SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

How's your Tamil, Anna? There are a ton of great looking things in that language. ;-) The closest thing I've found so far is not explicitly Hindu, or not published outside of one of the Indian languages. Lunch is over, but I'll keep looking!

Allison wrote: "How's your Tamil, Anna?"

Lol, I guess it's off to the library to find a language course!

Sarah Anne wrote: "If you read it could you post your opinion on this thread? "

Will do.

Okay, try Anil Menon. I'm sort of reaching for straws, but he was nominated for The Hindu Prize, which if this is a misnomer, it's an exceptionally cruel one for those of us trying to understand the significance of faith in literature. He has a bunch of sci fi short fic, and is a prominent advocate for speculative fiction in India.

If that doesn't work, I say we check out this so-called "Hindu Prize" and see what it can tell us.

Allison wrote: "Okay, try Anil Menon."

Ooh, I actually saw that name earlier today when I was looking at books by Vandana Singh. This one looks promising to me: Breaking the Bow: Speculative Fiction Inspired by the Ramayana, co-edited by them, and it has a story by Indra Das, so it kind of combines everything!

Anna wrote: "Allison wrote: "Okay, try Anil Menon."

Ooh, I actually saw that name earlier today when I was looking at books by Vandana Singh. This one looks promising to me: [book:Breaking the ..."

Perfect!

Thanks Allison, my day is saved! I can perhaps retire to bed to read my chronic illness pick, which is Planetfall (anxiety). Very fitting, having felt anxious about a book challenge all day :D

That's a good choice for that square, Anna!

I finally decided to stop saving it. I don't know what that was about. Sometimes you expect to love a book so much you don't want to read it, just in case you don't love it, or if you do, then you can't look forward to it anymore.

Here is an article with recommendations for fantasy books with asexual lead characters. There's some that aren't on Allison's most excellent spreadsheet.

https://bookriot.com/2016/10/11/7-fan...

The City of Devi is a near future dytopia set in India and by an Indian author that has Hindu elements. It says it's 3rd in a series but it's more like a stand alone book in series only related by references to Hindu deities. I've only read the one. It's very well written but a bit too bleak for my tastes. I believe that the author is also LGBT so several potential categories for this one.

good finds, Meredith and Liz!!

If someone wants more of January's theme, I found this while reading my daily dose of short fiction:

The Old Dispensation by Lavie Tidhar

A space opera adventure set in a universe controlled and run by Jewish religious authorities. An enforcer is sent to a distant planet where he discovers an android who changes his mind about what is right and wrong.

Free online: https://www.tor.com/2017/02/08/the-ol...

I didn't read it yet, but it's now on my TBR list.

And it's only $.99 on Kindle in the U.S.

Another negative owned book...

Anna wrote: "my chronic illness pick, which is Planetfall (anxiety)."

I only read a few chapters the first night, but yesterday I stayed up until 4AM, reading the rest in one sitting. I don't regret saving this for so long, it feels like I read it at the perfect time.

If anyone has recommendations for other adult speculative fiction dealing with mental illness in the anxiety spectrum, please let me know!

Anna and Sarah Anne -- I got 65 pages into The Devourers and had to shelve it. It was too gruesome and started making me feel ill. I think it's probably a very good book, just not for me.

Thanks Travis, I guess that means I also need to forget about it :/

Thank you, Travis! i wouldn't want to inflict that on everyone via a random poll then :)

Anna wrote: "Thanks Travis, I guess that means I also need to forget about it :/"

For me - the biggest thing I recall is the excessive use of 'piss' - it is very...explicit in daily functions? Still an interesting story in there but....graphic in a ...different way than that word is usually used? Hard to categorize.

Sarah Gailey's Hippo Western novellas have a major character who is non-binary and another who is gay/bisexual. River of Teeth and Taste of Marrow. I believe the author is bisexual (or at least not straight). These books are super fun, alternate history. I can't believe I didn't think of them sooner. There's a third installment coming out later this year.

For Native/First Nations author and characters, check out this upcoming book: Trail of Lightning. It sounds great. I read this interview with the author and pre-ordered it. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/s...

Meredith!! These look so good!

I have updated the score card and the month we're on, because I am impatient. But y'all still technically have a day I guess. I will be moving the Golem and the Jinni threads on the first though so we don't clutter the re-read thread for too long, unless you tell me you intend to use them soon. And then I'll try to wait for you :)

At the risk of overposting, I saw this and thought y'all might appreciate it!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/postev...

That’s a great article Allison! I loved the quote about how when minority authors are published it’s work that often reinforces pre-existing stereotypes. I’ve been wondering this myself. With fantasy and sci-fi, I don’t think it is as much of a problem as it would be in non-fiction or literary fiction, but it is troublesome.

I also appreciated the point about translated works. When I was doing some of my own research I was very frustrated by titles that sounded fantastic but weren’t available in the US (sometimes because of copyright laws) but also because publishers refuse to pick up the rights and find translators.

Thanks for sharing. I might see if I can hunt a few of these titles down myself.

Sarah wrote: "That’s a great article Allison! I loved the quote about how when minority authors are published it’s work that often reinforces pre-existing stereotypes. I’ve been wondering this myself. With fanta..."

Yeah! Some sound really intriguing and I hadn't heard of them elsewhere. I'm combing through too for suggestions :)

Thanks for the share! When she said "Less than 1 percent of literary fiction and poetry books published in the United States are translations, and more than 60 percent of those are from Europe and Canada." I wasn't surprised but still very sad about it. Also poignant was discussion of the "single story".

