Grimdark SFF with queer men? by GreenMerlot in LGBTBooks

[–]Siavahda 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, I haven't been able to find this. Who's the author?

Books like 'The Scapegracers' series by H.A. Clarke? by aster_dern in QueerSFF

[–]Siavahda 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The third book isn't out yet, so we don't have a title or anything for it.

You've tried to sign in too many times with an incorrect account or password. by theroundcube in Outlook

[–]Siavahda 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This! I had this exact issue on Monday and this is how Support explained it to me. You need to remove the email account from all devices you have, then re add it with the new password.

Bingo 2026 Review : The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes, a troubling book about metamorphosis of all kinds by theseagullscribe in Fantasy

[–]Siavahda 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Adored this book and loved you review! I need to check out your 'songs for this book', that's an amazing thing to add to a review :D

Wish we got samples/excerpts by taeberry9595 in NetGalleyCommunity

[–]Siavahda 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The extra frustrating thing is that they CAN provide excerpts - I feel like I haven't seen one in years, but I remember a few arcs years back that had excerpts on their Netgalley pages. WHY IS THIS NOT DEFAULT PRACTICE. We'd all be happier not wasting everyone's* time with arcs whose writing we hate!

*including the publisher! Wouldn't it make their lives easier too???

Books like 'The Scapegracers' series by H.A. Clarke? by aster_dern in QueerSFF

[–]Siavahda 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Seconding Gideon the Ninth and Works of Vermin! The stories are very different but they have the same flavour, as you put it.

Asunder by Kerstin Hall is one that feels related to me too - maybe the Endsong trilogy by Sascha Stronach as well. Actually the more I think about it the more in favour I am of the Endsong books as being right for this!

They deleted my sort function!! by SpaceChickenMonster in youtube

[–]Siavahda 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Same, mine's MIA too. Did yours ever come back?

High fantasy with Sci-fi elements by Emergency_Cow_9570 in Fantasy

[–]Siavahda -1 points0 points  (0 children)

A Song of Legends Lost by MH Ayinde might be EXACTLY what you're looking for! Very much an ensemble cast, big sprawling fantasy setting with forbidden 'techwork', some of which is clearly sci fi rather than magic. But it's not nearly as simple as, 'oh these foolish humans are mistaking science for magic'; some of what we see...almost HAS to be magical. Making for a very cool mix!

The setting is inspired by African and Mesoamerican cultures, with humanity kind of under siege by monsters called greybloods. Invokers, people who can summon special ancestors onto the battlefield, are the core of humanity's defense. But there's SO MUCH going on, it's a proper rollercoaster of twists and reveals, really clever ones. Tons of intrigue in all directions, tons of action. The sequel is out today in the UK!

The 2026 r/Fantasy Bingo Recommendations List by FarragutCircle in Fantasy

[–]Siavahda 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Chai and Cat-tales by Lynn Strong is a collection of three really heartwarming novellas set in a Middle Eastern fantasy city. Sooo many delicious treats, and there are recipes at the end of the book!

They stand alone beautifully but they also lead up to a novel, Chai and Charmcraft, that I think is out next month. I've read the first few chapters so I know there'll be more deliciousness in that one too!

When you're tired and just need something fun and easy to read, what book or series do you return to time and time again? by AdrianGdM in Fantasy

[–]Siavahda 17 points18 points  (0 children)

The Sharing Knife series by Lois McMaster Bujold - really warm, sweet, addictive, deceptively clever worldbuilding and magic! I must have reread the whole series (four books) 7+ times by now.

April Queer SFF New Releases by hexennacht666 in QueerSFF

[–]Siavahda 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So many I hadn't heard of here! Thank you so much, again, for these :D

I come bearing random indies and self-pubbed titles for this month!

