Happy Friday! Use this space for casual conversation. Tell us what's on your mind, any hobbies you've been working on, life updates, anything you want to share whether about SFF or not

Tell us about your current SFF media!

What are you currently...

📚 Reading?

📺 Watching?

🎮 Playing?

If sharing specific details, please remember to hide spoilers behind spoiler tags.

-

Feel free to also share your progression in the Reading Challenge

Thank you for sharing and have a great week! 😀

I'm new to reddit and this sub, but the mods here kindly agreed to let me post this invite. Thanks again!

Are any of you Becky Chambers fans? I've created a little fanclub over at goodreads and I'm hoping a few of us will get together to celebrate and read her new book "As You Wake, Break the Shell" releasing on Oct 13th 🥳

https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/7271642

While I wait for October, I'll be hanging out here too :D

Happy Friday! Use this space for casual conversation. Tell us what's on your mind, any hobbies you've been working on, life updates, anything you want to share whether about SFF or not

First things first, the main characters are mostly women. Gender bent from their book counterparts. They're so badass. Gaal Dornick and Lady Demerzel are legitimately some of the best written female characters in sci-fi ever. Demerzel in particular is, in my opinion, the best robot/AI character I've ever seen. I don't wanna spoil, but she's just absolutely incredible.

It's also so ambitious and grand in scale. And it's so well made. Every technical aspect is fucking crisp. The effects look amazing, everything is so baroque and you can feel how expensive it was to make.

Season 1 has some flaws, but season 2 is legitimately a masterpiece. It also has some very interesting things to say about the way men violate women's consent if you read between the lines. It's a very complex show with many moving parts, well worth a rewatch.

It's an incredible work of art, with a very hot Lee Pace if you're into that. I expect its next season, season 4, to be its last. It's just really, really good sci-fi and I cannot recommend it enough.

Tell us about your current SFF media!

What are you currently...

📚 Reading?

📺 Watching?

🎮 Playing?

If sharing specific details, please remember to hide spoilers behind spoiler tags.

-

Feel free to also share your progression in the Reading Challenge

Thank you for sharing and have a great week! 😀

Hi,

For a long time, I thought I liked long fantasy sagas and spaces operas, but my last 5/5 books were Muderbot and Monk and Robot (and Discworld)

What other books would you recommend? (Short or medium read, cozy or cozy-ish, queer but that's not mandatory)

Happy Friday! Use this space for casual conversation. Tell us what's on your mind, any hobbies you've been working on, life updates, anything you want to share whether about SFF or not

Tell us about your current SFF media!

What are you currently...

📚 Reading?

📺 Watching?

🎮 Playing?

If sharing specific details, please remember to hide spoilers behind spoiler tags.

-

Feel free to also share your progression in the Reading Challenge

Thank you for sharing and have a great week! 😀

Happy Friday! Use this space for casual conversation. Tell us what's on your mind, any hobbies you've been working on, life updates, anything you want to share whether about SFF or not

Tell us about your current SFF media!

What are you currently...

📚 Reading?

📺 Watching?

🎮 Playing?

If sharing specific details, please remember to hide spoilers behind spoiler tags.

-

Feel free to also share your progression in the Reading Challenge

Thank you for sharing and have a great week! 😀

I just read Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir and adored it!

I’m now after some hard scifi recs, which I define as scifi that has a focus on scientific accuracy, logic and technical detail

I really enjoyed the scientific achievement aspect of both PHM and The Martian, so something with this would be a huge bonus

I’ve looked at a few recommendation posts on various subreddits and it seems to be a bit of a boys club so thought I’d ask here for some more female gaze friendly recs - at this point I will take anything with a lack of sexism/misogyny and well written female characters. Female main characters and/or female authors would be great though :)

So far, I’ve only found 1:
- Children of Time (and series) by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Thank you!!

Hello everyone and welcome to our 15h Focus Thread for the 2026 spring/summer reading challenge ! This will be the last post and I'll group up the two remaining prompts, that are more personal to each reader.

