i’ve just pulled out 44 sapphic books from my bookshelves so i can make a petty point that the whole “there just aren’t any well written sapphic books!” argument is bollocks. i’m making a video of them all, but in the meantime:
sapphic book recs:
- rosewater, liv little
- tipping the velvet, sarah waters
- milk fed, melissa broder
- she who became the sun, shelley parker-chan
- briefly a delicious life, nell stevens
- gentlest of wild things, sarah underwood
- the naked light, bridget collins
- the safe keep, yael van der wouden
- the original, nell stevens
- the tarot reader of versailles, anya bergman
- sargassa,, sophie burnham
- a line you have traced, roisin dunnett
- the lighthouse at the edge of the world, j r dawson
- sunburn, chloe michelle howarth
- ordinary saints, niamh ni mhaoileoin
- lessons in magic and disaster, charlie jane anders
- when devils sing, xan kaur
- accidental darlings, crystal jeans
- heap earth upon it, chloe michelle howarth
- hijab butch blues, lamya h
- that green eyed girl, julie owen moylan
- the devil she knows, alexandria bellefleur
- sweet bitter song, rosie hewlett
- nevada, imogen binnie
- delilah green doesn’t care, ashley herron blake
- iris kelly doesn’t doesn’t date, ashley herron blake
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I could . not. put. this down for 48 hours - stayed up too late, had weird dreams about it, woke up early, and played it while I was supposed to be doing other things. the last several dozen items took a lot of googling, which I do not even begrudge it.
and then. My partner started it. And the SAME THING happened to him.
surprisingly compelling. start when you have free time. like, yanno, a snow day.
oh my god, if you are the kind of person who gets sucked into logic puzzles, do not click that link if you have to do anything/go to sleep in the next couple hours
I was disappointed there weren't more levels, so I made them! The creator's code was under CC Share Alike, so I moved a copy to my website, rustled up 40 new categories, and added buttons so you can generate smaller puzzles!
bro i LOVE indigenous fusion music i love it when indigenous people take traditional practices and language and apply them in new cool ways i love the slow decay and decolonisation of the modern music industry
Another one for Inuit artists is Piqsiq! Two sisters who’ve been doing traditional throat singing since they were kids. They make some really gorgeous, eerie, atmospheric stuff. Highly recommend watching this video of them performing live a cappella using a looping machine, because they might be the coolest people on the planet actually
For anyone into North Asian and Central Asian folk music, there's this incredible Siberian folk-pop band called Otyken! The group is mostly women and they're from multiple indigenous groups in Siberia, with songs being sung in their range of different languages. They're so much fun and their music videos are amazing!
i'll go ahead and recommend The Halluci Nation (formerly known as A Tribe Called Red), an EDM group from First Nations Ontario that do really cool fusions of First Nations music with dubstep, moombahton, and hip hop.
I have an addition from Wallmapu! "Mawiza" is a band who makes ÜL Metal, their vocals being in the tribes language, Mapuzungún.
I was so happy to discover this band since I am in the process of learning the language of my grand family's tribe, and I also love metal of many kinds.
I want to share Lenin Tamayo's music. He coined the term QPop (Quechua Pop) and sings pop tunes in a mix of Quechua and Spanish with anti-colonialism themes.
cut content. i am so sorry i had to take it out i ran into some issues. but i promise it will make a return someday. i promise i'll make something someday where you can eat the orbs
Pick one of James Baldwin's works and read it!!! The Fire Next Time is an excellent essay, most of us are familiar with the quote on gay white people from The Last Interview but not the rest of it. If Beale Street Could Talk even has a movie!
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Just played through/read the visual novel Ediction which is available here on itch.io. this was an unbelievably beautiful, breathtaking piece with amazing characterization and worldbuilding within a relatively small space, and nothing like any other piece of art I've ever experienced
please give yourself the treat of this story about an undead goat furry in a decomposing world of cruel gods as he wrestles with chronic pain, disability, agency, faith, and suicidality
PLEASE for the love of the universe read anti-colonial science fiction and fantasy written from marginalized perspectives. Y’all (you know who you are) are killing me. To see people praise books about empire written exclusively by white women and then turn around and say you don’t know who Octavia Butler is or that you haven’t read any NK Jemisin or that Babel was too heavy-handed just kills me! I’m not saying you HAVE to enjoy specific books but there is such an obvious pattern here
Some of y’all love marginalized stories but you don’t give a fuck about marginalized creators and characters, and it shows. Like damn
Gladly! The pieces on this list aren’t limited to specifically anti-colonial science fiction and fantasy, but they do center related and relevant topics, themes, etc.
