It’s Pride which means we need to celebrate all things queer! I put together this list of some of my favorite queer books. By queer books I mean any books about queer characters and/or written by queer writers.
The Machineries of Empire Trilogy by Yoon Ha Lee
It has been forever since a book series consumed my soul, but this series is my latest obsession. Basically, the story is set in an authoritarian world where people are well cared for and they can control reality through complex mathematics but their world is powered by torturing and sacrificing “heretics” and all of their leaders are insane megalomaniacs. Cheris is a soldier who has to put down a heretical insurrection. To do so, she implants the consciousness of a traitorous general who killed millions of people, including his own soldiers in her mind. Together, they realize that something is very, very wrong with their world and try to create something different. This series has everything I love:
Complex worldbuilding that doesn’t explain itself to you, you just have to go with it until it clicks.
Morally bankrupt and gray characters
Impossible situations that cost too damn much
The study of how pervasive any system of government or way of life can be
Revolution and war crimes
No villains, only broken people
Terrible things happening all the time
The struggle between having free will and letting society control us
Tons of queer characters
My sense of bleak and disturbing things is very skewed, but a lot of reviews said that this is a messed up series, so check the trigger warnings. Terrible things happen for sure, but I didn’t find it overly dark or mentally scarring, but again I have a high tolerance for these kinds of things. I guess that’s what happens when you study genocides and asymmetrical conflicts as a graduate student.
What I loved most about the series is that everyone knows the system is wrong, to a certain extent, but they can either embrace it because there is no alternative, or they can let it break them. Jedao, one of my favorite characters, tries so damn hard to destroy the system, but he can’t do it alone because the system already has its claws in him and it manipulates and betrays him because it can. It breaks him down into nothing more than a conscience it keeps in a literal black box and takes out whenever it needs a scary general who has never lost any battle he’s ever fought. He becomes a tool for the very system he hates, used and manipulated by the person he loves but wants to destroy, and when he’s finally given a chance to convince someone else this system is terrible, things go to hell. He’s such a tortured and tragic character, war crimes aside, and I just love him so much haha.
My other favorite character is Mikodez, the ace, incestuous, war criminal and leader of assassins and bastards. He is one of the warlords of the authoritarian government and does terrible things because he has to but also tries to do the decent thing when he can. One of my favorite scenes, actually, is when Mikodez has a chance for immortality and he basically has a mental breakdown while building a cookie tower. I think it’s the first time he truly comes to terms that something is very wrong with his society and it can’t be immortalized. It has to be destroyed which then pushes him to risk everything by making a terrible sacrifice, but at least the choice is his.
Also, don’t want to get too spoilery, but the downfall of the empire is because of something simple and small which I absolutely adore. I could write a 1000 page book about the characters and the world and why I love this story. Please, trust me. Read it and then comment on this post so I can rant about Jedao, Cheris, Mikodez, and we can bask in calendrical heresy together.
Pagham-On-Sea Series by C. M. Rosens
The Pagham-On-Sea series is about a family of Eldritch horrors who really just want to be middle class asshats, but also tend to kill everyone around them, including each other, and occasionally threaten the world. I haven’t read the third book, The Day We Ate Grandad yet because it was just published, but I love both the Crows and Thirteenth.
The Crows is the first book and focuses on Carrie who buys a fixer-upper to escape her abusive ex-boyfriend and friends. Too bad the house is sentient and haunted and her neighbor is a cannibal eldritch horror. As she tries to solve the mystery of her house, she realizes she needs the help of her cannibal neighbor to survive.
Thirteenth is the second book and picks up after the Crows. In this Eldritch horror family, the thirteenth child of the thirteen child turns into a monster that is meant to cull the family of anyone they disapprove of. Naturally, no one wants to die and so poor Katy must rely on her cannibal cousin and bastard brother to survive her family and her changes.
Keeping in line with my love for absolute bastards, my favorite character is Wes, an insanity inducing playboy who shouldn’t be trusted to do anything but betray you for his own gain. The cast of characters is full of queer people and the world building is engaging and interesting.
