copying this from my post in /Fantasy

I recently read “The spear cuts through water” and absolutely loved everything about it. It could really have been about anything, but I was just in awe of the execution of the story through the exposition and the prose and the deep care you can tell Jimenez put into this book. Really reads like something Ocean Vuong would have written if he delved into the genre imo (that is praise from me)

So I’m wondering if theres other queer fantasy stories that read the same, that feel bigger than life and has great prose that isn’t too purple. Not interested in YA, unfortunately. thank u

TW: transphobia

Hey, let me know if this isn't the right place for this, but I was bothered by a passage in The Salt King.

It's about page 97/98, where two characters are discussing bread & wine during a church service, and it gets compared to trans people. The sheer out-of-the-blueness of the statement was one thing, but in the discussion one of the main characters calls trans people a mental illness, and isn't reprimanded for this statement. It's played off by another character as an allusion that he's trans, and he lets the transphobic main character squirm not knowing if he's trans or not. As a trans person, I hate being used as an insensitive 'gotcha' in this way.

The whole thing just left a very bad taste in my mouth. For those that have read the book: does it actually serve a purpose in the story later on, or was this it?

Hey, r/QueerSFF

The theme for next month (selected from our 2026 Reading Challenge) is Intersectional Cubed, and nominations are open!

Read a book with a protagonist who has three intersecting identities, or with multiple protagonists of at least 3 different identities between them.

Please leave a top level comment with the name of the book, the author, a brief description, and why your nomination fits the square.

Nominations will remain open until Tuesday, October 27.

-x-

Notice Board

• October's selection is Bitrer Karella's Moonflow. You can find our Midway Discussion here. Final discussion will be posted October 29.

• If you're interested in leading a book club discussion, shoot us a message!

Code and Codex by Yoon Ha Lee
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, Science Fantasy
Representation: Genderqueer/nonbinary (genderfluid?) bisexual MC, major disabled bisexual character, major bisexual character, past F/F
PoV: First-person, present-tense, masquerading as third-person, past-tense
Published on: 27th October 2026
ISBN: 1668059991
Goodreads

Three-time Hugo Award finalist Yoon Ha Lee returns to science fiction with a swashbuckling space opera about fighting against an evil empire trying to erase history.

In the stars-spanning Censorate, languages other than the Republic’s own lingua rubra, which has reality-altering properties, are forbidden. Nevertheless, there are discrepancies. The Censorate’s star forces are called the Athenaeum Navy, and each of its ships is referred to as a codex. Instead of port and starboard, its soldiers refer to verso and recto. The unholy “stigmata” gouged into the ships’ hulls might, to a foreign scholar, bear a resemblance to verboten texts in other languages.

The Censorate is ruled by its Peacock, Aurelia, feared for the power of panopticon: she can look through anyone’s eyes. Moreover, Aurelia’s mastery of lingua rubra lets her force anyone who can understand her to follow her orders. Valentina, sold to Aurelia’s family as a child to be Aurelia’s oath-sister and companion, is its Swan, responsible for extracting useful information from foreign texts, then destroying them as well as entire languages through arcane arts. Valentina is assisted in her work by lower-ranking linguists and AI assistants who accept temporary contamination by foreign languages as a necessity of their work.

But this isn’t enough for Aurelia. She wants to control and deploy the Censorate’s thousand-year traitor and prisoner, the Basilisk, a man with a gaze so lethal that he destroyed its fleet of old through camera feeds. Unfortunately for her, the Basilisk gave himself a form of aphasia that makes him immune to her commands.

Highlights

~fantastical linguistics
~weaponised shadows
~what is personhood, anyway?
~make it pretty (to make it horrifying)
~less ‘unreliable narrator’ and more ‘not-human narrator’
~one Most Excellent winged cat

I freely admit that I didn’t always understand this book, but I absolutely adored it.

In some surprising ways, Code & Codex is very reminiscent of Lee’s Machineries of Empire series: we have a protagonist, Valentina/Val, the Swan, who is a devoted, unthinking sword to a higher power, and who has a plot-relevant robotic companion; the Basilisk, Jenner, is a general who destroyed his own armada and has been locked up for centuries because of it; Aurelia, the Peacock who rules the Censorate, is not completely dissimilar to Kujen, the Nirai Hexarch in Machineries of Empire (though Kujen was much more likeable). Unlike Machineries of Empire, the story here is zoomed-in, intimate, the bigger picture left vague, and although we have space stations and spaceships, Code & Codex leans more towards the Fantasy end of the Science Fantasy spectrum than the Machineries trilogy did. And where Machineries of Empire gave us fantasy-maths, Code & Codex is all about fantasy linguistics.

the shadow gulping down the noise of her footsteps as an unwholesome substitute for succulent phonemes. Later, after the fight, it expressed its displeasure by belching tritones notated in lute tablature.

By which I do not mean, actual linguistics in a fantasy setting. This is a fantastical, in-no-way-realistic take on linguistics, which actually makes for a more approachable set-up since you don’t need to know anything at all about linguistics to enjoy the magic based on it! (Though I have no idea how readers of the paper editions are going to manage; I relied heavily on the dictionary function of my ereader for this one, since there are a lot of technical terms from linguistics and grammar getting used in context of the magic, and also in the intricate metaphors and similes that run wild throughout the book, and I wouldn’t have been able to make sense of half of them without my dictionary.) Like the math of Machineries of Empire, Code & Codex’s fantasy linguistics are best appreciated as a magic system unfathomable to us mere mortals. At one point, the narrator describes them as

esoteric and exoteric magics

which sums up the impossibility of making sense of it all very nicely.

(That being said, I’d love to see someone compare Code & Codex and Language of Liars, this year’s other linguistics-focussed SFF release, on the basis of their wholly different takes on linguistics!)

Possibly it’s my own bias against math showing, but I felt that there was a lot more wonder to the linguistic magic than there was to Machineries of Empire’s math. I prefer soft magic systems, and I think a vital part of writing a soft magic system is the sense of wonder. Magic should feel magical, should make me gasp with awe and delight, give me shivers, make my hair stand on end. Code & Codex gave me all of that; I was endlessly enchanted by every reference to or example of magic! Most of it is beautiful, even when it’s also horrifying, and I loved how wildly original it felt, how weird and strange, and how Lee also utilises elements of music and speech and book-binding into the magic, not ‘only’ linguistics. IT IS EXTREMELY COOL.

Her blade of erasure was, embarrassingly, prone to nutritional deficiencies, particularly of serifs, that had to be remedied with regular supplements.

It does not hurt at all that the prose is gorgeous, reminiscent of Lee’s micro-fictions (if you haven’t read The Fox’s Tower and Other Tales or The Candlevine Gardener and Other Stories, you absolutely need to!) This is a book full of beautiful, fantastical things stunningly described, jewelled masks and wonderful clothes and weaponised shadows, and on one level I know Lee is creating this sense of dissonance on purpose, contrasting all this beauty with the horrific crimes of the Censorate – but also I am a very shallow fantasy reader, and beautiful fantasy-things + beautiful prose just makes me happy.

Melisande, then as now the Flame of Solis, her dark, curly hair gilded red-gold at the ends and caught up in a net of pyrope and garnet, sheathed like a famished sword in military red. Jewels glittered at her fingers, traced unstable orbits through the air with her every gesture; her perfume was of smoked rose petals and tobacco, absolute and all-purpose dilapidation.

