it’s not going to stop once we reach the sands.”

“Why not?” asked Amastan, even though he had never hoped the solution would be that simple. He’d just planned on dealing with it later.

She pulled her gaze from her hands and met his eyes. “It’s the water.”

Amastan felt his understanding melt and come together into one cohesive whole. The corpses, the crypts, the dead, the other cities –

“Not just the water,” he breathed. “The aquifer itself.”

Menna nodded grimly.

“We can’t tell anyone,” he added.

“They would panic,” agreed Menna. “It’s why I hesitated to tell you until I was sure. It’s too late to save anyone from it, but if word got out, people would still try to avoid drinking any water.”

“And they’d get sick and die and add to our problems anyway,” said Amastan. He frowned. “You’ve known for a while. You kept this from me.”

Menna started to protest, then pressed her lips tight and looked at her hands again.

Amastan sighed. “But what could I have done? You’re right – our other problems are more pressing. You have told no one else?”

“Only Salid. We’ve been trying to figure out how to break it. I have to admit, this might be beyond me.”

“Nothing is beyond you,” said Amastan.

“Right,” said Menna brightly, but it seemed to sharp, too forced.

“The important thing right now is getting down to the sands. After that, we’ll deal with any other problems when they arise.” Amastan watched the bustling crowd below, his chest tight. “Who’s your committed crew?”

Menna counted off on her fingers. “Salid, Zdan, Usaten, and Illi.”

“Salid and Zdan aren’t cousins, and Usaten and Illi aren’t done with their training.”

Menna shrugged. “I’m not a cousin, either. Not really. And you need all the fighters you can get. We won’t need to fight, we’ll just need to be fast.”

“Yes,” said Amastan. “We won’t be able to wait for you. We can only clear the platforms ahead of us. We won’t be able to help you or come back for you. You’ll be on your own.”

“Not the first time. You focus on getting everyone out of here. I’ll focus on making sure we can return.”

“I trust you.”

Menna smiled. “I know.”

A drumbeat thudded to life below, echoing through the streets like a pulse. It was time.

Menna slipped to the road, then offered her hand to Amastan. He ignored it, trying to slide down the barrier on his own. He almost managed it, but then his ankle gave as he landed and he stumbled, slamming his knee hard into the stones. Pain spiked through his leg and he bit his tongue hard enough to taste copper and salt.

As he dragged himself upright, a fresh rush of exhaustion threatened to pull him back down. He’d been pushing himself too much, too fast. If he wasn’t careful, he’d reinjure his ankle and set his healing back days, if not weeks. Then he’d be useless.

“You’ve got to take care of yourself,” said a soft, familiar voice.

Thiyya materialized out of the crowd, her healer’s blue wrap muted in the darkness. She led a donkey, it’s long ears flicking this way and that, picking up on the ambient panic. She held its lead out.

“Here,” she said. “I thought you could use this. We’ve got to get it out of the city, anyway.”

Amastan shook his head. “Someone else will need it more than me.”

Menna had hung back as Thiyya approached, but now she grabbed the lead from the healer and pressed it into Amastan’s hand. “Don’t be thick, ‘Stan.”

“You need this,” said Thiyya. “And we need you. You’ve already done so much; we can’t risk losing you now.” She put one hand on her hip. “If you won’t listen to reason, at least listen to your healer. You’re not doing those injuries any good, limping as fast as you can from here to there. Get on the donkey, Amastan. Healer’s orders.”

Amastan looked at the lead in his hand and swallowed his reluctance. Thiyya was right. He had to see this through, which meant leaning on others when he could and not letting his pride get in the way. He turned to the donkey, which was prancing in place, shedding unease with each step. It’s nostrils flared and its eyes darted back and forth. Could it smell the bound nearby? Or just the fear thick in the air?

“You okay?” asked Menna.

Amastan started to answer before realizing Menna wasn’t talking to him. He pulled himself onto the donkey’s back while trying not to listen.

“As okay as I can be,” answered Thiyya.

Menna reached out and took Thiyya’s hand, holding it between hers like it was precious. “Keep an eye on him for me, all right?”

“Menna.” Thiyya made the name both a warning and a plea. “What are you going to do?”

“What I have to.” Menna squeezed, then dropped Thiyya’s hand.

“Menna–”

“And ‘Stan – you keep your sister safe, all right?” Menna gave them both a playful smirk. “Don’t make my jaani haunt you.”

“Menna.”

But Menna had already slipped away, letting the crowd cover her tracks. Thiyya started after her, but Amastan goaded the donkey into movement and the clop of its hooves drew her back. When caught up to him, her eyes were bright with accusations and tears.

“She’ll be all right,” he said, knowing the truth of it at the same time he felt her fear and pain. Thiyya and Menna had been together, once. Even though that once was now a long time ago and he’d never learned what had happened between them, Amastan understood how feelings persisted, how you could still care deeply about a person who had hurt you.

Thiyya glanced up at him, opened her mouth to speak, then hesitated and shut it again. She patted the donkey’s side instead and together they walked in silence. The evacuees parted around them, making room even as they shot him curious – and occasionally envious – glances. Under his tagel, Amastan burned with embarrassment. But his sister stayed by his side and he was grateful for that.

Tamella and his cousins had gathered before the last bridge between them and the bound. Planks and chairs and tables were stacked on the other side of the bridge, blocking both the way and the view beyond. But Hamma was on a nearby roof, relaying what she saw.

“–ten, no twelve, of the sand-blighted things, all just standing there. Like they’re waiting for some sign. It’s unnerving.”

Amastan dismounted. Five heads turned toward him. Yaluz was nearest, spinning a dagger around her fingers. Ziri and Dihya were stationed on either side of the bridge. Tamella stood between them, one hand on the hilt of her sword. She clucked her tongue at him.

“Don’t even think about it, Amastan.”

“I can fight–”

But Tamella was already shaking her head. “How long will you last? How long will I last, if I have to watch out for you? No, Amastan. You’ve fought enough. You’re needed here, to lead.”

“I’m no leader.”

Tamella raised an eyebrow. “Then what have you been doing these past few weeks?”

Amastan frowned, but he had no answer for that.

Tamella closed the gap between them, any semblance of amusement gone in an instant. She took the drum from around her neck and slid it over Amastan’s head. “You need to lead and you need to live. You’re going to find my husband and you’re going to take his hand and get him through this chaotic mess. You’re going to save all these people.” She gestured expansively. “You’re going to lead them to safety and, when the streets are free of those monsters, you’re going to help them rebuild.”

“You’re not going to die,” insisted Amastan.

“I will,” said Tamella with a tight smile. “I’m not immortal. I don’t plan on dying today, but facing these demons, there’s every chance – well, I need to know someone will survive this and find my daughter. And that someone is going to be you, Amastan. You’re going to rebuild Ghadid and you’re going to find Thana and you’re going to take care of her. These demons are no match for the Serpent, but I need to be certain that you will live and find Thana.” She lowered her voice to a hiss. “That’s my revenge, Amastan: live.”

“They’re rousing,” called Hamma, dropping down from the roof. “Something’s got them agitated. If we’re going to do this, now’s a good time.”

Tamella nodded without breaking eye contact with Amastan. “Everybody remember the plan?”

A chorus of affirmatives came from the cousins. The plan, the plan he’d come up with, was deceptively simple. Stick together. Clear the platform. Signal Barag, who would remove the barricade with Ziri and usher the evacuees across. Heal those who were hurt. Move to the next.

Tamella grinned. “All right.” She turned and unsheathed her sword. “Let’s go!”

Amastan watched as his cousins surged over the barricade, feeling helpless and alone, even with his sister at his side. They could do this. They would do this.

They had to.

*

            One platform.

That was all that stood between them and the carriage station and freedom. Amastan waited, his fingers tight around his donkey’s lead, a hundred voices murmuring at his back, and stared at the barricade as if he could see through it. He couldn’t, but from the steady thwack and thud of weapons beyond, he knew that everything was proceeding as it should.

His plan had gone off without a hitch. His cousins had been able to clear each platform, letting the evacuees advance closer and closer to safety. Smoke stirred the air, thickening as Menna and her crew set more and more platforms alight. They were going to be all right. They were going to make it.

A hand waved over the barricade: the platform beyond was clear. Amastan hardly even needed to gesture anymore; the nearest evacuees knew the drill. They began dismantling the chairs and the tables, tearing apart the barricade.

“That’s it, then,” said Barag, standing near the donkey’s shoulder. “After this platform, we’re at the carriage station and we’re on our way down.”

“We’ll still have to hold off any bound that attack,” warned Amastan. “But that should be a lot easier.”

Barag patted the donkey’s side. He glanced back at the long line of evacuees, at the flicker of far-off flames, at the smoke obscuring the sky. Amastan couldn’t see the stars anymore, couldn’t be sure what time it was, only that they existed in some point between dusk and dawn. It felt like the night would never end.

But it must and it would. They would get through this.

Amastan and Barag led the first evacuees across the second to last bridge. The platform beyond was empty. At the beginning of this long march, Amastan had expected bodies to litter the street, but his cousins were nothing if not thorough. They’d piled the bodies off on side streets and back alleys and now around corners and streets, Amastan caught the warm light of the fires.

When Menna came over the edge of the roof, Amastan nearly had a heart attack. She fell with all the grace of a sack of sand, but not because she was injured. She was carrying an angry, writhing girl: Illi.

Menna stumbled under her burden but didn’t let go. Illi let out a piercing shriek, clawing at Menna’s shoulders, hands, arms. Menna looked like she’d been through fire and hell – her wrap was torn and smeared with soot and sweat and blood and there was a wild look in her eyes. Amastan was glad Thiyya had peeled away earlier to take care of some hurt evacuees. The people around Amastan faltered and slowed.

“No!” snapped Menna. “You’ve gotta keep going.” Her gaze snapped to Amastan’s. “They’ve gotta go faster. They’re coming–he’s coming–”

“Let me go,” snarled Illi, trying to scratch at Menna’s arms.

“What’s going on?” asked Tamella, appearing at the edge of the crowd.

Illi went still. “They’re still back there, they’re trapped, we have to help them.”

“We were overwhelmed,” said Menna. “Someone’s controlling them. The bound ambushed us. We–” her voice broke, faltered, “–Usaten didn’t–”

“Where’s Salid?” asked Amastan, fear clawing at his throat.

“He’s catching up.” Menna gestured at Illi as best as she could when she was holding the younger girl over her shoulder with both hands. “I had to drag Illi away. The bound kept coming but she wouldn’t leave.”

“Because we need to find them,” said Illi. “My parents–”

“I came to warn you,” interrupted Menna. “The man–whoever he is–he’s bringing the bound here. All of them. He must’ve figured out what we were up to. We don’t have much time.”

The evacuees around her were stirring and a murmur was passing down the line as quick as a sneeze. If they weren’t careful, they’d have a full-on panic soon.

“Can we not discuss this here?” hissed Amastan, voice low.

Tamella glanced around, then put her hand on Barag’s shoulder. “Warmth of my fire, I trust you’ll keep everybody in order.”

Barag grimaced but nodded. “You know me. Full of order.”