Anything by NK Jemisin. She is the best speculative fiction writer of her generation and probably the best speculative fiction writer alive. She is easily one of the best writers working right now, across all genres. That’s not hyperbole. She deserves all the hype.
Anything by Octavia Butler. She needs no introduction. Her short fiction is incredible; “Bloodchild” is one of the pieces that inspired me to write.
An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon. Excellent. Just read it.
The Radiant Emperor duology by Shelley P. Chan. It broke my heart and it'll break yours.
Babel by RF Kuang. You’ve probably already heard of this book because Harper Voyager marketed the shit out of it and was right to do so. It’s very, very good. Kuang writes a compulsively readable story, that’s for sure.
The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo.
So Long Been Dreaming: Post-Colonial Science Fiction and Fantasy (anthology) edited by Nalo Hopkinson.
Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora (anthology) edited by Nalo Hopkinson.
Severely underhyped books of assorted speculative genres:
The Blood Trials by NE Davenport. Given the current chokehold romantasy has on the public it’s insane to me that this book hasn’t sold a billion copies.
The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez. It’ll change you.
The Tiger’s Daughter by K. Arsenault Rivera.
The Lesson by Caldwell Turnbull.
Read widely. Read diversely. People of the Caucasian persuasion need to stop getting pissy when the story doesn’t immediately center them and they don’t automatically relate to everything the character says and does and is. Just let yourself get swept in the story—even if it touches on (gasp!) racism—and maybe, just maybe, it’ll reveal something to you.
Or maybe not! Marginalized sff authors do not have to and should not have to educate their readers. But if I see one more white person complain about how Black characters are fundamentally annoying because they complain too much I’m going to fling myself into the sun
Thanks for coming to my ted talk I didn’t want to do it but here I am
Seconding Babel by RF Kuang but also her series The Poppy War. It’s just really incredible fantasy.
Also Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti novella series is excellent. The cultural world building in this series is just fantastic. I imagine her other series are also very good, I haven’t read them yet, but I’m really looking forward to it.
The Magic of the Lost series by C.L. Clark (start with The Unbroken). Queer main characters, really interesting take on empire from the perspective of both the colonizer and the colonized, but specifically the kidnapped and conscripted child of the colonized people dealing with that past as an adult. Severely underrated and absolutely fantastic.
The Daevabad trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty (start with The City of Brass) and her most recent book, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi (which is set a thousand years before the daevabad series if I remember correctly). If you like hot middle-aged pirate ladies getting into trouble with powers beyond their control you will love The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi.
The Burning Kingdoms series by Tasha Suri (start with The Jasmine Throne). If you specifically liked the religious world building in A Song of Ice and Fire, this really reminded me of that but better. Also there’s a queer love story.
The Dawnhounds by Sascha Stronach. There’s kinda zombies and there are mushroom houses and a queer main character and Tamsyn Muir blurbed it (added encouragement for tlt fans). It’s a love letter to city that doesn’t exist. Really good, I need to reread it since the sequel is coming out/came out this year.
Between Earth and Sky series by Rebecca Roanhorse (start with The Black Sun). Great series and you don’t have to wait for the final book because it just came out!
Legendborn series by Tracy Deonn, YA series that’s a retelling of Arthurian legend from the POV of a Black girl going to school at UNC Chapel Hill. Definitely different than a lot of the books on this list but definitely worth a read.
anon who sent the book recommendations ask here! Sorry people are complaining at you yet again for giving a very basic answer, i thought your response was fine lol. I wrote the original ask at like 5am so it was maaaaybe not as helpful/useful as I was intending it to be in my sleep deprived state lmao.
Anyway! I have checked out some of the authors you’ve recommended (and especially I broke my ban a little to back transactional intercourse which is going to be very worth it when it comes out lol). I’m also planning to get an Akwaeke Emezi after seeing you reference them so many times, though I’m still deciding between freshwater and pet (and I may cave and grt both lol). My ask for more recommendations was more… if you had to recommend ONE octavia butler book to someone on a budget, what would it be?
