2023 Canon Promo Post
Saturday, 25 February 2023 16:09![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
keita52 posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
sufficiently_advanced_exUse the comments of this post to promote your favorite canon(s). Please use one comment per canon. You can use the template provided here or whatever format you wish.
If it is freely available online, consider adding it to the Freely Available Canons spreadsheet.
Name:
Author:
Length (pages or words, whichever is more relevant):
Sub-genre:
Why it's awesome:
Any other important information to know about:
If it is freely available online, consider adding it to the Freely Available Canons spreadsheet.
Name:
Author:
Length (pages or words, whichever is more relevant):
Sub-genre:
Why it's awesome:
Any other important information to know about:
The Monstrumologist Series - Rick Yancey
Date: 26 Feb 2023 22:30 (UTC)Name: The Monstrumologist Series
Author: Rick Yancey
Length: 434 pages (first book), 424 pages (second), 560 pages (third), 320 pages (fourth)
Sub-genre: fantasy, horror, young adult
Why it's awesome: This series is written as a diary of the main character about his life after his parents die and his father's employer (a man dedicating his life to the study of monsters) takes charge of him. I enjoy the structure of the books (each tackles at least one different monster for the duo to hunt/study), as well as the explorations of dark/tragic themes (the trauma of hunting and studying monsters as a child and the horrific choices forced to make while doing so, child neglect, losing one's parents, prioritizing work over family/love, etc).
Any other important information to know about: The first book is enough to both request and create for this series, I feel; the rest of the series fleshes out the story and the characters and provides a conclusion, but the first book is a great standalone for getting to know the characters and the world. The Storygraph links below list additional content warnings.
Link to more info: Storygraph (book series) | Storygraph (first book)
Ash - Malinda Lo
Date: 26 Feb 2023 22:41 (UTC)Name: Ash
Author: Malinda Lo
Length: 264 pages
Sub-genre: fantasy, lgbtqia+, young adult
Why it's awesome: Ash is a retelling of Cinderella in which a girl is abused by her step-family and begs a fairy for aid, promising herself to him... and then she falls in love with a woman, the king's huntress. I love the world of this book, particularly the magic that's spoken of in sort of hushed tones: believed by some, shrugged off by others. The descriptions of the fairies in particular are really interesting to me (they are often described as having sort of translucent skin, when they're able to be looked at clearly and without any sort of magic glamouring them to make them more appealing).
Any other important information to know about: There was another book (Huntress) written after Ash, that takes place long before Ash. There is also as a supplemental story set after Huntress. Neither of these are necessary to request or create for Ash, but they do provide further lore information (and are also enjoyable on their own!).
Link to more info: Storygraph
The Sandsea Trilogy - Chelsea Abdullah
Date: 26 Feb 2023 22:52 (UTC)Name: The Sandsea Trilogy
Author: Chelsea Abdullah
Length: 467 pages (first book; the rest of the trilogy has yet to be released)
Sub-genre: fantasy
Why it's awesome: Inspired by stories from One Thousand and One Nights, this book tells the story of a woman who, with her jinn companion, seeks out jinn relics to sell. At least at first, until she is blackmailed by the sultan into going on a journey to seek out a particular relic. There are a lot of themes and points I really enjoyed in this book: magic, the bonds of family (both found family and family through blood), adventuring through the desert, sheltered characters coming out of their shell, etc.
Any other important information to know about: As mentioned above, only the first book of the trilogy has been released.
Link to more info: Storygraph
Cadáver Exquisito | Tender is the Flesh - Agustina Bazterrica
Date: 26 Feb 2023 23:02 (UTC)Name: Cadáver Exquisito | Tender is the Flesh
Author: Agustina Bazterrica
Length: 211 pages
Sub-genre: dystopian, horror, literary
Why it's awesome: I was really captivated by the dystopian horror of this book. In this world, cannibalism is commonplace. The world is set up around it: humans are raised as cattle to be consumed. One man, though, seems to find the government-sanctioned cannibalism unsettling, and then one day he is gifted a woman to be used for meat...
Any other important information to know about: This book is absolutely horrific. There is, of course, cannibalism; it is explicitly described. There is also rape, animal cruelty, slavery, torture, etc. If you'd rather not be surprised, the Storygraph link below has a lot of content warnings.