Amastan followed Tamella and Menna away from the line of people. When they were nearly to the platform’s center, Tamella held up a hand and turned to Menna.

“Put her down.”

Menna slid Illi off her shoulder and set her on her feet. Illi immediately tried to run, but Tamella had her arm. No matter how Illi twisted or pulled, Tamella’s grip stayed firm.

“Stop that,” said Tamella firmly. “I’ll let you go and you can run back if you want to and get yourself killed, but you will listen first. I chose you for a reason. You’re smart. Which means you know you can’t go back. You know if your parents haven’t found a way to join the rest of the evacuees, it’s too late. You know you’re being foolish. You are upset and angry and grieving and if you think you’re alone there, you’re even more foolish than I thought. Bottle that anger, Illi. You can mourn later. You can do anything you want later–yell at Menna, fight me, work your grief into a weapon. But that means surviving, and that means staying with us. You can’t do anything for your parents. They’re dead. But you can live.”

Illi slowly stopped struggling. When Tamella finished, she let go. Illi didn’t move. She also didn’t meet Tamella’s gaze.

A cough came from the platform’s circle, gentle and almost polite. Tamella’s head whipped up. Across the circle, standing on the other side, was a man, all in red. Amastan’s chest filled with a heavy chill.

“Oh shards,” said Menna.

The man stood with his arms crossed, a pale sphere hanging from his neck. It glowed with a thin, feeble light no brighter than the stars.

Tamella hissed and drew her sword. “I’ll stop this.”

But before she had made it to the circle’s edge, the bound arrived. They walked down the streets opposite Amastan and his cousins and into the circle, first a dozen, then a second dozen, then more than Amastan could count. His mount shied under him, backing away even as he fought it forward. The bound were disturbingly silent. Even their steps were little more than a whisper.

As they came, the sphere around the man’s neck brightened, bathing his face and the area around him in a sickly, too-pale light. His tagel still covered most of his features, but his dark eyes were bright, calculating. Was this Djet, the man who had died and should’ve stayed dead over several hundred years ago? Or was this another en-marabi who wanted to be him? Amastan didn’t know and didn’t really care. They would stop him either way.

As the bound poured into the platform’s center, Amastan noticed more wrong with them than just their silence. All of them were bloody, covered in soot and dust, their wraps and tagels askew or gone completely. And there was something wrong with their necks. They were twisted and scarred and it looked as if –

Horror filled Amastan. These were the bound they’d decapitated, but not burned. The bound the drum chiefs had insisted on putting back into their crypts. The en-marabi had been busy: their heads had been shoved back into place, some secured by a tagel but most oozed a dark, viscous glue around the seams.

Amastan hated that he’d been right.

“Shit and dust,” said Hamma, joining them.

Ziri and Dihya were right behind her, Ziri solemn while Dihya almost looked giddy as she drew Azulay’s machete. Yaluz ghosted behind, as silent as ever, but her gaze focused, ready. Amastan counted his cousins and started counting his own weapons before he noticed that Tamella was looking at him, expectant.

Live.

He backed his mount up and turned its body so it was blocking the road. He wouldn’t join their fight, but he wouldn’t abandon them completely, either. Menna pushed Illi toward him before drawing her sword. Illi caught herself and glared up at Amastan. He offered her a hand. She ignored it and turned to face the bound. But she didn’t leave him.

Hamma notched an arrow, fired. The arrow split the skull of one of the standing bound. It toppled, fell. The man in red looked up. The sphere turned a sickly green. The man opened his hands. The mass of bound began to move.

They surged forward, now numbering near a hundred. Amastan’s cousins met them like a well-armed wall. The bound fell. More took their places. His cousins had developed an efficient method of cutting the bound down, but there were still more and more of them.

Tamella pushed forward, Dihya and Ziri at her sides, but the bound only grew denser before them. They hacked and slashed and heads rolled and bodies toppled but there were still more, always more.

Exhaustion crept into their movements.

Illi hissed and spun. A bound had broken through and now rushed them. Illi met the bound with her sword, but she only managed to push it away. It recovered unnaturally quick and was running at them again when it abruptly spun and fell, an arrow sticking out of one eye. Amastan looked up, found Hamma on the rooftop. She thudded her chest with her fist, then turned, notched, sighted, and hit another bound close to Tamella.

“Amastan!”

The voice came from behind. Amastan turned as Salid raced down the street. The older man stumbled to a stop a few feet away, his tagel loose and his chest heaving as he fought for breath. He lifted his head and his gaze slid past Amastan to the chaos beyond. He wilted.

“Oh. I’m too late.”

“Menna warned us,” said Amastan.

“Yes, of course she did.” Salid stopped next to the donkey and peered into the swirl of bodies, as if he might discern meaning from it. His eyebrows drew together in a frown. “Did she also tell you about the sphere?”

Amastan picked out the glow on the opposite side of the center, the one thing that hadn’t moved since the attack had begun. “What about the sphere?”

But even as he asked, he knew. The answer was so bright and painfully clear that he wondered how he hadn’t realized it before.

“That’s how the en-marabi is controlling these bound,” said Salid. “If we break it, we’ll sever his control. They’ll still attack, but they’ll attack him too and they should have no coordination. We’ll have a chance.”

Amastan slid from his donkey. His ankle held his weight even as he trembled a little from the accumulated exhaustion. He unsheathed his sword. “Illi – tell Tamella. They need to get that sphere.”

Illi hesitated, glancing at Amastan’s shaking arm. Amastan took a deep breath, widened his stance, and the shaking diminished.

“I’ll be fine,” he insisted.

Illi didn’t look convinced, but she nodded and then she was off, darting between the bound like a mouse through the stalks in a glasshouse. She reached Tamella and leaned close, whispering something into her ear. Whatever she said was lost in the noise.

“I can only hope that’s enough.” Salid placed his fist over his heart and bowed slightly. “Thank you. But another thing – the en-marabi’s assault interrupted our work. We didn’t finish burning the southern neighborhoods. We can’t leave that unfinished.”

Amastan didn’t glance back. “We don’t have anyone to go with you.”

“I can protect myself.”

Now Amastan turned. “No. Absolutely not. The likelihood you’ll get hurt–”

Salid held up a hand. “Every single one of us is risking our lives tonight.”

Not me, thought Amastan, but pity didn’t suit him.

“Let me do this,” continued Salid. “And afterwards, when I find you again, you can tell me how stupid I was, all right?”

A lump lodged in Amastan’s throat. “We can’t wait for you. If you’re not back in time…”

“Then I’ll find my own way down,” said Salid. “We can’t let these creatures have Ghadid. We can’t let that man have these people. It’s the only way to stop all of it.”

Amastan turned, unable to look at Salid. “Go.”

Behind him, Salid made a noise in his throat. Then footsteps retreated. Amastan focused on the fight ahead. The cousins had shifted their positions. They no longer formed a line of defense, but had become a spear with Tamella at its point. Ziri and Dihya flanked Tamella while Yaluz and Illi covered her back. They stabbed through the bound, clawing their way closer to the en-marabi, but it was like pushing against a storm.

The man stepped back and more bound filled the gap between him and the cousins. Bodies piled before him as Dihya slashed and Ziri jabbed and Tamella cut. They forced the en-marabi back, step by step. He motioned with his fingers and more bound pressed into the circle, climbing over the bodies of the dead. The bound nearest Amastan turned and surged back toward the center, all of their attention on his cousins.

Amastan lurched forward to join them, even brought his sword up, before Tamella’s order echoed in his ears: live. He wouldn’t stand a chance in this fight. It wasn’t his.

He could only watch as Hamma picked off the bound between Tamella and the en-marabi, as Dihya swung and swung and swung, as Menna whirled and Illi stabbed. Exhaustion slowed their movements and minute errors began to pile up. They couldn’t keep going forever.

Then Tamella cut down the last bound between her and the mark. Before another bound could take its place, she lunged. Her sword grazed the en-marabi’s chest, its tip snagging the chain. The metal links held for a heartbeat, then the chain snapped and the sphere fell, meeting the stones and shattering into a hundred shards of glass. Its light winked out.

Sudden silence. The bound faltered. A shudder ran through them like a breeze through a glasshouse. Ziri lowered his ax an inch. Tamella raised her sword.

Then the bound began moving again, but any order they’d had was gone. They lashed out at anything nearby, including the en-marabi. He stumbled back as bound slipped again between him and Tamella, then turned and shoved his way through them. Tamella growled, cutting through the bound as she went after the fleeing en-marabi.

The bound nearest Amastan turned on him. One grabbed for his arm as he swung his sword. He caught its neck and swung again. An arrow sprouted from its ear and the bound toppled. Amastan gave Hamma a grateful wave and then turned to rebuff the next bound.

Ziri’s gasp cut through the chaos. His ax faltered mid-swing and he tilted his head down to stare at his own stomach. A spear protruded from his gut. Behind Ziri, a confused bound jerked on the spear, yanking Ziri to his knees.

Tamella hesitated at the sound and the en-marabi claimed another foot of space between them. Her sword cut through bound instead of her mark. The en-marabi slashed his palm with a small knife. He dodged a bound, then fell to the ground and dragged his bleeding hand across the soot-stained stones, leaving a line of blood behind. Another bound lunged for him, but slammed into an invisible wall.

Dihya screamed. The bound around her fell back as she pushed through them to Ziri. She lopped the head off the bound holding the spear, then cleared a circle around Ziri as he struggled to stand. Menna and Illi were left to fight on their own, back to back in a sea of bound. Tamella was on her own.

The en-marabi straightened. Tamella stabbed forward with her sword, driving the blade into his stomach. Or she should have, but while her blade cut forward, her shoulders stopped abruptly short, as if caught in a barrier. The same one that had just rebuffed the bound.

The bound seethed and Amastan only caught what happened next in flashes between their bodies. Tamella hesitated, confused. Then the man stepped close and, in one small motion, slid his knife across her throat. The sword dropped from Tamella’s hand. Blood spilled down her front. She took a step back before falling to her knees.

Menna saw. Menna screamed. Her movements became wild. She slashed her way through the bound, but she couldn’t get to Tamella. The en-marabi stood alone in his circle of blood as the bound swarmed around him. Then Ziri surged to his feet, the spear still in his gut, and swung his ax in broad strokes. He cut a wide swath through the bound, an oncoming storm himself, heading for the en-marabi.

The en-marabi turned and fled.

The bound were broken. They still attacked, but now they struck each other as often as they tried to hit the living. Dihya waded through Ziri’s wake and scooped up Tamella. The Serpent’s body hung limp in her arms, dripping blood.

“Come on!” she snapped at Ziri.

But Ziri ignored her. He faltered and stumbled as he fought his way through the bound, following the path the en-marabi had taken.

“We’ve got healers!” yelled Dihya again, this time with a higher note to her voice.

But Ziri shook his head like a confused dog. “Not enough water,” he grunted. “You’d only be wasting what you have. I can get him. I can make him pay.”