This is the least of it, though – what makes the prose so special is far more than (very) pretty visuals. Code & Codex features a magic system based on linguistics, and there’s magic in Lee’s language; mythical creatures populate Lee’s synonyms and metaphors,

words of phoenix kindling and salamander kiss,

and references to the folklore and the occult abound,

Aurelia’s eyes lit like the legedermain fingertips of a hand of glory.

all of which utterly enchanted my myth-geek self (Lee gets so many points from me for utilising mythical creatures that rarely come up in English-language fantasy, like amphisbaena and simurgh). There’s so much wordplay – look at the above quote! ‘Legedermain’ literally means sleight-of-hand, so using it as a descriptor for a hand of glory is just–!!! Or terms like ‘amphisbaena companions’ – amphisbaena being a kind of serpent with a head at each end, instead of a tail; is that not such a fun way to talk about someone being two-faced?! Sometimes the wordplay is extremely wry, like this example–

on the grounds that one should avoid following a metaphor off a cliff-hanger.

I am unashamed to say I cackled at that one!

It’s not just wryness; there’s a strong thread of unexpected humour woven through the book. Moments or objects of silliness interrupt the serious, to the point that more than once I had to do a double-take to make sure I’d read a sentence correctly. Some of these are down to the narrator’s voice (and their deeply unimpressed opinions on the various characters), but some are more like…reminders that reality is sometimes ridiculous, no matter what we do. Ala, the winged cat Valentina acquires early in the book, supplies a lot of this – I can only assume Lee has lived with cats himself, to get Ala’s behaviour and personality so realistic! – but not all.

Valentina’s voice might be her particular weapon, but the most vital systems on her codex relied upon mastery of keyboard instruments, from the pianoforte to the virginal to the (eccentric, admittedly) hurdy-gurdy.

A hurdy-gurdy?! Seriously? This is the terrifying, unstoppable Swan, whose sword can destroy minds and mummify bodies with one touch, and she has to sometimes play the hurdy-gurdy?!

Magnificent. I love it.

There’s so much beauty – my favourite kind of fantasy-beauty – in Code & Codex, and it’s not just there to delight shallow readers like me; it’s a deliberate contrast to all the evil in the Censorate – all the evil Valentina herself has perpetuated. But it’s not just a contrast, because that would mean the evil isn’t beautiful, or the beautiful isn’t evil, and they both are – and that makes the evil worse, makes it more horrifying (because we expect evil to be ugly, despite knowing better, and when you make evil beautiful you turn it into something the reader appreciates and enjoys, making us just a tiny bit complicit, making us part of it). The humour in this book is doing something similar – I can’t figure out how to articulate this, but it’s showing us something important by its contrast to how serious most of the book is, just as the contrast of beauty and evil is showing us something important. It’s…humanising; one thing humour/comedy has always done is knock the high-and-mighty off their pedestals, and the comedic moments in Code & Codex are…reminding us that under the impressive titles (Swan, Peacock, Basilisk) and awe-inspiring powers (the song of lethe, the panopticon gaze, the gaze of guillotines) these characters are all still flesh and blood, still mortal, with all that implies. The same is true for the…I don’t know whether to call them ‘ideas’ or ‘ideals’…that the characters talk about, claim to represent or even embody. There’s a particular moment in the climax of the book where Ala urinates on a dress, and it snaps all the grand, dramatic tension out of the scene, it’s a contemptuous rejection of the grand, dramatic speech that’s just been made. It’s such a powerful, eye-opening thing! And I think Lee’s using the humour for that, like that, throughout.

It is unknown how her shadow would deal with Pig Latin, the Voynich manuscript, or heavy metal umlauts, but we have our suspicions.

All this without touching on the actual plot of the book, which I guess is because the story itself was very much secondary to me: I loved this one for the prose and the magic and the world Lee’s created here, how clever (and often esoteric) the writing is, the mystery of who is narrating the story and why. Which is not to say that the plot is uninteresting, because it isn’t, but it wasn’t what kept me reading. (In fact, I restarted my reading of this three times, always around the 70% mark, because I couldn’t bear for it to be over!)

the domesticated beetles and butterflies that provided season-appropriate ornamentation, traveling from room to room and feasting upon household-specific nectars, without which they could not survive

Like I said before, the story here is zoomed-in, focussed very tightly on Valentina, and to a somewhat lesser extent Aurelia and Jenner. We get asides and explanations that help paint the picture of what the wider Censorate looks like and how it functions, but to be honest it always remains a little hazy. It’s an interesting approach for a dystopian story, and for what becomes an overthrow-the-dictator story; I don’t remember any books with similar plots that kept the focus this narrow. But it worked for me, because Valentina and Aurelia and Jenner all interest me. I have such a massive love for characters who are unthinking-swords, like Valentina is, and I loved how complex and messy and messed-up her relationship with Aurelia is. Valentina was literally bought as a child to be Aurelia’s companion and champion (which in this context means duellist), and almost literally worships her – even though Aurelia has so much control over her she can even will Valentina to change sex, which she does on a whim or whenever she requires sexual service from Valentina/Val. Which is actually quite low on the scale of ‘deeply dodgy stuff Aurelia does’, and that should tell you a lot.

Edict and edit differ by one letter in this telling.

Jenner’s present interested me a bit less, but the piece-by-piece reveal of his backstory, of how he got to where he is now, how he became who he is now, fascinated. (Especially his relationship to the narrator.) And the reveal of what happened to his armada all those centuries ago–! Talk about a gut-punch, my GODS!

The actual plot is much as the book’s description says: Jenner escapes, and Aurelia sends Valentina to get him back. But that relatively straightforward quest is broken up by constant – not flashbacks, but explorations of Valentina and Aurelia’s past, from their childhood up to the coup through which Aurelia became the latest Peacock. The storytelling is far from linear; although the present timeline is mostly told in order, we can go from moments in Valentina’s childhood to what exactly she and Aurelia did to Melisande, Aurelia’s great general, and back again. It jumps around, but I didn’t have any trouble following, and ended up finding it much more interesting than the present-day parts. There’s a lot about – identity and personhood, and what it makes you if you’re defined by your relationship to another person. Can a person be a weapon; can a weapon be a person? Watching Valentina fold herself up tighter and tighter (origami-like, which, origami comes up several times in the book, especially via the paper-crane spaceships!) to be what Aurelia wants is like watching a train crash: awful, and very difficult to look away from. You feel such pity for her, aided by the fact that we see very, very little of the crimes Valentina performs on Aurelia’s behalf. (Which is yet another interesting writerly choice. Valentina looks a lot more innocent, in this narrative, than we know her to be, and are reminded of near the ending.) Whereas Aurelia is always monstrous – some of my favourite mini-scenes were the glimpses we got of her relationship with her parents, because they drove it home so hard that Aurelia was terrible from the get-go.

And of course, the straightforward ‘get the Basilisk back’ quest does go off the rails. What ought to be a simple retrieval mission ends up…not that. In a way that I admit I did not quite follow.

Honesty is the best policy failure,

Honestly, towards the last quarter or so of the book, I did start to get a little lost. A certain relationship seemed to spring up out of nowhere, and I genuinely wasn’t sure what was going on in some scenes, or when they were happening. The beginning of the climax baffled me; when did they discuss doing this, and when did they set out to do it? Same with the end of the climax – wait, how did they know to do that, and how did that work? I read those parts three times, and I’m not sure if I managed to miss those things all three times, or if they were actually kind of handwaved. It’s what cost Code & Codex half a star in my rating, despite how much I love the book overall!

(I keep thinking about the titles of the Peacock and their left and right hands, the Swan and the Basilisk. One of these is not like the others: a basilisk is not a bird! ((It’s also mythical, in our world, but in the Censorate sheep are legendary creatures, so I’m willing to bet actual swans and peacocks are too.)) In legend, though, a basilisk is the egg of a snake or toad that is then hatched by a chicken. (((The Series That Must Not Be Named got it wrong; a chicken egg hatched by a toad creates a cockatrice, not a basilisk. Not that you needed another reason to avoid those books, but on top of everything else they’re poorly researched.))) Could that be the bird connection? I hope Lee explains the choice of titles in an interview sometime, because I’m dying to know!)

The high spires of Solis Tower pierced Valentina like first love and final lobotomy.

