In Part 2 of our series on extremely ideological short novels we arrive at Sappho's Bar and Grill, holdover from an imagined heyday of lesbian culture where everyone was rough and tough and manly and did women's magic in the woods and absolutely nobody had a penis. In this book a professor of women's studies goes on a magical journey through women's history and learns the important lesson that she was right about the kids these days all along.

A Hallmark Christmas movie of a book, except it's Halloween and there are lesbians. This is a return to the world of chick lit and also the first in a trilogy of episodes about works which are extremely ideological, intentionally or otherwise.

As a treat we decided to read three Tamsyn Muir short stories. Tremendous fun was had.

What if vampires drank ink and ideas instead of blood? And what if there was an incredibly dumb book about it?

We've made it through two years of this! Due to a series of circumstances we kind of had to throw this episode together at the last minute, but we had fun, and that's what matters.

What if British colonizers in early 20th century Singapore were literal vampires? And what if they wanted to have sex with you? And what does it say that this bit of ebook erotica is one of the strongest and most structurally creative novels we've read for this podcast?

An extra-long episode covering the penultimate installment of the Ninth House series (assuming Homestuck denouement elongation syndrome doesn't strike. Pray it away.) You guys already know what this one's about.

Well, we made it to 50 episodes, and as promised we will try to figure out what Be-Papas thought they were doing.

It's a retro episode! (We will eventually make it through Nicola Griffith's entire catalog.) This is a book about celebrity, hereditary wealth, toxic relationships and the science of water reclamation, and even though it was written in 1995 it feels extraordinarily current. Recommended.

In far-future biopunk (ecopunk? mycopunk?) New Zealand, a queer cop joins a pirate gang and ends up on a trip to the fireworks factory. It's all very first novel but it's got good politics.