Ziri smacked two more bound out of his way and then he stood at the mouth of the road the en-marabi had fled down. Blood stained the front and back of his wrap, but the spear was still protruding from his body, still keeping him from bleeding out. From everything he’d learned from his sister, Amastan knew Ziri should have been unconscious by now, or at least in shock. Yet somehow, he was still going. Ziri stumbled down the street, leaving a trail of blood in his wake. Amastan almost pitied the en-marabi.

“Ziri,” protested Dihya. But she let him go.

The bound milled aimlessly, stumbling into one another but no longer lashing out. Menna and Illi guarded Dihya as she crossed the circle to Amastan, but they didn’t have to do much. Dihya draped the body over the donkey’s back. Amastan helped tie it in place with trembling hands. Once the body was secured, the surviving cousins went about the grim task of clearing the platform of any straggling bound. It was much simpler now and they’d been honed to efficiency. Even exhausted, it took little time at all.

When they were done, the way was cleared for the evacuees.

They had won.

Covered in blood and silence, they fled to the sands.

*

            The two fires complemented each other. The one, their city burning in the sky. The other, the bodies of their fallen burning on the sands. Amastan’s eyes blurred from the smoke, but he had no energy left to cry.

Others sobbed for him. Hamma squeaked and hiccuped at his side, her arms wrapped tight around her. Dihya stood far from the survivors, her back to the light. She stared south, toward the burning city. Occasionally, her shoulders shook.

Ziri hadn’t reappeared from his headlong pursuit of the en-marabi. No one could find Salid, even though Amastan could have sworn he’d seen the charm maker’s wrap in the crowd after the bound had been broken. More were missing, civilians and cousins alike, but someone else would count them and there would be time enough for mourning.

The survivors were silent, watchful. The sun rose as if this were just another day. Amastan’s fingers found the chain around his neck and felt the weight of the tiny drum. It was surprisingly heavy for such a small trinket.

Soon, they would have to leave the heat from the funeral pyre and head north. They couldn’t risk more of the bound coming from the city. Amastan hoped to make the nearest well before the sun went down that evening.

There, they would hide and wait for the fires of their city to burn down. There, they would rest and heal. There, they would count their wounds and their dead.

And at some point, they’d have to come back and rebuild.

That would come in time. Now: silence.

In celebration – and anticipation – of the third and final book in the Chronicles of Ghadid series, I’m sharing an in-world novella that takes place sometime during the events of the second book, The Impossible Contract.

That said, if you haven’t read The Impossible Contract: stop. Do not pass go. Do not progress forward. Warning warning, danger danger. Turn back. Read book two first. Then come back. You will thank me.

There are four parts to this novella and I will be sharing them in the days leading up to The Unconquered City’s release (June 16th!!).

Part one went up last week.

Today, I present:

The Second Wave

 

The scream cut the air like a whip, sharp and sudden and gone in the same instant. Amastan startled, snapping the weed he’d been trying to extract whole at its base. The broken stem glared bright against the black soil as the plant’s blood oozed up, milky white. First casualty, he thought distantly, even as the panic of the moment seized him.

It was happening.

Amastan tossed the broken weed into the bucket half full of them, then brushed the dirt from his hands, adjusted his tagel, and left the glasshouse. Beyond the walls of glass, the commotion of voices and shouts in the streets below became more than a dull background noise he could ignore. Now he could tease out the rising notes of concern, of confusion, of panic. Another scream and this time it lingered, caught, and spread.

This was what he’d been waiting for.

This was what he’d been dreading.

It had been a week. No time at all and yet long enough for him to plan and organize, to set the family into motion. Long enough for hope: that Salid was wrong; that Thana would be back soon, another contract completed and the en-marabi no longer a threat; that he’d overreacted to one dead slave.

Amastan followed the edge of the roof to the back and the street below. The few people walking didn’t seem concerned or in a hurry. But then, they might not have heard the screams; sound carried further across the open roofs than the narrow streets. He squinted at the next platform and its bridge, trying to see through the mid-afternoon haze to the blurred figures beyond. Were some moving strangely? Were some running and stumbling while others were slower, more steady and sure? Despite the heat, a cold finger of fear traced the length of his chest.

Thud. Someone landed on the roof behind him.

Amastan spun, his cane already up – as if he could fight anything in his state – but it was only his cousin Menna. She wore her gray marabi wrap, a stripe of purple edging her sleeves and neck to indicate her master status. That normally pristine gray was flecked with black and red: dirt and blood. The cold tightened around Amastan’s chest.

“They’re up, they’re out, all of them – all of them – just climbed right out of their tombs and went through the marab that were there like they were nothing.” Menna’s words were a rush as she approached, her hands tangling together like string in a child’s hands. “They made it to the streets before we could stop them – not that I tried, I remembered what you’d said – which, by the way, how did you know that was going to happen – but others did despite our warnings and now we have more than just the dead dead walking around, we have the just-now and very stupid dead too and–”

“Menna.”

“–not all of the marab even listened to me, those nits, but I came right here because you told me to get you if something like this happened and I don’t know what else to do and again, how in all of G-d’s holy names did you know that this–”

“Menna.”

“–was going to happen, it’s impossible, I have seen some shit but these corpses don’t even have organs–”

Amastan closed the distance between them and put a hand on Menna’s shoulder. Her gaze met his and the words stopped abruptly like a door slamming shut. She was breathing in quick, shallow gasps, pale cheeks flushed and pupils dilated from the sun. This close, Amastan could see that some of the stains on her wrap were actually smears of blood and gore. Perhaps she hadn’t left as immediately as she claimed. He tightened his grip.

“Breathe,” he instructed.

Menna nodded, but a few more heartbeats passed before she took a deep, shuddering breath. Then she took another, and another. Finally she sagged, as if she were filled with sand instead of flesh. When she spoke this time, her voice was much clearer.

“What do we do, ‘Stan? There’s so many.”

“Just one crypt so far, right?” When Menna nodded, the ground stabilized beneath Amastan’s feet – just a little. Just enough. “Then the plan hasn’t changed. Find Tamella. She’ll send a runner to alert the others. Then grab as many watchmen who will listen and bring them to this platform. If they don’t listen, tell them to at least barricade their crypts.”

“Just one crypt? You don’t actually think–”

“We should be prepared for the worst.”

Menna stared at him, then she sucked in a tight breath. “Okay. Okay – that’s what we do, right? We prepare. But ‘Stan – those things, they’re worse than I thought. There’s a jaani in them, but there’s no thought. They’ve shattered all our understanding of the separation between jaani and body. I don’t know what they want – shards, I don’t even know if they want. Jaan and guul, they both want the body they no longer have. But these – they just attack whatever’s closest and keep going.” She grabbed his wrist. “Be careful.”

Then she was gone, sprinting across the roof like her life depended on it. For once, it probably did. Amastan watched as the leapt the gap between buildings, no hint of hesitation in her stride.

He pulled back the flat door that led into the building and his home below. He usually jumped into the relative darkness, but his still-healing ankle forced him to use the ladder. He stopped by his room to gather his sword and daggers, strapping on a variety of sheathes to hold them all. At the doorway he hesitated, then went back to pluck a skin of torch oil and his striker from a shelf.

In their family space, his sister Guraya had cracked open the front door and was peering through it. His father sat at the table, resolutely eating a bowl of porridge, his tagel only half on. Another bowl and cup of tea sat abandoned across from him, spoon balanced on its rim.

“Close the door, ‘Raya,” said Amastan.

Guraya turned toward him, but kept a finger between the door and its frame. “Did you see what’s going on? There was screaming.”

“Monsters.”

His father’s laugh started loud, but quickly turned to ash. He set his spoon down. “You’re not kidding.”

“I’m not.”

He reached the door and stared his younger sister down. When she didn’t move, he gently nudged her aside and pulled the door open wider. A scream cut into the room, loud and shrill and much, much too close. Guraya stepped back, eyes wide.

“Stay inside,” said Amastan. “No matter what, don’t go out until I come back.”

“What if you don’t?” asked Guraya, voice small.

Amastan patted her shoulder in what he hoped was a reassuring way and offered a smile. “I will,” and he wasn’t sure if it was a promise or a prayer. He dropped his hand and added, “You’ve got a knife?”

Without breaking eye contact, Guraya tapped the curved dagger at her hip. For once, Amastan understood the family’s insistence on training all of its members to handle a blade, even if most of them would never find out why.

“Good. Don’t let anyone inside. Protect father.” He paused, fighting with how much he could share without frightening his sister. But when he lifted his gaze and looked at her – really looked  at her – he didn’t see the young girl Guraya always was to him. Instead, he saw the woman she’d become while he’d been busy, the confidence that had filled out her frame and lifted her chin, sharpened her cheeks and brow, but left her round chin and playful eyes untouched. She was still his younger sister, but now that meant she deserved the truth.

“The dead in the crypts are awake and they’re attacking anyone who gets close. I’m going to help stop them and put them back where they belong. But until then, you need to keep father safe and inside. Our plan is to keep them from ever getting this far, but if they do: run. You can’t fight them; they don’t feel pain and they won’t die. Do you understand?”

Guraya held his gaze and nodded. Despite everything, Amastan couldn’t help but smile. It only lasted a heartbeat, though. He opened the door just wide enough for his wiry frame.

“Keep the door shut and you should be fine. I’ll be back.”

Guraya grabbed his hand before he could leave. “That’s a promise.”

Amastan put his other hand over hers. “Yes.”

She nodded and let him go. The door shut with a finality that both warmed and chilled him. He turned to the street, which wasn’t as empty as it should be. People clustered in doorways, talking in tense whispers and glancing up the street, in the direction of the screams. There were more of those now, and more consistent, but they sounded like screams of fear and panic, not pain. Not yet.

As Amastan neared the bridge, he met a rush of people coming the other direction. They had bottlenecked at the grounding poles on the other side, pushing and shoving against each other in their flight. A few glanced his way as they swarmed past and one even tried to grab him and pull him along, but Amastan ducked out of their grip. Amastan waited impatiently for the bridge to clear, envious of Menna and his other cousins who could take a different, higher, path. He traced the glass beads at his throat, counting them and hoping that the charms that kept away the madness of jaan might protect him from the bound.

The rush thinned and the bridge emptied. Amastan crossed, painfully aware of the sound of his cane against the wooden slates and how much he still relied on it. The next platform was empty at first, but the screams and yells and occasional, fleshy thud called him down the street toward its center, where he finally found the worst case scenario.

Salid had argued that they should be ready in case the more recently dead were affected by the affliction, but it was Amastan who realized what that meant for the crypts and the marab who tended them. The possibility that all of the dead might be affected, and all at once, had occurred to him, but only as an unlikely worst case situation. He’d still planned for the impossibility and now that impossibility greeted him like a nightmare.

Blood smeared the stones. Two people were prone, wraps torn and drenched with blood. The head of the one closer to him was turned too far, eyes staring at nothing. Half a dozen people drifted around the center without any aim or direction, while more stumbled out of an alley that led to a small courtyard. A courtyard that contained this neighborhood’s entire crypt.