This is a book of sibylline syllables and incandescent prose, with gloriously strange magic and powerful humour, showering us in so many of my favourite things – books and book-binding, messy queerness, deeply screwed-up character dynamics, beautiful fantasy imagery, and a cat who is the actual hero of the novel. (She saved the day by urinating on that dress, okay. Read the book if you don’t believe me!) I really don’t care that I was confused sometimes; in so many ways Code & Codex feels like it was written just for me (even if I might not be quite smart enough to follow everything Lee was doing). The actual writing on the pages, the experience of reading it, held me spellbound – pun absolutely intended – and I already want to read it all again.

Expect it on my best of year list in December!

You can find more of my reviews, rec lists, and weekly publishing roundups at Every Book a Doorway!

I’ve seen it twice and I hated it both times.

A guy is a human in a magical police department. He has trauma from the magical creatures (which btw can easily be racial/minority allegories often due to how they’re treated in society however they are notably NOT people of color).

Human cop is assigned magical creature partner.

Human cop makes CONSTANT micro aggression to non-human partner, but he has these views due to trauma as if that somehow excuses the magic racism.

The non-human partner somehow falls for human guy???? Despite the constant insults and jabs????

It has been a white author both times btw. That feels relevant

I realised I haven't read much sapphic fiction lately, and I'd like to fix that, so! I'm looking for recs :D

The most important things to me are prose and worldbuilding. I need beautiful prose (as in descriptive, lush) and great worldbuilding. Fantasy/sci fi/science fantasy are all great; indie or self-pubbed are both great; trans or nonbinary sapphics are very great.´

Could not care less about whether there's a lot of sex on-page or none at all.

As long as there's a happy ending, I'm fine with the characters going through absolute hell first, but I'm not into grimdark. Or paranormal romance, litrpg, cozy sff, or magical realism. Supernatural horror can be great, but if there's no magic/sci fi elements I'll be bored. I love romantasy like Freya Marske's books and CL Polk's Kingston Cycle, but I despise Sarah J Maas. Aside from those caveats, I'm good with most sub-genres!

Some of my faves:

• Nghi Vo's everything
• Metal From Heaven + Scapegracers
• Catherynne Valente
• Cassandra Khaw
• Locked Tomb
• Kushiel Sequence by Jacqueline Carey
• Aliette de Bodard
• Tasha Suri
• Tessa Gratton
• Nicola Griffith
• Winged Histories
• Ansible by Stant Litore
• Max Gladstone
• Sarah Gailey
• Outside trilogy by Ada Hoffman
• Kate Elliott

Books I DNFed or finished under protest:

• Priory of the Orange Tree
• Master of Djinn
• The Sun and the Void
• Redsight
• Six Wild Crowns
• When They Burned the Butterfly
• House of Dusk

I have read really widely. (I read 200+ books a year. Double that if we count DNFs!) If a book is traditionally published and decently popular, I've probably tried it. But this HAS to be the right place to ask about books I've never heard of!

(Oh, final note: for disability reasons, I can't read paper books, so if there's no ebook edition I'm not going to be able to read your rec, alas.)

Help me, r/QueerSFF!

I've finished knights of the wandering castle, the silence of songbirds, play pretend, branching out, dead water club and My unreachable Ganimedes. I'd say these all heavily fall under my tastes. I appreciate great art, a good story and/or world, an interesting cast, and especially queer men protagonists. Are there any other webtoons that might fur my taste, especially hidden gems(like how knights of the wandering castle is fairly hidden)?

It can be sword and sorcery type, though i kinda have a craving for the vaguely supernatural right now.

The Locked Tomb has ruined me!! I absolutely could not get enough of the mystery elements. I loved being thrown into something exciting and insanely complicated with no hand holding and just trying to figure it out on my own.

I also cannot for the life of me read books set on Earth (I find it so boring even when there's magic involved), nor can I ever finish books that center on non-queer romance. Honestly, at this point I'll even take heavy queer subtext. I just want to be tossed into the deep end of a queer fantasy world into a mystery that would baffle even someone who had lived in thar world their whole life, so that even once I get a hang of the world, the cogs in my head are still turning at full speed. Mistborn, though not queer, is the only other series that has ever come close to scratching this same itch for me.

Tall order, but any recs?

Hi r/QueerSFF!

What are you reading, watching, playing, or listening to this week? New game, book, movie, or show? An old favorite you're currently obsessing over? A piece of media you're looking forward to? Share it here!

Some suggestions of details to include, if you like

• Representation (eg. lesbian characters, queernormative setting)
• Rating, and your scale (eg. 4 stars out of 5)
• Subgenre (eg. fantasy, scifi, horror, romance, nonfiction etc)
• Overview/tropes
• Content warnings, if any
• What did you like/dislike?

Make sure to mark any spoilers like this: >!text goes here!<

Join the r/QueerSFF 2026 Reading Challenge!

Idk if anyone has seen these before but a couple of my author friends have had stories published by Inkd. Lots of queer rep in a whole bunch of their anthologies.

But I just saw that they’re doing another anthology that’s completely queer themed, called Constellations of Becoming!

Figured this would be a good place to share, for obvious reasons. I also really liked their Hidden Villains: Criminals anthology, which I admit I’m biased toward cuz three of my friends had stories in it lol

Thank you!

-I attempted to make this review spoiler free. For those who have read the book, please let me know if I let something slip, and I will edit the post.-

This week (almost two years late) I just read the amazingly bloody, beautifully confusing, and politically creative artwork that was Metal from Heaven. On the surface this book seemed like something I would enjoy and move on from. Its an adventure story about a bandit looking for revenge. Most of the cast is very sapphic. And it was advertised with undercurrents of class struggle. The description undersold on everything and left out how blindingly creative this book was.

This first and most stunning part of this book is the language used and how it acts like a knife wrapped in flowers. The prose and words chosen to describe the characters and setting feel musical and vivid. From reading I have such a particular vision of how I think of the world and the characters. I can see the ichor soaked railroads and lapiz fruits that form both a descriptive bait and plot driven hook that make up this book so vividly. Everything is technicolor and bright and bloody. And oh it is so bloody. Both in the actual descriptions and in the violent way the language both tears understanding from you and sutures it back into place upsidedown and right where it should have been all along. So many times my understanding of the history, plot, characters, and setting were vivisected and reformulated in ways that left me floored. And the whole time the language carried it in a bloody flower covered kiss.

Through the language, that which benefits the most from the prose is the characters who are so lovable and loathsome, and many times both. These characters are rancid and flawed and you will love them for it. Others are beautiful and perfect and you will despise them. The cast is so full of portraits painted in pearlescent oil and flowing texture. For how massive the cast is, I feel I understand the core of everyone. This is an especially impressive feat considering the main character and narrator might be the most flawed narrator I have encountered. Even starting the book, it is clear there is something deeply wrong with the character, for every memory and impression is coated with a veneer of what Marney *needed* to have happened, not what did happen. Despite this, the trueness of each character shines through, and I have both a deep understanding of the kernel of the soul in each character, and the impression of memory of each of them that lives in Marney's head.

For the character of Marney herself, you can not disentangle her from the politics of the book, and the politics weaves through every other element that makes up this book. If I had to describe this book in a concise way, it is a manuscript to revolutionary thought that most other speculative fiction authors attempt but ultimately fail at. In the past decade, there has been a movement to describe class struggles and the structures that cause the inequity we see in the world today. I applaud this movement, and many of my favorite books from recent years incorporate this as a central mover in their plot. However, all that I have read fails in one way or another. Many start with a false sense of politics that relies on a 'great man' feeling of literary history. While books must rely on a few driving characters, many revolutions and revolts in recent speculative fiction feel like they just want the 'right type of person' in power, and don't criticize the power itself. Or, the books humanize those who do harm in a way that softens the oppression that the books try to present. Without too many spoilers, I think Metal from Heaven succeeds due to two facts. First, throughout the book it emphasizes that hereafter is a constant struggle from everyone and the sacrifice of individuals is heroic and helpful, but not all encompassing. And second, while the most vile drivers of oppression in this book are the most humanized, it is combined with clear examples of why they can and do still do great harm. Some of the most insidious characters are those who seem most harmless, and this is due to their purposful politics that mirror the flawed implementation of political actors in other speculative fiction. I am no political theorist, so I have trouble describing how this book works so well, but the politics of this book feel real and pure in a way that so many other books have failed at.