Link to more info: Storygraph
Our Wives Under The Sea - Julia Armfield
Date: 26 Feb 2023 23:07 (UTC)Name: Our Wives Under The Sea
Author: Julia Armfield
Length: 240 pages
Sub-genre: horror, lgbtqia+, literary
Why it's awesome: A woman goes on a dive deep into the ocean. She comes back strange, and her wife takes care of her. I found this book really interesting both for the deep sea horror as well as the mystery that unfolds with Leah: what happened there in the ocean? What might happen to her now that she's back?
Link to more info: Storygraph
Oceanrest Series - S.R. Hughes
Date: 27 Feb 2023 11:04 (UTC)Author: S.R. Hughes
Length: Ongoing series, two books out so far. The War Beneath (320 pages) and A Maze of Glass (418 pages)
Sub-genre: Fantasy/Horror
Why it's awesome: Hughes's works are visceral and insidious and they really get into your brain. He has an amazing way with words and has crafted a fascinating universe that's easy to get lost in.
Any other important information to know about: You can learn more and find buy links at the author's website
The Space Between Worlds, Micaiah Johnson
Date: 28 Feb 2023 18:13 (UTC)What if one woman (her name is Cara) was dead in nearly every parallel reality and therefore could go nearly everywhere, and this got her a job that got her out of the poor and dangerous environs she was born into, got her safety and income she couldn't find any other way? And she knew she was privileged to have that, even if the company she worked for had no loyalty to her beyond her usefulness? What if she had a hopeless crush on her handler, a woman born into the privilege and status she had never known, and resented having to keep secrets from her but still cherished the (must be professionally required, what other reason could there be) care her handler took to make sure she always came back to the first world safely? (the pining turns out not to necessarily be one sided, heh)
Would you like to find out? Then read The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson and consider requesting or creating for it!
The Eye of the Heron - Ursula K. Le Guin
Date: 28 Feb 2023 23:14 (UTC)Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Length (pages or words, whichever is more relevant): ~140 pages
Sub-genre: Science fiction, utopian/dystopian
Why it's awesome: It tells the story of an anarchist society put in conflict with a much larger industrial colonialist power. One of the central characters is Luz, whose tyrannical capitalist father pressures her into conforming to what a woman in their society should be: docile, submissive brood mare. She's too clever for that, however, and chooses to aid the anarchist Shantih Town against him and his associates. It's heavy on philosophical discussions concerning violence, power and the state, thought in terms of plot development I found it pretty fast-paced.
Ruby Red Trilogy - Kerstin Gier
Date: 28 Feb 2023 23:35 (UTC)Author: Kerstin Gier
Length (pages or words, whichever is more relevant): 336 (Ruby Red), 362 (Sapphire Blue), 464 (Emerald Green)
Sub-genre: Fantasy, young adult, romance
Why it's awesome: Young girl finds out she has the power to travel, when it was previously thought her cousin would have this power. Hijinks ensue. This is one of my favorite YA series, just for how charming and relatable the protagonist is. I find her awkwardness at navigating historical societal rules highly relatable as a neurodivergent person. She's kinda snarky, has a good sense of humor and overall feels like a real teenager. Also, I am enthralled by the whole secret society of hereditary time travelers thing.
Dragon Kin Series - G.A. Aiken
Date: 2 Mar 2023 16:10 (UTC)Author: G.A. Aiken
Length (pages or words, whichever is more relevant): There are 9 primary books, ranging in length from 336 to 483 pages
Sub-genre: fantasy romance/paranormal romance
Why it's awesome: Seriously, seriously badass women who regularly choose violence! Bickering siblings! Banter! I know this is one hell of a long shot, but I just reread this series in less than two weeks and I absolutely adore it. The romances are fun and the smut is excellent, but I’m mostly in it for the women. Especially their friendships.
Any other important information to know about: G.A. Aiken is the fantasy pen name of Shelly Laurenston. Series on Goodreads.
Black Jewels Trilogy - Anne Bishop
Date: 2 Mar 2023 17:52 (UTC)Author: Anne Bishop
Length (pages or words, whichever is more relevant): The trilogy is 1204 pages in total. There are a bunch more books, but the trilogy can be read by itself.
Sub-genre: dark fantasy
Why it's awesome: I love, love, love these books. There’s a heavy found family theme, which I am always here for. There are crazy powerful characters and suuuuper sexy ones at that. The way it deals with trauma is excellent. In fact, this series is where I discovered that my type is dangerous people with dubious morals and a traumatic backstory.
