APSARA ENGINE, South Asian graphic story collection

APSARA ENGINE
Bishakh Kumar Som
The Feminist Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$24.95 paperback, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: By turns fantastical and familiar, this graphic short story collection with South Asian roots is immersed in questions of gender, the body, and existential conformity.

Winner of the 2020 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Graphic Novel/Comics

Winner of the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Comics

Finalist for the 2021 Ferro-Grumley Literary Award for LGBTQ Fiction

The eight delightfully eerie stories in Apsara Engine are a subtle intervention into everyday reality. A woman drowns herself in a past affair, a tourist chases another guest into an unforeseen past, and a nonbinary academic researches postcolonial cartography. Imagining diverse futures and rewriting old mythologies, these comics delve into strange architectures, fetishism, and heartbreak.

Painted in rich, sepia-toned watercolors, Apsara Engine is Bishakh Som's highly anticipated debut work of fiction. Showcasing a series of fraught, darkly humorous, and seemingly alien worlds—which ring all too familiar—Som captures the weight of twenty-first-century life as we hurl ourselves forward into the unknown.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: A beautiful work of South Asian-set and -themed mostly queer stories. All take place in elegantly, cleanly rendered spaces, involve women in transitional times and relationships, and stress the pleasures and/or complexities of being in the midst of Life.

these are the spreads provided for publicity use

The author's website contains much more varied artwork from the book. It is very much worth you time to view.
The stories themselves are not really interlinked, though all feel like they're meant to form something greater than the sum of their parts. If there's more than the thinnest connective tissue, though, I didn't find it. Straight people on a shoreline are surprised by merfolk accosting them; differing degrees of queer/trans people in their cells...apartments really, but cells in all the confinement senses...are the focus of the title story, one that fascinated me but never paid off in the way I was built up to expect. I think my personal favorite story was "Swandive," in which Onima...a "cartographer of trans realities" who uses her own blood to make maps, thus create art, that explains other Desi trans people to themselves.

It's not hard to see this opening a young trans person's eyes to the welcome reality that others feel the same way they do. No one in the 21st century, with all its stunning technological advances in medicine, psychology, communication should ever again feel isolated. A work like this that was created by someone deeply marginalized yet extending her hand to others, is a lifeline for a struggling trans person.

"You, as you are right now, are not alone and do not need to change to be loved" is still the most intensely powerful message you can send with this gift.

COMPOUND FRACTURE, accepting the gulf between what is and what could be is optional

COMPOUND FRACTURE
ANDREW JOSEPH WHITE
Peachtree Teen (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$19.99 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: Bestselling and award-winning author Andrew Joseph White returns with a queer Appalachian thriller, that pulls no punches, for teens who see the failures in our world and are pushing for radical change.

A gut-wrenching story following a trans autistic teen who survives an attempted murder, only to be drawn into the generational struggle between the rural poor and those who exploit them.

On the night Miles Abernathy—sixteen-year-old socialist and proud West Virginian—comes out as trans to his parents, he sneaks off to a party, carrying evidence that may finally turn the tide of the blood feud plaguing Twist Creek: Photos that prove the county’s Sheriff Davies was responsible for the so-called “accident” that injured his dad, killed others, and crushed their grassroots efforts to unseat him.

The feud began a hundred years ago when Miles’s great-great-grandfather, Saint Abernathy, incited a miners’ rebellion that ended with a public execution at the hands of law enforcement. Now, Miles becomes the feud’s latest victim as the sheriff’s son and his friends sniff out the evidence, follow him through the woods, and beat him nearly to death.

In the hospital, the ghost of a soot-covered man hovers over Miles’s bedside while Sheriff Davies threatens Miles into silence. But when Miles accidentally kills one of the boys who hurt him, he learns of other folks in Twist Creek who want out from under the sheriff’s heel. To free their families from this cycle of cruelty, they’re willing to put everything on the line—is Miles?