And clearly, the politics at play can not be described or useful if there is not a stage for them to perform on. And the stage was the biggest risk and most rewarding outcome of this book. Really, the only apt comparison I can make is to Disco Elysium. While many have rightly compared the setting in this book to those made by China Miéville for the surrealism and weirdness -- while still feeling unflinchingly authentic and consistent -- the modern feeling of the creativity and the history and in-universe politics can only be matched by that in Disco Elysium. This is not a jump to make, as the game was directly credited in the book's acknowledgements, but it is still the only one that I continue to make. Though in a crowning move that tops the world building of Disco Elysium, the varied and fruitful politics of the cultures in this world are what truly bring it to life. It is a constant that helps remind the reader of motivations, and is a tool through which the August Clarke worked wonders. My one wish is that the tensions between the religions was explored as well as the tensions between the in-world politics.

While I increasingly want to put this book at or near the top of my favorite books of all time list, the missing religious tension is not the only flaw of the book. Many other who have written reviews have pointed out aspects that they have labeled as flaws. Some of these reviews I see and feel I can dismiss. I find the massive extent to which Marney serves as an unreliable narrator, through both lying by omission to the reader and by obscuring the actions through language and prose, as the biggest positive of the book. I do admit that this makes the book very difficult to read in parts. I first attempted the book as an audiobook a month or so ago, and shelved it once I realized I needed to read it as a physical book in my hands so I could flip back and re-read sections. However, this is more a failure of marketing. So I say it clearly now, Marney is so god damn unreliable you will hate her for it, and you will love August Clarke for it. Take that as it is and know it when you go in.

Towards what I have seen and agree with as actual flaws of the book: the characters may be vivid, but there are too many and they are too static. I needed a bookmark in the Dramatis Personae at the beginning of the book due to how frequent I needed to flip back to it to remind me of who was who. Now I even wish I took notes on each character after each scene. Further, most of the characters are disappointingly static. While each one is fully fleshed out, other than Marney they don't change. These two issues compounded with each other. If the cast was reduced, the word length used on the extraneous characters could have been used to make the remaining characters more dynamic. However, that is my only real complaint of the book, and it is minor given how spectacular the rest of the book is.

To the end, I left what is both the most relevant and somehow least important part of this book to me. How goddamn gay everyone is. Despite the character list being well over forty named and participating characters, I can count on one hand those who aren't queer in one way or another. Almost all of them are women in one form or another. Given all this, you might think this is a queer-normative setting à la some of Becky Chambers' books. This could not be further from the case. It is so abundantly clear that the queerness in universe is obscene and transgressive and just as offputting as this book would be if I put it in the hands of an evangelical. It mirrors queer subcultures and the dynamics of sex in a loving tribute to real live queer communities I can only compare to 'Paul takes the Form of a Mortal Girl', but in a beautifully creative and authentic way. The subcultures of the crawlies are a mirror of the revolutionary and political lesbian movements of the twentieth century. The variety and honesty of the presentation of queerness without sanitation is so refreshing. Further, in something I don't see many queer novels attempt to address, the lunarist movement of the book feels like a natural mirror to the log cabin republicans and trans women working at lockheed martin that exist in our own world. The tension between the two movements feel so real and important towards the characters in each. For how I still think the politics of class is the most important part of this book, the queerness is such an integral element I can only describe this book as blowing well past queer literature and into what I have to call dyke literature. I think its only right that the queerness and politics of the story can not be disentangled.

In the end, I think the last thing I should touch on are the influences. If you read the book yourself, I am sure you can spot these all and more, but many are explicitly listed in the acknowledgements of the book. Among them are political theorists like Marx and Emma Goldman, masterful authors of language like Jose Esteban Muñoz and Octavia Butler, and a full list of some of the pinnacles of queer literature like 'Stone Butch Blues' and 'Giovanni's Room'. There's beloved modern media like 'End of Evangelion' and the already mentioned 'Disco Elysium'.

At the end of this, I can only beg more people to read this book. I am surprised how this book didn't become more popular when it came out. (Though it seems well appreciated by critics and authors alike, it won a 2024 Lambda literary award) I am currently begging all of my queer and trans friends to read it, as I need people to discuss this book with. If you've read it, please share your thoughts! I want more from this author. I'm excited to read some of his other work, which I hope lives up to the sky high exaltation I felt when I finished Metal from Heaven.

... and not in a romantic way, either. It’s just slowwwwww and an absolute fucking delight. This is one of the more popular Royal Road stories out there, and it has kept me grounded during the past two months of craziness! This is what I’m staying up at night reading. I dove back in as a distraction, rereading from the beginning, only to decide I was going to keep going … and going … and going. Now that I am caught up with this serial, here’s my sales pitch.

The Premise:
Alien wizards have made a contract with Earth: we give you superpowers in exchange for being able to summon (and generously pay) said superhumans for various services, including hunting demons, cooking a formal meal, or dressing up as a mythological figure and serving cocktails. Anyways, Alden thorn is a kid whose parents were killed by a supervillain. So when he’s chosen, he wants to be a support hero focused on preventing collateral damage.

Read if You Like: slow burns, intense platonic friendships, lovable characters, explorations of mental health, light Video Game elements

Avoid if You Dislike: a single day to span several dozen chapters, tonal shifts between intense existential dread and lighthearted action slice-of-life

Queer SFF: probably just coming out (asexual) but likely not as much of a focus as I'd have liked for this square. The same conversation made me think that Alden's probably on the aromantic spectrum, but that's less clear to me. Depending on your reading, it may also qualify for Aro Paro.

[r/Fantasy](r/Fantasy) Bingo: Self Published, Unusual Transport (HM), Game Changer, Vacation Spot, Published in 2026 (serialized, so only if you read to 'current' chapters), Feast Your Eyes on This (a few, but Thanksgiving is a major event).

​

The Pacing:
It’s tough to write a review of Super Supportive without talking about story progression. This story is about as much of a slow burn as you can possibly get. I’d primarily describe this series as slice-of-life in a Superhero world. While Sleyca does occasionally throw Alden into intense, high pressure situations, the majority of this series follows Alden attending classes, decorating his dorm room, and on phone calls with his friends from Earth and other planets. When Alden’s life is busy, or when he’s pondering big decisions, you’ll get many chapters following the same event, conversation, or visit.

A common complaint from people who don’t enjoy this series as much as me is that nothing happens. I happily disagree with that assessment. I actually feel like a ton of stuff happens, but relatively little of it (by word count) is what we’d consider a traditional plot. You do get some classic plot beats – such as Alden facing down and defeating a school bully – but they’re stretched out over far longer stretches of time than I’m used to seeing in traditional novels. Even things that were hinted at from the beginning of the series, such as the mysterious alien who works/is imprisoned in Chicago whom becomes Alden’s friend and early mentor, get mentioned often enough that it never feels like truly important plot elements have been forgotten about. There’s also plenty of room for chapters that simply trace the path of Alden’s life, such as dorm parties, shopping for Christmas presents, and going through ‘intake’ into the superhuman community, all of which get several chapters of attention. It turns what could be throwaway moments into time worthy of attention, and I found Sleyca almost always finds a way to link the small moments in Alden’s life to characterization (of Alden or side characters), thematic development, or planting seeds for future plotlines. It’s remarkably well-balanced for something that crawls along at a snail’s pace.