Selfish Creatures Desire Vengeance by Ezra Arndt
This is a very moving and personal collection of poems that explore religious trauma, familial trauma, and gender dysphoria. The poems frame a lot of the trauma within religious terms, turning the suffering into something unholy but divine. These are raw poems that cut to the core and can be triggering, so definitely check the content warnings. Yes, I too notice the pattern that I only enjoy books that explore dark and terrible things. Some of my favorite poems include: I Wish…I Really Do, I’ll Break My Neck, and Communion of the Holy Flesh.
Also! Ezra has a new book available for pre-order called God and the Conquered. It’s a dark erotic story about a mortal becoming a plaything for God during the rapture. You should check it out!
Unwieldy Creatures by Addie Brook Tsai
So this book is what I wanted the Dead Ringers remake to be: a disturbing look at the horrors of using gynecology and test tube babies for your own personal gain. Unwieldy Creatures is a biracial, nonbinary Frankenstein retelling where Dr. Frank, a biracial Indonesian scientist, wants to create the perfect being without sperm. Plum, a biracial Chinese student, who works for Dr. Frank, is drawn into Dr. Frank’s madness. I loved everything about this book except for the ending, which was a bit abrupt and didn’t feel completely satisfying.
But I loved powerful nonbinary scientists determined to achieve their goals, no matter the cost. Loved the exploration of race and gender and acceptance. Loved the fucked up family dynamics and how impossible it feels to escape your abusive parents. Loved all the references to Frankenstein but also how Addie added their own twist. Dr. Frank’s story is very compelling, but I felt that Plum’s character development suffered a bit. Some of the decisions she makes towards the end didn’t quite make sense or didn’t feel earned. I would have liked a few more pages dedicated to Plum and her goals, but that’s a minor quibble.
Honestly, I really love Dr. Frank even though she’s abusive, self-destructive, self-absorbed, and a complete disaster. She’s so compelling because of her inherent tragic, because of her drive, because she rushes headlong into disaster, knowing she’s doing so, but unable to stop herself. She’s everything I want from a mad scientist and the fact that she’s nonbinary makes me love her more.
She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran
I simply adore this book.It’s well written, creepy as hell, and heartbreaking. Jade is a Vietnamese girl born in the United States and she needs money for college. Her Dad agrees to help pay for college if she travels to Vietnam and helps him repair an old house. It becomes clear that the house is haunted by multiple spirits and that haunting is tied to France’s violent colonization of Vietnam. Also Jade meets a young woman who makes her question her sexuality and her place in the world.
The book is a great exploration of having dual identities, how colonialism affects the places and people colonized, and finding one’s place in a world that doesn’t want or understand them. It makes sense how well critics of colonialism and horror work together and this book is a great example of how powerful that criticism can be. One of my favorite parts of the book was the exploration of who is remembered. There are ghosts who have their own stories to tell but there are also other victims who aren’t ghosts or can’t tell their tale, but they still matter.
I also love the exploration of a broken father-daughter relationship and the resolution was cathartic because it wasn’t wrapped up in a nice bow and there wasn’t complete forgiveness on either side. It touched a lot of my own trauma points and it was soothing to read someone else who had a difficult relationship with her father.
All the White Spaces by Ally Wilkes
I LOVE this book so much! It has everything one could possible want: polar adventures, LGBTQ+ characters, WWI trauma, a great unknown that is angry and/or hungry and/or just hates humanity (and can you blame them?) and lots of terrible, horrible decisions that make everything oh so much worse.
The basic premise of that book is that Jonathan, a trans man, lost his brothers during WWI and decides to join their hero’s last polar expedition to make them proud and prove he is a man. To help him, he enlists the aid of a childhood friend, Harry (which turns out to be a terrible idea). Jonathan is quickly accepted by the crew and gets so much joy of being in this rough and very (toxic) masculine world. However, something has found them on their ship and it’s not happy with them. One thing goes wrong after another and they find themselves stranded in Antarctica in the middle of winter with no way of calling for help and being hunted by a thing.