A visceral, unabashedly political page-turner that won’t let you go until you’ve reached the end, Compound Fracture is not for the faint of heart, but it is for every reader who is ready to fight for a better world.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: If ever a book was well-placed to meet its times, it's this trans YA story of rebellion turned existential.

There are so many stories that feature parents of trans kids that reject and demean their children that it felt very warming for Miles to have befuddled, but loving and willing to learn, parents that I was ready to five-star the reading experience. Even his grandparents weren't rejecting, as so many trans kids experience. The latter were even able to see Miles' outing as the huge emotional violation it was and not blame him for the violence that followed. It was outstanding, and I really hope more trans kids than ever experience that in their lives. Sounds more and more five-starry, right?

Didn't *quite* work out that way....

That's really down to my feeling that the politics were polemical not organic to Miles. Being a socialist firebrand in West Virginia is as risky as being trans; so why was one on display, and why the political one? Given the terrible suffering Miles endures in the course of the book, why was one so impersonal the choice he's depicted as making the one he's going to suffer for? Why fuss about identity politics in the middle of class war, a character asks...I wondered why class warfare does not include bodily autonomy before a political screed.

Miles' exploration of what masculinity means in his milieu is what earned back all but a token bit of a star. This issue is absolutely wonderfully handled. Miles is a man; Miles isn't most of the stereotypically Appalachian/Southern man-coded things, eg violent and aggressive, but is figuring out what that's going to look like. His own dad's experiences in the story, as a victim of male aggression to the point of disability, seemed to me to set the stakes for Miles pretty starkly.

It ends up being a cavil in the face of the story's many strengths. I hope the whole of West Virginia will read it, if only to see what critique from a place of love for a shared home looks like. It's a home that gets huge amounts of criticism from a place of contempt heaped on it from outside.

It's good to have a corrective to the attitude but not the substance of the critics.

YOU WEREN'T MEANT TO BE HUMAN, if the title chills you wait'll you read the story

YOU WEREN'T MEANT TO BE HUMAN
ANDREW JOSEPH WHITE
Saga Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$14.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

One of Publishers Weekly's Best Books of 2025!

The Publisher Says: Alien meets Midsommar in this chilling debut adult novel from award-winning author Andrew Joseph White about identity, survival, and transformation amidst an alien invasion in rural West Virginia.

Festering masses of worms and flies have taken root in dark corners across Appalachia. In exchange for unwavering loyalty and fresh corpses, these hives offer a few struggling humans salvation. A fresh start. It’s an offer that none refuse.

Crane is grateful. Among his hive’s followers, Crane has found a chance to transition, to never speak again, to live a life that won’t destroy him. He even met Levi: a handsome ex-Marine and brutal killer who treats him like a real man, mostly. But when Levi gets Crane pregnant—and the hive demands the child’s birth, no matter the cost—Crane’s desperation to make it stop will drive the community that saved him into a devastating spiral that can only end in blood.

You Weren’t Meant to Be Human is a deeply personal horror; a visceral statement about the lives of marginalized people in a hostile world, echoing the works of Stephen Graham Jones and Eric LaRocca.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Is this story literally intended to be about a hive...powerfully coded culturally as an insect-related word...that controls people to their detriment? Are the hives metaphors for the horrors of cishet society demanding conformity of people not like them? Are the hives infestations of the criminal organizations demanding obedience of the Appalachian people in exchange for the smallest amount of human dignity...or else?

Yes.

The answer is none/all/a combination of these and more. This is why I rate the body horror story as highly as I do. Author White is avowedly transmasc. The story could've been his own; he could be Crane; the body horror could be, is, intensely personal. It is laid out in terms of Crane's quest for bodily autonomy, its various phases and faces of denial and deprivation of this great, fundamental freedom. Trading transphobia for misogyny is not trading up. It is still the imposition of ignorance on top of your own knowledge, the unwillingness of the uneducated to do the work of acquiring the information needed to distinguish between discomfort and threat.