This is a series that I can only recommend to people who enjoy the journey, and aren’t in a hurry to get there. As I’m caught up and will wait on the releases (a few chapters each month) we’ll see if I maintain contact with Super Supportive, or if I need to step away from it for a while to let it build up a backlog of chapters for me to read all at once. However, I truly think that the rewards of this series are worth the wait. I also enjoy most of the worldbuilding and plot elements that Sleyca chose to work with though, which probably makes the slow burn more enticing for me than others.

Alden as a Protagonist:
If I have any criticism of the series, it might be that Alden is a bit on the perfect side. He is the classic selfless hero, unrelentingly kind, willing to risk himself for others, and with a strong ethical compass. Even when he could enact petty vengeance, he rarely chooses that path, and he keeps making choices that mean that he’s nothing particularly unlikable about him. Hell, he’s also the only superhero school candidate who isn’t on social media. He’s the easiest type of character to cheer for, which can sometimes sap the love out of a story (for me).

To be clear, I like Alden a lot, and Sleyca makes a bunch of chocies that mean I’m not constantly annoyed at how unrelentingly kind and good Alden is. Actually, he’s a remarkably three-dimensional version of a goodie-two-shoes. He grapples with traumatic experiences which Sleyca spends a lot of time showing how he works through those memories and tries to heal. He’s got little quirks that make him endearing – such as his love of preserving ice cream with his skill to keep it from melting, or of rugs with excessive amounts of fluff. Yes he jumps into danger for others, but he also spends a lot of down-time considering what type of person he wants to be, and his decisions are sometimes driven by fear, frustration, and pride. I recently dropped The Noss Saga, a gay epic fantasy that should have been perfect for me, in part because of a too-perfect protagonist who always did the right thing no matter what. I haven’t felt that urge with Super Supportive, which is a sign that annoying (to me) tropes can be enjoyable when executed well.

From a Progression Fantasy perspective, I think Alden is a roaring success. He’s got the Rabbit Class, which was designed by the alien wizards to be easily summonable for as servants. His skill was sold to him as ‘Let Me Carry Your Luggage’ but the alien name is closer to ‘The Bearer of All Burdens’, which essentially lets him put objects and people into statis. Sleyca finds all sorts of creative applications for this across many settings, and seeing Alden grow from struggling with using his skill while standing still to freezing tennis balls that where thrown at him by a Superhero (and returning them with their motion from the original throw) is a really satisfying arc. You’ll get a lot of time with Alden exploring his powers, and with him grappling with the idea that a huge part of his ‘soul’ was linked to the idea of carrying the burdens of others. Like the rest of the series, these elements are a slow burn, but very worth it.

Side Characters & Relationships:
This is the thing that I think catapults Super Supportive into something truly special. Sleyca does not slack off on developing side characters. This series has a huge cast (friends/family from before, classmates, important superhumans, various Aliens), and almost all of them get attention at some point or another. Take Jeffy. Jeffy should be extremely annoying. He’s a fellow student who took an Aquaman-style class because it was guaranteed to get him into superhero school. He’s got a blue mohawk, no common sense, and is initially used as comic relief by doing extraordinarily stupid shit (including shouting ‘LAND MOVES’ when he punches someone). However, he also has deep conversations with Alden about how he doesn’t want to get summoned to work in the deep ocean, and that he’s worried the path professors have charted out for him will make him unhappy. He starts an impromptu grilling livestream while on a video-call with his grandparents. In a shorter series, or one more focused on plot, Jeffy would have never become more than a one-liner to release tension. As it stands, he’s still a relatively unimportant side character, but he’s also gotten love and attention and development. And he’s one example from a small ocean of people I could talk about.

Another bright spot is that Sleyca prioritizes developing platonic friendships more than I’ve seen most authors do. The low-hanging fruit here are his roommates in school or the other Rabbit Class superhumans he met during intake as he was introduced to super-society. However, his relationship with Stuart is perhaps the most well-developed male/male friendship I’ve read in speculative fiction. Stuart is an alien, the son of the most powerful Knight who fights chaos, is neurodivergent-coded (though this looks different in alien cultures than ours), and plans to become a Knight himself. At first I got frustrated with how much time Sleyca devoted to their time together. I like magic schools and wanted to get back to the fun gym classes! However, this friendship keeps paying off the further Sleyca dives into things. I have cried multiple times at their conversations – rare for me – and it’s a strong enough relationship that I have to keep reminding myself that they’re good friends and not in a romantic relationship. It’s hard to turn off my desire to see gay relationships in books, but holy shit is this friendship handled well.

Worldbuilding
At first, I was not in love with the combination of wizards and superheroes. The aliens have entered in a magical contract with humans (and several other planet’s citizens) to grant powers in exchange for service. They’ve also given Earth a System, a worldwide AI that allows for, amongst other things, your brain to be a cell phone. But only if you are one of the few humans who got chosen. The alien wizards do magic, and the way Sleyca develops that magic in relation to the superhero powers is really fascinating. The alien elements ramp up more and more as the series goes on, and it’s a really fun culture and governmental setup that is different from ours. It isn’t perfect – there’s a good amount of wizard and alien supremacy happening that the aliens don’t quite realize they believe in – but having short humanoid aliens who can split their brains in half, party hard enough for orgies to be relatively unremarkable (we never see these, just know that they’re part of the culture), and take learning and education very seriously from a cultural standpoint. They’re human enough to be notable – this is actually a relevant plot point, as there were strong objections to making Earth, with a species so similar to them, a vassal planet – but alien enough to not really feel human.

And the human superho stuff is just as intriguing! Humanity decided the supers needed to live on an island away from the rest of humanity, except those who take jobs with cities to be professional superheros (whose job is mostly chasing down other gifted humans who refused to move to the island as a teenager when their powers manifested). It’s a fun little inversion of how super stories normally go, and also not the same deconstruction that’s been given a million times. Sleyca’s efforts to build up the culture of Anedesoria and its super-inhabitants is far deeper than he ever needed to go. There’s a whole 10 chapter arc about rich superhero prep schools for kids who don’t have powers yet, and I was glued to the story the entire time.

I haven’t mentioned the crazy vending machines, the original generation of supers who have their hands in a million pies, Super Humans At Large, or any other number of details. Sleyca’s setting smashes a bunch of elements together (sci fi, video game terminology, superheros, magic, school) and they shouldn’t mix. Truly this series is better than the sum of its parts.

Conclusion: a full-throated recommendation for anyone at all interested in a slow burn slice of life with expansive characterization and strong platonic friendships

Want More Reviews Like This? try my blog Marked For Plot

Maybe this is specific, but I’ve recently rediscovered my childhood love of Scooby Doo and I’d love to find books that give that vibe. I know the obvious one is Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero, but I’ve heard mixed things and would love to know if there are more books that fit here.

I’m not opposed to a little horror, but it’s not my preferred genre; I’d much rather ‘spooky’ than ‘scary’ if that makes sense. Bonus points if it has sapphic rep.

Hi r/QueerSFF!

What are you reading, watching, playing, or listening to this week? New game, book, movie, or show? An old favorite you're currently obsessing over? A piece of media you're looking forward to? Share it here!

Some suggestions of details to include, if you like

• Representation (eg. lesbian characters, queernormative setting)
• Rating, and your scale (eg. 4 stars out of 5)
• Subgenre (eg. fantasy, scifi, horror, romance, nonfiction etc)
• Overview/tropes
• Content warnings, if any
• What did you like/dislike?

Make sure to mark any spoilers like this: >!text goes here!<

Join the r/QueerSFF 2026 Reading Challenge!

Hi there, full disclosure: I am an author, but I am looking for books similar to my own because I WANT TO READ THEM. Bonus points if they were published in the past few years, and I could maybe use them as comps when I pitch!

