list: sci-fi, fantasy, magical realism, & speculative fiction by & about WOC &/or trans/queer people
icon: "bluestocking (photo of a book lying open on a table with a bright window in the background, overlaid with a yellow fractal that looks like the sun shining through dust motes)"
A list of authors and the first book by them that I want to read:
WOC writers w women & girls of color as main characters:
Nisi Shawl -- Filter House (anthology; magical realism & sci-fi short stories)
Silvia Moreno-Garcia -- Signal to Noise (magical realism, magic & music in Mexico City)
Nalo Hopkinson -- Midnight Robber (sci-fi & mythology, Caribbean-colonized planets)
Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu -- Zahrah the Windseeker (fantasy; girl with plant-symbiosis dreadlocks & magical powers)
Olivia Boler -- The Flower Bowl Spell (magical realism; Chinese American woman doing Wiccan magic)
Ana Castillo -- So Far from God (magical realism, politics & spirituality, a family of 5 Chicana women in New Mexico)
Lisa M. Bradley -- The Haunted Girl (anthology; fantasy & paranormal short stories & poems)
Jewelle Gomez -- The Gilda Stories (paranormal; multiracial feminist lesbian vampire romance fantasy)
N. K. Jemisin -- The Inheritance Trilogy (fantasy; enslaved gods; political power struggle with family)
Larissa Lai -- When Fox is a Thousand (magical realism, Chinese mythology, modern Vancouver)
Sabrina Vourvoulias -- Ink (speculative magical realism; biometric tattoo used to classify, dehumanize, institutionalize immigrants)
Guadalupe Garcia McCall -- Summer of the Mariposas (magical realism & paranormal; 5 Mexican-American sisters; witches, goddesses, & mythological beasts; Odyssey retelling)
Andrea Hairston -- Will Do Magic for Small Change (magical realism & mythology; girl inherits book of magic; West Africa's Orishas; aliens)
Daína Chaviano -- The Island of Eternal Love (magical realism / historical fiction; framed set of stories of Spanish, Chinese, and African history that come together in Cuba)
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Women writers w queer &/or trans main characters:
M.C.A. Hogarth -- Mindtouch (sci-fi; passionate friendship/asexual romance; many sentient species)
Jennifer Pelland -- Machine (sci-fi, cyborg as transitioned body)
L. A. Witt -- Static (sci-fi; gender-shifter stuck in one gender; religious enforcement of gender roles)
Mary Gentle -- Ilario: The Lion's Eye (fantasy; intersex main character passionately in love with art)
Dana De Young -- The Butterfly and the Flame (sci-fi / speculative; trans girl vs Dominion of Divinity 1984 style)
Julie E. Czerneda -- Beholder's Eye (sci-fi; first contact; shapeshifter agender aliens)
Phyllis Gotlieb -- Flesh and Gold (sci-fi, telepathic female judge finds an amphibious human enslaved, sets out to free them. many interesting races.)
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Anthologies:
Walidah Imarisha -- Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements
Athena Andreadis, Kay T. Holt -- The Other Half of the Sky
Sofia Samatar -- Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History
Barbara Krasnoff -- Such A Pretty Face
Thoraiya Dyer -- Cranky Ladies of History
Minal Hajratwala -- How to Live on Other Planets: A Handbook for Aspiring Aliens
(that's my shorthand for 'you're welcome' *smiles*)
I love sf/f, so this is super useful for me.
I am not very much of a sci-fi fan but I am always looking to read more works by PoC/queer people and some books on this list actually sound very interesting.
Sci-fi/fantasy is such a broad range of things, but the most common stuff out there is 'space opera' (which is just like regular fiction except it takes place on spaceships) and high fantasy (stuff with elves and dwarves). I don't like any of that. I like when people build a new world or alter this one a lot -- stuff like Harry Potter, Narnia, or the Matrix series. Sci-fi/fantasy can be SO creative!