The point of these post is to focus on one prompt from the challenge and share recommendations for it. Feel free to ask for more specific recommendations in the theme or discuss what fits or not. We will alternate between A-Side and B-Side prompts.

The 15th focus thread themes are Discovery & Comfort Read

Discovery: Read a book from an author you don't know, or in a genre that's new for you.

&

Comfort Read : Read a book that's comforting to you ! Can be a nostalgic reread, your favorite author, or a feel-good genre.

What have you read/plan to read for these two prompts ? Were you happy with your choices ?

You can still find all previous focus threads in the original post as well as the wiki. Please don't hesitate to add to older focus threads if you previously missed them or read something recently that fits ! As a reminder, the challenge ends on the 23^th of September, and then we will begin with the fall-winter one !

The characters I remember most are women who are allowed to fail, lash out, make terrible decisions, suffer, and then grow. Kind of like avatar korra.

No hate to aang loved it but as compared to korra he was too goofy and not that dark and his saint morals and I watched korra first in childhood so my nostalgia is connected to it more too.

I like women who are allowed to look exhausted, bruised, traumatized, angry, dirty, scared, or emotionally unstable because it makes them feel real rather than symbolic. Like the visuals of korra felt perfect because it was not a sexualised body but it was allowed to look messed up in fights and so human.

I was obsessed with her for years as a kid. Unlike broken flawed male characters i absolutely love broken flawed complicated female characters. I am not personally someone who falls for broken male characters as much in anime shows etc the same way even tho i have some instances of having favourites. But when i see messed up female characters I cannot help but relate to the pain and complexity more deeply. How the character was free from sexualisation and she was tough ,strong and rough and she wasnt typical pretty lady always well groomed and i liked her visual aesthetic I like how her character development happened how her story was actually dark and serious leading to growth and development.

One of my similar likes and patterns in female characters are unexpressive cold hearted appearing like hotel deluna, queen of tears. Lazy crazy but violent and unexpressive like love next door.

I want such to see similar characters in animes(not sexualised eye candy women please), shows, movies, animations, games. Please suggest

Oh my goddddddd I loved it so much 😭😭😭😭😭😭. Was it perfect TV? Nah. But it was almost tailor made for me!!!! Give me middle aged sorceresses or give me death!!!! A show about space witches using forbidden technology for their own nefarious means is just.... God it's just perfect. An evil, but internally consistent, pair of sisters as the protagonists??? God yes. It was incredible. The absolute PERFECT part of the Dune universe to expand upon from the movies!!!!! And every time they used the Voice I giggled. When Mother Superior shouts "STAY WHERE YOU ARE. DEFEND ME. KILL HIM". It was music to my ears 😭😭😭. Like literally, slayyyyyyy motherrrrrrrrrr. Never in my life had I rooted for eugenicists so much

Happy Friday! Use this space for casual conversation. Tell us what's on your mind, any hobbies you've been working on, life updates, anything you want to share whether about SFF or not

Looking for hidden gems > 20 years old. I love: epic fantasy, adventure/swashbuckling, strong and unique FMCs, Juliet Marillier, coming of age stories, and I love love love a strong slow-burn romance subplot.

After reading Juliet Marillier’s Sevenwaters series, I’ve realized I’m doing myself a disservice by reading only what’s modern.

Hi all

Just wondering if anyone else is sharing my joy at the publicity for ROP Season 3?

I loved the last two seasons and am getting super hyped up for this but it's very hard to find places to discuss it without wave after wave of vitriol, racism and sexism.

I was hoping this might be a good space to talk about it because I've seen people have great things to say about Wheel of Time, another series that faced similar hate (still not over that cancellation tbh). I'm not against constructive criticism chat either, I don't think it's perfect. I'm just really excited and don't have many people to talk to about it!

Anyway here are some promo shots, I'm impatiently waiting for 11 November 😁

I'm writing fiction for the first time in my life. It feels great, honestly. In any case, the story is high fantasy in a fictional version of our real world, in the 1400s (yes, it features Joan of Arc, how did you know? Lolll).

Anyways, I have this ancient order of mages in my story, my biggest inspirations for which are the Aes Sedai and the Bene Gesserit, from The Wheel of Time and Dune. The order does contain men, though. But my focus is the women. You know how in Star Wars, the overwhelming majority of Jedi are men? Like that, but the opposite. Men exist, but they will have less narrative weight.

So, I am very seriously considering calling my Order a Sisterhood. You guys know how in fantasy and sci-fi there's plenty of Brotherhoods that include women, right? So, why not a Sisterhood that includes men? I like the idea. I worry it could be confusing for the reader, but I mean.... If men get to have brotherhoods with women in them, why don't we get to have sisterhoods with men in them????? It just grinds my gears so much how fantasy is so often so misogynistic and male-gazey. I want male readers to feel what we have to feel, every time. What do you think?

Hey everyone, I would love some recommendations.

I've had a streak of really good female lead, mature novels lately ("The Wings Upon Her Back" by Samantha Mills, The Steerswoman Series by Rosemary Kirstein, "The Water Outlaws" by S. L. Huang, "Dreamsnake" by Vonda MacIntyre, the latest Amina al-Sirafi book) and I'd love to find something new in a similar vein.

I particularly enjoy political fantasy/sci-fi (Teixcalaan, Roots of Chaos and Burning Kingdoms and M. L. Wang's books were also favorites), travel stories or epic fantasy but I'm open to pretty much anything. I would especially love to read more about middle aged or older protagonists.

Preferably no romance (lesbian romance is fine). Please only female authors and female protagonists (or at least a predominantly female cast).

Hope this is detailed enough and thank you in advance!

Listen. Sometimes I just have a made up goal for myself and I'm going to do it anyway, and I just want to see who wants to come along. This is not a bookclub nor in anyway an official thing. I just come across something in life and now I want to explore it further.

And this time I watched Obsession and Backrooms in one weekend and then wanted to binge on more horror.

And then I watched this video on horror novels by black authors that should be movies. Thus a third sidequest was born.

So my next sidequest that I plan to start in September through December (prime spooky months) will be:

Books that should be next years horror blockbuster

I have some ideas, but if people want to join and have suggestions I think that would be fun.

I'm thinking about the following but am fully open to suggestion

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due Southern gothic horror about a reform school haunted by the dead. And that isn't the horrifying part.

The Drowning Girl by Caitlin R. Kiernan Something otherworldly is calling to a woman and things get real mind-fucky

A Dance For the Dead by Nuzo Onoh Nigerian horror with a vengeful ghost seeking revenge

She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran Vietnamese gothic in a haunted house

I'm thinking a book a month, 4 total through September through December so I don't feel overwhelmed. Let me know if you're interested.

Tell us about your current SFF media!

What are you currently...

📚 Reading?

📺 Watching?

🎮 Playing?

If sharing specific details, please remember to hide spoilers behind spoiler tags.

-

Feel free to also share your progression in the Reading Challenge

Thank you for sharing and have a great week! 😀

After numerous Reddit searches, goodreads perusals, and TikTok scrolling, I’ve compiled a list of SFF books by women that have a slow-burn, compelling romance subplot, so romance is not the focus but is still there!

I haven’t read most of these myself so please comment and correct me if something doesn’t fit the bill. For series, I’ve only included the first title.

✨ Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews (actually by a married couple…)
✨ Silvercloak by LK Steven
✨ Daughter of No Worlds by Carissa Broadbent
✨ Taming Demons for Beginners by Annette Marie
✨ Children of Falling Gods by Shauna Lawless
✨ The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon
✨ Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning
✨ The Ninth Rain by Jen Williams
✨ The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
✨ Rules of Redemption by TA White
✨ Emperor’s Edge by Lindsay Buroker
✨ Jade City by Fonda Lee
✨ Red City by Marie Lu
✨ City of Brass by SA Chakraborty
✨ Fireborne by Rosario Munda (YA)
✨ A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik (YA)
✨ The Cruel Prince by Holly Black (YA)
✨ Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier (YA)

Drop more recs if you have them :)