And with the ask for general books: i primarily read genre fiction, both YA and adult, and I’ve been expanding my reading horizons a lot this year with the book bingo but I’m still working on it. So I guess it was more, like. Are there any books you really enjoyed/think were good that you think more people should read?
yippeeeeee welcome back book anon, let's do this
first off: thank you for backing Transactional Intercourse! that means a lot to me
now, for book recs, I'm going to operate on the assumption that we need some good standalones, since it sounds like you might be going back to your ban on buying new books after your birthday shopping spree.
if we don't want to get tangled up in any series with Butler, I'd say either Fledgling or Kindred are a great option. Kindred is probably her most straightforward novel, for lack of a better term, following a Black woman from 1970s American who is repeatedly shifted back in time to a Southern plantation, where she has to survive being treated as a slave. Fledgling is a bit more out there and one of my favorite Butler novels, an extremely unconventional vampire novel extremely interested in examining the power and politics of an insular vampire society. if you like short story collections, Bloodchild is also a very good sampling platter of Butler's style and thematic interests.
now, for some standalone novels from a variety of genre-y genres that I've enjoyed and you might too. this one is kind of hard because most my favorite sci fi and fantasy series (Daevabad, Green Bone, Dreamblood, the Kingston Cycle, Iron Widow, Locked Tomb, Singing Hills, Masquerade, Wayfarers, Murderbot, Dungeon Meshi, etc) come as duologies or trilogies or more. but having to dig a little harder is a good challenge, and I think it's a pretty fun list:
The Goblin Emperor (Katherine Addison)
Our Wives Under the Sea (Julia Armfield)
My Sister, the Serial Killer (Oyinkan Braithwaite)
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi (Shannon Chakraborty)
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I threw together a little rec list for fans of Murderbot :)
This is aimed at fans of the novellas and the TV show and I tried to capture various different elements of the story and characters.
Text of slides below the cut
The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard
Adult science fiction novella
Imagine Sherlock and Watson if Watson was a sentient, traumatized spaceship and Sherlock was a human detective investigating a murder
Faster-than-light travel, deep space unreality, mind-altering herbal teas
Spaceship POV
The spaceship really enjoys reading/watching period dramas
Vietnamese-inspired sci fi setting
No romance
One Day All This Will Be Yours by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Adult science fiction novella
The grumpy last survivor of a catastrophic time war lives a solitary life…until other time travellers try to disrupt his carefully curated retirement
The main character has a pet dinosaur
Darkly funny, misanthropic narrator
If you liked Murderbot’s first-person POV in the books, you’ll probably enjoy the narrative voice of this novella
The Butterfly Assassin by Finn Longman
Young adult dystopian thriller set in a walled city ruled by assassin guilds
Isabel Ryans is a former child assassin and the daughter of a notorious scientist
Wanting nothing more than to live a normal life, she escapes and assumes a civilian identity…but finds her past and her assassin training harder to leave behind than she’d hoped
“Raised as weapon” character grappling with violence, morality, and friendship
Aromantic asexual main character with PTSD and severe hand scarring
No romance
The Wolf Among the Wild Hunt by Merc Fenn Wolfmooor
Adult dark fantasy novella
Scythulf, a wolf shapeshifter, was raised to be nothing more than a pit fighter until he’s rescued by Brennus, a knight who offers him a new life
When Scythulf accidentally kills a corrupted nun, his only chance at redemption is to run with the Wild Hunt, a trial of blood and courage
“Raised to be a weapon” protagonist; aspec rep; strong platonic bonds
Aroace protagonist; aroace nonbinary queerplatonic partner, queernorm fantasy world
No romance
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
Adult science fiction novel
A motley spaceship crew finds adventure and friendship on their voyages through the universe
Episodic storytelling and found family dynamics
Interesting alien characters and cultures
Queer characters + F/F relationship
Cursebreakers by Madeleine Nakamura
Adult fantasy novel
Adrien Desfourneax, a disgraced physician turned professor of magic, finds himself investigating a dangerous curse while grappling with his own mental health and a dangerous ally
Gay main character with bipolar disorder; autistic-coded side character
If you love rotating TV!Gurathin in your mind, you will probably find Adrien a very interesting character
Archivist Wasp by Nicole Kornher-Stace
Young adult fantasy/dystopia
