Wizards Vs. Lesbians

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

LOLLY WILLOWES 06/21/2026

LOLLY WILLOWES A charming little novel from 1926. We're normally pretty relaxed when it comes to spoilers, particularly for a book that's a century old, but we think the less you know about this one going in the better. Lolly Willowes; or The Loving Huntsman - Sylvia Townsend Warner /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/41714495

SAWKILL GIRLS 06/07/2026

SAWKILL GIRLS A familiar setup - a misogynist demon who possesses girls and infects them with its predatory desires - executed in a way which is, yes, bad, admittedly very bad, but also very funny. Sawkill Girls (2018) - Claire Legrand /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/41563160

THE CHILD GARDEN 05/24/2026

THE CHILD GARDEN A debilitating novel - simultaneously enormous and petty, tragic and hilarious, insightful and insular. It wrecked us down the stretch but left us unmoved at the end. We think it's great but we're not sure if you should read it. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/41407640

STORIES FROM THE SINGING HILLS 05/17/2026

STORIES FROM THE SINGING HILLS We return to Nghi Vo's Singing Hills series and discuss the three next most wizlez-adjacent books in it (to date.) Covered in this episode: The Empress of Salt and Fortune, The Brides of High Hill, and A Mouthful of Dust. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/41323815

ON A SUNBEAM 05/03/2026

ON A SUNBEAM This week we're talking about a classic webcomic in both senses of the word, as it feels like it comes from a departed era of the internet despite being barely a decade old. Part of that vibe stems from the fact that you can still read it, in its entirety and ad-free, on its own - an unimaginable luxury these days. Check it out (it's a classic for a reason) and then join us for a discussion of what's aged well and what hasn't. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/41132660

THE CINDER HOUSE 04/19/2026

THE CINDER HOUSE It's a Cinderella retelling! But it's Freya Marsk, so it's better than it needs to be, and stranger. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/40926190

BONUS: WHAT WE ARE SEEKING 04/12/2026

BONUS: WHAT WE ARE SEEKING Anthropological SF in the mold of Cherryh or Le Guin, updated for our era and its preoccupations - funny, surprising, and smart. We have a lot of fun discussing the return of Cameron Reed. Our guest Louis Evans has a new story out! Find it /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/40817095

THE SECRET MARKET OF THE DEAD 03/31/2026

THE SECRET MARKET OF THE DEAD This is that good, chunky, deeply strange fairy tale stuff. You don't have to settle for Gaiman - you never did, honestly. Plus it's Italian and there are cats. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/40684925

BONUS: Q & A 5 (FIVE YEARS!) 03/22/2026

BONUS: Q & A 5 (FIVE YEARS!) A particularly silly one. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/40571985

THE MEMORY HUNTERS 03/15/2026

THE MEMORY HUNTERS This 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. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/40487670

BONUS: 5TH ANNUAL WIZZLY AWARDS 03/08/2026

BONUS: 5TH ANNUAL WIZZLY AWARDS I just think silly podcast award shows are neat. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/40357285

KITCHEN 03/01/2026

KITCHEN As we embark on Year 5 of Wizards vs Lesbians we are relaxing our entry requirements even further - we're covering this classic little novel about grief and cooking because we wanted to, and that's about it. No wizards to be seen, but there is at least one queer woman involved. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/40270110

TAIWAN TRAVELOGUE 02/15/2026

TAIWAN TRAVELOGUE As we enter our fifth year we are giving ourselves permission to get a little weird with our selections. This isn't SF, but it is full of metatextual trickery, so we say close enough; and there are lesbians. A historical novel masquerading as a contemporary travelogue, translated fictionally from Japanese to Mandarin and then genuinely from Mandarin to English. It's about food and empire and Taiwan, which has had a lot of both. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/40115055

JANE, UNLIMITED 02/01/2026

JANE, UNLIMITED Layer upon layer of nested mysteries are waiting to be unpeeled at tu reviens, a bafflingly enormous mansion full of/made of more or less stolen art on an island off the New York coast. This book is a really impressive technical achievement and also a lot of fun. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/39952055

SHORT FICTION ROUNDUP #8 01/18/2026

SHORT FICTION ROUNDUP #8 A particularly good crop of stories. The theme linking these is betrayal - of a lover, of one's family, of one's culture - and the part that desire, queer or not, plays in it. Read them here: /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/39773205

