Wizards Vs. Lesbians

A queer sf review podcast about the emerging wizards vs. lesbians microgenre.

ZETA BASE 04/13/2025

ZETA BASE We could do nothing but weird small press lesbian novellas on this podcast and I'd be happy. This one's about how we really need to blow up the sun but we're too busy having smoldering academic love triangles. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/36115525

BONUS: SHELL GAME 04/06/2025

BONUS: SHELL GAME Lianyu Tan joins us for another foray into literature that started life as Xena AU fanfiction (or Xena Uber, in the parlance of the time.) This one starts out as a pirate romp featuring the world's brattiest sub/voluntary slave girl and ends up in some really dark places. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/36025140

FEAST WHILE YOU CAN 03/30/2025

FEAST WHILE YOU CAN This is the most Wizards vs Lesbians book we've covered in ages, and it's also really good. It's a familiar setup - there's a thing in a pit in a little tiny town and the locals have to keep it fed. The beauty's in the execution. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/35922790

BONUS: THE EXPEDITION (A LOVE STORY) 03/23/2025

BONUS: THE EXPEDITION (A LOVE STORY) We adventure into the realm of non-fiction - mostly - for the first time, courtesy of Isaac Fellman, who has joined us to discuss a book about two disasters. The first is the Andree Expedition, a real-life polar quest which failed both disastrously and predictably; the second is an exercise for the reader. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/35824670

MOBY-DICK 03/16/2025

MOBY-DICK Finally, the all-caps title is correct! During the 2023 Wizzly awards we all said we were going to read Moby Dick by the time the next Wizzlies rolled around, and most of us did. It turns out it's really good. Like, I'd call it the great American novel, at least for the days before women were invented. Has anybody else heard about this? /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/35714875

BONUS: STARS IN MY POCKET LIKE GRAINS OF SAND 03/09/2025

BONUS: STARS IN MY POCKET LIKE GRAINS OF SAND We kick off a new series of author's choice episodes with Cameron Reed, who has brought us a novel you can chew on like the ragged edge of a thumbnail. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/35593090

THE GOLEM OF BROOKLYN 03/02/2025

THE GOLEM OF BROOKLYN This book is about whether murdering antisemites is a good idea or not, morally and strategically, and as such it's about Israel without ever discussing Israel, which as a rhetorical gambit has its advantages and disadvantages. One disadvantage is that it's therefore a New York Novel and it comes with all the problems that implies. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/35499140

BONUS: 4TH ANNUAL WIZZLY AWARDS 02/23/2025

BONUS: 4TH ANNUAL WIZZLY AWARDS We persevere through technical issues to bring you this, our annual extravaganza of self-indulgence. Is it possible four years in that we're actually worse at this than when we started? /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/35396185

A DARK AND DROWNING TIDE 02/09/2025

A DARK AND DROWNING TIDE In fantasy Germany a fantasy Jewess and her fantasy Aryan forest princess must go up the river to save the cat, or something. Not as much blood as you'd expect in this one but there's plenty of soil. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/35210390

AN EDUCATION IN MALICE 01/26/2025

AN EDUCATION IN MALICE We're dipping our toes into Dark Academia here. This book asks the question: what if your abusive academic advisor was literally a vampire? And the answer is it would be kinda cool. A classic example of horror elements blunting the actual horror, down to a 1960s setting that elides all the worst parts of the era. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/34824965

THE LYREMOUTH CHRONICLES (BOOKS 1 & 2) 01/12/2025

THE LYREMOUTH CHRONICLES (BOOKS 1 & 2) This one takes a while to get going - at first it seems like a genderswapped swords & sorcery novel, but it turns out that's only one part of a much larger world. Recommended for Steerswoman fans. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/34824885

THE MINISTRY OF TIME with Vajra Chandrasekera 01/05/2025

THE MINISTRY OF TIME with Vajra Chandrasekera A book about empire, memory, historical trauma and the consequences of dating your blorbo. Huge thanks to Vajra for suggesting this one and for coming on to talk about it! /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/34724655

BONUS: THE SUMMER PRINCE 12/29/2024

BONUS: THE SUMMER PRINCE Our esteemed pal P.H. Lee joins us for a rundown of this charming bit of YA. It's Brazilian! It's Really Brazilian! /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/34646845

THE SCORPION RULES 12/22/2024

THE SCORPION RULES We return to the schools that resemble the prisons for a book that predates the Ninth House but has a couple of startling similarities, including a proto-John Gaius Gen-X godhead. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/34571280