The hive isn't precise or even visible, it's a shifting...space...delineated by rotten stinking meat and a control mechanism brutally physical and insidiously psychological. This is the essence of horror to me. The ugly inner workings of systems of control and brutalization for dominance assertion. The denial of the fundamental freedom, autonomy...self-determination...that all Others endure. That is, throughout time and space, the one sin qua non of horror stories. It gives me shivers even conceptualizing it.

What Author White does best in this story is mobilize all the tropes of horror to embody the reality of an authoritarian world. What the alluring promises of it devolve into. What the systems of oppression will resort to in order to accomplish their hidden aims. Are they even hidden, or are we simply discouraged from noticing them? Accused of being paranoid, thereby handily Othered in an uncontestable way?

The way the story ends, I won't say "wraps up" it's too easy, isn't heartening or triumphal or celebratory. It is instructive. It is condign. It does not spare a thought for the offense against "nice"ness it's made you endure. And surprisingly made you...appreciate, since enjoy is a completely wrong stop to pull on Literature's pipe-organ.

I think this read will titillate the horror seeker, educate the knowledge seeker, and validate the entomophobic person's visceral rejection of reeking, rotting things for what they harbor.

BECOMING A VISIBLE MAN, 2nd edition, still nothing like it

BECOMING A VISIBLE MAN
JAMISON GREEN
Vanderbilt University Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$34.95 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In a clear and logical style, Becoming a Visible Man tackles the history, biology, medicine, philosophy, and politics that claim to define and control gender in the US.

Profoundly personal and eminently practical, Jamison Green clarifies transgender experience for transgender people and their families, friends, and co-workers. Medical and mental healthcare providers, educators at every level, business leaders, and advocates seeking information about transgender concerns can all gain from Green's integrative approach to the topic. This book candidly addresses the emotional relationships that are impacted by a transgender transition, and brings refined integrity to the struggle to self-define, whether one undergoes a transition or chooses not to.

Emphasizing the lives of transgender men (who are often overlooked) he elucidates the experience of masculinity in a way that is self-assured and comforting, not demanding or threatening. Self-acceptance and health are always at the core of his message. Green's inspirational wisdom has informed and empowered thousands of readers with knowledge and compassion. There is still no other book like it in the transgender library.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Most people are profoundly unaware of the entire experience of being outside the gender binary in a world totally predicated on it. I was one, until I wasn't anymore, and like the "eww-ick" homophobes I've known and known of over the years, I had no idea how my ignorance would come across to the trans people I knew and know.

It is worth an empathetic look into the lived experience of the people you're Othering.

This is the second edition of a book now twenty years old. It helps to understand that; it helps to know that, while some things have changed, more have not...or have not for the better. Reading Author Green's personal story of knowing he was a man yet having the body of a woman is deeply moving. It is important to learn this from a person whose gender dysphoria was severe enough that the long, complicated road to gender-affirming treatment was the best option. For anyone who thinks this is a simple thing, read this book.

A lot of Author Green's impact on the conversation around trans issues stems from being willing to educate others about the topic. This is very much a book aiming to teach...at times a bit too determinedly so, hence that missing half-star. It can feel overwhelming. It has taken me literal years to read the book. It is, for me, an occasion of deep shame to realize how in my ignorance I was insensitive to my trans siblings. So learning the parameters of the experience of being trans has been a difficult reckoning, a hard catharsis, and a reason to look deep inside myself.

I know many are now looking at this and shuddering, thinking "no thanks." I would have as well. I did, apart from small bursts, for a long time. Not greatly to my credit I've chosen the first Pride Month of the Felonious Yam's second regime to finish and review it.

If you're having trouble seeing how this can even be a thing, try this analogy I found in the book. I'm paraphrasing here but: biosex is the hardware; cultural gender roles are the software; one's internal gender identity is the operating system that communicates between them and is the "user interface."

It's hugely helpful to me to have a simile to turn to for deeper understanding. What this does is offer a way in to "getting" how issues can arise in any of these ways of existing in the world. It also acts as a powerful reminder that there is not one single way to be literally anything in this world. All of life is in spectrums. We're educated in the US...in the religious-nut-capitalist world more generally...to see binaries, of which there are few. They're very comforting for lazy or stupid people but if science has taught us nothing else it's taught us that comfort is only bought at the exorbitant price of ignorance.