Most wore gauzy white funeral shrouds, but some wore nothing at all. On these, two parallel dark lines ran up either side of their chest and a third cut low across their belly: sutures from where the marab had opened their bodies and removed organs. They were dead, all of them, and most long dead, their skin sunken and taut, ashy with desiccation. On one corpse, the sutures had loosened and split and now sand leaked from its slowly-deflating gut. The skull of another shown between patches of shriveled skin, shiny white in the sunlight.

A handful of marab were mixed in with the dead, their skin still fresh and their wraps and tagels in place. But their eyes were flat and unseeing, necks at odd angles or ripped out entirely. They were just as dead.

One marabi, however, was not dead. He entered the center at the same time as Amastan, shouting prayers and swinging a smoking censer on a long chain. A handful of bystanders flanked the marabi, brandishing improvised weapons. One had a chair, another a metal pole, and a third gripped a meat cleaver like it was the only thing keeping her from swooning. None of them looked as if they could win in a fair fight, let alone a fight against the dead.

“Get back!” shouted Amastan.

They ignored him. The marabi lunged at his nearest dead colleague, grabbing his arm and shoving the smoking censer under his nose. A living person would have breathed in the smoke and started coughing, recoiling from both. But the dead man reached through the white cloud and grabbed the prayer-sputtering marabi by his tagel, yanked his head down, and bit into his cheek.

The marabi screamed. The people around him yelled. Two dropped their weapons and fled. The third hit the bound repeatedly over the head with their chair. But the bound ignored them and snaked its hands around the marabi’s head. Twisted. The screaming cut off and the marabi went limp. The bound dropped the marabi and stared at the body, as if confused by its silence. The remaining living person dropped their chair, turned, and ran – smack into another bound.

This bound carried a knife, one that he drove into the person’s arm almost incidentally. The person yelled and tried to pull away, but a third bound reached them just as Amastan did and dug grime-encrusted fingernails into their shoulder. Amastan dropped his cane to draw his sword. Even gripping the hilt with both hands, his arms shook under the weight of the blade.

Shards. The healers had warned him. A blow to the head didn’t heal overnight, or even a week, and this was his body’s way of forcing him to rest. Well, he would rest later.

Amastan swung. His blade caught the third bound in the neck. He didn’t separate head from shoulders as he’d been planning, but it was still enough to let the living person slip free. A strike that would have killed a living man now had his sword stuck in the bound’s neck and did nothing to actually slow the monster.

The bound grabbed Amastan’s arm – or would have if it’s lunge hadn’t been thrown off by the force of a knife hitting its shoulder. The monster whirled with the blow and Amastan stumbled back, out of reach but swordless. He glanced to the rooftop behind, where the knife must have come from. Illi stood at its edge, sighting along a second knife. She threw again and Amastan heard the fleshy thunk as it hit something just behind him. She flashed him a tooth-filled grin, a third knife already in hand.

Then her eyes and mouth widened in alarm. Amastan whirled. The first bound missed him by a hair’s breadth, but as Amastan tried to avoid its grasping hands, his ankle gave out and he stumbled. Fell. The bound reached, face terrifyingly blank, but just as its fingers grazed his arm, someone slammed into its side and sent it tumbling to the stones. Before the bound could get back up, Dihya was there, bringing her ax down on the bound’s neck. The blade bit through skin and bone and muscle, only stopping once it hit the stone beneath.

Dihya kicked the head away, then nodded at Amastan. “You all right?”

Amastan nodded, then glanced around for his cane. Dihya found it first and plucked it from the ground like a flower. She helped Amastan up before pressing the cane back into his hand.

“Thanks,” said Amastan.

“Can’t have our leader without a weapon.”

The bound Amastan had attempted to behead rushed them both, Amastan’s sword still stuck in its neck. Before Amastan could even choke out a warning, Dihya had grabbed the sword hilt. She set her foot against the bound’s chest, then yanked and kicked at the same time, freeing the sword and sending the bound sprawling. The stitching across its chest broke and sand burst out, cascading down its front like so much sanitized blood. Despite that, the bound kept coming. Dihya casually kicked it back down again.

She considered the struggling bound for a moment, then held Amastan’s sword out to him, hilt-first. “So. These are the bound. They’re not as strong as I expected.”

Amastan took the sword and sheathed it. “It’s not their strength that makes them dangerous. They don’t feel pain. They don’t respond like we’ve been trained to expect. If you attack them, they won’t flinch or recoil or even stop. They just keep coming. The key to fighting them is remembering all of that. But we’re not here to fight them, not yet.”

“Yeah, yeah. Containment first.” Dihya kicked the bound down again, then followed through with an ax through its neck. This time, it didn’t get back up. “See: I was paying attention at the meeting.”

“At least one of you were.” Amastan glanced around. Illi had disappeared from the rooftop. “Where are the others?”

“Ziri’s just down the road on the opposite side of the platform, enlisting help in building a barricade like you’d said. Illi’s was on her way to find our watchmen, see if any of them will get their hands dirty for once. Tamella’s around here somewhere – she and Usaten were going to start another barricade, once I cleared out any survivors. I didn’t expect that to include you.”

“Thank you,” said Amastan, despite the dig.

Dihya wiped the gore from her ax as a fresh surge of bound approached the center from the alley. “Dust and sand, there sure are a lot of them, huh. I thought you said we’d only have a dozen to deal with.”

Amastan swallowed. “I’d hoped so. But there was always a slim possibility that all of the corpses would be affected.”

“All of them… what about the other neighborhoods, ‘Stan?”

“No reports so far.”

Dihya gave him a gentle push. “I’ll hold these little guys off. Go find Ziri and make sure he’s actually constructing a barricade and not a welcoming gate. You know him and fine details.”

Amastan didn’t, but Dihya and Ziri had been close long enough that he knew she did. Beyond Dihya, the bound were amassing, almost as if they did share a few grains of strategy between them. More were still pushing forward from the back of the alley. There were so many of them, and this was only one crypt’s worth.

Even staring forward at the sun-bleached walls, Amastan could see the rows and rows of dark tombs that lined the walls of the crypts. If all of the dead in the crypt for this neighborhood had been affected, that would easily mean over a hundred bound, plus the marab that had attended them and any bystanders.

The marab –

A shape moved on the ground near Dihya’s feet. Amastan shouted a warning as the marabi with the censer surged to his feet and rushed Dihya. The speed of the attack was captivatingly unnatural. A living, breathing person would have taken some time in getting to their feet, would have been briefly disoriented upon attaining it. Even a trained cousin would have paused long enough to get their bearing. But this bound simply went.

Dihya barely caught it with the flat of her ax. It forced her back one step, then another. This bound was too close for her to kick or otherwise force some distance, so she kept blocking. Amastan lifted his sword, willing his arms to stop shaking. But before he could commit, Tamella landed on the stones and swept her short sword through the neck of the marabi. His body fell like a dropped sack of grain.

Tamella faced the oncoming bound while standing shoulder to shoulder with Dihya. “Azulay’s got one of the roads blocked already, but he could use some direction. We will keep these creatures occupied until all the barricades are up.”

“You can’t fight them all,” warned Amastan.

Tamella swept out the feet of an oncoming bound, sending it toppling and throwing off the bound behind it. “Then you’d better get working on those barricades.”

Amastan started to protest, but cut himself off. She was right. This was his plan, the one he’d pieced together in the confines of his bedroom before presenting it to a packed room of cousins. Despite all of that work, he couldn’t help but feel a bit useless when it came to a real fight; he’d only endanger those around him. But he could coddle his pride later. For now, he had a situation to control.

Azulay had just finished reinforcing his barricade with a spare table when Amastan arrived. He lazily pressed his fist to his heart before leading Amastan to the next road, where Ziri was dragging a metal chest through a doorway, tossing reassurances to someone inside.

“Yes, yes, I’ll return it as soon as we’re done here. Please – just stay inside.” He turned as they approached, the breadth of him blocking any light that filtered out of the building. “Az’, help me with this, will you?”

Together, Azulay and Ziri carried the chest to the mouth of the road and wedged it into a growing barricade already made up of a mad assortment of chairs and tables. Amastan stood and watched, too aware of the warm handle of his cane under one palm and the dull pain just under the surface of his ankle and arm, ready to flare up as soon as he put any weight on them. From the other side of the barrier came the thud and crack and occasional exhilarated laugh as Tamella and Dihya kept the bound from escaping before the barrier was finished.

Ziri brushed his hands off on his wrap and examined his work. “Yeah. Looks good.”

Azulay gave Amastan a lazy grin. “What’s next, chief?”

Amastan frowned. “Don’t call me that. I’m not a drum chief.” He glanced around. “We need to block all the roads out of the circle. We can’t risk any bound escaping. How many are left?”

“Az’ and me both got one,” said Ziri. “Hamma and Yaluz were on the east side. If they also got two, plus this one, then that leaves the alley to the crypt and the road south, the one with the bridge.”

“We don’t need to worry about the crypt just yet,” said Amastan. “Barricade the south road and then let’s get Dihya and Tamella out of there.”

“Got it, sa.” Azulay gave a mocking bow then laughed at Amastan’s frown. “Cheer up, ’Stan.

We’ve got this.”

Amastan wished he could share Azulay’s confidence. He trailed behind. The other two turned the corner just ahead before he did. He only caught a few phrases of an exchange before Illi stepped into view, a watchman on her heels.

“I brought you one,” said Illi brightly.

The watchman straightened, one hand on the hilt of her sword, even as her gaze lingered a moment too long on Amastan’s cane. “I hear you’re in charge of this operation, sa?”

“Ma.” Amastan pressed his fist to his chest. “How many watchmen do you have?”

“Five, sa. I can pull more from the neighboring stations if needed.”

Amastan glanced over his shoulder at the barricade. “That won’t be necessary. They might be needed in their own neighborhoods, if they aren’t being called on already. While this is the first crypt to exhibit signs of reanimation, it won’t be the last.”

“You’re saying there will be more, sa?”

Amastan sighed and itched at the salt crusting his elbow. “We need to be prepared, yes. In the meantime, I need three of your watchmen to stay here and help keep things calm while we clean up. Your other two can head north to alert the neighborhoods there. I’ll send a runner, too–” he glanced at Illi, who straightened, “–but the drum chiefs may not appreciate the gravity of our situation unless they hear it from a watchman.”

“I understand all too well, sa.”

“Good. After you send those two north, meet me at the southern bridge with the rest of your watchmen, ma. I want to tell them myself what must happen next.”

The watchman pressed her fist to her chest, then turned and left. Illi rocked up and down on her heels, expectant. Amastan flicked a hand in a dismissive gesture; that was all she needed. Illi was off and running, bare feet silent across worn stone, her braids a tightly-contained bundle that hardly moved.

Once alone, all Amastan wanted to do was sink to the ground and close his eyes until this all passed, like a scared child. But the faces pressed to windows and peeking around doors kept him upright, the weight of their expectations adding to the weight on his shoulders. Some were weary, others worn, but all were watching. Waiting.

Amastan tightened his grip on his cane and straightened. “Stay inside.”

Then he started walking. It didn’t matter where, not at first, but he realized he’d had a plan regardless when he reached another barricade. Moments later, Tamella and Dihya climbed over, sweaty and sticky with old blood, but grinning and unhurt. Amastan stood with both hands on his cane and waited. Their grins faded as they noticed him.

