Daily Happiness

[such_heights]

Got tagged for a meme where you post three happy things a day for five days. Let's do it!

+ Ah, Sunday. Laundry on, drinking coffee, deciding whether I want to vid or play some Mass Effect. Later I will watch Doctor Who. :D

+ We have finally got around to watching Sleepy Hollow as a household. It's so delightful, as you all said ages back. We will be watching the finale tonight, I am very excited. It is so refreshing to watch a show, especially a show in this particular genre and based on this particular story, in which they have their one token white dude and then the rest of the world of the show is absolutely stuffed full with women and people of colour and people with disabilities and sometimes people who are all of the above (Macey's the best), and it does my heart good. I love all of the dynamics between Ichabod and Abbie and Jenny and Frank, and Ichabod vs. the 21st century is my favourite thing.

+ Off on holiday in two weeks, yayyy! happydork and I are going to go and lie on a beach in Spain for a week and do as little as humanly possible, it's going to be amazing.

What I would like to do while I'm there is do lots of reading! I just read and adored Ancillary Justice and have suddenly remembered that I like reading things that aren't fanfic sometimes. I would love some book recs! Looking for recent-ish stuff that is some or all of the following:

- scifi/fantasy/speculative
- has interesting, prominent female characters
- generally set in a world with a diverse population rather than just all straight white people all the time
- anything with robots or f/f romance
- available as an ebook is a bonus
- dislikes: bleakness, dead queers, graphic violence, noncon, zombies

Comments

[kaberett]

BENJANUN SRIDUANGKAEW. Speculative, prominent female characters, diverse population, f/f romance, available as ebooks.

Max Gladstone, despite being a white dude, is surprisingly good at all of these things (there is some gore, but not enough to bother me) including the f/f romances between people who aren't whitey.

DIA REEVES OMG DIA REEVES. BLEEDING CHERRY. There is mental illness and amazing bilingual families and... there is some bleakness and violence, but it's kinda Night Vale-esque? The main character is a teenage girl who self-describes as biracial and bipolar and she is GREAT.

Robin McKinley, also white, The Hero And The Crown only.

Malinda Lo didn't really do it for me but might well be perfect for the holiday you're planning - some lesbian retellings of fairytales, kinda pulpy but not awful?

Everything by Nghi Vo.

Everything by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz (some of which are, again, queer ladies).

RIGHT OKAY THAT WILL DO FOR NOW I have now successfully run through the entriety of my reading pile for the year to date.

[kaberett]

Also I have not yet read much of RA Smith's stuff but I expect it to be good based on listening to him talk, ditto Tobias Buckell (who is multiracial and writes about not-white-people with robots IN SPACE).

[such_heights]

eee, thanks so much! I will investigate. :D

[usuallyhats]

♥ Sleepy Hollow ♥ I am up to episode nine and it just makes me so HAPPY every episode. :D

Book recs:

Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi - cool sf with a diverse cast; the lead is a queer black woman with a chronic illness. :D

Mars Evacuees by Sophia McDougall - if you're looking for a fun quick read, this is a delightful middle grade book. Of the four main characters, only one is white, and two are women. I really enjoyed this - I felt like it made so many good choices.

[such_heights]

Ooh cool, thank you!

[kaberett]

Picked up Ascension - thank you!

[just_ann_now]

*de-lurks to wave a big "Melissa Scott SciFi!" flag*

Though these are not particularly recent, Melissa Scott has written a load of scifi which includes prominent female characters, or characters whose gender is never specifically stated. Not so much robots as such, but self-aware Artificial Intelligence. Diverse gender roles, and differently-abled characters. I feel Melissa Scott is terribly underrated as a scifi writer (she's writing Magical Realism with m/m romance right now, which I adore as well.) All her books are characterized by outstanding worldbuilding. She's one of my absolute favorite authors.

Specific recs: The Roads of Heaven series, with the female Space Pilot.

