#ya sff

"WELL, ALLY—HAVE YOU EVER WANTED TO BE A GOD?"

Pitched as QUEER ATLA MEETS PERCY JACKSON, Alvoskia: Call of the Infrans is a YA SFF debut following a group of reincarnated chosen ones. Raised together since childhood and trained to serve and protect the nation of Alvoskia, the Infrans are thick as thieves, but Infran of Life Ally Hatten can't quite seem to get her powers back, and time is running out, especially when the threat of war is brought to her doorstep. To stop the conflict before it begins, she'll have to rely on her vengeful twin sister and one-sided rival—people she both loves and loathes in equal measure.

Mixed with spades of Six of Crows, Call of the Infrans has an emphasis on:

Ragtag group of not squeaky clean, sometimes morally dubious protagonists

Entirely queer (i.e. nonbinary lesbian, trans, asexual characters) / BIPOC main cast

Unique and layered worldbuilding (religion, languages, etc) in a secondary world fantasy

Kaz/Inej's love child as a secondary main character

Friendship and found family

Shapeshifters

Past lives and parallels

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao is a blaze of female anger and the refusal to bury it for anyone or anything. A mix of Pacific Rim and The Hunger Games, it depicts a world where men grow up to be pilots of Chrysalises, giant transforming robots meant to protect Huaxia from the aliens beyond the Great Wall. 

But to obtain their glory, they take concubines into battle—concubines that they drain and leave for dead to fuel the transformations. But Zeitan is done with it all. Her feet painfully bound, her sister dead at the hands of one of Huaxia's most famous pilots. She wants to see him die. Little does she know she'll emerge as one of the best and most controversial female pilots Huaxia has seen. 

I could not put this book down. It is satisfying and cut-throat. Zeitan is determined to watch this world burn, and so are we. I've been anticipating this one ever since someone at the Hugos told me they thought it was the best depiction of female rage they had ever read, and it filled that bill—everything Zeitan feels is justified from a lifetime of chronic pain and being taught that her life is only meant to serve as a man's energy well. 

The danger feels real, the chemistry in the romances is absolute fire, the twists are exciting, the systemic, structural misogyny is infuriating, and the imagery and action are incredibly cinematic. It's brutal, vivid, and powered by a main character who is cunning, uncompromising, and bold. Can't wait for the sequel. 

YA SFF Books by Black Authors 

A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow: About the strength of black sisterhood set in Portland, OR, best friends Tavi and Effie discover their true supernatural identity when Effie starts being haunted by demons from her past, and Tavia accidentally lets out her magical siren voice during a police stop.

A Chorus Rises (A Song Below Water #2) by Bethany C. Morrow: Teen influencer Naema Bradshaw is an Eloko, a person who’s gifted with a song that woos anyone who hears it. Everyone loves her — well, until she's cast as the awful person who exposed Tavia’s secret siren powers. When a new, flourishing segment of Naema’s online supporters start targeting black girls, however, Naema must discover the true purpose of her magical voice.

A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown: Inspired by West African folklore in which a grieving crown princess, Karina, and a desperate refugee, Malik, find themselves on a collision course to murder each other, despite their growing attraction.

Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor: Sunny Nwazue, an American-born albino child of Nigerian parents, moves with her family back to Nigeria, where she learns that she has latent magical powers which she and three similarly gifted friends use to catch a serial killer.

Akata Warrior (Akata Witch #2) by Nnedi Okorafor: Now stronger, feistier, and a bit older, Sunny Nwazue, along with her friends from the the Leopard Society, travel through worlds, both visible and invisible, to the mysterious town of Osisi, where they fight in a climactic battle to save humanity.

Bad Witch Burning by Jessica Lewis: For fans of Us and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina comes a witchy story full of black girl magic as one girl’s dark ability to summon the dead offers her a chance at a new life, while revealing to her an even darker future.

Beasts Made of Night by Tochi Onyebuchi: After he eats the sin of a royal, Taj, a talented aki, or sin-eater who consumes the guilt of others whose transgressions are exorcised from them by powerful but corrupt Mages, is drawn into a plot to destroy the city, and he must fight to save the princess he loves and his own life.

Beasts of Prey by Ayana Gray: Two Black teenagers, talented Beastkeeper Koffi and warrior-in-training Ekon, must trek into a magical jungle to take down an ancient creature menacing the city of Lkossa, before they become the hunted.

