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John Scalzi, Constituent Service: Lightweight novella about a human doing civic service in a district made mostly of nonhumans.
Matt Dinniman, Dungeon Crawler Carl: When the world ends because aliens are crunching it to extract its resources, Carl is barefoot and pantsless, trying to rescue his ex-girlfriend’s valuable Persian cat. They and many remaining human survivors are plunged into a “dungeon,” with lots of features familiar from RPGs (yes, there’s an explanation; no, you shouldn’t think too hard about it). Carl and Princess Donut, who also levels up to be an important character, have to try to survive, and to attract an audience for that extra Hunger Games energy. It was slight but diverting and I need diversion, so on to book 2 it is.
Matt Dinniman, Carl’s Doomsday Scenario: Further adventures of Carl and Donut, as they power up and meet more fellow crawlers.
Matt Dinniman, The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook: The team expands, betrayals occur, and they learn a bit more about the mechanics of the game. Carl remains determined to kill as many of the entities behind the game as he can, but there’s a long way to go first.
Rachel Haimowitz, Anchored : Set in a modern world with hereditary slavery, both race- and class-based. The protagonist is a popular TV interviewer owned by a megacorp who’s rented out to one of his competitors, who seems not to understand how slavery works (which I suppose is accurate for many enslavers historically). This hit the uncanny valley for me—I couldn’t really get into the worldbuilding or the kink of “enslaver wants enslaved to like him.”
Xiran Jay Zhao, Heavenly Tyrant: Worth the wait! The new Empress must deal with her unpleasant Emperor, whom she needs as a power base and to train her abilities, as well as to fight the gods. But he is physically vulnerable and tyrannical, instituting a class war that she mostly supports even as it sparks rebellion and the rebels blame her for what’s gone wrong. She’s pushing for women’s rights, but equal conscription into Chrysalis fighting isn’t going to help most women. And that’s just the beginning of the events, which end on a cliffhanger.
Ursula Whitcher, North Continent Ribbon: Series of short stories set on or around a planet colonized by humans and still struggling with the human relationship with machines and machine intelligences, as well as what happens when you put human minds in nonhuman bodies. Fine, though the short story form makes it hard for me to really bond with characters. I noted that one story was actually published as an Original Work on AO3, which is the first time I’ve seen that particular credit!
Raquel Vasquez Gilliland, Witch of Wild Things: Sage, recovering from a bad relationship, moves back in with her grandmother. A big problem is that her sister, who has a bad temper and blames her for the death of their younger sister, is also there; also, whenever Sage cries, she sees her sister’s ghost. All the women in their family have magic powers, and Sage’s main one is plants. Unfortunately, the best job she can find forces her to work with the man who broke her heart many years ago. It’s a nice romance (lots of misunderstanding) as well as a story about a family that is very screwed up, with legitimate grievances, but also love and some genuine attempts to improve.
Raquel Vasquez Gilliland, Lightning in Her Hands: This book focuses on the next sister in this magical family, who has lightning powers. She agrees to marry her childhood best friend, putatively so he can access an inheritance, but really because he’s in love with her—mutual pining ensues, so it’s an idiots in love scenario; the question is whether she will be able to heal her family trauma enough to give and accept love.
James Alan Gardner, They Promised Me the Gun Wasn’t Loaded: Second in a hoped-for series about newly superpowered university students, this time from the perspective of Jools, the screwup of the bunch, who now knows everything that a human can do and can do anything that the best human can do. When Jools becomes entangled with an attempt to auction off—and then steal—a supervillain weapon, she’ll have to fight her insecurities as well as a bunch of villains and self-styled heroes, including one whose Robin Hood schtick includes a glamor that gets women to want to have sex with him.
A.D. Sui, The Dragonfly Gambit: Novella about sapphic fighter pilots in a collapsing space empire. The protagonist was in a horrific accident that left her without a lover or the ability to fly, and left her a rebel; she’s forced back into service, where she finds her former lover now splitting her affections between the Third Daughter (head of the military) and the intelligence officer who’s forcing the protagonist to work for the empire. But the Third Daughter is really hot, oh no—will that complicate the protagonist’s desire for revenge?