BONUS: ANGELMAKER 01/11/2026

BONUS: ANGELMAKER Jake Casella Brookins of the Ancillary Review of Books and A Meal of Thorns joins us to discuss a novel by Nick Harkaway. We last encountered Harkaway carrying on his father's spy novel franchise, and this isn't that - it's more Neverwhere as directed by Guy Ritchie - but there's still a lot in there about legacies and dads. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/39688460

VOLATILE MEMORY 01/04/2026

VOLATILE MEMORY A cyberpunk novel about animal masks. This is a potently fertile symbol combo, a blend of metaphor-rich soils, so the only question is what conceptual seeds are being planted here. Look forward to a bumper crop of gender come harvest time, with a scattering of disability discourse (and the odd cracked egg.) /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/39607025

TO THE RESURRECTION STATION 12/21/2025

TO THE RESURRECTION STATION What have we here? A weird little gay novel from the late 70s, too full of energy to take itself seriously but too emotionally resonant to be dismissed, and it's an early work by one of our favorite authors? Absolute catnip. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/39486225

ONIISAMA E 12/07/2025

ONIISAMA E For our 125th episode we discuss a foundational text in yuri manga in which an exclusive private girl's school is as byzantine and treacherous as the court of Versailles. Would you like to fall in love with the beautiful tortured poet or the noble revolutionary hero with a hidden hurt? They both play basketball. We're joined in our discussion by yuri experts Katherine and Amy. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/39312855

BONUS: BITING THE SUN 11/30/2025

BONUS: BITING THE SUN Rachel Swirsky joins us to discuss a book about a post-scarcity psychedelic utopia in which you remain a young hippie for centuries until you finally become complacent enough to be allowed the privilege of being Old. It's a book about a very specific place and time, but it's beautiful and weird enough that its poetry compels even when its satire doesn't. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/39211045

DIRECT DESCENDENT 11/23/2025

DIRECT DESCENDENT We have here a bit of cozy horror set in a small town in Ontario - the reader can choose to focus on the cozy or on the horror, as they like, making it a versatile bit of kit. Unfortunately, the central romance is a bit of a clunker, and it's hard to read around that. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/39139310

WHEN THEY BURNED THE BUTTERFLY 11/09/2025

WHEN THEY BURNED THE BUTTERFLY It's magical gang warfare in Singapore, circa 1972. All the politics, history and gender you could ask for but folded into a plot that moves at breakneck speed and never lets you lose interest. We really liked this one. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/38967805

RADCLIFFE HALL and BUT NOT TOO BOLD 10/26/2025

RADCLIFFE HALL and BUT NOT TOO BOLD We bring you a pair of novellas, both of which are about living in a big creepy house which is haunted by an ancient woman. They go on to have very different opinions about how cool that would be, even though the underlying metaphors are largely the same. You can read Radcliffe Hall here: https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/radcliffe-hall/ /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/38783530

BONUS: THE RAGPICKER 10/19/2025

BONUS: THE RAGPICKER Kerstin Hall of Asunder fame joins us to discuss a book about aging and the end of the world. (It turns out aging isn't the end of the world, but the end of the world isn't the end of the world either.) There's also a lot of stuff about the internet, autism and knowing the names of plants, but more importantly it's a beautiful little book that is absolutely not afraid to get weird with it. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/38634740

THE STARVING SAINTS 10/12/2025

THE STARVING SAINTS Cannibalism season continues on Wizards vs. Lesbians, as this one's a story about how all of us would probably eat some human meat the second things get difficult, and how on a metaphorical level we definitely already have. It's not without its problems but it does a good job of capturing how we all felt during lockdown and drawing a line between that feeling and our current predicament(s). /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/38553475

BUNNY 09/28/2025

BUNNY A novel about being in an MFA (but not necessarily an MFA novel) with all the horror that implies. What if your creative process involved doing unethical things to dumb animals, and what if you have a hard time separating your creative process from your sex life? /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/38381670

METAL FROM HEAVEN 09/14/2025

METAL FROM HEAVEN 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. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/38214950

AUNT TIGRESS 08/31/2025

AUNT TIGRESS 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. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/38035095

BONUS: KARLA'S CHOICE 08/24/2025

BONUS: KARLA'S CHOICE 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? /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/37938600

SHORT FICTION ROUNDUP #7 08/17/2025

SHORT FICTION ROUNDUP #7 Today we cover by Ursula Whitcher, by Lowry Poletti, and by Sarah Pinsker. /episode/index/show/wizlez/id/37853335

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