The annotated bibliography is quite something. The idea of all these sources existing in spite of every attempt to silence or disappear them by the screaming bigots is impressive. It also helps explain the screaming bigots' urgency in erasing us all. Information leads people to learning, and the habit of mind we call learning is the most potent weapon against the unreasoning hatred that is required for fascism and authoritarians to rule.

Resist them. Learn about the facts of transness from someone who lives it, and is willing to teach you when you're ready to be taught.

MARGARET KILLJOY'S PAGE: THE SAPLING CAGE, transfem MC wants to save the kingdom; & A COUNTRY OF GHOSTS, queer, anarchist SF

THE SAPLING CAGE (Daughters of the Empty Throne #1)
MARGARET KILLJOY
The Feminist Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$17.95 ebook, availablle now

Rating: 4.5* of five

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 URSULA K. LeGUIN PRIZE! Winner announced on 21 October 2025.

The Publisher Says: In the gripping first novel in the Daughters of the Empty Throne trilogy, author Margaret Killjoy spins a tale of earth magic, power struggle, and self-invention in an own-voices story of trans witchcraft.

Lorel has always dreamed of becoming a witch: learning magic, fighting monsters, and exploring the world beyond the small town where she and her mother run the stables. Even though a strange plague is killing the trees in the Kingdom of Cekon and witches are being blamed for it, Lorel wants nothing more than to join them. There’s only one problem: all witches are women, and she was born a boy.

When the coven comes to claim her best friend, Lorel disguises herself in a dress and joins in her friend’s place, leaving home and her old self behind. She soon discovers the dark powers threatening the kingdom: a magical blight scars the land, and the power-mad Duchess Helte is crushing everything between her and the crown. In spite of these dangers, Lorel makes friends and begins learning magic from the powerful witches in her coven. However, she fears that her new friends and mentors will find out her secret and kick her out of the coven, or worse.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Transfem main character in a fantasy novel? Yes please. What else, one might reasonably ask, would Author Killjoy (transfem herself) write? Short answer: Any-damn-thing she likes. The fantasy universe here is beautifully evoked, the system of magic is well-thought-out, the costs the use of magic exacts on the user are all both disturbing and condign, this is in short the kind of secondary-world fantasy one always hopes to find.

Lorel herself, our PoV character, is carefully delineated to be consistent: born a boy in a world where magic is only wielded by females, transfem Lorel (believably bisexual in desire) is clearly female coded from the off. She does not like violence, but can definitely motivate her aggression in defense of loved ones or in the face of inflicted violence. She's somewhat spottily presented to our mind's eye, in that her deliberate changes of gender presentation aren't detailed. I wasn't sure why someone presented as wearing a dress the last time she was described putting her hair in a man's topknot and passing after that. What happened to the dress? Was a dress a unisex garment? If not why make a point of her wearing one?

These are minor things to me, though, in the face of Lorel's journey into her true nature. Being within her society and still Othered, Lorel's way of observing the anarchist functioning of the witches was far less didactic than A Country of Ghosts (q.v.) It came across as an apprentice learning the ropes, watching the experts for tips and tricks, which is exactly what one expects. A coming-of-age story that's also a very risky coming-out story is a great set-up for a series about a fantasy world. It is, though, a set-up, so this is not a full story. There are, thank goodness, details left to develop...but that isn't always totally satisfying. I've knocked off a half-star for those holes falling too deep at times.

I loved the experience of learning about the magic system. I'm not going to go into it here because the idea is best encountered without early access to the facts. Discover with Lorel what magic is, can do, and exacts from its practitioners...and why.

I'm glad to say that, as book one of a trilogy, this is not full of tension-killing explanations. It will be interesting to see how Lorel, learning to trust herself as a transfem person, reconciles that with her culture's restriction of magical practice to biofem people. What will this do among the witches? Will the immediate consequences turn dire in this supremely cozy world?

