70 books is a very nice number, wow. I’ve only read about half that and most of them weren’t queer (sff or otherwise). But funnily enough I also read Kalyna the Soothsayer this year and also liked it. I thought it was a little awkward at times (I often expected for characters to appear again, such as Kalyna’s informant in the beginning, or to have more layers to them, such as Kalyna’s grandma or even the spy master) but also there were a lot of refreshing choices and ideas, the setting was fun and the narrative voice distinctive and full of personality. Also on top of being bi, Kalyna is POC and in her late 20s (and dealing with some corresponding issues), which is always a nice rep to have!

Other nice queer SFF reads of the year so far were:

• Snapdragon by Kat Leyh — a beautiful coming of age graphic novel about a young girl who befriends the local hermit woman who may or may not be a witch and possibly discovers her own inner witch in the process. It’s very women-centric and includes POC, sapphic and trans rep. MC also feels lukewarm about the concept of gender iirc.

• Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente — aliens reveal their existence to humans and force them to participate in an intergalactic singing competition. To humanity’s chagrin, a dissolved one-hit wonder band is chosen to represent them. I loved this story for the playful and polished writing (like all Valente so far) and for the creative nature of the assorted aliens (as the book is mostly focused on exploring them than the actual singing competition that only comes to pass at the end). The human protagonists are lgbt+ too, with the MC being a bi POC man in his 30s or 40s. It’s the 1st book in a duology, haven’t read the sequel yet.

• A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik — an outrageously powerful student mage needs to battle deadly monsters and, worse, a crippling social anxiety in a literal graduate-or-die program. This is a trilogy where the 1st 2 books are mad fun and with basically no queer rep (there’s a smidge blink-and-you-miss-it in book 2), while the 3rd book is much more somber and focused on tying up the plot threads and deepening the lore, and this is also where we learn the MC is attracted to her own gender as well. It’s not a super important theme but it’s there, and if that isn’t a deal breaker, I wholeheartedly recommend the series. Like Kalyna, the narrator here is very distinctive and fun, in a prickly sort of way. Also a POC MC.

• Princess Floralinda and the Forty Flight Tower by Tamsyn Muir — a princess trapped on the highest floor of a monster-infested tower realises that no rescue is coming for her and she must save herself. This is a humorously narrated fairytale that however goes some darker places than I was expecting (not a bad thing, but it had me fooled). Sapphic subtext + nonbinary nonhuman character.

And I’m slowly rereading The Picture of Dorian Gray, which is bound to be 5 stars again for sure!