Queer Speculative Fiction: Eris Young's #LighthouseTakeOver

For Independent Bookshop Week, we invited some of our author pals, local and from further afield, to take over our Instagram account for an hour, recommending books on a chosen theme or in a chosen genre. In case you missed, we’ve published a list of each author’s chosen books (alongside their own work!) here on the website. We’re lucky to know some pretty splendid folk!

First up: ERIS YOUNG!

Eris Young is a queer, trans writer of speculative fiction and nonfiction. Their short stories have appeared in Escape Pod, Fusion Fragment, Metastellar and Pseudopod, among others. They are fiction editor at Shoreline of Infinity science fiction magazine. Their first nonfiction book, They/Them/Their, was published in 2019 by Jessica Kingsley, and their second book, Ace Voices, will be out in December 2022. 

Eris recommends:

Love After the End, edited by Joshua Whitehead: An uplifting and visionary anthology of two-spirit and indigiqueer speculative fiction, many of the stories offer portraits of a dead Earth from which new life springs, hinting at a way forward through the darkness of the present.

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado: Only published in 2017, this is already a classic of queer speculative fiction. Machado's work is equal parts gorgeous, visceral and frightening: she pulls no punches! 

Future Feeling by Joss Lake: A hilarious, messy romp following three trans guys in a near-future, queer-hivemind-connected USA: it's rare to see trans men as the protagonists of stories (let alone three) and even rarer for them to be (endearingly) total scumbags! 

A Memory Called Empire & Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine: This military SF slash courtly intrigue slash murder mystery is all about culture, memory and language: with beautiful prose and mind-blowing worldbuilding, it's a natural successor to Ancillary Justice.

Stealing Thunder by Alina Boyden: A hijra princess in fantasy-Mughal India plans a heist to steal a dragon: what more could you want!

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho: An exploration of identity, family ties and the dangers of angry gods, written in Cho's characteristic style, perfectly balancing dark and light, humour and emotional resonance.