Wizards Vs. Lesbians

A novel-length parody of Ready Player One? Snow Crash meets World of Warcraft? Lucky Wander Boy, revamped for the mid-2010s? This book is all these things, and less.

A blessed return to 90s Cyberpunk! Feels like home. Join us for a journey to far-future 1994, where cool lesbians fight cyber-corporations and grognard gatekeepers alike for the future of the internet itself (with help from sympathetic EU regulators.)

A murder mystery set in steampunk Cairo, with lesbians, wizards and jokes! What could possibly go wrong?

It's the sequel to the Wizzly-winning Unspoken Name! And we like it just about as much, which is to say, a lot. Possibly more, even.

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.