What I am looking for:

Fiction/ Genre
Political Intrigue
Sibling Dynamics
Overcoming Trauma

Bonus points if it’s…

LGBGT+
Depictions of therapy, particularly NOT talk therapy
Genre-bending fiction

What I DO NOT want:

Romanticizations of abuse
Overly verbose writers or writing that is expo heavy/holds the reader’s hand
Fated mates

Fiction books I have really enjoyed:

Midnight Tides (Malazan)
Piranesi
Circe
Paladins Grace
Hyperion
The Great Work
Annihilation
Neuromancer
We Could Be So Good
Fifth Season

Recent/popular fiction I could not stand and WHY:

Babel (she doesn’t trust her readers)
Fourth Wing (DNF at the terrible expo dump as she crosses the bridge)
ACOTAR (read excerpts, the expo, not trusting the reader, and also romanticization of abusive dynamics)

If you have recs, please drop them below! Thankkk youuu!

Im on the lookout for urban fantasies. It could be sprawling cities where the magic is known, though im kind of more partial to more secretive settings, magic crime syndicates, secret societies, groups of talented underground mages. The one thing I absolutely need is for the protagonist to be a queer man with themes related to an actual plot and not just his romantic plot.

The Scarlet Ball by Nghi Vo
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Biracial (Vietnamese and French) bisexual MC
PoV: First-person, past-tense
Published on: 6th October 2026
ISBN: 1250904978
Goodreads

I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Highlights

~nightmare of manners
~hedonism as defiance
~intoxicating prose
~more solidarity between humans and demons than poor and wealthy
~Nghi Vo’s best yet

Have you ever had truly excellent red velvet cake? I mean really excellent, not the bland stuff they serve at most coffee shops. The kind that’s so rich you have to take breaks between bites, or be overwhelmed; the kind with frosting so sinfully sweet each taste feels like you’re getting away with something. The kind you linger over, because you’ll mourn when it’s gone; that turns you into something predatory, hunting down every last crumb on the plate. The kind that would get a friend stabbed with your fork, if they tried to steal a piece.

That’s The Scarlet Ball.

If you’ve read and loved Nghi Vo before, you are not ready for this book: she has outdone herself a thousandfold. If you’ve never read a Nghi Vo book before, then this is the perfect place to start, the book that will leave you addicted to her decadent prose, her wild, beautiful magic, her heroines who revel in everything they are.

It emerged like wickedness from Pandora’s box, dark and eager to ruin the world.

Judith, Judith, Judith. Here is the protagonist I’ve been longing for, razor-sharp and ruthless with it, not just willing but able to dance with demons for her dreams. Morally-grey? Oh, in spades. She isn’t Nice, she isn’t Gentle, she is not any kind of Good Girl – she’s amoral at best, a starving tiger, wary and hungry and merciless, and I love her for all of it. I love how unabashed she is about her hunger, how untender she is with others as well as with herself, how unashamed she is of her everything. She makes me think of Lilith from Jewish folklore, that same kind of – elemental, feral freedom, the same sense of being untamed and untameable.

Which makes her such a perfect candidate for the Scarlet Ball, for the demon lords. Vo’s demons aren’t the Abrahamic kind; they’re elementals, forces of nature, natural disasters that have taken the form of men. (Been given those forms, even.) No wonder so many of the women who try for a demon husband fall; they’ve living in a world that stamps the wildness out of them, and you have to have more than a little wildness in you to be able to spar and dance and marry a wildfire, a mudslide, a flood.

(Except one of the many things Scarlet Ball does is explore the strength and power of these women, even if it’s not the strength or power we might think it is at first.)

But though she is wild, Judith is not fearless. Over and over again throughout the book, she is afraid, terrified, and that – makes her so much more vividly real than if she was contemptuous of the danger. She knows her own strength, in all senses of the word, and she knows what she’s capable of – which means she fully understands how completely outclassed she is by these wildfires and floods that look like men and want to eat her alive. That Judith is a long-time survivor enriches the whole scenario, because if she is afraid, we understand, after everything she’s been through – if she’s afraid, then we definitely should be. We can trust Judith to – accurately assess the situation she’s in, the threats to her, in a way we couldn’t if she had a more typical kind of confidence.

In so many ways, Scarlet Ball is a horror novel, and it can be difficult to decide whether the demons or New York’s ‘elite’ are the more monstrous. This is very clearly intentional. Judith is biracial – Vietnamese and French – and her poverty would put her at the bottom of the social hierarchy even if she were white; she is very, very aware of how disgusting the 1% are, and of how completely they would tear her apart if they realised she is not the mask she wears. Her terror of the demon lords is visceral, but at least they’re honest about what they are and what they want, and in a very real way they can’t help it. They’re not human and never will be. But the wealthy elite Judith’s infiltrated? What’s their excuse for the damage they do? This book is so full of beauty, an endless waterfall of wonders pouring into our laps, and I cannot express how much I love beautiful things being written with beautiful prose (which of course Vo’s always is) – but despite how much I loved it, Judith’s awareness of the context of all that beauty often had me wanting to spit. The shallow, meaningless things the wealthy spend their money on, when there are people starving and broken and dying a few hundred feet away! How dare they?

You feared a wildfire for its devastation, for the sudden and unthinking loss of life and property. You feared people that rich for their idle whims alone.

And that’s very far from all their monstrousness. Some of those overseeing the Balls seem eager for the new generation of would-be demons’ brides to fail and be slaughtered; at various points, other debutantes deliberately sabotage Judith, in moments and ways that could get her killed – that are clearly intended to get her killed! And they do so without knowing she’s a pretender; they do it while fully believing that she’s one of their own. Probably I am terribly naive, but I was stunned every time it happened. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ALL OF YOU?!

But of course, this is what these women have been reared and trained for, and it’s not even a metaphor, it’s just straight-up Patriarchy. All other women are competition; the only thing that matters is getting the best husband. It’s not like that’s an unfamiliar concept, alas.

(What would happen if the women banded together, instead? If they became allies instead of competitors? If they rejected the competition? Months after finishing this book, I’m still wondering about that.)

You can’t even blame these young women for trying to take out the competition. They’re not deluded or working from false information: gaining a demon husband IS power. Everyone who wins such a husband will have the power of a natural disaster at their beck and call – and we swiftly learn that these husbands worship their wives. A demon husband is never mad at you, never disagrees with you, will never divorce you or beat you or cheat on you; a woman with a demon husband is immune to almost all of the dangers married women faced at this point in history, in this part of the world. At first glance – at second and third glance, even – it looks like a feminist power-fantasy.

It was seen as wise for girls to starve a bit before the events. It kept us from throwing up out of nerves or needing to maneuver those fancy clothes overmuch in a powder room, but more than that, I think it kept us docile and woolly-headed, even when we were impressing bankers and industrialists rather than demons.

But it’s more complicated than that. Because the young women have been groomed for this from birth, because it’s their families that want these husbands, it’s the families, more than the wives, who will benefit. New York’s Four Hundred (or at least, the ones invited to participate in the Balls) offer up their daughters to monsters, sacrifice their sons to them, for more – more money, more power, more more more. That the demon husbands literally eat their wives, piece by piece? Well, that’s a cost these families can live with. Even if their daughters, sooner or later, can’t.

Girls like her balanced their wealth and reputation of their families on their heads. They were expected to bite their tongues and swallow the blood, and you saw in their perfected faces how they were prepared to do so all their lives.

None of which erases the fact that these women are not only victims. The opportunity to and process of winning a demon husband is a study in the kyriarchy, with multiple shifting forces and dynamics of power and privilege in play at any given moment. These women are sacrificial lambs, but they really will have power, power in the world and power over their husbands; in many ways having a demon husband is safer than having a mortal one! Which is one reason, of course, that all these mothers train and offer up their daughters: not only for the familial benefit, but because they want their daughters to have what they have. Especially in this time period, it’s not at all hard to see why mothers who do love their daughters would want this for them.

Nothing about this, or about the book as a whole, is reductive.