ANother FYI re mental illness---The Lies of Locke Lamora author Scott Lynch is very upfront about his problems with depression/anxiety, as well as Throne of the Crescent Moon author Saladin Ahmed.

Thanks Maggie! Do they have characters in the books dealing with similar issues?

If you're looking for a book about mental illness The Drowning Girl is a fantastic book about a schizophrenic woman. It's very surreal as she falls further and further into a breakdown while trying to unravel truth from delusion about a traumatic past event. It has a dark, sometimes kind of eerie, magical realism feel to it.

The author also has schizophrenia, OCD, depression, and anxiety issues, and she's lesbian, and trans. She also writes horror/dark fantasy with absolutely gorgeous prose. Silk and Threshold are 2 that I'd recommend.

Poppy Z. Brite (now Billy Martin) is a gay, trans author who has depression and chronic physical illness. I haven't read anything but a couple of his short stories in many years, but I loved his books back when I did read them.

Liz wrote: "If you're looking for a book about mental illness The Drowning Girl is a fantastic book about a schizophrenic woman. It's very surreal as she falls further and further into a breakd..."

Wow. This is great information, though that is also a lot to live with. I hope she's okay!

Thanks Liz! I've always thought Kiernan was too horrory for my taste, but I'll look into The Drowning Girl to see if maybe I can manage it.

I used to read her blog years ago but going by her current social media ... well, schizophrenia kind of takes a progressive toll on a person and it's a struggle. (I know how tough it is, my sister is also schizophrenic) She still writes but most of it is very different from her earlier books.

Anna wrote: "Thanks Maggie! Do they have characters in the books dealing with similar issues?"

I dont believe so. But Ahmed uses middle eastern, muslim settings and characters

The Drowning Girl is really good.

Allison wrote: "At the risk of overposting, I saw this and thought y'all might appreciate it!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/postev......"

I'm really hoping I can dig up the Aboriginal fantasy novels in one of my local libraries now.

I may have accidentally found something for #17 (intersex). I'm not sure yet if it'll qualify, I don't know how prominent these characters will be, since I've only read the first chapter. This is one of the categories where I wasn't even trying to find an ownvoices speculative work, because I assumed that would be highly unlikely. This isn't ownvoices, but let's see how this will turn out. I googled 'intersex in fiction' and this book wasn't on the few lists I looked at, so maybe it's only a small part of the book.

Anyway, it's Sideshow by Sheri S. Tepper, the third and final book in the Arbai "series". The first book, Grass, is on the group bookshelf. I tend to read these books a bit slower than most, because the chapters are so long, so I'm less likely to pick it up multiple times a day. I'll edit this post once I know more.

Oh, edit to add that my original tentative pick for this was Pantomime by Laura Lam, and now I've added 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson to my list of options, based on that previously mentioned googling.

Anna wrote: "I may have accidentally found something for #17 (intersex). I'm not sure yet if it'll qualify, I don't know how prominent these characters will be, since I've only read the first chapter. This is o..."

Good finds!! Keep us posted :)

I finished Sideshow, I wouldn't recommend it for intersex rep. It does have other kinds of diversity though, in fact the whole book kind of discusses diversity. So although the intersex stuff was only discussed in chapters one and two, it's still a very interesting read. So like I said in the other thread, if you enjoyed Grass, definitely continue on with the other books!

I think I'll stick with Pantomime as my pick for intersex, because it sounds like the plot revolves around that. But I'm also interested to see if other options turn up.

I hope you'll really like Pantomime, Anna! I loved it!

That's good to hear! I was a bit worried because it's YA. I won't be reading it just yet though, because I'm trying to avoid getting a BINGO :D

Has anyone already started researching African American authors yet?

African American should be very easy. African SFF on the other hand might need some research. I already read Binti, Home and The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor, which I'm currently counting for that square, but I want to eventually replace them with Nigerians in Space and After the Flare by Deji Olukotun.

Dexter Palmer and Steven Barnes are two other African American authors.

I have Nigerians in Space down for a future random poll. It's getting very high praise.

Free on Kindle: Queerly Loving: Volume One, an anthology of queer SFF. Based on a quick look at the reviews it has other kinds of diversity, too.

Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor is a fantastic first contact novel set in Nigeria.

Lauren Beukes is a South African author. I highly recommend Zoo City and Moxyland, although be aware that they're both very dark.

Liz wrote: "Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor is a fantastic first contact novel set in Nigeria."

I loved the scifi/speculative aspects, but I had trouble with the lingo. I can't remember if there was a glossary at the end, but if there was I didn't know about it until I finished. That happens to me a lot, but I'm usually able to grasp the general meaning of the words from the context. With this one, there were some words that I really had no clue what they could mean. So while I will definitely recommend the book, I also recommend checking out the glossary!

I also loved Zoo City, but I wish the ending was stronger.

Beukes is a favorite author of mine. Broken Monsters and Zoo City are on the group shelf. The Shining Girls is my absolute favorite and i really, really hope to get it on our shelf at some point.

Broken Monsters was too gory for me. I think I decided then that I don't want to read Shining Girls, but I do like her writing, so I might still read it.

The Goodreads blog has a great entry this week about LGBTQ+ romance reads as part of Romance Week:

https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/1...

This month is short, so I'm putting up the March square now!

Next month is 12 - Gay Author/Protagonist!

I know we have a ton of options for this. Remember you can vote for as many books as you'd like because we're not doing a second round.

Here are a few I've found to kick us off.

The Chosen by Ricardo Pinto
Triad Blood by Nathan Burgoine
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany