THE GIRLS I'VE BEEN
Wizards Vs. Lesbians
Searching for a more grounded take on gender and trauma than we're used to getting from our adult science fiction we turn, inevitability, to a non-speculative YA thriller. Let's all agree that charisma is a kind of magic and call this a book about wizard battles. THE GIRLS I'VE BEEN - TESS SHARPE
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SPOILED MILK
Wizards Vs. Lesbians
It's a girls' boarding school in the 1920s - a time and a place that might cause a reader to indulge in flights of romantic fantasy, which this book first indulges and then dismantles. Whenever and wherever we are, the question remains: who gets to be final girl?
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RADIANT STAR
Wizards Vs. Lesbians
Lee joins us to discuss the latest Raadchaii book. (Our policy remains: if there are Raadchaii, there are lesbians.) This is a hearty meal (ironically) if you're interested in religion, colonialism and/or political power - and, of course, there's cannibalism.
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HELL'S HEART
Wizards Vs. Lesbians
We were promised Moby Dick in space with lesbians, and that's what we got. It's kind of a thankless task, being Moby DIck in space with lesbians - particularly if you're not playing it for laughs, which this book isn't - because the best you're ever going to do is "better than expected." On the plus side, this one is better than expected. HELL'S HEART - ALEXIS HALL
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THE SUBTLE ART OF FOLDING SPACE
Wizards Vs. Lesbians
This book is about struggling with your terrible family while eating lots of lovingly-described food, which means it's the kind of thing we're supposed to like. This episode is mostly dedicated to figuring out why we don't. The Subtle Art of Folding Space - John Chu
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BONUS: CITY ON FIRE
Wizards Vs. Lesbians
Lee joins us to talk about a book which is difficult to boil down to a paragraph - it's about power, and the means by which power is acquired and lost, and it examines this on a multitude of scales, from the granular to the metaphysical. Also it's set in a world where every inch of available territory is covered by a city which generates its own geomantic power and humans (and mutants) are barred from space travel by a giant atmospheric shield. Fundamentally, though, it asks the question: what if there was a hot guy who sucked? City On Fire - Walter Jon Williams
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ESCAPE PLANS
Wizards Vs. Lesbians
A cyberpunk colonial parable from one of our favorite authors - or, at least, the author of one of our favorite books. This one is not quite Divine Endurance, but it's certainly something. It's not a pleasant read but it sure is full of historical interest. ESCAPE PLANS - GWYNETH JONES
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AFTERPARTY
Wizards Vs. Lesbians
A book about drugs that make you see god. It's day-after-tomorrow SF from the day before yesterday, and it gets all of its predictions so catastrophically wrong that its primary use case is as a time capsule from the war on terror. Also preserved: jokes we thought were funny ten years ago. Afterparty - Daryl Gregory
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EAT THE ONES YOU LOVE
Wizards Vs. Lesbians
It's Little Shop of Horrors but with lesbian Irish millennials! That's the whole pitch. It fulfills the brief, and arguably overdelivers. Eat The Ones You Love - Sarah Maria Griffin
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BONUS: ORLANDO
Wizards Vs. Lesbians
It's gay, it's magic, it's a literary classic. Featuring our old books correspondent Kat Weaver! Orlando - Virginia Woolf
info_outlineThis is what we've come to call an Area Studies Fantasy, except the area in this case is suburban Atlanta. (You could say it's science fiction because it's meant to be set in the future, but in my book a post-apocalypse that sets everything back to 19th century technology and conveniently erases all world religions is a fantasy.) It's possible that familiarity breeds contempt, and we're more likely to object to the moral underpinnings of a book based on the mores of southern Protestants than we are on Buddhists or what have you, but even given that the execution here is a little shaky.