Any other important information to know about: Really bad things happen to people, including children, so heads up if you have any sensitivities around that. There’s also a lot of gender essentialism to the magic system. Trilogy on Goodreads.
no subject
Date: 2 Mar 2023 22:38 (UTC)Author: Baoshu
Category: Novella (Goodreads says about 80 pages in length)
Sub-genre: SF, "alternate history" expansively defined
Where can you find it: "Broken Stars" anthology (edited by Ken Liu), Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine March/April 2015.
Summary: The narrator, Xie Baosheng, recounts his life and that of his star-crossed lover Qiqi as they weave in and out of each others' lives, against the backdrop of 20th and 21st-century Chinese history. Pretty soon after you start reading, you'll realize the difference between Xie Baosheng's world on our own, but it's a fun "a-ha!" moment when it hits. I found some of the later parts of the story tended to drag on as the characters got more explicit and sat down talking about "yes, such philosophy, very Sartre, wow," but the overall conceit was very well done.
What I'd be interested in requesting for it: Fix-it fic for Xie Baosheng/Qiqi where they get to be happy, either in the canon world, or a more mundane one like ours, or some kind of afterlife reunion. Alternatively, I would be interested in seeing how the SF concepts explored here would play out in a different part of the world.
The Complete Pegana - Lord Dunsany
Date: 3 Mar 2023 06:22 (UTC)Author: Lord Dunsany
Length: 239 pages
Sub-genre: fantasy
Why it's awesome: Lord Dunsany's Pegana mythos is a wonderfully inventive mythology that influences later later fantasy writers. (There're gods for stroking cats, calming dogs, dust, broken things). The gods are petty, fallible and interesting, while people make a living in this chaotic universe. They consist of short stories, that are very readable.
Any other important information to know about: The Complete Pegana includes The Gods of Pegāna (1905), Time and the Gods (1906) and "Beyond the Fields We Know" (the essay, "Idle Days" on the Yann, "A Shop in Go-by Street" & "The Avenger of Perdóndaris") in Tales of Three Hemispheres. They are all in public domain and can be read in project gutenburg
Link to more info:
The Complete Pegana: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/730972.The_Complete_Peg_na
The Gods of Pegāna: https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/8395
Time and the Gods: https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/8183
Tales of Three Hemispheres: https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/11440
Black Box by Jennifer Egan
Date: 3 Mar 2023 06:32 (UTC)Author: Jennifer Egan
Length: 8597 words
Sub-genre: horror, spy/thriller, dystopia, short story
Why it's awesome: Brillian use of second character narration as it's formatted as thought transcription of a lady spy. Dark and thought provoking
Any other important information to know about: involves sexual threat/violence, disassociation
Link to the story at The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/06/04/black-box
Link on Wayback Machine (if you have reach free article limit): https://web.archive.org/web/20190828201319/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/06/04/black-box-2
Help Me Follow My Sister into the Land of the Dead - Carmen Maria Machado
Date: 3 Mar 2023 06:38 (UTC)Author: Carmen Maria Machado
Length: 3079 words
Sub-genre: Fantasy, Horror, Short story
Why it's awesome: A woman's travels to the afterlife in search of her sister's soul, as told by her GoFundMe campaign updates.
Any other important information to know about: contains reference to
spoiler
suicide and murder
Link to the story: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/help-follow-sister-land-dead/
The King in Yellow - Robert W. Chambers
Date: 3 Mar 2023 06:51 (UTC)Author: Robert W. Chambers
Length: 316 pages
Sub-genre: Horror, short story collection
Why it's awesome: Cosmic horror that inspires Lovecraft. A literary danse macabre across several shadow-laden locations and tragic characters
Any other important information to know about: The first four stories are loosely connected by the mythos and other stories are unrelated.
Link on gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8492/8492-h/8492-h.htm
Ten Deals with the Indigo Snake - Mel Kassel
Date: 3 Mar 2023 06:59 (UTC)Author: Mel Kassel
Length: 3440 words
Sub-genre: Urban fantasy, short story
Why it's awesome: It's our world with snakes that regularly grant wish at a price, a canon queer heroine and an unusual dynamic between her wish granting snake and her
Link to the story: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/ten-deals-with-the-indigo-snake/
The Moon Moth - Jack Vance
Date: 3 Mar 2023 07:11 (UTC)Author: Jack Vance
Length: 35 pages
Sub-genre: Scifi, novella, mystery
Why it's awesome: a mystery story set on a planet where everyone wears complete masks to indicate their social status and communicates via musical instruments (different ones depending on politeness level, context, etc.) and singing. The Earth born hero has to learn the culture the hard way to even survive. Perfect for identity and politics shenanigans
Link on the Internet archive: https://archive.org/details/Galaxy_v19n06_1961-08/page/n79/mode/2up?view=theater
The Sword-Witch’s Heart - Tavia Lark
Date: 3 Mar 2023 16:43 (UTC)Author: Tavia Lark
Length: 262 pages
Sub-genre: M/M romance, fantasy, novel
Why it's awesome: It's a fun m/m romance with fantasy adventure plot. Leth is forsaken by his family and his god. Evain's secret doesn't allow him to stay anywhere for long. Both find the other annoying, but when they work together to save a territory with magic, they start to see beyond their perception. Their banter and sex are hot too.
