BLOOOOOOOOOOOO

Wacom recently asked me to talk about why I make queer comics, and given there are multiple bills right now floating around in congress that are effectively "we will kill your livelihood if we get a sniff of queer" I had some pretty strong, simply feelings to relay.

O Human Star: my 2012-2020 webcomic about an inventor who wakes up in a robot body after being dead for 16 years and seeks out his former partner and the young android who shares a copy of his mind.

Meal: an aspiring chef moves to town, meets a cute girl, and tries to get hired at a restaurant that specializes in insect cuisine. Written with my friend Soleil Ho.

Across a Field of Starlight: two nonbinary teens from two very different spacefaring societies meet by chance and stay in touch even as a galaxy-spanning war threatens them both.

Adversary: A former women's self defense instructor stumbles into a messy relationship with a former student who has since transitioned. My covid-era feel-bad book. Adults only.

“Please stay for supper, Pike. We haven’t had a real meal together yet.”

Hello; I made the webcomic RICE BOY 20 years ago; I am premiering a big video essay about that on Twitch, Sunday June 14 at 9pm EST if you would like to come by. Starting a preliminary curated music pre-show thing at 8pm EST

O Human Star: my 2012-2020 webcomic about an inventor who wakes up in a robot body after being dead for 16 years and seeks out his former partner and the young android who shares a copy of his mind.

Meal: an aspiring chef moves to town, meets a cute girl, and tries to get hired at a restaurant that specializes in insect cuisine. Written with my friend Soleil Ho.

Across a Field of Starlight: two nonbinary teens from two very different spacefaring societies meet by chance and stay in touch even as a galaxy-spanning war threatens them both.

Adversary: A former women's self defense instructor stumbles into a messy relationship with a former student who has since transitioned. My covid-era feel-bad book. Adults only.

This one hurt, her work had such a profound effect on my life, thoughts, and politics.

May her memory be a blessing

ok let's do another one! this time we have Bookriot's 100 sci-fi fantasy novels by female authors.

just to pre-empt a few possible objections to the list, it was published in 2016 and:

JK Rowling's public transphobia downward spiral began in 2018.

All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, Martha Wells) was published in 2017 and Gideon the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir) was published in 2019.

The Fifth Season (NK Jemisin) was published in 2015 & given that the editor included a different NK Jemisin I presume Fifth Season simply hadn't hit all-time classic status yet.

The editor stated upfront that they included 1 book per author.

I have no idea what We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Shirley Jackson) is doing there given that it categorically is not SFF.

A Woman of the Iron People by Eleanor Arnason. Readers in the Le Guin-Leckie continuum will find a lot to enjoy in Arnason's work, like this dual narrative about an inhabitant of a planet entering its Iron Age making first contact with an anthropologist from a socialist Earth.

Trouble and Her Friends by Melissa Scott. Pitch-perfect '90s cyberpunk about the breakup of a lesbian relationship where one hacker continues to live on the margins of cybercrime while her ex goes corporate.

The Mount by Carol Emshwiller. A goofy but sincere story from the perspective of a man who's been raised to be ridden like a horse by the small alien race that's taken over Earth.

The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard. A twist on the Holmes/Watson dynamic of solving mysteries in a culturally Vietnamese space empire, where in this case the Watson's a traumatized sentient spaceship.

The Killing Gift by Bari Wood. If Shirley Jackson made that list, Wood deserves to be here as well. A underrated horror gem about a woman whose social and economic privilege shields her from the consequences of her disquieting supernatural abilities.

Manhunt by Gretchen Felker Martin. Another great horror title that explores a what-if premise that could be a huge fumble in the wrong hands - "what if anyone with too much testosterone is vulnerable to a monstrous transformation at the hands of a plague" - and makes it an invigorating, gut-wrenching touchdown.

Cyteen by C.J. Cherryh. Surprised there's no Cherryh on this list, since she's very prolific and there are a lot of fun entry points. I recommend this one if you like reading about complex relationship dynamics on a terraforming planet, and characters thrust into some of the most existentially horrifying conundrums I've ever read.