We stretched our remit to the breaking point with this one, but Ann Leckie definitely helped usher in the current W vs L zeitgeist so we felt the need to cover her work. Provenance is a social sciences murder mystery, Cherryhesque in both its style and execution, and a lot of fun.

Today's book is a listener suggestion, and a bit of a throwback! It's an epic fantasy brick, what we hear is referred to as a "cat squasher" in some circles. It reminded us of the books we used to plow through as teenagers in the 90s, but, crucially, with lesbians. Despite it violating our cardinal rule ("be short, please") we really enjoyed this one.

Certainly the most romantic book we've done so far, and at the same time one of the wildest in terms of its worldbuilding. An epistolary novella about two immortal far-future warriors falling in love.

It's a real meat'n'potatoes wizards vs lesbians - a gay orphan is content being raised by a bad mom in a colonized fantasy nation with a caste system (sumptuary laws!) before an alluring butch arrives from overseas to upset the applecart. The ending is where it sets itself apart a bit - but you'll have to read it (or listen to us) to find out how.

It's our first short fiction anthology show! This one features:

How to Swallow the Moon by Isabel Yap

Florilega; Or Some Lies About Flowers by Amal El-Mohtar

The Demon-Sage's Daughter by Varsha Dinesh

Which are increasingly weird adaptations of mythopoetic traditions from around the world (The Philippines, Wales and Kerala, specifically.)

This is a book about a trans runaway who is a survival sex worker and a violin prodigy and the demons and aliens she encounters in suburban LA but it is mostly about eating really amazing meals in restaurants. Isaac LOVED this one, but it is Not Without Its Problems.

What if you took a standard romance novel setup - girl abducted and made to serve in the harem of the handsome prince - and really leaned into how awful that would be in real life? You'd get this, a YA novel whose major tone is the suffocating dread of violent sexual assault, but with forbidden lesbian romance and a clan of secret ninjas thrown into the mix. It's a challenging one.

We've been doing this for a year! Unbelievably! To celebrate, it's time for one of my favorite podcast tropes: the silly award show, in which we discuss who the best lesbian is, who the best wizard is, and so forth.

There's a girl trapped in a tower, a handsome prince comes to save her, and then everything goes wrong. Thankfully there's a lesbian moth demon there to help.

I mean, what is there to say?