Any other important information to know about: It's part of a series but can be read as a standalone novel
Link: https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/92ed2f1d-1c1c-40d8-800a-94ea5f997210
no subject
Date: 3 Mar 2023 22:33 (UTC)Author: Liu Cixin
Length: three rather lengthy books--the first book is ~400 pages in translation and the others are similar
Sub-genre: fairly hard SF
What it's about: The first book interweaves a plot in the past (an astrophysicist who's been disillusioned by the Cultural Revolution is recruited into a secret program at an isolated Chinese military base) and present (a nanoparticle researcher investigates a mysterious phenomenon that seems to be killing off scientists in the 21st century, and along the way, gets drawn into an immersive videogame). Spoilers: it involves first contact with our neighbors, the "Trisolarans" from Alpha Centauri. The second and third books deal with Earth's schemes to defend the planet against a potential Trisolaran invasion.
Liu's writing style is often more info-dumpy than narrative; he'll zoom in on one or two characters, talk about them briefly and explain how they impacted the main plot, then break the fourth wall to say "and that was really the only way so-and-so changed history, he never knew the importance of that conversation." Or a character will take an entire chapter to describe, in flashback, how he burned out on academia and went to a Buddhist monastery to find purpose. This works for me, but it might not be for everyone.
Some potential turnoffs: the characters occasionally make comments about womanhood that, on their own, can be ignored as one characters' biased opinion; taken together, they can be pretty weird/stereotypical. There is a lot of bleakness and death and destruction on a grand scale, particularly in book 3, but starting right away with the horrors of the Cultural Revolution in book 1. I am inclined to read the series as a whole as taking an optimistic tone--depending on how you interpret the title, you could see it as "a brief summary of Planet Earth's encounter with the larger universe, to be read by our successors in future universes!"--but not everyone sees it that way.
Each to Each - Seanan McGuire
Date: 4 Mar 2023 00:26 (UTC)Author: Seanan McGuire
Length: A short story of 7529 words.
Sub-genre: Military sci fi
Why it's awesome: Set in the near future where women make up the bulk of the world's naval forces, thanks to technological advancements that turns them into fish-human hybrids genetically modified for underwater combat. (In-universe explanation on why men are unsuitable exists.) So yes, warrior mermaids. The story is told from the perspective of a young person in the American Navy on the verge of undergoing the process that will turn her into a full-fledged creature of the depths. The details of how this whole world works are very rich and plausibly explained, with a fair bit of body horror since becoming a mermaid is pretty much irreversible. Those who committ fully to enhancing their bodies for marine enviroments will never be comfortable on dry land again.
Any other important information to know about: The story has a heavily feminist slant, with loads of discussion of patriarchy/bodily autonomy/bureaucractic buffonery and all the leftist dystopian sci fi tropes beloved of the 2010s (Each to Each was written in 2014). I'm recommending this on the basis of exceptional worldbuilding and not personal politics.
Link to read: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/each-to-each/
(Lightspeed magazine is free to read online, but they offer ebooks, subscriptions and print copies to keep the lights on.)
no subject
Date: 4 Mar 2023 01:34 (UTC)Author: Sylvia Louise Engdahl
Length: entire series is about 700 pages as an omnibus
Sub-genre: "sufficiently advanced technology" (appropriate for this exchange!)
Where can you find it: available on the author's Smashwords page
Recommended if: you like books like "Elder Race" or the "Steerswoman" series that blur the lines between fantasy and SF.
