Sci-fi. Two agents on opposing sides of a time war, skipping up and down different versions of history and covertly intervening, trying to ensure that their side wins the future. Except, this is not the sort of massive, ponderous tome that would result from trying (and inevitably failing) to capture that whole massive story in …
Literary fiction. The story of a young man buffeted by the winds of the social world into not-belonging of many different forms, and then navigating that towards a clearer sense of self. Woven together with a storyline drawn from Hindu mythology and with black/green/grey illustrations. Simple, lyrical, and emotionally compelling. Originally posted by Scott on Goodreads.
Mediocre fantasy, but make it queer. Princess from one kingdom makes the long journey to marry her childhood betrothed in another, to form an alliance and to bring her people’s magic to this land that is increasingly plagued by dragons. He dies before she gets there, and in this non-heterosexist world it is perfectly normal …
A solid first book for white people to read to begin learning about racism. The hook and focus indicated by the title points towards how unprepared we generally are in multiple senses for conversations about race and racism. In particular, most of us never learn to handle “the smallest amount of racial stress” and so …
First fantasy novel by Ann Leckie, who made her name as an original voice in the sci-fi world with the excellent *Ancillary Justice* trilogy (of which I still haven’t read the final entry). As you might expect from Leckie, this is not typical fantasy. There are humans at a relatively early stage of state formation …
Short, powerful graphic novel. Centred on two teenage Indigenous girls in Winnipeg. Simple, clear storytelling about the relentless pressure of gendered colonial violence and about love, culture, resilience, and survival. Very good. Originally posted by Scott on Goodreads.
Written to be used while introducing undergraduate students to social theory. Unlike many books used in such contexts, it is about the furthest thing you could imagine from a compendium of chapters organized around “theory X says Y” and “theory A says B.” Instead, it focuses more on introducing the reader to theoretical thinking as …
A chunky sci-fi graphic novel. Picked it up after hearing several people describe it as similar in feel to Becky Chambers’ novel The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, in that both are space-based gang-of-misfits found-family stories. The trippy graphics don’t necessarily work by the laws of physics but they certainly work for the …
Sci-fi. Set on a planet on which one side is always day and the other is always night, ten or twelve generations after the arrival of a massive ship bearing the remnants of humanity from a dying Earth. Only the narrow strip of twilight between the two halves of the planet is suitable for human …
YA contemporary queer rom-commish hate-to-love story. Originated, or so the rumour goes, as a Rory/Paris *Gilmore Girls* fanfic, and you can see those roots, but it has been turned into quite good YA. I thought one of the central characters (Rachel) felt a bit over-the-top and a bit caricatured early on, though less so as …