METAL FROM HEAVEN
Wizards Vs. Lesbians
A book about messianic communism, and also about obsessive childhood love, and also about microplastics. Inspirations cited by the author include Disco Elysium and End of Evangelion. Hang onto your hats.
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AUNT TIGRESS
Wizards Vs. Lesbians
Life is complicated for a Chinese-Canadian lesbian college kid with PTSD who is also half tiger - complicated enough, you would think, but complication invites complication, and soon she has to ask herself like questions like "is this the apocalypse" and "am I partially responsible for it." Those are pretty standard questions these days, admittedly, and that core of relatability is what keeps a rangy, stressful, fascinating book mostly on the rails.
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BONUS: KARLA'S CHOICE
Wizards Vs. Lesbians
Arkady Martine joins us to discuss a new spy novel written by Nick Harkaway and starring a bunch of beloved characters created by his father, John le Carré. In doing this, Harkaway has set out what is essentially an impossible task for himself; how does he manage?
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SHORT FICTION ROUNDUP #7
Wizards Vs. Lesbians
Today we cover by Ursula Whitcher, by Lowry Poletti, and by Sarah Pinsker.
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BONUS: MIDDLEMARCH
Wizards Vs. Lesbians
Our classic literature correspondent Kat Weaver joins us for a look at George Eliot's masterpiece about small towns and bad marriages. We find some wizards in it.
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THE MEMBRANES
Wizards Vs. Lesbians
It's very easy to get caught up in the titular metaphor, here - this brief, gauzy cyberpunk novel, written in Taiwan in 1995 and only recently available in translation, peels itself back slowly, revealing layer upon layer, until one can almost see the whole genome of the next thirty years of queer speculative fiction, wrapped up tight inside its core. That being said, please pay particular attention to the content warnings.
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BONUS: THE COMMODORE (AUBREY/MATURIN #17)
Wizards Vs. Lesbians
Our adventure correspondent Isaac Fellman joins us once again, this time to talk about Patrick O'Brien and the age of sail through the lens of the seventeenth book in the Aubrey/Maturin series. We chose to do it this way a) because we thought it would be funny and b) because this book features a small autistic girl healed through the power of Irishness, which opens an interesting line of inquiry about both the author and the project generally.
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THE INCANDESCENT
Wizards Vs. Lesbians
What if the Scholomance was a British boarding school, and therefore had funding, prestige and a competent professional faculty that cared about its students? And what if we told the story from the point of view of the Director of Magic, an extremely sensible woman who has devoted herself to a life of public service? And then, finally, what if it turns out that none of that is enough?
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BONUS: VOWS AND HONOR
Wizards Vs. Lesbians
At long last we contend with Mercedes Lackey. We are deep in the ancestry of books about girls with swords; so deep that they're not even gay for each other, even though they're married.
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THE MANOR OF DREAMS
Wizards Vs. Lesbians
The titular manor is lavishly, extravagantly haunted - there are layers upon layers of haunting, over a century's worth, and we get to peel them back one by one. Some of the haunting is inspired by Dream of the Red Chamber, which makes Alexis very happy.
info_outlineThe titular manor is lavishly, extravagantly haunted - there are layers upon layers of haunting, over a century's worth, and we get to peel them back one by one. Some of the haunting is inspired by Dream of the Red Chamber, which makes Alexis very happy.