Content notes: a lot of engagement with religious themes beyond the superficial "closeminded religious hierarchy is bad" setup of the first volume. (This may be a feature rather than a bug.) The third book features
spoiler title
fridging of women (in the past and present). It also turns into a crossover with Engdahl's other books, but you don't need to have read those in order to enjoy it, IMO.
no subject
Date: 4 Mar 2023 02:40 (UTC)Author: K. A. Applegate
Sub-genre: SF
Premise: A group of young teens in 90s USA get animal shapeshifting powers to protect Earth from a brain-stealing species of slugs known as Yeerks. Middle-grade series that at first may seem like "Baby-Sitters' Club" levels of "status quo is god," but is full of body horror from the start, and quickly gets into increasingly dark themes about the horrors of war from all sides.
Length: ...54 small paperbacks with like ten other spinoffs BUT the purpose of this post is not to convince you to read the entire thing, but rather, to highlight a few relationships in the tag set featuring minor characters and give you the tl;dr of which books to try if you're interested in those dynamics. (There should be PDF copies of the books floating around online and the author has given her unofficial approval at having them circulate this way, let me know if you're having trouble finding anything.)
Aftran 942 & or / Cassie: Cassie is the team's best morpher, a nature-lover and somewhat of a pacifist (inasmuch as you can be when fighting a secret war); Aftran is a rank-and-file Yeerk assigned to the young daughter of a rich banker. Relevant books: 19, 29
Aldrea-Iskillion-Falan/Dak Hamee: Aldrea is an Andalite (ostensibly the Yeerks' enemies and, indirectly, the humans' allies, though it's more complicated than the one-liner) the daughter of an idealistic officer who enabled the Yeerks to have interstellar spaceflight. Dak is a Hork-Bajir (a species that look physically intimidating but are actually pleasant herbivores, and are caught in the crossfire of the war), who is much more verbally intelligent than many of his peers. Relevant books: The Hork-Bajir Chronicles
Alloran-Semitur-Corrass / Visser Three|Esplin 9466: Alloran is an Andalite (former officer and sometimes war-criminal); Visser Three is the Yeerk who infests him, the only Yeerk to have access to an Andalite body and morphing technology. ("Esplin 9466" is his given name, "Visser Three" is his title.) Relevant books: The Andalite Chronicles, The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, maybe #8.
David/Marco: Marco is the pragmatic strategist and also funny guy of the team; David is an opportunistic new kid who stumbles across the morphing device and becomes another Animorph, briefly. Relevant books: 20, 21, 22, 48
Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul/Loren: Elfangor is the Andalite who gives the kids their morphing abilities (and is promptly killed off ~40 pages into book 1). Loren is a human who was kidnapped by stereotypical "little green men" aliens and rescued/dragged into the broader conflict by Elfangor in the pre-canon timeframe. Relevant books: The Andalite Chronicles
Eva & Marco: Eva is Marco's mom, who disappeared and was presumed dead a few years before the story starts; Marco quickly learns that she is the host body for Visser One, a high-ranking Yeerk official. Relevant books: 5, 15, 30, 35, "Visser," 45. ("Visser" is from Visser One's POV and features a little more Eva interiority, the earlier Marco books mostly display her in flashback.)
Melissa Chapman/Rachel: Rachel is the risk-taker and "warrior princess" of the team; in some ways she can be stereotypically feminine, but the war reveals her intensely combative side. Melissa is an old friend of hers from the gymnastics team; her parents are both controllers. Relevant books: 2
Alloran-Semitur-Corrass & Eva. See above: both have experience as the hosts of high-ranking Vissers.
...okay this was likely tl;dr but if you've ever been curious about this crazy fandom, hopefully there's a trope or two here that whets your appetite!
no subject
Date: 4 Mar 2023 20:13 (UTC)Author: Jesse Hajicek
Length: A stand-alone novel, about 450 pages in print form.
Sub-genre: Dystopian wild-west fantasy romance.
Why it's awesome: Iron woobie outlaw with nothing left to lose meets rebel pamphleteer in way over his head in a harsh theocratic Old West-style dystopia when they are both arrested and sent to a prison for magic-users; together they plot a jailbreak, discover the dark secrets underlying the totalitarian Commonwealth and their own magical potential, and fall in desperate, epic, destiny-breaking love.
Content warnings: Racism toward fantasy indigenous people, mind rape, torture, forced drug use and transactional sex. One main character has a backstory involving child abuse and prostitution, which is discussed but not shown on-page.
Any other important information to know about: Besides being available in print, the author has the complete novel up for free on his original fiction archive on LJ!
no subject
Date: 4 Mar 2023 20:38 (UTC)Author: Jesse Hajicek
Length: Short story.
Sub-genre: Grimy sword-and-sorcery-lite fantasy.
Why it's awesome: A very brief short story, just a little but very satisfying taste of this poor, dingy fantasy city where gutter-witches catch ghosts to power their spells and feed them their own life force via their blood (and other things), plus a bonus cute/creepy teenage M/M romance.
Any other important information to know about: This story takes place in the world of the author's Kastor Chronicles series, but I haven't read that and it stands alone just fine! Here's the link.
no subject
Date: 5 Mar 2023 00:27 (UTC)Author: Nicole Kornher-Stace
Length (pages or words, whichever is more relevant):24,500 words
Sub-genre: Fantasy, portals, and dreams
Why it's awesome: This novella (somewhere between a novella and a short story) is absolutely brilliant. The prose is beautiful. What happens when you were the child in that portal fantasy book that's now all grown up and the your door has closed? What if your life here in the distasteful real world is so much less real than that in the other world? The other place, the other... person. You two were so close, friends or frenemies or together becoming one protagonist. "A whole, halved badly." So, the main character tries to find that other place and other person in dream.
Link: http://nicolekornherstace.com/mulberry-down/
no subject
Date: 5 Mar 2023 15:24 (UTC)Author: Faith Hunter
Length: There are 15 novels in the series and many short stories. Of the requested characters, Leo and Jane show up in the first book, Skinwalkers, which is 320 pages long. Grégoire is a regular character starting in the third book, Mercy Blade.
Sub-genre: Urban fantasy, vampire
Why it's awesome: Really chewy urban fantasy that gets more complex throughout the series without ever becoming a confusing mess. Protagonist is a Cherokee shapeshifter and vampire hunter who gradually gets drawn deeper and deeper into the vampire politics of New Orleans without ever losing her individuality. Great worldbuilding. Lots of different kinds of supernatural characters and magical/supernatural powers. Multiple factions and alliances and rivalries. Most of the characters are shades of gray, but a few are out-and-out evil because characters we can really hate are fun, right?
Any other important information to know about: All the novels are available in print, audiobook, and ebook editions.
no subject
Date: 6 Mar 2023 19:32 (UTC)Free audio book: https://librivox.org/star-surgeon-by-alan-edward-nourse/
Name: Star Surgeon
Author: Alan E. Nourse
Length: short novel made up of linked stories, approx 50k words
Sub-genre: Interplanetary medical drama / fish out of water protagonist
Why it's awesome: Dal Tigmar is the first alien to join the all-human "Star Surgeons," in a universe where interstellar doctors are basically treated like rock stars. His human friend Frank "Tiger" Martin staunchly supports him in the face of species-ist/racist harassment from co-workers and higher-ups who think aliens aren't capable of being good doctors. Dal is a lovely main character: intelligent, hard working, caring and compassionate, stubborn in the face of obstacles but not immune to self-doubt, and his relationship with Tiger is surprisingly nuanced.
Any other important information to know about: Some plague/pandemic based storylines. Most of the outdated ableist language & attitudes (especially regarding the ranking of species as having higher/lower intelligence "levels") that you'd expect from being written by a doctor in the 1960s. Literally zero female characters, as far as I remember.
no subject
Date: 7 Mar 2023 04:27 (UTC)Author: Vina Jie-Min Prasad
Length: 7980 words
Sub-genre: Science fiction
Why it's awesome: It's a charming tale of meat forgery (using bioprinters to fake a provenance of meat that wasn't earned) with a couple of clever, creative heroines outwitting a formidable opponent.
Any other important information to know about: It's available for free at https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/prasad_01_17/
no subject
Date: 7 Mar 2023 04:44 (UTC)Author: Daryl Gregory
Length 300 pages
Sub-genre: Science fiction, thriller, LGBTQ
Why it's awesome: Lyda Rose is a scientist who helped develop a drug with a side effect of making the user feel the presence of God, whether they want to or not. Lyda and her colleagues accidentally overdosed on the drug, and it had permanent effects on all of them. When the drug starts being distributed on the street, Lyda and Ollie (Lyda's ex-government-agent girlfriend) have to find out why. What I've just written sounds grim, but it's also very funny in places.
no subject
Date: 7 Mar 2023 04:50 (UTC)Author: Ken Grimwood
Length: 311 pages
Sub-genre: Science fiction, time loop
Why it's awesome: It's a time loop novel, but the time loops can be decades long. The protagonists get the abundance of choices that the time loop genre offers, but also can make much longer-term decisions (like marriage and careers) than time loopers usually do. Not very much of the mechanics of the time looping is explained, so there's a lot of room for world-building.