“Barricades are all up,” said Dihya. “None of those monsters made it out of the center.”

“Well,” said Yaluz, sauntering around the corner with Hamma just behind. “One did. But we got it.” She patted the hilt of her short sword, then grinned up at Amastan, all teeth. “What now?”

Amastan didn’t move. “Let’s wait for the others.”

The others came a few minutes later, Azulay and Ziri just as light-hearted as the rest. That left just Menna and Usaten, but if they were following his plan, they were keeping watch from the roof. Amastan’s gut tightened with anticipation and unease at what came next. All at once he became aware of the silence in the alley, on the platform, across what felt like the whole of Ghadid. Six cousins and everyone waiting on him.

It was fine. It would be fine. Everything was going according to the plan.

“First,” he said, drawing a breath with the word, “we behead them.”

Azulay slapped the flat of his machete across his palm. “Easy.”

“Not without me.”

The weight of so many gazes lifted from Amastan to fix on the rooftop just beyond him instead. Menna slid elegantly over the side and shimmied down the wall like it had been made for her. She dropped the last few feet and touched her fist to her chest.

“Reporting for duty. Sa.” She dropped her fist, a mocking grin on her face. “Oh don’t look so glum, ’Stan. Usaten’s got the roofs. None of those monsters are going to get out. Not before we can get ‘em. Good work on the barricades, everyone.” She glanced around the circle of cousins. “There’re – what – several dozen of them and eight of us?”

“Make that several dozen, dozen,” corrected Azulay. “The whole crypt is coming out for the party.”

Menna bared her teeth in a wide grin. “Good.”

“I mean, there has to be over a hundred of those dead things,” Azulay said, this time more slowly.

“I understood that the first time, thanks.”

Azulay widened his eyes at Amastan and tapped his forehead in the Azali sign of are they sane? But Amastan ignored him.

“All right,” said Amastan. “Remember they don’t feel pain. Go for the head and stay out of reach. They’re strong and they’re fast and they don’t react if you hit them, so don’t bother trying to wear them down or distract them – go straight for the kill.” He pulled in a breath, feeling as useless as his ankle. “Be careful.”

“We got it, sa,” said Menna cheerfully.

Amastan watched his cousins – his friends, his family – climb over the barricade. Tamella was last. She paused long enough to meet Amastan’s gaze. Nodded. Then she, too, was gone.

With all his plans in motion and nothing left to do, Amastan leaned against the barrier, waited, and listened. At first, there was only the thud and thwack as his cousins did their job, broken up by the occasional verbal jab between them. Then all chatter died away completely, leaving only the rhythm of the cleanup and his imagination to fill in the rest.

He should be in there. He was a cousin. They needed every spare hand. But even as agitation set him to movement, the memory of his shaking arm, unable to even hold a sword, filled him with fresh shame. On the other side of that barrier, everyone was helping. Everyone but him.

His gaze fell on his cane, bearing the weight of his anger and frustration. Then he leaned the cane against a table and climbed up the barrier until he could see over. It took him a breathless moment to make sense of the chaos, to sort the living from the bound. A third of the bound were already headless, bodies like stones cast across the street. He counted and counted again just to be sure. His cousins were all there. They were still standing.

They were enjoying themselves, even as sweat made wrap and tagel stick to their bodies and weariness ate at their movements. They’d divided the bound into groups and were systematically hacking through them. As Amastan watched, Azulay kicked a head toward Ziri, who barely missed tripping over it. Ziri shot him a glare, but Azulay only laughed and blew a kiss.

One by one, they cut through the bound until the only things still moving were his cousins. The ground was littered with torsos and heads, like a child had upended an extremely morbid puzzle. Few bled. Most of the dead had been dry, old corpses months or years into their deaths. These dribbled sand from the burst bladders that had filled their empty chests. A few pools of blood had been left behind by the marab and the handful of citizens who hadn’t listened.

As his cousins circled the containment zone and checked their work, Menna broke away and climbed Amastan’s barricade, straddling the top so that her legs hung on either side, kicking freely.

“What’s next, ’Stan? Are the watchmen going to help move the corpses back into the crypt? If not, you might want to give us a few hours to rest. Wholesale slaughter is one thing, clean up another.”

Amastan shook his head. “They’re not going back into the crypt.”

Menna turned her whole gaze on him, lips pursed into a tight frown. “Where the shards else are we gonna put them? I don’t think the drum chiefs will like it if you shove the corpses into the glasshouses. Plus, it’s not very healthy.”

“They’re not going in the glasshouses. They’re not going anywhere.”

Menna’s frown deepened. “They’re a bunch of headless corpses. They’re not going to hurt anyone any time soon.”

“We can’t be sure.”

“They aren’t going to get more dead,” said Menna. “The only thing you could still do is burn them and, well, that would obviously be wrong, so you… wouldn’t…” Menna narrowed her eyes. “You wouldn’t.”

Amastan started pulling himself up the side of the barrier. “I’m going to take a look.”

“’Stan.”

But he was already climbing the barricade. Amastan carefully lowered himself down, then picked his way through the puddles of fresh blood and thickened ichor. According to Salid, whatever was creating the bound wasn’t transmitted through blood or saliva, like most diseases, but Amastan wasn’t prepared to test that theory. Still, that left them with little understanding of how it was transmitted. No one had touched the slave and the marab who had died and reanimated certainly couldn’t have been affected by the en-marabi, at least not directly.

Not unless they were all affected.

Amastan wasn’t ready to confront those implications, but he’d have to figure it out before this happened again.

Because it would happen again. There were eleven more crypts.

His cousins were scattered around the center, keeping an eye on the unmoving bodies while cleaning their weapons. A quick glance reassured him that none of them had been hurt. Risking their lives while you stayed safe on the other side of the barricade, a voice hissed in his head. He touched his charms, but they were no warmer than usual. It had no jaani, only his own voice.

He tightened his grip on his cane. “Pile the bodies in the center.”

Dihya finished wiping the blood from her ax with a black cloth, which she shoved through her belt before considering the nearest corpse. With a huff and a nod, she wrapped her arms beneath its, bent her knees, and heaved until the corpse was half off the ground. She began dragging it to the center of the barricaded area.

“’Stan.”

Amastan heard Menna’s feet hit the ground behind him but he didn’t turn. “What would you do?”

“Their jaan are still tethered,” said Menna, her voice low enough to stay between them, but every word carefully pronounced with concern. “If you burn the bodies, you’re going to release their jaan. All of their jaan. You know what happened the last time there were wild jaan in the city, and that was only three. Doing this – you’ll release hundreds.”

Amastan swallowed; he knew too well. He and Menna both had watched a wild jaani burn a man alive from the inside out. But that had been almost a decade ago and he knew Menna had been searching for a better way to contain wild jaan.

“What would you do?” repeated Amastan.

“They’re already headless. What do you think they’re going to do? We just put them back in their tombs.”

“Then what?” pressed Amastan.

Between all the other preparations, he’d spent much of the past week trying to trace this thread to a different end, but the conclusion was always the same – a head ultimately didn’t matter when the body was bound to its jaan. He could be missing something vital about the way jaan worked, though. If anyone knew another way, it would be Menna.

“Then…well, nothing.”

“What about their jaan?”

“The marab will continue to quiet them.” Menna frowned. “You can’t possibly think they’re still dangerous.”

“They left the crypts once. What will stop them from leaving again?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, ’Stan, they’re headless.”

“Before that, they were dead.”

Menna opened her mouth, but nothing came out. After a moment, she closed her mouth and glared instead. The small thread of hope Amastan hadn’t even realized he’d been clinging to slipped from his grasp with a sickening wrench.

“We don’t know enough about what’s happening,” said Amastan. “We don’t yet understand how it started. But now we know at least one thing: the dead in our city are being bound to their jaan and forced awake again. It happened to the recently dead first and now it’s happening to all our dead. It started in this crypt and we have no reason to think it will stop here. We don’t know what’s going to happen next, but it’s safest to assume that losing a limb – even if it’s their head – won’t stop them for long.”

“But that’s impossible. This is all impossible. Once the body dies, it can’t be brought back to life. That’s why wild jaan attack the living, not corpses.”

“But guul do.”

Menna grimaced. “These aren’t guul. They can’t be. They’re not strong enough. Most should be too weak to even possess a body, let alone move it.”

“But they do,” said Amastan. “They are. The en-marabi is using a technique that allows the jaan to possess their own bodies. Salid thinks that’s why they’re so strong.”

“And… that’s why they don’t burn up.” Menna rubbed her forehead. “It’s the same reason why our jaan don’t destroy us when we’re alive; they’re ours. There’s no mismatch. If the body were alive and bound like this, they wouldn’t go insane. They wouldn’t die, either. They’d be immortal.” She dropped her hand and stared at Amastan. “That’s what this en-marabi wants, isn’t it?”

“Salid said there’d been experiments,” said Amastan slowly. “It started with marks written on the skin of the dead. That’s what we saw, before…” But he couldn’t finish his sentence. Before Thana left, before he’d broken his ankle, before they’d failed. He swallowed his rising guilt. It’d only get in his way. “The en-marabi has gone beyond that. There’s some other way he must be controlling them now, making them. Something that doesn’t leave a mark and can affect a lot more people.”

“Like a disease. Or a poison.”

“Maybe.” Amastan shook his head. “But how could he have reached all of the corpses in the crypts? I only planned for this because we had to prepare for the worst, but I don’t know how he’s doing any of it. How would he distribute a poison to all of them? It’s not like they eat or drink. They…” he trailed off as all the color left Menna’s face. “Menna?”

She covered her mouth with one hand as if she were fighting back the urge to retch. “Oh. Oh G-d.”

“What? What is it?” Amastan glanced around, bringing up his cane as if he could even fight, but none of the corpses were moving.

Menna’s smile was bright and sudden and exactly as if she’d just swallowed a mouthful of bile. “Nothing. I just… it was a thought. But it’s nothing. There’s something we could do about the jaan though. Maybe. It’s too early for them to cross over. They’re just too strong and there’s too many of them and none of our rituals can safely account for either of those. But… they haven’t untethered yet. There’s a ritual we can perform. But – G-d, we’re talking over a hundred jaan here. Over a hundred people. If I do this, we’ll lose them to the Wastes and they’ll never be able to cross over. It’s blasphemy.”

“What would you do?” repeated Amastan for a third time, his voice as sharp as his blade.

Menna was silent. Together, they watched Ziri drag the last corpse to the top of the pile. They’d worked together once, Ziri and Menna. It’d been Menna’s last contract.

“It’s too late for these people,” said Amastan. “The least we can do is make certain it doesn’t happen again.” He caught and held Menna’s gaze. “Please. I’m going to need your help.” He reached out, palm up and waiting. “Just like old times?”

She didn’t take his hand, but she met his gaze and her shoulders softened. “We don’t have enough water to do what we did last time.” She sighed and glanced at the cloudless sky. “No convenient storm in sight.” She gave an odd, hitched laugh. “Doing this… they’ll take my marabi wrap away. You would ask me to give that up, too?”