Dreamships , newly available as an ebook! Hopefully the companion book, Dreaming Metal will be published as an ebook soon too.

The Kindly Ones - political instability in space!

All of these with the exception of Dreaming Metal are available as ebooks. Enjoy!

[goodbyebird]

mmmm I'm gonna mine this post for recs later ♥

I'd suggest the Steerswoman series. They're all available as ebooks. No space/robots, but other than that follows your list to a T. (no queer romance, but the two main ladies are imminently shippable)

[frith_in_thorns]

I recently read The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, by Holly Black, and loved it. It is pretty much the only vampire book ever that I like :P It's in the YA category, so while it has some violence (and opens with an incredibly creepy dead-people scene) it's not overly so. But it's GREAT!

Also The Rook. Wow this is AMAZING. I can't even really summarise the amazing, but it's all about women and female relationships and the main character is a super-administrator who runs the equivalent of MI5 for weird abnormal stuff. It's also incredibly funny.

[longwhitecoats]

Kameron Hurley!! I adored her first book, God's War, which is about lesbian assassins in space. Most of the characters are non-white and also there is bareknuckle boxing. But, also, warning, there is a lengthy torture scene.

(Uh, also, hi, I'm not just a random creeper, I got here from twitter + knowing happydork.)

[kouredios]

Yes! Not just God's War and its two sequels, but The Mirror Empire just came out last week and it's got many diverse cultures, some of which are matriarchies, all of which appear to have systems of non-binary gender (one has 3 genders, another has 5), and also a disabled heroine who never gets healed, which was totally refreshing.

[calvinahobbes]

See ladybusiness for book reviews :)

[kaydeefalls]

Book recs -- ANYTHING by Kate Elliott (particularly the Spiritwalker trilogy) or Tanya Huff (particularly "The Fire Stone" and the Confederation series). Elliott is all fantasy, with bucketloads of Women Being Awesome, and the Spiritwalker books feature people of color almost exclusively in the leading roles. Huff's works vary more widely in genre, but "The Fire Stone" is all queer people of color kicking ass on a quest, and the Confederation series, which is sci-fi, follow a totally badass female Marine sergeant leading awesome teams of human & alien soldiers (with incredibly well thought out alien racial and social dynamics) in a very diverse universe where it's considered bizarre and antiquated to limit sex based on gender (or species). Um, there is a violence warning on that series, because war, but the violence isn't the point so much as the community and the tactics and the story unfolding across the galaxy. And the badassery of the main character.

[cofax7]

Elliott actually also has a space opera series that starts with Jaran, and a related space opera trilogy called the High Roads trilogy. She's not solely a fantasy writer.

[aria]

Ahh, I love your request for recs, because I am mid-Ancillary Justice right now myself (!!!) and am definitely hungry for more things in that vein myself! Meanwhile ooh this means it's time for me to tell you all about my favorite favorite books right now:

NK Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy -- Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, Broken Kingdoms, and Kingdom of Gods. Apologies for the rec if you've read them already (though in that case CAN WE TALK ABOUT THEM); but in case you haven't -- two of the three books are from ladies' POV, all the protagonists are POC, there are so many queers (including the poly creator gods, one of whom is genderfluid and my FAVORITE), and the worldbuilding and mythology are so cool! Sadly no robots or f/f (in fact it's very light on female friendships, alas; something I think Jemisin realized, as there's some great lady friendship in her second Dreamblood book, which she wrote later). There's also some body horror, so caveat lector, but if you enjoyed Ancillary Justice I think you should be fine. :)

[rabid_bookwyrm]

Seconding Inheritance Trilogy.

[bookgazing]

So many great recs here - love Ascension! I'm bobbing up in this thread to suggest that The Shadowed Summer by N.K. Jemisin is also a good bet. There are lots of ladies, including a tribe where women control a large amount of life, although sadly there is no f/f romance. It can be read as a stand alone even though it's part of a duology, or you could read The Killing Moon first (which has less women, but still contains a significant political woman).

Other recs:

The Carhullan Army - Sarah Hall: Matriarchal breakaway rebel group in Scotland with f/f relationships - does contain some graphic violence in the beginning though.

Liar - Justine Larbalestier (YA): The first rule of talking about Liar is that YOU CAN'T TALK ABOUT LIAR! It's very easy to spoil, but trust me it's fantastic, and the protag is so complex.

Devil's Kiss and Dark Goddess - Sarwat Chadda (YA): Urban fantasy which follows an Asian-British heroine who is the first women in the Knight's Templar organisation.

Graceling, Fire and Bitterblue - Kristen Cashore (YA): Linked trilogy about amazing women who defeat the effects of an evil king. Fire is probably the book that goes furthest away from the white, straight fantasy default, and it can be read as a stand alone.

Sadly I can't rec much recent SFF that contains f/f romance and hasn't already been mentioned, apart from Huntress by Malinda Lo which I loved but did not have a happy f/f romantic ending :\ Gonna haunt this thread for more recs on that front.

[zahrawithaz.livejournal.com]

I adore The Carhullan Army (just re-read it recently) and don't think of it at graphically violent at all, since much of the violence is implied off-page. But I do wonder if it might qualify for bleakness. It's basically a feminist dystopia in which women band together and decide to fight back as terrorists.

[glass_icarus]

Sadly, I haven't been reading any non-fic recently either, but YAY for Ancillary Justice! :D ♥

[were_duck]

Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis! Queer characters and lots of interesting disability development.

Seconding the Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley rec. I'm about halfway though it and love it!

I really r e a l l y enjoyed Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson though there is some dead queer happening in that one.

[kathkin]

Re book recs: have you come across Fever Crumb? Post-post-apocalyptic SF about bisexual teenage girl engineer.

I'd also recommend the parent series but it doesn't have so much in the way of queer ladies.

[ashpags]

RE: book recs, I'm about halfway through Athena's Daughters and I'm enjoying the stories (it's an anthology) so far! http://www.silenceinthelibrarypublishing.com/product/athenas-daughters-vol-1/

[zahrawithaz.livejournal.com]

Highly recommended & hit the 1st 3 categories:

The City of Devi by Manil Suri: brilliant, brilliant book about a straight, bi, and gay, and Hindu and Muslim, people cooperating to survive in post-apocalyptic Mumbai.

The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson: YA about a post-apocalyptic matriarchal society in Brazil; lots of robots & queer characters, though the focus is on a m/f relationship in which at least one character is bi and poly

The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo: young Chinese girl in 19th c Malaysia has supernatural adventures in a well-constructed version of the Chinese afterlife

If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan: YA novel about the f/f romance btw two teens in Iran, with a lot about the relationship between the gay, lesbians, and trans communities there (not sf)

The Frangipani Hotel by Violet Kupersmith: really good ghost stories set in Vietnam, with a strong sense of female empowerment

Books by white people that you might also like:

My Real Children by Jo Walton: sf about a woman who flashes btw 2 realities--one where her life is ruled by compulsory heterosexuality, one where she has a happy f/f relationship. I think there's some brief non-con, though.

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray: Hilarious YA sf about a plane of teen beauty contestants who crash on a desert island and discover their inner feminists. The few survivors include girls who are trans, bi, lesbian, black, South Asian, and deaf. No robots, but f/f romance.

Books other people have recommended:

Malinda Lo: I would start with her sf duology Adaptation & Inheritance, but make sure you read them both together, especially if you're looking for f/f romance; it's basically one book split in half for marketing.

I think you would love the Graceling trilogy, which is smart and feminist, but very non-diverse. But I would start with Graceling. Fire, the middle book, definitely has major non-con elements. Bitterblue is a smart & non-explicit look at how people heal from non-con.

I also recommend the TV show Sleepy Hollow!

Ancillary Justice was on last year's Tiptree long list, so here's the rest of it:
http://tiptree.org/2013-james-tiptree-award