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Swords and Spaceships

Swords and Spaceships for June 4

Happy Friday, shipmates! AND HAPPY PRIDE!!!! It’s Alex, and I’ve got some links for you this glorious first Friday of June, and some books with bi protagonists. Have a safe and happy start to pride, and I will see you on Tuesday!

Thing that I must always retweet: HAPPY PRIDE, Y’ALL

Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here’s somewhere to start: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ and anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co


News and Views

Congrats to the winners of this year’s Lambda Literary Awards!

Becky Chambers is doing a virtual tour

The Age of Autonomous Killer Robots May Already Be Here

Get in, losers, we’re going to Venus

There’s a “Darth Vader” house

LOL I love Sean Bean

SFF eBook Deals

Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente for $2.99

Angelfall by Susan Ee for $0.99

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison for $0.99

On Book Riot

What to read after watching Shadow and Bone

Future Shocks: 10 sci-fi thrillers to get your pulse racing

Quiz: Which supernatural thriller should you pick next

This week’s SFF Yeah! podcast is about many things, including… Muppet arms?

This month you can enter to win a 1-year subscription to Audible, a Kindle Paperwhite, your own library cart, a $250 gift card to Powell’s Books, an iPad Mini, and a summer reading prize pack.

Free Association Friday: Pride Month Week 1!

IT’S PRIDE MONTH, Y’ALL! Get out your rainbow bookmarks and prepare for your first of four Very Queer Fridays. This year, I want to kick off with some bi/pan SFF, because they should be visible on the page and in the street every darn day of the year. I haven’t put C.L. Polk’s Kingston Cycle in the list because I know I mention it all the time but here is your reminder that if you put Witchmark, Stormsong, and Soulstar together, you get the bi pride flag!

Cover of The Devourers by Indra Das

The Devourers by Indra Das

Bi. Werewolves. In Mughal India. Told through a college professor named Alok transcribing notebooks (and even stranger and creepier pages) of a bizarre and mysterious story that he must know the end of. The two clashing worlds of the past have their darker parallels in the fascination Alok shows for the fascinating teller of the story.

Silver Moon by Catherine Lundoff

Also. Bi. Werewolves. A divorced, middle-aged woman discovers that the “great change” of her life isn’t just the cessation of menopause–it comes with a side of lycanthropy. The good news is, her home town has an all female wolf pack that’s eager to welcome her in. The bad news is, there’s hunters out here.

(Full disclosure: Catherine Lundoff’s small press has published two of my books.)

Cover of Ship of Smoke and Steel by Django Wexler

Ship of Smoke and Steel by Django Wexler

A chaotic murder bi who works as a criminal enforcer suddenly finds herself with an even more powerful and exacting boss when she’s arrested and brought in to work for the emperor’s spymaster. The job she’s handed is impossible: to steal a legendary ghost ship. The consequences of failure are unimaginable: her sister’s death.

The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson

Demane is an earthbound demigod that has been labeled as a sorcerer–not entirely correct, but perhaps easier for people to understand. He follows a beautiful man who is also descended from gods, and together it’s up to them to protect the caravan in their charge from the terrors that stalk the road.

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley

Tough as nails bi woman just trying to get by in the hellscape of being in a corporate militia starts living her life out of order every time she’s turned into light and sent to a new battlefield. And what she learns during the experience is just how much she and her fellow soldiers have been lied to.

Point of Hopes by Melissa Scott and Lisa Barnett

Two! Two bi men ah ah ah. And what are they doing? Investigating kidnappings, trying to keep the populace of their city from blaming it all on foreigners, and hoping to get it all done before a major astrological event really blows up the city.

Seven Tears at High Tide by C.B. Lee

A broken-hearted boy named Kevin lets seven tears fall into the sea and wishes for a summery of happiness and love. What he gets is a mysterious boy named Morgan he has to save–who then later shows up at his doorstep to confess his love. Morgan is a selkie who will have to return to the sea at the end of the summer… and this is only the first complication they both have to deal with.

False Hearts by Laura Lam

Conjoined sisters Taema and Tila were raised in a cult before escaping to San Francisco where they are surgically separated. Ten years later, Tila has been arrested for murder and is possibly involved in a criminal syndicate that runs drugs. Taema is given the option to go in undercover as her sister–and maybe save Tila’s life in the process.

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

Did you think I had stopped yelling about how much I love this book? YOU THOUGHT WRONG. Beyond the lush writing and the parallel world plots and thriller twists, the main character has big bi energy and she should be appreciated for that as well.


See you, space pirates. If you’d like to know more about my secret plans to dominate the seas and skies, you can catch me over at my personal site.