“You’re saving the city. You’re doing your job. They can’t fault you for that.”

“Yeah? Which job?”

“Both.”

Menna shook her head. “I haven’t had a contract in years. But you know that.”

“Once a cousin, always a cousin.”

“Right.” But she didn’t sound convinced.

Menna traced her hand along her belt, pausing over each pouch. Even though Menna wasn’t technically an assassin any more, her belt wasn’t that different from Amastan’s. They both had knives, waterskins, oil, and sand.

Menna sighed, but when she took Amastan’s hand, it was with surprising strength. “This ritual will be simpler. For one, we don’t need to create a seal because these jaan are still tethered. For another, they’re not wild, so we don’t need a storm’s worth of water.” She squeezed his hand. “I’ll need more marab, oil, charcoal, and several sheets of vellum.”

She let go and stepped back, but when Amastan didn’t move, she clapped loudly. “Well, what are you waiting for? If we’re going to commit blasphemy, let’s do it right.”

In celebration – and anticipation – of the third and final book in the Chronicles of Ghadid series, I’m sharing an in-world novella that takes place sometime during the events of the second book, The Impossible Contract.

That said, if you haven’t read The Impossible Contract: stop. Do not pass go. Do not progress forward. Warning warning, danger danger. Turn back. Read book two first. Then come back. You will thank me.

There are four parts to this novella and I will be sharing them in the days leading up to The Unconquered City’s release (June 16th!!).

Today I present:

FIRST WAVE

At least the intruder knocked first before shoving the door open and filling the dusty room with sticky-hot sunlight. Amastan was still finding his cane and his feet when a voice asked,

“Where is she?”

Amastan squinted against the light, trying to make sense of the shadow at its center. His ankle protested under his weight, even as he leaned most of it on his better foot. He’d been left alone in the room by his sisters and family with nothing to keep him company but his pile of cushions, a few pens, and a stack of scrolls that needed transcribing. For most of the quiet morning, he’d welcomed the reprieve from his family’s constant attempts at helping him, but now a part of himself he could never quiet assessed his chances in a fight, weighing his cast-stiff arm and still-healing ankle against the possibility of a violent intruder.

Instead of advancing, the man stopped a respectful distance away, fingers worrying at tangled stringwork. The door closed under its own weight, cutting off the bright light of midday. The thinned light from the window and the steady light from the hearth took its place, warming the man’s dusty wrap and sharpening his features. He’d tied his tagel in haste, covering his mouth and chin but neglecting his slender nose, and sweat darkened his pits and neck, more than might be expected from a midday walk.

Amastan relaxed as he recognized his visitor. Salid was the charm maker his family preferred, but not one in the habit of making house calls. “Water, sa?”

Salid’s initial brusqueness gave way to a mirror of Amastan’s confusion. He nodded even as he frowned, taking in the cane, the cast, and the fading bruises across Amastan’s arms. More bruises circled Amastan’s neck, but thankfully his tagel hid those from Salid’s searching gaze.

The healers had only released Amastan a few days earlier. They’d stabilized him, made certain he’d live, and even sped up his ankle’s healing. But any more than that would’ve been a flagrant waste of water. He’d been tempted to press more baats on the healers – he had more than enough to pay – but in the end he couldn’t justify the waste. He wasn’t a drum chief and his particular specialization wasn’t required for the ongoing function of the city. Not now, anyway. He had to trust that Thana had all the contract under control.

He had a cane and a limp, but neither would kill him and both would heal fully within the month. He just had to take things slow and allow time to finish the process.

With Thana gone, all he had was time.

“I’d heard you’d been at the healers, but…” Salid trailed off, gaze lingering on Amastan’s cane even as he took the glass of water from Amastan.

“If you’re looking for Thana, you’ve just missed her, sa. By a few days.”

“How convenient for her,” said Salid. “She’s the one who dragged this whole mess into the light and now she’s nowhere to be found to fix it.” He untangled his fingers from the stringwork and shoved the whole of it into a pocket. “When does she plan on returning?”

“Not for some weeks, sa.”

Salid grimaced. “Too long. She’ll be too late.”

“For what?”

“She told you, didn’t she?”

Amastan tightened his grip on his cane. “Are you talking about the marabi–?”

“–the en-marabi–”

“–and the dead men?”

“The bound.” Salid pulled out a chair from the table beside Amastan and slid into it with a sigh as if all the air were being squeezed from his lungs. “We’re on the same page, then.” He drained the rest of his water. “There’s been another.”

“What do you mean?”

Salid didn’t quite slam the glass down, but he did set it on the table with more force than was necessary. “Another corpse that’s refusing to stay a corpse. Except – I don’t understand how.” Salid picked up Amastan’s pen and began rolling it between his fingers while staring at the table as if it might offer up an explanation. “One of Drum Chief Talal’s slaves died of a fever last night, but just as the marab arrived to attend her jaani, the slave got up and attacked Talal’s wife.” Salid held up a hand, stoppering any questions. “The wife is fine. Scratched, bruised, and shaken, but fine. The marab managed to subdue the dead slave and lock her in a closet.”

“Are they certain she was dead?” asked Amastan. “Fever can addle a mind. Or perhaps she’d been possessed by a jaani.”

Salid was shaking his head before Amastan had finished. “Everything I’ve heard about this has only confirmed my suspicions–”

“How did you hear about this?”

Salid suddenly found his almost empty glass of water more interesting than Amastan. “Well, when something like the dead walking happens once in your city, you keep an ear out.”

But Amastan stayed silent and staring until Salid squirmed and finally spat out, “A marabi owes me a favor, all right? And everything he told me about this has only confirmed my suspicions.” He held up a hand and began ticking off fingers. “Unresponsive to verbal commands, inexplicably violent, no indication of awareness, doesn’t react to pain, and – most importantly – the marab have been unable to quiet her jaani.”

“I still don’t understand what this slave has in common with the men who attacked me and Thana. She’s acting strangely, yes, but that doesn’t mean she’s not suffering from some other illness of the mind, or that she’s not possessed. Did she have any markings?”

“No one has been able to examine her,” said Salid, voice tight. “Not since they determined she was dead. And she is quite dead – she does not breathe, sa.”

Amastan didn’t need to close his eyes to relive that terrible night again, to see the absence in the face of the man who had effortlessly lifted Amastan off his feet and thrown him into the wall like he’d been little more than a bag of trash. He could still feel those cold, stiff fingers digging into his neck, still taste the acid at the back of his throat as his bravery shattered into terror – and shame.

“The en-marabi is gone,” said Amastan, trying to push away the cobweb cling of memory.

“Nevertheless, the girl is exhibiting the same symptoms,” insisted Salid. “If it isn’t his doing, then I fear we may have a bigger problem.”

“What are the chances of two en-marab, sa?”

“What are the chances of one?”

Amastan sat with a heavy thump. “What do you want from me?” He gestured at his cane. “I’m in no shape to fight monsters.”

“Not a monster,” corrected Salid. “Bound. I came to you because you’re the only other person currently in this city who has met these things face to face. You understand what this means.” Salid stopped fidgeting with his glass and finally set it down, empty. “After Thana left, I spent some time reading up on our en-marabi friend and what rumor claims he’s capable of. Even taking sensationalizing and hyperbole into account, we have good reason to be alarmed.”

“If you have a friend among the marab, you should take this to them.” He gestured at himself. “This is what happened the last time I tried to fight them.”

Salid crossed his arms. “Did I ask you to fight, sa? No. I’m only asking for somebody who understands the very real danger of what we are facing here. I’ve already spoken to the marab – they  refuse to listen. To them, this slave is an anomaly, not a warning of what could be coming. Izri… the marab want to handle this themselves, but they refuse to believe that en-marab ever existed, let alone still practice, let alone in our city. Even if we could convince them, it’ll be too late.”

“It’s one slave, a remnant from the en-marabi’s attacks. Why do you think there will be more?”

“There was a clear progression to Djet’s work and I fear that this en-marabi – or perhaps Djet himself – will follow the same path. Yes he marked men’s flesh to bind their jaan, but he also experimented with other binding methods, ones that didn’t leave a mark. Before his death, a strange affliction struck a village near Na Tay Khet. Every person – adults and children both – simply disappeared. Around the same time, rumors circled of monsters who couldn’t be hurt or killed who were attacking any travelers who neared the village. These monsters couldn’t feel pain and they wouldn’t stop until you’d taken the head from their shoulders.”

Salid leaned toward Amastan, eyes alight with intensity. “If I’m correct – and I pray to G-d that I’m not – then this may be our only warning, our one chance to prepare. Whatever Djet has done, this slave won’t be the last. There will be more. We must be ready, or else his bound will overwhelm us and our city will become another warning for history. If I’m wrong, then we will have prepared for nothing and lose only our time, maybe some dignity. Do you understand now why I came to you?”

Amastan nodded. “You need a plan.”

“We need a plan.”

“All right.” Amastan leveraged himself up and crossed the room to the hearth. “But we’re going  to need a lot of tea.”

*

            Early evening was coalescing in the air and in the streets all around Amastan as he stood in front of the familiar faded red door. He shook out his wrap and shifted his weight so that he wasn’t leaning so heavily on his cane, despite the exertion from having walked all the way here. Then, when he couldn’t put it off any longer, he knocked.

A minute passed, the street filling even further with those venturing out into the fading light to run the errands they’d put off during the worst of the day’s heat. The air was like the steam off boiling water, except instead of a passing unpleasantness, it was constant. Sweat stuck Amastan’s wrap to his back and peppered his brow as he wished he was anywhere but here.

He knocked again. After another minute, he raised his cane.

The door swung open, hitting the wall with a tooth-rattling crack. An older woman with a thick twist of braids and wearing a smoky purple wrap stared him down with eyes the exact same shade of sand-brown as her absent daughter’s. Tamella, the notorious and rightly-feared Serpent of Ghadid and Thana’s mother, took in his cane and cast and then looked past him, scanning the platform center beyond.

When she didn’t find what she was looking for, she eyed Amastan’s still upraised cane with disdain, then yanked it – and him – through the door. Amastan was still trying to catch his balance, pain shooting through his ankle, as Tamella slammed the door shut and flicked the lock into place. Amastan steadied himself on a chair and was just beginning to wonder if this hadn’t been the more dangerous of his options when Tamella whirled on him, eyes sparking.

“Where’s my daughter?”

Amastan held up his hand. “She’s fine, ma. Thana’s fine.”

Tamella sized him up as if for a fight – which wouldn’t be the first time, at least – but her gaze narrowed as it caught on his cane, his ankle, his arm. She focused on his eyes last, stance shifting so that she was taller, took up even more space. “She hasn’t been home in three days. I know she shared her contract with you. It doesn’t look like that contract is going well. Why didn’t she come with you? Am I going to find her unconscious in a healer’s room?”

“No.”

The knife appeared in Tamella’s hand as if it had always been there. Before Amastan could back away or even raise his cane, she had the blade pressed against his throat. Her breath was close, hot, and her skin smelled of sweet palm nut oil.

“I’m not going to ask again, so you’d best pay attention,” she hissed. “Where. Is. She.”