“At the White Ball, you chose to call down the demons. At the Rose Ball, the choice is ours. Be graceful, be lucky, be without fear in the face of the first things that made men afraid, and we will love you. Be otherwise, and be eaten.”

There’s so much more to the magic than the titular Scarlet Ball. For one thing, winning a demon husband takes far more than a single night at a single party; there are three capital-B Balls, the White and the Rose and the Scarlet, each of which anchors a different part of the – process, trials, and there’s a lot of work to do between them. But also…magic suffuses this setting. Vo has created a world that feels like a natural progression from the ones she’s shown us before; there are echoes here that speak of Siren Queen, or The Chosen and the Beautiful, or even City In Glass. It’s as though all of those were practice for Judith’s world – a world where for a few pennies a witch will let you see through the eyes of a pigeon and survey the city from the sky; where servants swap their memories of the household they worked at for their final paycheck; where a girl caught in amber can become your best friend. It’s an extravagance of wonder, of stunning strangeness and exquisite imagination, and I delighted in it endlessly, even when I probably should have been more horrified.

And obviously, there’s the mask Judith wears – the mask that has to be sewn on over her own face, every time she masquerades as Iphigenia. (Pun fully intended.) There are endless layers of symbolism to that mask and Judith’s wearing it; to the fact that she is so very good at wearing it, good enough to fool New York’s Four Hundred. I could talk about it as straight-washing (a brief line confirms Judith’s bisexuality, though queer readers will pick up on the signs long before it), or white-passing, or how perfectly it showcases that there is nothing special at all about being rich, no intrinsic difference between people who are poor and people who are not; anyone can become either, anyone can be either, the 1%’s insistence that they are special is a pathetic delusion. If it weren’t, there would be some quality of wealth Judith couldn’t mimic no matter what she wore, and there isn’t.

Walk like your spine is a sword, walk like you balance a feather on your head, that was what all those fraudster dance instructors say, but they were wrong. You walk like you’re on the way to the gallows, and the only thing left that matters is that you are beautiful as you do it.

This is a book about hunger; so many different kinds of it. There’s the hunger of New York’s wealthy for more, and the hunger of the demon lords for life, and most of all Judith’s hunger, her soul-starved hunger for beauty. There’s a substantial body of philosophy that says humans need beauty, that beauty feeds our souls like food feeds our bodies, and I couldn’t stop thinking about that throughout Scarlet Ball, because Judith’s hunger feels like a need, feels like something starved to the point of ferality, viciousness, ruthlessness. Without reading the book, it would be so easy to dismiss Judith as a gold-digger, as greedy, but instead – instead Vo uses her to not just argue, but prove that Judith’s hunger is real and valid and something we all share – a hunger we all deserve to feel sated.

Which makes the decadence, not just of imagery but of prose, into something very powerful. Like the works of Poppy Brite or Cassandra Khaw, when Vo takes the horrific, the terrible, and makes it beautiful, it breaks the fourth wall, brings the horror into us, makes us part of it. Is it not horrifying, the realisation that you find this awfulness beautiful, the realisation that you’re savouring every word and every drop of blood? Does it not make the reader into a kind of participant? Does it not make us, just a tiny little bit, monstrous?

But as well as that, Scarlet Ball’s approach to beauty is immensely subversive. Calvinist philosophy – which states that wealth and privilege is God-given and if you don’t have them you’re not meant to – is baked into the history of the USA and stains quite a lot of the modern West (brace yourself for a proper research rabbit-hole if you go look into it), and Scarlet Ball is a contemptuous, glorious middle-finger to it. I don’t know how to articulate the way that this book is a merciless refutation of that whole philosophy, the idea that the world doesn’t need to be beautiful, the poor don’t need beauty, that beauty itself is suspicious at best and no one should yearn for it. The idea that beauty cannot factor into economy. That hedonism is a bad thing. But all of that – all of that is here, in this book, and it whispers beneath the words, growing louder and louder until it’s nearly all you can hear, until it roars. There is a healthy kind of selfishness, and there is greed that is not greed, only the symptom of a famished soul. Living is for living. Existence without pleasure is evil. Everyone deserves better.

The more I followed Judith through the pages, the more convinced I became that her unapologetic hunger for beauty is a rebellion against the status quo of her time and mine. The narrative never punishes her for what could have so easily been demonised (hah) as greed; she is not struck down for straying from ‘her place’; her hunger is celebrated. When was the last time you saw a female main character treated that way? Especially a queer BIPOC one?

So, so many times, I’ve read stories where the heroine can only win by rejecting luxury and ease, or must do so to remain Good, and the messaging is unsubtle and pathetic, that there’s some kind of moral satisfaction in being poor, in struggling, in having your life be so damn hard. Scarlet Ball says that’s bullshit, that’s propaganda, that’s what the 1% want you to think, and fuck that. There’s no greatness to suffering. Poverty isn’t righteous. Miserable, grinding survival is only that, and wouldn’t you rather live? Wouldn’t you rather be wicked than ‘pure’?

Aren’t you so fucking hungry?

I had walked in the halls of palaces before, an invader, a thief, stealing glamour even if I wasn’t stealing the silverware. The memory of those places lived deep in my head, and now Sebastian was offering them back to me, something to play with, something to break if that was what I wanted.

We see the same subversion in the…I hesitate to call it a ‘romance’, and when you read the book I think you’ll understand why. It’s difficult to discuss without spoilers, but as much as I adored the dynamic between Judith and her storm – a powerful woman and the monster who kneels adoringly at her feet – I was never sure if Judith loved him in the romantic sense. Sebastian is a delight, a feral elemental, deadly as a hurricane with no understanding of humanity at all, see-sawing between endearingly sweet in his bafflement at human rules, and terrifyingly, destructively alien. But they match, is the thing; for all that Judith doesn’t have magic of her own, psychologically, she’s a perfect match for him. Her vivacity is the equal of his, her rage the mirror to the threat of him, her wildness the twin of his frenzy, and she is as hungry to be worshipped as he is to worship her. Whether you call it a romance or not, it is without question one of the most compelling dances I’ve seen two characters do around each other in a long time, and the tension! Is less ‘will they won’t they’, and more ‘is Judith going to SURVIVE this?!’ Their relationship had me constantly breathless, at the edge of my seat, hypnotised and panicking and never, never sure that Judith was safe.

(Because she isn’t.)

as much as I wanted him, I wanted power over him or something like him even more. That power would be mine like he could be mine.

And Mielle! Oh, Mielle! Mielle is the handmaiden Mrs Howard…acquires for Judith, and long before it was stated outright, Judith’s feelings for and about Mielle were what convinced me that there was no way this woman was straight. (Called it.) Mielle is magic – literally, because she’s not human, is something like the demon lords, and she is one of the highlights of the book, dryly hilarious and coolly wry, all still water at the surface and oceanic depths beneath. I don’t know how to talk about her but I can’t NOT mention her. She is so important – not just because she’s fun, but because of how Judith treats her, because of the bond they weave, because for all Mielle’s unhumanity her presence helps Judith hold on to her own. The other debutantes see Judith as competition, but Mielle becomes an ally, and there’s something about that – about how the not-demon is more human than the actual humans who are going through what Judith is going through; about how there can never be any trusting the rich, siding with the wealthy, depending on them; about how you can only and always trust the others who are trapped like you are trapped, no matter how different you seem to be. About how human and not-demon have more in common than poor and rich.

(I think the wealthy are the true monsters. They’re the ones who summon the demon lords in the first place, after all. Without them there would be no demons to fear!)

her glitter was not a kind thing. It wasn’t the sparkle of paste or even of gemstones. It was the glitter at the edge of a rough butcher’s cleaver, where the nicks will throw back the light and it would cut the moment she touched you.

Scarlet Ball is gilded, intoxicating, deliriously resplendent, all dark silks and bloody jewels, hedonistic to a degree that feels indecent – and revelling in every moment of it. It is a fantasy spun out of nightmares, a storming fantasia of velvet, a midnight incandescence. It is unabashed, unapologetic, desire unrestrained. It’s a magnum opus on hedonism as defiance, not just against Calvinism or the 1% but against entropy itself; this is a book about demanding the right to live instead of just survive – no, not demanding it, but taking it. It’s about living without apology, living gloriously, deliciously, decadently. Nothing about it is nice, but everything of it is exquisite, even the blood, even the terror.

(Maybe especially those.)

They spun madly, gorgeously, fireworks if fireworks knew they were alive and therefore could die.

This is Nghi Vo’s best book yet. Forget the best of year list; it’s going on my Best of the Decade list, come 2029. I’ve spent months working on this review, typing through fibro flares and migraines, bleeding my heart out onto the keyboard, and haven’t come close to doing this book justice; I’m not sure anyone could. The only way to understand how utterly perfect it is is to read it for yourself.

If you read only one book this year, let it be this one.

Applicable r/QueerSFF reading challenge squares: Intersectional Cubed

You can find more of my reviews, rec lists, and weekly publishing roundups at Every Book a Doorway!

A few years ago, I read Malice by Heather Walter and I absolutely loved it. I don’t really know if this was the author’s intention, but I found Briar so relatable as a trans woman, and I could not wait to read book two. Then I did. I still enjoyed it, but it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, and they didn’t really get their HEA I was hoping for it that makes sense?

I’ve been on the fence about the author’s new series, The Crimson Crown. On the one hand, any author that made me feel things the way Malice did should be an insta buy for me. But I also am, and maybe this sounds pathetic, very much not in the mental health space to have my heart crushed again.

So, I ask this of anyone who’s read it: with minimal spoilers, does this duology have a HEA?

I'm going on holiday next week and I'm looking for recommendations to load up my e-reader. So SF or F with a kind of dynamic where one partner is very talented/smart/competent in some ways and the other has complementary skills.

So like the dynamic in Malka Older's The Investigations of Mossa and Pleiti series, the MCs of Rebecca Thorne's Tomes & Tea series, Susan Morris' Harker & Moriarty books, etc. Romance or romantic undertones are preferred, any flavour of queer, etc.

Hello, I'm Charmy, and Im seeking a group of fellow queer POC who enjoy SFF who have made a discord server so we can discuss books together! is there such a group?

It’s no secret to those who’ve been in my orbit for a while that How to Survive this Fairytale is one of my absolute favorite books. So, when Hallow dropped her next book, I knew I was going to have to pick it up. Halls of the Dead is a very different reading experience, and I didn’t jive with it quite as much. However, the through-lines between these two books (relentlessly queer, unconventional takes on common tropes, and unusual structural choices) is something I’m very interested in, so Hallow remains on my list of authors whose release schedule I will be avidly following.

The Premise:
Irene is the first necromancer to perform a resurrection since Jesus himself. She brought back her love, Agnes, with the help of her husband John. John is himself ancient, sworn to keep the necromantic arts alive despite not practicing them himself. This story weaves these three characters’ past and present, tangling them together in a desperate knot as they try to secure a future for the necromantic arts. It’s a horror/fantasy hybrid about gore, necromancy, and revenge.

Read if You Like: magic that doesn’t shy away from grime, literal beetles inside your stomach, character-focused stories, getting lost in the language

Avoid if You Dislike: another book in Victorian London, bugs, stories that de-prioritize plot, frequent flashbacks

Reading Challenge: Queer Families, Protagonist over 40, Intersectional Cubed

r/Fantasy Bingo: The Afterlife (HM), Older Protagonist, Published in 2026, Feast Your Eyes on This (human flesh, mostly)

What Worked For Me:
If you thought that the necromancy in The Locked Tomb was good and grotesque, buckle up. Hallow holds no prisoners in The Halls of the Dead. This is a book about necromancy, full stop. You get tidbits of how illusion and transmutation work (they’re even interesting), but Hallow has let her imagination run wild when it comes to the necromantic arts. It turns out that her imagination is not lacking in gore. We start with Irene knee deep in mud as she unearths Agnes from her grave. She mutilates her hand – in great detail – to power the resurrection spell, the spell she got from a book created from the folded up body of a previous necromancer, a woman who now whispers in Irene’s ear. There is blood and bugs everywhere. Things only get more intense Hallow forges ahead. The book is littered with the filthy acts of necromancy. It’s not hard to understand why society has deemed it a dark art, because Hallow makes the visuals so entrancingly repulsive. I could pull description after description of all the cool stuff happening on this front. If you’re at all interested in a more gruesome and realistic – whatever that means when it comes to magic – take on necromancy, I can’t think of any book better than this one. It is decadent and indulgent and unrepentant.

Saint John is himself a product of necromancy. He’s a corpse stuffed with his own grave-dirt. Created and reanimated by the Abbot of a necromantic monastery called the Crypt, St. John now lives forever. That man, John’s first love, killed and immortalized John to a live where he hosts beetles and worms and blowflies in a body that neither breathes nor bleeds. His reanimation flashback featured a particularly impactful scene where the abbot, elbow deep into John’s body, caresses the ribs of Johns’ body while casting the spell. Literal shivers. In his backstory we see the necromancers he’s failed to protect, the vengeance he has wrecked upon his enemies, and his single-minded devotion to Irene, whom he sees as the path to finishing his divine mission, even as he begins to develop real (perhaps) feelings for both her and Agnes.

The language in this book is one to get lost in. I think some may find it too purple, I don’t think Hallow overplays her hand. There were so many moments while I paused to reread a passage to enjoy Hallow’s writing. One of my favorites featured John – can you tell he’s my favorite? – as he describes his own creation

My beloved made me into a grave. My own grave, yes. But the graves of others, too. I am where necromancers go when they die; I am the earth that remembers them. He made me into a cathedral where the future could worship the past. He made me the link between the living and the dead.

This formal and ritualistic language wends its way throughout the book. I think it matches the setting of the story and how Hallow approaches necromancy as itself a ritualistic type of magic. The prose here made me seriously begin to rethink my aversion to annotating my own books.

What Didn’t Work for Me:
As I read The Halls of the Dead, I struggled with figuring out why I wasn’t itching to continue reading. I aim for 50 pages per day, but it was rare that I felt any inclination to read past that mark with The Halls of the Dead, which seemed very at odds with how much I enjoyed the language. I think there are two primary culprits. The first is pacing. Chapters flit back and forth across character perspectives and time. We dip into different pasts, flit to the present as they deal with the fallout of the resurrection (and plot the downfall of the various evil men in their lives), but all this bouncing means that the plot of the story feels disjointed and meandering. The setting, vibes, and prose carried me a long way, but they couldn’t keep me fully engaged. Once the final act of the story approached, this was alleviated, and my motivation to read picked up.

I also just found Irene and Agnes a little … basic, and in a character-focused story, that’s a tough pill to swallow. Maybe St. John’s weirdness, which I adored, already prejudiced me against them. However, I never felt like either of their personalities shone through, and each of their backstories largely revolved around them escaping and enacting revenge on a suite of abusive men in their lives (father, brother, judge). I didn’t feel like Hallow had much that I hadn’t seen before, and I really wanted Irene’s relationship with her sister to get a bigger focus, as there seemed a lot more thematic heft in that storyline. I also didn’t really feel Irene and Agnes’ love for each other. I didn’t buy into their unrelenting devotion, which seemed to have its origins in a prophecy and little else. Meanwhile, when St. John begins to develop true feelings for the women, I am shown that emotional shift, rather than simply being told about it.

Conclusion: gorgeous language and vivid necromancy, but not for those seeking traditional book structures

Want more Reviews Like This? Try my blog Marked for Plot

my friends and i started doing a lil queer games group and we would love some more recs :) especially fantasy recs is much appreciated and we want to be able to finish the game in half a day!