A young ghost hunter joins forces with the ghost of a supersoldier to traverse the underworld in search of the lost ghost of his partner and answers about their post-apocalyptic world
Characters shaped by ruthless dystopian worlds learning to claim their autonomy and identity
Strong M/F friendships that don’t turn into romance
Aroace-coded main character + no romance
Hullmetal Girls by Emily Skrutskie
YA science fiction novel
Hundreds of years in the future, the last survivors of the human race travel through space in a fleet of ships, searching for a new habitable planet to settle
When two girls join the order of cyborg soldiers who keep order in the fleet, they find themselves questioning their loyalties as violence brews
Explores bodily autonomy and privacy through sci fi elements
Main characters of color + ace main character
No romance
The Outside by Ada Hoffman
Adult science fiction novel
Cosmic horror x space opera
In a galaxy ruled by AI gods and their ruthless cyborg-angels, young prodigy scientist Yasira develops new technology that could change the trajectory of humanity–until her work backfires and is declared heretical
Offered her life in exchange for hunting down her vanished heretical mentor, Yasira must decide who to trust as her world’s fate hangs in the balance
Autistic lesbian main character of color
Redshirts by John Scalzi
Adult satirical science fiction novel
Ensign Andrew Dahl is excited for his new position on board the the starship Intrepid…until he begins to realize there’s a mysterious pattern of low-level ensigns like himself dramatically dying on missions…and the reason why might reshape his very understanding of reality
For the enjoyers of the TV’s take on Sanctuary Moon being a Star Trek parody
The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei
Adult science fiction novel
Anti-colonial space heist
Maya Hoshimoto, an art thief turned grad student, finds herself pulled into one last job to retrieve an artifact that could save an alien species–and possibly doom humanity
Alien-human friendships, explorations of sentience and consciousness
Japanese diaspora main character with chronic migraines
Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove
Adult science fiction inspired by classic horror stories
Demeter is a spaceship that transports humans across galaxies–except her passengers keep dying in mysterious paranormal murders
To prevent herself from being decommissioned, Demeter must track down the ultimate evil behind her passengers’ deaths: Dracula
In a near-future dystopian America, salvager Valentine runs odd jobs in the wastelands of Utah in hopes of earning enough for the gender-affirming care he desperately needs
When he encounters Osric, an AI forced into an android body, he’s offered a job that could pay him everything he needs–but at the cost of his own morals
Explores sentience and autonomy through a science fiction lense
Android/human romance
Gay, trans man main character with ADHD; gay main character
Bluebird by Ciel Pierlot
Adult science fiction novel
In a galaxy ruled by three warring rival factions, gunslinging inventor-turned-thief Rig has abandoned her former faction and is happy as a rebel–until her former faction ransoms her twin sister for what she stole from them
Alongside her librarian girlfriend, a mysterious bounty hunter, and a network of resistance contacts, Rig embarks on a journey across the galaxy to save her sister–and maybe tear down the factions for good
Rip-roaring romp of a sci fi story full of action
Alien protagonists
Lesbian main character; amputee representation
Emergent Properties by Aimee Ogden
Adult science fiction novella
Scorn is a state-of-the-art AI investigator who becomes entangled in brewing corporate warfare
When Scorn wakes up one day day on the moon with no memory of zir past ten days, ze begins a hunt into zir own past that leads them to uncover far more explosive truths than ze could have expected
Some after "Sinners" reading material if you're interested in Black American and Indigenous History (and the immigrants who came over, too). I put in the Jones-Rogers book too so y'all won't think the 58% had no serious role in shaping the horrors of America.
Adding this amazing "Sinners Syllabus" too for further resources to educate yourself. The books above are ones I have in my personal library, but some very cool people put together an entire webpage of information. Check it out HERE.
The idea of listening to no black music is bizarre to me. Even if it's not rap like no earth wind and fire? No reggae? No moonstomp? No ska? No classic jazz? No R and B? No disco??? No skindred? No jungle? No even like metal bands with a few black members? No gospel? Not even stuff like alors en dance? No blues music? No mo town? No jazz of any kind? No big band? No soul music? Not even a little James Brown?
not even yola or tanner adell or brittney spencer or tracy chapman or india.arie or chapel hart or the carolina chocolate drops or rhiannon giddens????