Amastan swallowed and the blade pressed harder against his throat. Tamella didn’t trust fully him, hadn’t for years, not since he’d fought her on a rooftop and, worst, questioned her judgement. So he didn’t question her willingness to hurt him. Yet, inexplicably, she’d let her daughter work with him on numerous contracts. Or, if not outright let, at least never interfered.

Careful to speak slowly and clearly, Amastan said, “Before I explain, please promise you won’t do anything rash, ma.”

Tamella considered him, her face a blank mask. Then, without warning, she pushed him into the table at his back and slammed his hand against its wood paneling, all the while keeping the knife at his throat. She ground the heel of her hand into his bones, her gaze intent on his, willing him to look away. It took every ounce of control for Amastan not to wrench away or cry out.

“I don’t think you’re in any position to ask for favors. If you want to keep your fingers, talk.”

The words spilled out as fast as he could form them. “There was more to the contract than we were told. Thana’s tracking the mark by traveling with a caravan to Na Tay Khet. She–”

Tamella leaned on his hand, cutting him off. “She’s left Ghadid.”

“Yes, but–”

“–but you’re still here.” While Tamella had grown deadly calm, she increased the pressure on his hand, yanking a thin whimper from Amastan’s throat.

“I didn’t have a choice!” he gasped out. He sucked in a breath and closed his eyes against the pain – a mistake. Now he could see the bones breaking under Tamella’s implacable fury, stealing even his ability to write. “I would’ve gone with her, but she left instructions with the healers to keep me unconscious.”

“That’s my girl.” Tamella chuckled even if she didn’t ease up. “But how did you end up at the healers?”

“The mark wasn’t what we’d been told, ma. Kaseem had said he was a marabi, but not that he was an en-marabi, that he could bind–”

“You let my daughter go off alone with a jaani thief?” This time, the knife bit into his throat, as gentle as a lover’s kiss. “Cousins are to work in pairs! What is the point of you if you couldn’t even manage that?”

“Please,” whispered Amastan. “Let me explain. I can’t run, and if you still want to break my hand when I’m done, you may.”

For a moment, Tamella looked like she was going to break his hand anyway. Then she stepped back, releasing his hand and removing the knife from his throat. She still kept her blade loosely trained on him, even as she yanked a chair under herself and sagged into it. Amastan blinked back glitters of pain, breathing through a wave of nausea. Somehow, he didn’t think being sick all over Tamella’s floor would redeem him with her.

When the nausea subsided, he moved his fingers just enough to confirm nothing was broken. Then, all too aware that he was trapped by a woman who could just as easily take his eye as breathe, Amastan began his story at the very beginning.

As he led Tamella through the events of only a week before, her rigid posture melted and she tilted forward with interest, then back again with concern, but the knife kept her threat clear. Amastan finished his story with Thana’s last visit at the healers’ and the decision they’d arrived at together: that Thana would leave with the caravan and take a stab at the contract on the sands. Alone.

“I’d have thought that you, more than anyone, understood how dangerous attempting a contract alone could be.” Her voice was still sharp, but the blade stayed in her hand instead of Amastan’s throat. “Kaseem should never have given Thana that contract. A marabi is much too advanced a mark for a novice assassin. Of course she’ll fail.”

“Kaseem saw her potential. You underestimate her.”

Tamella snorted. “You coddle her.”

Amastan bristled. “I treat her as an equal. She was still in training, yes, but this last contract – if you’d seen her, seen the way she’d kept calm when the whole thing was falling apart… well. Maybe you would have been proud.”

“I wouldn’t have neglected to discover any cross-reactions. She put herself in unnecessary danger.”

Amastan shook his head. “It was my contract. That mistake belongs to me, not her.”

“She’s only a child–”

“She’s older than I was when I took my first contract and far more experienced than when you had me find Yanniq’s killer. Kaseem knows what he’s doing. Trust him, if not your own daughter.”

Some of the tension finally left Tamella and the knife’s point angled toward the floor. “Fine. But you can’t fault a mother for worrying.”

Amastan swallowed a response – he would have picked a different word than worrying.

“Ever since that night…” started Tamella, but when she trailed off, she didn’t continue.

She didn’t need to. Amastan knew exactly what she meant, could still taste the fear from that night. Of course Tamella would always hold the memory of when she’d come within a hair’s breadth of losing her only child within reach, just beneath the surface of her skin. That’s where you kept your failures, so you never forgot. Or forgave.

Tamella’s gaze sharpened. “If she doesn’t come back, I will kill you.”

Amastan let out a breath, but he couldn’t let the reprieve from one danger eclipse the danger he’d come here for. “We need to make certain there’s a ‘back’ when she returns.”

Tamella frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I didn’t come here for you to threaten and berate me.” Amastan rubbed his hand, searching for any fractures or breaks but – thankfully – only finding pain. “A dead slave attacked her master and healers yesterday.”

“And your mark has a habit of making the dead do things.” Tamella shrugged. “Perhaps he left you a little surprise. If you’d only gone with my daughter, you could’ve solved this problem by now.”

“The mark departed several days ago. If this were his work, then how many more surprises should we expect to find? And if this wasn’t his work, then what does that mean for us that there could be two en-marab when there should be none?”

Tamella sheathed her knife and crossed her legs. “You already have a theory. So tell it.”

“We need to be prepared for the worst.”

“You think this will happen again.”

“I pray that I’m wrong,” said Amastan. “But Salid found records of similar events, when the dead did not stay dead, and these never ended with just one. We can’t know what this one is ultimately planning, but from these records, we can plan that there will be more victims. These dead – these bound, as Salid calls them – can’t feel pain and can’t be killed like normal people. According to these records, it only took a handful of these creatures to wipe out entire villages.”

“Sounds like information you should pass on to the drum chiefs,” said Tamella. “They have watchmen just for that reason.”

“You know the Circle won’t listen to any of this, let alone do anything about it.” Amastan crossed his arms. “They’ll say I’m hysterical and then it’ll be too late. The records Salid uncovered – the dead didn’t stay dead. Any of them. That’s the core of the problem – one or two bound won’t cause a lot of harm, but more than that will quickly overwhelm. We need to handle this and we can’t wait for the drum chiefs.”

“So what’s your plan?”

Amastan took a deep breath before answering: “We need to be prepared.”

Tamella’s eyes widened, just a little, just enough so that he knew she understood. Then she nodded, the violent tension in her posture replaced by something more inquisitive, more serpentine. “The family.”

Amastan nodded. Waited.

Her lips twitched into a smile that was made all the more frightening for its proximity to violence. “Why not? After all, it has always been our purpose to protect the city, even if that purpose got a little muddled over time. And it’s not like we’ll be working outside any contracts. It’s not murder if they’re already dead.” Her smile was slow, but lethal. “It’s been many years since I’ve worked a contract, Amastan. Many would say I’m out of practice, too old. It might not be wise to involve me.”

Amastan held his throbbing hand against his chest. “Now that, I know is wrong.”

Tamella spread her legs and leaned forward, hands clasped as if in prayer. “What’s your plan?”

Welcome to my ongoing and – hopefully – regularly updated list of 2020 queer adult science-fiction and fantasy books*!

(*Since novellas are making a big comeback these days, and a lot of the novellas we’ve seen have been decidedly queer, I’m including them along with full-length novels.)

I’d intended to wait until the end of the year to give this list a permanent home – as I had with the 2019 list – but then the Pandemic happened and so many books got pushed out to late summer or even next year that I decided not to wait. Plus, it’s just easier to make updates in this format, versus the semi-permanent state of Twitter lists.

If you haven’t been around for my rants yet, this list and the ones before – and the ones that will come after – is my answer to every, “Where is all the queer/LGBTQIA/QUILTBAG fantasy and science-fiction in adult books?” or, worse, “Only YA has queer representation.” YA does in fact have a plethora of representation these days, but dismissing the diversity of rep that adult brings to the table is erasure and actively harmful. So I’m doing my bit to make it easier to find that rep, and harder to pretend it doesn’t exist.

The list is sorted by publication date, since about half of these books aren’t out yet. When possible, I included the specific queer rep, along with any side characters. “Queer” here is used as the inclusive umbrella term for anyone on the LGBTQIA/QUILTBAG spectrum. The reported representation on this list comes from reviews, readers, and the authors themselves. I’ll make note of additions in a change-log at the end of this post.

All of that admin stuff out of the way?

Onto the list!

COME TUMBLING DOWN by Seanan McGuire:

Pub Date: 1/7/2020

– multiple queer MCs

– mad scientist’s apprentice Jack is in need of saving, and who’s to help her but a school of children searching for their doors?

– 5th in the Wayward Children series



LADY HOTSPUR by Tessa Gratton:

Pub Date: 1/7/2020

– lesbians, everywhere lesbians

– historical fantasy inspired by Henry IV with royalty making bad decisions and being gay about it



BURN THE DARK by S.A. Hunt:

Pub Date: 1/14/2020

– start of a very queer series

– “punk YouTuber on a mission to bring down witches” UM

– seriously look at that fucking cover



THE BROKEN HEAVENS by Kameron Hurley:

Pub Date: 1/14/2020

– normalized bisexuality, multiple genders, polyamory

– are there even any cishet characters??

– third book in the Worldbreaker saga, a bloodsoaked multiple universe epic fantasy



THE SEEP by Chana Porter:

Pub Date: 1/21/2020

– f/f with a trans MC

– creepy utopian specfic a la VanderMeer

– all about grief, alienation, and the ache of moving on



CITY OF A THOUSAND FEELINGS by Anya Johanna DeNiro:

Pub Date: 2/1/2020

– trans MCs

– huge, lyrical fantasy epic about exclusion and loneliness and fighting through the darkness together

– hopepunk??



UPRIGHT WOMEN WANTED by Sarah Gailey:

Pub Date: 2/4/2020

– alt-future America full of “full of bandits, fascists, and queer librarian spies on horseback trying to do the right thing.”

– *slams fists down* QUEER LIBRARIAN SPIES



GRAVITY’S HEIR by Sara Bond:

Pub Date: 2/6/2020

– Everybody’s super bi!!

– What’s a desperate shipper to do when she finds a gravity bomb that can vaporize entire cities?

– Pass the whiskey.



STORMSONG by C.L. Polk:

Pub Date: 2/11/2020

– f/f main, queer side characters

– what happens after the lies & suffering that built a society are exposed?

– gaslight/bicycle fantasy




Pub Date: 2/11/2020

– f/f main, + m/m side and other queer characters

– orc assassin priestess + awful wizard dad + FUCKING TAL + necromantic cults = epic fantasy quest across worlds



THE BLOOD-DIMMED TIDE by Michael R. Johnston:

Pub Date: 2/13/2020

– established m/m relationship

– space opera, where the destination has been Earth all along

– sequel to THE WIDENING GYRE



FINNA by Nino Cipri:

Pub Date: 2/25/2020

– enby MC

– IKEA + interdimensional portals + chasing after a missing customer + the aftermath of a recent break-up = ugh, I’m not paid enough for this shit



CARVED FROM STONE AND DREAM by T. Frohock:

Pub Date: 2/25/2020

– m/m

– sequel to Where Oblivion Lies

– historical horror/fantasy with magic based on singing

– angels! demons! wars!!