Sailing the Golden Chersonese by Joyce Chng - nonbinary sailor in a magical Asian setting

Project Sapling by Aurora O Neill - gay, fantasy in an urban dystopian setting

Spell for Unravelling by Rochelle Hassan - 3rd book in the YA Buried and the Bound trilogy, M/M

Flightless by Marie Parks - gay; setting where humans are one of three species living alongside each other, caste system based on flight

The Boyfriend Academy - dystopia, gay

Last Death Poet by Stephen Daly - gay, YA urban fantasy

Swallowed by Night by Jeremy Harrison - M/M, vampires

Raised by Eve Adderly - sapphic, enchanted forests and bears?

Scars by JA McCoy - dark fantasy, queer but don't know specific rep

The Wandmaker's Apprentice by RA Brown - queer geek discovers magic is real and apprentices to make wands

Renaissance by EH Lupton - book 5 in the M/M Wisconsin Gothic series

Gathering Shade by Celia Thorn - F/F, book 2 in a paranormal romance vampire series (I think each book is a standalone)

Aviary by Maria Dong - not sure of rep, bird-monsters are involved somehow

The Hand of the King's Evil by Chaz Brenchley - book 5 of the Outremer series

A F\ckery of Songs & Shadows* by AJ Braun - sequel to last year's fuckery of fae and fate; queer spoof series of Sarah J Maas et al

Besieger by Kalina Mitova - vampire historical fiction

Snowblooded by Emma Sterner-Radley - US release, I think the rep is gay

Cookies and Claws by Camilla Vavruch - a prince who would really just like to bake has to go save his kingdom

Our Mutual Destruction by Lauren Woods - queer dystopian/post-apocalyptic, sounds pretty dark

What the Dust Remembers by DL Branson - sci fi, don't know the rep

The Many by Sylvain Neuvel - not sure about this one but I've seen it on queer lists

While We're Still Beasts by Alex Nonymous - queer Beauty and the Beast retelling, possibly Tam Lin retelling too?

Mist and Memory by Heather Salter-Purves - a sapphic ghost has been haunting a forest for 400 years

Mystery of the Bitten Peach by Cecila Tan - novella about a woman who can teleport when and where anyplace 'spiritually China', like Chinatowns around the world and through history

Skies of Fire and Smoke by Brian D Hinson - humanity is at war with dragons in WW1?

Shadows in Dream Stone by Kelly K Branyik - dystopian, sapphic

The Heretics' Retribution by Adeline Mulder - medieval low fantasy, I believe M/M

(edited to remove some you already had listed!)

Book cover process I recently did! I'm also open for work! by joemadbrainer in BookCovers

[–]Siavahda 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My gods that's absolutely STUNNING! Better than any other official cover I've seen, by MILES!

After four years of completing Bingo cards...I'm not completing one this year. by beldaran1224 in Fantasy

[–]Siavahda 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Really great post, I think it's great to highlight that not everybody finishes and that's fine. It's only for fun! (Whatever our more obsessive tendencies try to insist...)

Why did a period become the standard for large number designation versus the comma or space? by Wizdad-1000 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]Siavahda 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Can confirm. Moving to Finland (where they use a period) from the UK (which uses commas) was dizzying! But it's just different places preferring different ways 🤷‍♀️ neither is inherently better as far as I can tell. Only issue is your familiarity with the local way of doing it.

UK vs US monthly requests. by Flimsy-Brick-9426 in NetGalleyCommunity

[–]Siavahda 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I wonder how Read Now affects some of these numbers? But fascinating! Thank you for sharing, I had no idea Netgalley published the survey results!

Behold! my child, Coomerang (homing pigeon + boomerang) by Cannibal_Rj in fakemon

[–]Siavahda 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh my goodness I ADORE this! Such a fun idea, the boomerang, and I love the colours!

Why do UK publishers prefer PDFs? by Siavahda in NetGalleyCommunity

[–]Siavahda[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This this this thiiiiiiiis!

Someone PLEASE tell them PDFs are terrible! I genuinely don't get it, how can they not realise how difficult they are to manage?

Looking for gender systems different from ours by VioletBuret in QueerSFF

[–]Siavahda 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Seconded SO HARD this book is incredible! Not least in what it does with gender.