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I've recently learned that escaping enshitification is actually really easy. When I was younger I would use FOSS (free and open source software) because I usually couldn't afford anything else. Back then the paid options were usually significantly better than the unpaid options so when I finally got money I started using the paid stuff and completely forgot that Foss existed.
If you don't know why Foss is awesome its not just that its free. Open source software has a huge set of advantages. Most software is proprietary meaning that its code cannot be viewed by other people. Open source softwares code can be viewed by everyone and people can contribute their own code to make it better. Open source is often more secure than proprietary because more people have more eyes on it and more people have contributed to it's security. Its also easy to know how much privacy you have with every software because you can read the code. No more "trust me bro I'm not harvesting and selling your data" you know if they are collecting and selling because the code is publicly available.
In the last two months I have been switching almost completely to Foss. I was worried at first because when I stopped using Foss over 10 years ago the average Foss software was genuinely worse than the paid proprietary alternative. Thankfully things have really come full circle. 90℅ of the software I have tried in the last 2 months works better than the proprietary alternative and is 100℅ less obnoxious.
So here is a list of every Foss software I have tried and recommend. There is way more than this available. This list is just what I have used and like personally. Anyone can feel free to add and we can turn it into a master list. Please just take these as a place to start and do your own research to see if these softwares will work for your use case before you fully ditch your proprietary software.
Operating systems
Graphene os: android alt. Security and privacy focused. The most secure and private smartphone currently available.
Linux mint: easy to use linux, 100℅ better than windows.
Pop!: The Linux distro you should use if you have nividia hardware and want to play games using said hardware. Very intuitive and easy to use.
Kubuntu: Ubuntu Linux with KDE desktop. This is the linux distro one I am currently using and I don't have any plans to jump ship again. Better than windows and better than Mac. The companion app for your phone makes life soooo easy. Its pretty and easy to customize to a ridiculously granular level. No fucking notes.
Kindle jailbreak- ko reader: use jailbreak to free your kindle from the tyranny of the bezos. It will download ko reader which is a Foss OS that has every fucking feature you always wished kindle had and let's you read whatever the fuck you want, and have whatever the screensaver you want (no more ads!). Soooo fuck amazon and use this. I genuinely cannot recommend it enough.
Linux FOSS: (some available on windows and android as well)
Calibre: Foss desktop eBook library. Packed with features. You will want to use this with koreader to make managing your kindle easy.
Manuscript: skrivner alt. Does absolutely everything I need.
Bitwarden: password manager (use a keepass fork if you want self hosted)
Next cloud: private google drive and cloud alternative that you can self host if you want but it's not required. App available
Proton VPN: to the best of my knowledge it is the only Foss no log VPN you can get. You can pay for higher speeds. App available
Quad9dns: free encrypted DNS provider. App available.
News software:
Use any Foss RSS reader and for the love of god stop getting news from social media. Take control of your feed!
Apps (I only know for android)
Fdroid: great app store to find Foss android apps and download them.
Antennapod: you can get all of your podcasts fetched to one feature rich app via RSS feed. No need to rely on spotify or music steaming services.
Openreads: it's good reads but private and 100℅ stored locally. No amazon, no social media aspect, it just tracks your reading, you can import your good reads but if you want to import from storygraph you have to make a good reads burner account, import to good reads, then import to openreads. The menus Navigation on this one is a bit cumbersome but honestly good reads app is worse.
Newpipe: YouTube frontend that let's you have YouTube subscriptions, watch YouTube in the background, and blocks all ads, without logging in to YouTube. You will want to use this one with a VPN set to Canada (or any other country) so YouTube doesn't keep blocking it in order to force you to sign in. But even with that extra step its worth it for the privacy and the lack of ads.
Proton mail: one of 2 more private gmail alts. But you should note that email cannot be 100℅ anonymous or private.
I think that's it. There are still a lot software varieties I am slowly finding.
the new york times is now charging money for my favorite chocolate cake recipe so i bought a subscription and screenshotted it and canceled my subscription and now it's here for you for free
i do a mixture of red wine and fresh squeezed navel orange juice for the liquid, plus the zest of one large orange. now you make the cake