Matt Dinniman, Dungeon Crawler Carl: When the world ends because aliens are crunching it to extract its resources, Carl is barefoot and pantsless, trying to rescue his ex-girlfriend’s valuable Persian cat. They and many remaining human survivors are plunged into a “dungeon,” with lots of features familiar from RPGs (yes, there’s an explanation; no, you shouldn’t think too hard about it). Carl and Princess Donut, who also levels up to be an important character, have to try to survive, and to attract an audience for that extra Hunger Games energy. It was slight but diverting and I need diversion, so on to book 2 it is.
Matt Dinniman, Carl’s Doomsday Scenario: Further adventures of Carl and Donut, as they power up and meet more fellow crawlers.
Matt Dinniman, The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook: The team expands, betrayals occur, and they learn a bit more about the mechanics of the game. Carl remains determined to kill as many of the entities behind the game as he can, but there’s a long way to go first.
Rachel Haimowitz, Anchored : Set in a modern world with hereditary slavery, both race- and class-based. The protagonist is a popular TV interviewer owned by a megacorp who’s rented out to one of his competitors, who seems not to understand how slavery works (which I suppose is accurate for many enslavers historically). This hit the uncanny valley for me—I couldn’t really get into the worldbuilding or the kink of “enslaver wants enslaved to like him.”
Xiran Jay Zhao, Heavenly Tyrant: Worth the wait! The new Empress must deal with her unpleasant Emperor, whom she needs as a power base and to train her abilities, as well as to fight the gods. But he is physically vulnerable and tyrannical, instituting a class war that she mostly supports even as it sparks rebellion and the rebels blame her for what’s gone wrong. She’s pushing for women’s rights, but equal conscription into Chrysalis fighting isn’t going to help most women. And that’s just the beginning of the events, which end on a cliffhanger.
Ursula Whitcher, North Continent Ribbon: Series of short stories set on or around a planet colonized by humans and still struggling with the human relationship with machines and machine intelligences, as well as what happens when you put human minds in nonhuman bodies. Fine, though the short story form makes it hard for me to really bond with characters. I noted that one story was actually published as an Original Work on AO3, which is the first time I’ve seen that particular credit!
Raquel Vasquez Gilliland, Witch of Wild Things: Sage, recovering from a bad relationship, moves back in with her grandmother. A big problem is that her sister, who has a bad temper and blames her for the death of their younger sister, is also there; also, whenever Sage cries, she sees her sister’s ghost. All the women in their family have magic powers, and Sage’s main one is plants. Unfortunately, the best job she can find forces her to work with the man who broke her heart many years ago. It’s a nice romance (lots of misunderstanding) as well as a story about a family that is very screwed up, with legitimate grievances, but also love and some genuine attempts to improve.
Raquel Vasquez Gilliland, Lightning in Her Hands: This book focuses on the next sister in this magical family, who has lightning powers. She agrees to marry her childhood best friend, putatively so he can access an inheritance, but really because he’s in love with her—mutual pining ensues, so it’s an idiots in love scenario; the question is whether she will be able to heal her family trauma enough to give and accept love.
James Alan Gardner, They Promised Me the Gun Wasn’t Loaded: Second in a hoped-for series about newly superpowered university students, this time from the perspective of Jools, the screwup of the bunch, who now knows everything that a human can do and can do anything that the best human can do. When Jools becomes entangled with an attempt to auction off—and then steal—a supervillain weapon, she’ll have to fight her insecurities as well as a bunch of villains and self-styled heroes, including one whose Robin Hood schtick includes a glamor that gets women to want to have sex with him.
A.D. Sui, The Dragonfly Gambit: Novella about sapphic fighter pilots in a collapsing space empire. The protagonist was in a horrific accident that left her without a lover or the ability to fly, and left her a rebel; she’s forced back into service, where she finds her former lover now splitting her affections between the Third Daughter (head of the military) and the intelligence officer who’s forcing the protagonist to work for the empire. But the Third Daughter is really hot, oh no—will that complicate the protagonist’s desire for revenge?