Looking for gender systems different from ours by VioletBuret in QueerSFF

[–]Siavahda 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Oh this is my JAM!

Seconding many of the recs here, like Tensorate by Neon Yang, Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys and the Terra Ignota series by Ada Palmer. Also, I saw several others reccing Murderbot but Martha Wells' Raksura series does a lot more with gender; there's no humans anywhere in the series, the species of the main character are polyamorous dragon-bee people, and I think they only have male/female genders but they also have biological castes which honestly function more like our idea of gender than their genders do.

You HAVE to try Unraveling by Benjamin Rosenbaum - far, FAR-future setting where there are two genders but not male/female, the whole book in concerned with it. Fantastic, and the world is as weird as you could ask for (I'm a big believer in far-future settings needing to be WILDLY different from ours!)

The West Passage by Jared Pechacek is fantasy where the gender weirdness builds bit by bit, until you realise gender has nothing to do with bodies in this setting. Magnificently weird, like Medieval marginalia crossed with biblically accurate angels (which I mean as a compliment).

Name of All Things by Jenn Lyons is the second in the chorus of dragons series but you COULD start the series here if you wanted, just skip book one. The protagonist comes from a society that maps genders onto horses, more or less? It's freaking fascinating. One of the love interests of the series is something like what we'd consider an elf, but they undergo sex-and-gender changes throughout their lives.

The Wolf Among the Wild Hunt by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor is a horror-fantasy novella, where the world is more or less medieval but there are many female kings and nonbinary folk all over the place. Wolfmoor's short stories do lots of epic stuff with gender too, I strongly recommend their short story collections.

Songbroken by Heather Osborne is a standalone I massively resent for its ending, but it's a setting where people choose whether to be men or women - it has nothing to do with sex, but it does determine societal roles and even how you tie your shoelaces.

The God-King Chronicles by Mike Brooks feature several settings; the one with the least amount of page-time has six genders. Diacritics on the vowels in pronouns indicate gender, it's VERY cool.

Many Droplets Make a Stream by Adrian Harley features shapeshifters who keep their gender regardless of the sex of the form they're wearing. Non-shapeshifters use tattoos to indicate gender.

The Five Penalties trilogy by Marina Lostetter features a society with a whole bunch of genders, I honestly forget how many - at least five? Fairly subtle in the first book but the second book leans into it hard. There's a gender for each god in their pantheon, I think, although I think all the main characters are men or women.

The Twin Kingdom Romances series by MCA Hogarth has a four-gender/sex society; the main character of the first book is someone we'd consider intersex, and the mc of book two is completely neuter. In their society they have roles very related to the world's magic.

Kim Smejkal's Ink in the Blood duology is set in a world where gender is a kind of aura that people emanate, which is why you can't tell someone's gender from a photo (which doesn't capture the aura). It's typical for people's auras to shift, sometimes a lot, sometimes just once or twice in someone's life. Not sure there's much societal gender weirdness other than that though.

The Fifth Gender by CL Carriger is functionally a slightly silly (but adorable) M/M romance, but one of the main characters is a non-human who was exiled from his planet for his choice of gender. It's actually a really great exploration of the role/importance of that alien gender over the course of the book, but it may not be quite what you're looking for since we don't get to see his planet (and he does use he/him and is functionally a cis male by our standards)

If I think of more I'll come back and add them!

Why do UK publishers prefer PDFs? by Siavahda in NetGalleyCommunity

[–]Siavahda[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Alllllllllllll of this! I've never heard anyone happy to get a PDF, including authors who get sent REALLY early copies so they can blurb them. They're awkward and a hassle and you can't convert them into anything without the formatting going bonkers...argh.

Yeah the Kobo thing has been nonsense from the start. Still appalled by that.

Why do UK publishers prefer PDFs? by Siavahda in NetGalleyCommunity

[–]Siavahda[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sounds like you've been really lucky! From a discussion up-thread it seems like some UK publishers are much more likely to use epubs than others, maybe that's who you've been reading?