The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton: In the opulent world of Orléans, where Beauty is a commodity only a few control, Belle Camellia Beauregard will learn the dark secrets behind her powers, and rise up to change the world. 

A Blade So Black by L.L. McKinney: A whimsical and butt-kicking Alice in Wonderland retelling featuring a black teen heroine who battles Nightmares in the dark and terrifying dream realm known as Wonderland. 

Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves: 16-year-old Hanna reunites with her estranged mother in an East Texas town that is haunted with doors to dimensions of the dead and protected by demon hunters called Mortmaine.

Blood Like Magic by Liselle Sambury: Set in near-future Toronto in which, after failing to come into her powers, 16-year-old Black witch Voya Thomas must choose between losing her family’s magic forever or murdering her first love.

The Bones of Ruin by Sarah Raughley: Set in Victorian England, African tightrope walker Iris cannot die; but soon gets drafted in the fight-to-the-death tournament of freaks where she learns the terrible truth of who and what she really is.

The Cost of Knowing by Brittney Morris: A gripping, evocative novel about Black teen Alex Rufus, who has the power to see into the future, and whose life turns upside down when he foresees his younger brother’s imminent death.

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi: 17-year-old Zélie and companions journey to a mythic island seeking a chance to bring back magic to the land of Orïsha, in a fantasy world infused with the textures of West Africa.

Children of Virtue and Vengeance (Legacy of Orïsha #2) by Tomi Adeyemi: After battling the impossible, Zélie and Amari have finally succeeded in bringing magic back to the land of Orïsha. But with civil war looming on the horizon, Zélie finds herself at a breaking point: she must discover a way to bring the kingdom together or watch as Orïsha tears itself apart.

Cinderella Is Dead by Kalynn Bayron: 16-year-old Sophia would much rather marry Erin, her childhood best friend, than parade in front of suitors. At the ball, Sophia flees, hiding in Cinderella’s mausoleum. There, she meets Constance, the last known descendant of Cinderella and her step sisters. Together they vow to bring down the king once and for all.

The Cost of Knowing by Brittney Morris: A gripping, evocative novel about Black teen Alex Rufus, who has the power to see into the future, and whose life turns upside down when he foresees his younger brother’s imminent death.

Crown of Thunder (Beasts Made of Night #2) by Tochi Onyebuchi: Taj has escaped Kos, but Queen Karima will go to any means necessary--including using the most deadly magic--to track him down. 

A Crown So Cursed (Nightmare Verse #3) by L.L. McKinney: Alice is ready to jump into battle when she learns that someone is building an army of Nightmares to attack the mortal world, before she learns of a personal connection to Wonderland.

Daughters of Jubilation by Kara Lee Corthron: In Jim Crow South, black teen Evalene Deschamps finds her place among a family of women gifted with magical abilities, known as jubilation - a gift passed down from generations of black women since the time of slavery.

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland: The Civil War is over, but mostly because the dead rose at Gettysburg—and then started rising everywhere else. Fighting the undead is a breeze for Jane McKenne, an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. But the fight for freedom? That’s a different story.

china's only female emperor being a boss babe patriarchy destroyer while being 1/3rd of a supreme hot throuple sandwich in YA duology format coming to your nearest book platforms September 21, 2021

art for aforementioned supreme hot throuple sandwich

Anyways so like

y'all may know who xiran is y'all may know what the iron widow duology is y'all may even have been vaguely interested in reading the books but like.

I am here to make the fact that this is one of the only things I care about this year everyone else's problem

first let's do all the words

Iron Widow is a YA Pacific Rim meets The Handmaid’s Tale retelling of the rise of Wu Zetian, the only female emperor in Chinese history. The duology will follow an 18-year-old re-imagining of her as she avenges her sister’s murder by an intensely patriarchal military system that pairs boys and girls up to pilot giant magical mecha based on creatures from East Asian myth (Nine-Tailed Fox, Moon Rabbit, etc.), but in which boy pilots are treated like celebrities, while girl pilots must serve as their concubines. It will be out from Penguin Teen / Penguin Random House Canada Sept 21 2021, with book 2 to follow in Fall 2022. In the UK and other commonwealth countries besides Canada, it will be out from Rock The Boat on Oct 7 2021.

the official blurb

The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn’t matter that the girls often die from the mental strain.

When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.