DOCILE by K.M. Szpara:

Pub Date: 3/3/2020

– THERE IS NO CONSENT UNDER CAPITALISM

– m/m

– story about exploitation and choice, debtors and creditors, that is uncomfortably plausible



A PALE LIGHT IN THE BLACK by K.B. Wagers:

Pub Date: 3/3/2020

– established married f/f couple

– great entry to Wagers’ inclusive and explosive sci-fi

– SPACE COAST GUARD EFF YEAH



THE LOST FUTURE OF PEPPERHARROW by Natasha Pulley:

Pub Date: 3/5/2020

– m/m

– historical fantasy with ghoooooooooooooooooooooosts

– sequel to THE WATCHMAKER OF FILIGREE STREET



FROM THE DARK WE CAME by J. Emery:

Pub Date: 3/16/2020

– demisexual MC with chronic pain rep

– music teacher who is secretly a monster hunter

– who is then hired by one of the monsters he’s hunting

– appropriate shenanigans ensue



THE HOUSE IN THE CERULEAN SEA by T.J. Klune:

Pub Date: 3/17/2020

– m/m

– are six kids the end of the world as we know it? or are we?

– found family a la The Umbrella Academy

– sweet & hopeful



EMPRESS OF SALT AND FORTUNE by Nghi Vo:

Pub Date: 3/24/2020

– enby MC, queer empress

– epic high fantasy novella

– elegant and delicate, + politics and war



THE CITY WE BECAME by N.K. Jemisin:

Pub Date: 3/24/2020

– lesbian, gay, & trans MCs

– uh it’s the sequel to THE CITY BORN GREAT which was a mindfuck of good so idk do you even need to know anything else?

– cities BEING BORN. cities BECOMING. ELDRITCH DARKNESSES.



BONDS OF BRASS by Emily Skrutskie:

Pub Date: 4/7/2020

– m/m

– space opera with there’s only one bed trope

– pining for the secret heir to brutal galactic empire?? what could go wrong????



SHOREFALL by Robert Jackson Bennett:

Pub Date: 4/21/2020

– f/f main!

– language as magic with literal grammars and codices

– ancient evil gods unleashed!!

– sequel to FOUNDRYSIDE, heist book to end all heists books



MACHINE’S LAST TESTAMENT by Benjanun Sriduangkaew:

Pub Date: 5/4/2020

– lesbian cyberpunk

– a world under the “benevolent” control of an AI

– a petty bureaucrat all too aware of her outsider status

– and the new arrival who brings a revolution



SOUL TO STEAL by M.A. Guglielmo:

Pub Date: 5/21/2020

– f/f, urban fantasy

– supernatural girlfriends

– also contains: a mythical Persian bird and a bratty cyberpunk shark



THE OBSIDIAN TOWER by Melissa Caruso:

Pub Date: 6/4/2020

– bi MC, enby side, multiple other queer characters

– accidental murder (yay!) and unstable magical powers

– MC must guard a tower but what’s in the tower??

– twisty political maneuvering



The Land of Milk and Honey (from WALK AMONG US) by Caitlin Starling:

Pub Date: 6/16/2020

– f/f

– pastoral vampire novella with lots of sheep?!!

– opinions about Portland public transit and gentrification

– Blood. Farm.



THE UNCONQUERED CITY by K.A. Doore:

Pub Date: 6/16/2020

– pan MC, enby love interest

– aftereffects of trauma

– undead monstrosities, malevolent spirits, and cranky necromancers – oh my

– there’s only one bed trope but make it there’s only one caravan



THE ORDER OF THE PURE MOON REFLECTED IN WATER by Zen Cho:

Pub Date: 6/23/2020

– queer MC

– “a bandit walks into a coffeehouse and it all goes downhill from there”

– novella about identity and how it evolves across time, peoples, and cultures



UNCONQUERABLE SUN by Kate Elliot:

Pub Date: 7/7/2020

– f/f

– gender-swapped Alexander the Great IN SPAAAACE

– space opera to beat every other space opera into submission



LOVE BITES by Ry Herman:

Pub Date: 7/9/2020

– f/f

– LESBIAN VAMPIRE ROMANCE

– i mean srsly do you need anything else

– FINE

– MC has anxiety and depression

– 90s nostalgia



I COME WITH KNIVES by S.A. Hunt:

Pub Date: 7/21/2020

– queer characters, even more this time around

– LET’S DESTROY EVIL

– oh shit serial killer

– sequel to BURN THE DARK



ASHES OF THE SUN by Django Wexler:

Pub Date: 7/21/2020

– lesbian MC, queernorm world

– action epic fantasy

– haven’t seen my sis in a few years oh there she is and now she’s a TERRIFYING WARRIOR MAGICIAN



THE WORST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS by Alex White:

Pub Date: 7/28/2020

– established f/f relationship

– magic! sci-fi! treasures! SPACEWRECKS!

– sequel to A BIG SHIP AT THE EDGE OF THE UNIVERSE



THE SPACE BETWEEN WORLDS by Michaiah Johnson:

Pub Date: 8/4/2020

– f/f main

– multiverse shenanigans: you can travel between ‘verses, but only if your alternate self is dead or missing

– so when your alt selves start to disappear… well…



THE FIRST SISTER by Linden A. Lewis:

Pub Date: 8/4/2020

– Mostly queer cast, enby side character

– dystopian space opera with Handmaid’s Tale overtones

– oops fell in love with the person you’re supposed to be spying on

– surviving despite government machinations



HARROW THE NINTH by Tasmyn Muir:

Pub Date: 8/4/2020

– f/f

– BONES. NECROMANCY. BONES IN SPACE. NECROMANCY IN SPACE.

– it’s the sequel to GIDEON THE NINTH so I’m assuming it’s also going to beat up every other book while they ask for more



THE TYRANT BARU CORMORANT by Seth Dickinson:

Pub Date: 8/11/2020

– f/f

– Baru Cormorant finally has the power to destroy what she’s always wanted to destroy – but will she?

– aftermath of colonization and its consequences

– sequel to THE MONSTER BARU CORMORANT



DROWNED COUNTRY by Emily Tesh:

Pub Date: 8/18/2020

– m/m

– softest of magic & myth

– even the Green Man must answer to his mother

– “Rude Young Lady With A Cleaver”?!



THE VANISHED QUEEN by Lisbeth Campbell:

Pub Date: 8/18/2020

– bi female MC in a queernorm world

– character-driven political epic fantasy

– crumbling kingdom led by a corrupt king who might have killed his wife but nobody really knows



MEMORY OF SOULS by Jenn Lyons:

Pub Date: 8/25/2020

– bi MC, +100s of other queer characters

– epic, world-ending saga with DRAGONS

– demons! rampaging! ancient rituals! immortality!



ARCHITECTS OF MEMORY by Karen Osborne:

Pub Date: 8/25/2020

– bi MC, f/f main

– mystery/scifi adventure about alien first contact and some major communication problems

– nonstop, brutal, bittersweet af

– fuck capitalism!



THE BLACK COAST by Mike Brooks:

Pub Date: 9/1/2020

– multiple queer MCs

– war dragons!!!

– end of the world prophecies

– maybe this time the sea raiders are your friends



THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES by R.B. Lemberg:

Pub Date: 9/4/2020

– two elderly trans MCs

– who have twisty pasts and need to learn how to weave from Death

– exploration of gender and place and family and stories and ugggh it’s just really good



YELLOW JESSAMINE by Caitlin Starling:

Pub Date: 9/5/2020

– f/f

– creepy supernatural plague

– witchy and gothy and haunting

– botanical poisons???



THE BONE SHARD DAUGHTER by Andrea Stewart:

Pub Date: 9/10/2020

– f/f main

– holy fuck magic powered by SKULL SHARDS how effing metal is that?!

– sobbing i need this now



HELLION by S.A. Hunt:

Pub Date: 9/15/2020

– queeeeeer

– shapeshifters and demons and witches, oh my

– all through the lens of a YouTube videographer

– sequel to I COME WITH KNIVES



THE LIGHTS OF PRAGUE by Nicole Jarvis:

Pub Date: 9/22/2020

– bi MC with m/f romance (yes! need more of this!)

– gaslamp fantasy with creeptastic monsters!

– secret society of lamplighters fighting the good fight!!



HENCH by Natalie Zina Walschots:

Pub Date: 9/22/2020

– so queer is anyone even cis-het??

– superheroes are terrible and it pays better to work for the villain (plus they have health insurance)

– spreadsheets as superpower



BURNING ROSES by S.L. Huang:

Pub Date: 9/29/2020

– elderly queer MCs

– fairy tale retelling with Red Riding Hood and Hou Yi the Archer

– who then fight demons??!

– quest for immortality!!



SEVEN OF INFINITIES by Aliette de Bodard :

Pub Date: 10/??/2020

– f/f

– cinnamon roll scholar meets rogue thief spaceship

– silkpunk! with tea and space and murrrrdeerrrr

– “we’re attracted to each other but EVERYTHING IS UNDER CONTROL” best trope



THE ARCHIVE OF THE FORGOTTEN by A.J. Hackwith:

Pub Date: 10/6/2020

– pan MC & multiple bi disasters in a queer norm afterlife

– hell’s! librarian!!!

– even the library keeps secrets



PHOENIX EXTRAVAGANT by Yoon Ha Lee:

Pub Date: 10/20/2020

– enby MC, all queer cast

– silkpunk with dragon automatons

– magic! paint!!

– um dragon heist??



DEAD LIES DREAMING by Charles Stross:

Pub Date: 10/27/2020

– pretty much all queer protags

– that the existence of the Laundry (the shadowy gov’t org that keeps us all safe from otherworld horrors and brain-eating worms) is now public knowledge = oh shit



WHITE TRASH WARLOCK by David R. Slayton:

Pub Date: 10/31/2020

– gay MC

– urban fantasy

– cinnamon roll magician must bargain with the elf that broke his heart to save estranged brother and the rest of his family



THE FACTORY WITCHES OF LOWELL by C.S. Malerich:

Pub Date: 11/10/2020

– f/f

– class warfare, but with witches

– break the line and get hexed



GIVE WAY TO NIGHT by Cass Morris:

Pub Date: 11/10/2020

– demi and lesbian MCs

– sequel to FROM UNSEEN FIRE

– Ancient Rome with elemental magic and political machinations

– ambitious ladies getting shit done



THE STONE KNIFE by Anna Stephens:

Pub Date: 11/12/2020

– multiple bi and gay MCs

– creepy af epic fantasy

– what happens when your magical pacification spell fails?



HOLLOW EMPIRE by Sam Hawke:

Pub Date: 12/1/2020

– f/f in a queernorm society

– sequel to CITY OF LIES

– dark plots and darker magic

– political machinations within machinations

– sibling MCs who actually care about each other



WHEN THE TIGER CAME DOWN THE MOUNTAIN by Nghi Vo:

Pub Date: 12/8/2020

– enby MC, with f/f

– let’s survive hungry tigers by talking about stories