BONUS: Q & A 4 (100 EPISODES!) 12/15/2024

BONUS: Q & A 4 (100 EPISODES!) On the occasion of our 100th mainline episode we treat ourselves by answering your questions. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/34458955

KILL LA KILL 12/08/2024

KILL LA KILL In perhaps our most controversial take yet, we posit that this anime is good, actually. Your tolerance for breast collision physics will factor in whether you agree. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/34335335

THE SEEP 11/24/2024

THE SEEP Helpful alien friends take over the world and make everyone immortal and kind of chill, man. It's a metaphor for something or other. Maybe AI, maybe legal weed. Maybe california in general. It doesn't amount to much. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/34127741

BONUS: SCUM VILLAIN'S SELF-SAVING SYSTEM 11/17/2024

BONUS: SCUM VILLAIN'S SELF-SAVING SYSTEM We have fandom historian and BL expert Naked Bee on to discuss this extremely charming bit of gay metafiction. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/33961122

AMMONITE 11/10/2024

AMMONITE We return to Nicola Griffith to get a more measured take on the lesbian space colony genre, written if not in direct response to Daughters of a Coral Dawn then to books like it. (We know this because of a helpful author's note.) /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/33867667

BONUS: PALE FIRE 11/03/2024

BONUS: PALE FIRE We get to do a literary classic - significantly, an extremely funny literary classic - in the company of the excellent Kat Weaver. A joy. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/33763217

DAUGHTERS OF A CORAL DAWN 10/27/2024

DAUGHTERS OF A CORAL DAWN Vintage lesbian separatist science fiction from 1984. It's almost charming until the implications set in - since women can't commit sexual assault and men can't not, pederasty for the one and extermination for the other only makes sense. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/33630872

DAUGHTERS OF CHAOS 10/13/2024

DAUGHTERS OF CHAOS A lazy, racist, sexist, ahistorical wankfest of a novel. At least we got a podcast out of it. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/33437802

DAUGHTER OF MYSTERY 09/29/2024

DAUGHTER OF MYSTERY Come with us to fantasy Liechtenstein for some feel-good classic yuri. The society is high, the stakes are low and the names are terrible. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/33251912

BONUS: THE SCHOLOMANCE TRILOGY 09/22/2024

BONUS: THE SCHOLOMANCE TRILOGY After Ann Leckie brought us Foreigner we decided to invite some other authors whose work we've enjoyed to bring us books to talk about. Jenna Moran has elected to bring us the Scholomance, which is highly entertaining, and silly, and incidentally a highly detailed study on the phenomenon of the tsundere. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/33159347

SPIRITS ABROAD (JUST THE LESBIAN PARTS) 09/15/2024

SPIRITS ABROAD (JUST THE LESBIAN PARTS) You already know we love Zen Cho, so we decided to do an easy breezy runthrough of the gayer stories in her ever-expanding short story collection. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/33060217

SHORT FICTION ROUNDUP #5 09/01/2024

SHORT FICTION ROUNDUP #5 It's another short story roundup! Featuring: Miss Bulletproof Comes Out of Retirement: (or ) Selkie Stories are for Losers: Nuca: /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/32853587

THOSE BEYOND THE WALL 08/18/2024

THOSE BEYOND THE WALL The Space Between Worlds got itself a darker, angrier sequel. It has a really strong character study at its heart, but the further afield you go from that anchor point the fuzzier it gets. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/32630497

BONUS: DISCO ELYSIUM 08/11/2024

BONUS: DISCO ELYSIUM This one got away from us - with returning champion Leora in tow we spend a good two hours mostly gushing. You should play this game if you haven't. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/32532387

SOMEONE YOU CAN BUILD A NEST IN 08/04/2024

SOMEONE YOU CAN BUILD A NEST IN You are a horrible man-eating goo monster. You grew up alone, with nobody there to teach you right from wrong. But somewhere deep in your ooze there slumbers an entire tumblr-approved lexicon of therapy speak, consent theory and minute identity parsing which allows you to become the ethical human chaser. This is thankfully funny on purpose - at least initially. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/32431282

THE SPEAR CUTS THROUGH WATER 07/21/2024

THE SPEAR CUTS THROUGH WATER It's witches versus gay boys this time around! It's a richly-textured epic journey through fantasy Southeast Asia and there's a whole metatextual second-person out of time narrative framework and it all adds up to less than the sum of its parts. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/32233192

Wizards Vs. Lesbians

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