To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia​. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way—and stop more girls from being sacrificed.

the official goodreads summary blurb thingy

Under siege by monsters beyond the Great Wall like that shitty Matt Damon movie, except the monsters are Cybertronian-like sentient machines, a society that has the fashion, social customs, and beliefs of Ancient China but futuristic tech fights back by pulling a Neon Genesis Evangelion and rebuilding their very invaders into giant mecha. A boy-girl pair in their teens, because of course they have to be teens, pilot the mecha Darling in the Franxx style, except in a much more sensible position (he hugs her from behind). Under command of human pilots, these mecha take on forms inspired by East Asian myth creatures and transform like Transformers through Digimon-esque evolution lines that get more humanoid as you go on. The pilots physically embody them, so it’s more Attack on Titan rules than Gundam. Oh, and they blast qi attacks, so the battles honestly read like a bunch of furries engaged in a Dragon Ball Z fight, and that’s no one’s fault but mine.

Bonus Summary for Weebs (by the author, Xiran Jay Zhao)

now more words but funny ones and also thirst traps

our main character everyone bow to the queen

throuple himbo #1 like even if you don't read any of those words right there you may have read “Godfrey Fucking Gao” and for simple creatures like myself that's more than enough. but also all those other words

throuple bitch #3 and like. I don't think half of y'all would even need to read the character summary short thingy after seeing Xiao Zhan right fucking there but like. if anyone was worried that this bitch was not gonna pull his weight in this supreme hot throuple sandwich well now we're not worried in the least.

and now we speak the language of the gods. memes.

all of this and more (art for the books INCLUDING mecha art) can be found on the author's official website here

also check them out on instagram for the cosplay stuff their youtube channel for asian rep in movies critique stuff and their twitter for all of that and more including multiple hilarious and very educational tweet threads on historical anecdotes

read the books, pray to our god xiran and hope the throuple don't end themselves before they end you and the patriarchy

it is because i am officially querying my 80k-ish queer YA SFF novel 

(think ATLA + six of crows + TDP) and that is taking up more time & energy! it is a very fun if tiring process, and i’m currently modifying my query and putting the novel under a few different revisions (adding a small subplot, fixing the pacing in the first chapter or so by splicing in a new scene and then smoothing out the changes).

basic plot is this: 

the only ‘unchosen’ one (claudia+rayla in so many ways) in her ragtag found family of kids (think the avatar but spread out over a group, not concentrated in one person, each with their own unique abilities) is forced to come to terms with her one sided rivalry with her friend (artistic, agreeable & nb; zuko but significantly friendlier) and her sister (grumpy with knives, vengeance, and whole lot of faith) while on a quest to stop a war before it begins - and to accept herself exactly as she is. 

prominent tropes include:

twins with opposing personalities 

reincarnation (past lives, cycles, all that jazz)

the most important thing of all: found family

two countries with a long history of war and cold war between them

angry girls

soft boys (callum on steroids) 

quest narrative

elves, dragons, and shapeshifters

allegories for autism (and with actually autistic characters to be explicitly explored in the following books)

allegories for “gifted” x “slacker” kid shit

discussions of immigration, physical / religious / emotional trauma, politics, mental health and the hope of healing

every character has a corresponding taylor swift song

(jamie’s songs are my tears ricochet, clean, and this is why we can’t have nice things; ally’s are mirrorball, this is me trying, and the archer; they are both mixed and coded as Asian, specifically Indonesian)

re warnings: some slight gore and violence, mentions of animal abuse / death, no homo/transphobia, no racism, and no SA 

The full Aramteskan grammar has been published on Fiat Lingua. This contains all the notes and details of the constructed language that I created for the Shadowscent fantasy world. Now that the series is completed, I decided to share the work that I had done on the language, in part to stop myself from continuing to tinker with it.

From the Fiat Lingua summary page:

This document provides an overview of the grammar of the Aramteskan language, created by Lauren Gawne for P. M. Freestone’s Shadowscent series (The Darkest Bloom and Crown of Smoke). This represents the state of completed work on the grammar at the conclusion of these two books. This is by no means a complete or detailed grammar, and some sections may contain more information than others.

The publication includes notes on a variety of linguistic features. It also includes a detailed translation of the quest text in book one, and a glossary of words in Aramteskan. 

Reference:

Gawne, Lauren. 2021. Aramteskan Grammar. Fiat Lingua. https://fiatlingua.org/2021/10/

See also:

How I made the Aramteskan language for P.M. Freestone’s Shadowscent

Smell verbs in Aramteskan - One way of walking, but many ways of smelling

Shadowscent Updates: The Darkest Bloom in many languages, Crown of Smoke pre-order, map and… a perfume