The prose is beautiful and recaptures the harsh nothingness of Antarctica, the paranoia of being hunted in extreme conditions, and the horror of WWI. Even though Harry is responsible for so many terrible things, I couldn’t even be angry at him because he was so broken and lost and I was actually annoyed that Jonathan didn’t see how fucking lost and broken Harry was. How he never should have brought Harry with him to the end of the world. How caught up he was in his brother’s bullshit that he couldn’t see what was right in front of him. There are about 24 men in the exhibition but the characters with the most development besides Jonathan and Harry are Clarke and Tarlington (who also happen to be my favorite).
The rest of the characters get lost in the background and so their deaths don’t really leave an impact on the reader. Even Randall, the leader of the expedition is two-dimensional and it’s not completely clear what he’s trying to do or even thinking at times. But the Harry-Jonathan relationship and Tarlington’s struggle and strength are the core of the story. The rest of the characters are sort of there for window dressing. Overall this is a fantastic book and scratched my “The Thing” itch I’ve been having lately.
The Thirty Names of Night by Zeyn Joukhadar
This book is amazing and absolutely heartbreaking. It is about a trans Syrian boy named Nadir who recently lost his mother and is trying to find his purpose in life. It turns out his mother loved birds and may have been killed while trying to save a nest of rare birds and holding up development of a new building in New York. There is also an artist, Laila Z. who loves the same kind of birds and is connected to Nadir’s family.
The prose of this book flows like water. It is soft and gentle but also captures the gut-wrenching sorrow of losing someone. The “I feel you everywhere and in everything and while I know I need to move on please stay a moment longer because if I lose you again I won’t survive” feeling. The “I don’t know who or what I am anymore and I can’t even figure it out because everyone I love will abandon me” feeling of being queer. The anxieties of being an artist in a late capitalist society.
It dives deep into the intersection of race, religion, and gender in a soft and understanding way. Everything about this book is meant to comfort and hold you as you process the emotions of grief, loss, anger, and uncertainty. It’s also a love letter to the 20th century Syrian immigrant experience, the 21st Syrian community in New York and what it’s like to be a trans, gay, Muslim in the 21st and 20th centuries.
I read this book after losing someone who was very close to me and it was such a comfort. I can’t praise this book enough and urge you to read it. It’s absolutely beautiful.
I finished this yesterday and oh my god it’s so good. It’s set in a world where AI has reached godhood and they feed on human souls. They also integrate with humans to serve as their angels, emissaries between humans and gods, and sell-souls aka priests and servants. Yasira is an autistic scientist who accidentally and unknowingly invents a machine that wraps reality. The angels take Yasira in because they need her help to track down her mentor, who communicates with Cthulhu like creatures.
The core of this book is the relationship between Yasira and her capturers, the archangel Akavi and his subordinate angel, Elu. Akavi is an angel who thinks he has everything under control and Yasira is someone who thinks she has no control, but they’re both very, very wrong. Akavi is one of my favorite characters because of his disconnection with humanity and his dedication to the angels and because of his clear tragic downfall. He reminds me a bit of Javert in a way: someone so dedicated to the concept of the law that he doesn’t see how the law is using him or harming everyone around him. I also love his messed up relationship with Elu because it brings a human dimension to the world of the angels and because of the ending.
Similar to the Machineries of Empire trilogy, this book explores authoritarian quasi-religious systems manipulating and controlling the people they’re supposed to protect and care for. It also questions the concept of reality and what happens when we humans not only create beings who see and know more than we do, but when we interact with beings from a different reality. It’s a study of how AI will always be sculpted by the humans who created them. Similar to the Machines of Empire trilogy, there are a number of great breakdowns when characters realize something is very wrong with their society but they feel powerless to change anything.
I haven’t read the sequel, the Fallen, yet, but I requested it from my library. I’m very eager to see how things resolve (or don’t) in book two!If you enjoyed this post, please donate to my Ko-Fi so I can fund the release of my upcoming podcast and web series: Say I Slew Them Not
Pepper Writes 