skygiants

I have been patiently waiting to talk about Iona Datt Sharma's upcoming novella Blood Sweat Glitter until the appropriate links were up and I could tell everybody to go preorder it, which now indeed you can and also should, at least if the phrase 'lesbian roller derby romance' appeals to you in the least.

The plot, on the surface, is 'team captain of struggling derby team Does Not Like And Yet Is Compelled By her ditzy new jammer.' Because it's an Iona Datt Sharma book, the plot is of course in fact a gorgeous exploration of loss and exhaustion and loneliness and how people lose and find and rebuild themselves around the horrors. It's relevant that this is a post-pandemic book, and it's relevant that it's about tired adults with overwhelming day jobs, for whom roller derby is a release or an escape or a passion or perhaps just an experiment to see if maybe this is something that could, maybe, just a little bit, spark joy. But also of course they do kiss. It's a really lovely novella, and towards the end I had to get up and change into pajamas and get my wife to make me hot chocolate for maximum warmth-and-human-connection-and-being-kind-to-yourself appreciation. Highly Recommended For Your Holiday Season!

Consolation Songs, the charity anthology edited by Iona Datt Sharma I mentioned last week, is out today! One can purchase it in physical or mobi form from the Amazon or as epub from Smashwords.

Meanwhile, I personally stayed up too late last night gorging everyone else's extremely delightful stories, including:

"Storm Story," Llinos Cathryn Thomas - a magical generation ship crossing a boundless ocean, a once-in-a-lifetime storm, and a mandate to keep the lights burning; near-impossible tasks, community and hope

"Girls Who Read Austen," Tansy Rayner Roberts - Greek mythology monsters college roommate AU!

"Upside the Head," Marissa Lingen - a medical trial for a new treatment for head trauma (in mostly, specifically, hockey players); unexpected changes & unexpected growth

"Bethany, Bethany," Lizbeth Myles - a changeling story about sisters! my jam!!!

"Seaview on Mars," Katie Rathfelder - accessible elder-home hunting on a space colony that is now but was not always thriving; a really great evocation of a larger world and context from a quiet and personal moment

"A Hundred and Seventy Storms," Aliette de Bodard - a sentient spaceship and her human cousin weathering a terrible storm (as a sidenote, Aliette de Bodard's Xuya books have been on my TBR for a while but had not personally realized that the premise was quite that much "McCaffrey's Ship Who Sang books, but good!", which I am very excited about)

"Low Energy Economy," Adrian Tchaikovsky - a contract worker chugs along on a doomed mission that may not in fact be completely doomed after all

"Four," Freya Marske - a Good Omens-ish riff on apocalyptic powers, set in suburban Australia & ft. Freya's trademark incredibly gleaming prose

"St. Anselm-By-The-Riverside," Iona Datt Sharma - a middle-aged hospital worker navigates her way through a first romance in a world that is borked in ways slightly parallel to our own; rich and layered with a fascinating second thread running through it

"This Is New Gehesran Calling," Rebecca Fraimow - this one is me! pirate radio and diasporic community in space!

"Of a Female Stranger," Jeannelle M. Ferreira - turn-of-the-eighteenth-century selkies! "are they lesbians" OF COURSE they are lesbians and it's great

"Love, Your Flatmate," Stephanie Burgis - a human gets stuck with an unwanted fairy houseguest during COVID-19 lockdown ... And Indeed They Were Roommates

If any of that sounds interesting, and if you have six dollars to spare, please consider making the purchase; all proceeds go to the University College London Hospitals NHS Trust!

I took shameless advantage of my friendship with Iona Datt Sharma and Katherine Fabian to demand an early copy of Sing for the Coming of the Longest Night, their upcoming novella, which is coming out this Friday just in time for it to be the most enjoyable holiday-adjacent thing you'll read this season.

Layla is a respectably-gay-married pathologist with a full-time career, a house and two kids; Nat is an aggressively queer jobbing composer. Their only commonalities: they're both poly, neither of them do very much magic, and they're both dating deeply weird fairyland-adjacent professional magician Meraud. Other than that they have very little to talk about, and generally attempt to avoid doing so -- until Meraud disappears, with his rescue contingent on a complex magical treasure hunt that, Tam Lin-esque, can only be performed by his beloved.

In this case beloved is a plural, which means it's time for some OBLIGATE TEAMWORK.

"I'm only hanging out with you because this ONE PERSON needs us to work together but I GUESS if they like you there's something to you" is a great and tragically underused story structure and it is utilized here SO WELL. There's collective magical riddle-solving! There's a fake engagement! There's the collision of different kinds of queer lifestyles! There's nonprofit bureaucracy and city planning! But most of all there are the complex family and community networks that weave through everybody's lives, and the magic that these connections create, which is really what the story is about, and feel-good in the best possible way.