Future books will tell!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A COUNTRY OF GHOSTS
MARGARET KILLJOY
AK Press (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$16.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: An epic political fantasy in the tradition of Tepper and Le Guin that explores the question of what an anarchist community can do to resist the assaults that are sure to come if any such social formation were to exist.

Dimos Horacki is a Borolian journalist and a cynical patriot, his muckraking days behind him. But when his newspaper ships him to the front, he’s embedded in the Imperial Army and the reality of colonial expansion is laid bare before him. His adventures take him from villages and homesteads to the great refugee city of Hronople, built of glass, steel, and stone, all while a war rages around him. The empire fights for coal and iron, but the anarchists of Hron fight for their way of life.

A Country of Ghosts is a novel of utopia besieged and a tale that challenges every premise of contemporary society.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Very much in the same vein as The Dispossesed, a philosophical exploration of anarchy as a means of social organization. The horrors of hypercapitalism bashing into the anarchic anti-hegemony are always fun and interesting to encounter.

Told as a story, these ideas and attitudes make a much more lasting mark on the psyche than do more explanatory ideological works. It's easy to invest in the people Author Killjoy creates, as one might expect from the author of the Danielle Cain novellas.

There's nothing false, or clangorous, in Author Killjoy's work. There is no dumbing-down or slighting of issues that arise from this world's way of functioning. It's true that our ignorant interloper from imperialism needs to be brought up to speed. I don't think this counts as the dreaded infodumping, because the explicit intent of the story is to contrast a high-control system based on coercion crashing into a non-system of personal responsibility and collective action. Armies are fighting, and that should be impossible in anarchy...yet here we are, and Dimos (our stand-in) needs to understand why. He's set up as a muckraking journalist by temperament. He's shown to be an ill-fitting bit of grit in the imperial army's system, someone who is a misfit and outsider.

The way he's educated in anarchist principles of respect, for self, for others, for the natural world as it is absent religious stuff, is inspiring. I enjoyed the way Dimos's struggle to wrap his head around this utterly alien way of thinking is portrayed. After witnessing the imperials committing war crimes, his mind was more flexible and receptive. It made the way the Hron (literally "ghosts") explain their lives to him hit harder:

We are anarchists, and we are immortal. We are the country of ghosts, and we are immortal. We will fight them until we are dead, and our bones will fight them after. The memory of our existence will fight them…in each of their hearts we will brand the memory that those who are free will never yield. Today, let us be ghosts!
–and–
Take care of yourself. No, to hell with that, take care of your friends and let them take care of you. Do stupid things for them.

It's so very much not the way the individualistic empire invading them thinks; Dimos is slowly taking on board this radical reorientation of his worldview. Dimos is a bit of a gender essentialist, though being gay himself he might not have been...that's an authorial lacuna, along with the absence of enby folk among the Hron. I'm not sure he would ever bother to learn not to be, but it did actually clang through my awareness that he was an outsider among the Hron as much as within the empire he was born into.

A book that is so ambitious in its asks of the reader that it startled me how smoothly it went down. Every last one of my four stars was coated in a thick frosting of readerly happiness.

But ostriches? Really?

DISAPPOINT ME, easily the title most easily misunderstood for #PrideMonth

DISAPPOINT ME
NICOLA DINAN
The Dial Press (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$13.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: An electrifying story of love, betrayal, and the complicated allure of bougie domesticity.

You can fall in love with an outline, you can even make a home with one, but there will come a time where you can’t deny the bones their flesh. A person is no fewer than two things.

Thirty years old with a lifetime of dysphoria and irritating exes rattling around in her head, Max is plagued by a deep dissatisfaction. Shouldn’t these be the best years of her life? Why doesn’t it feel that way? After taking a spill down the stairs at a New Year’s Eve party, she decides to make some changes. First: a stab at good old-fashioned heteronormativity.

Max thinks she’s found the answer in Vincent. While his corporate colleagues, trad friends, and Chinese parents never pictured their son dating a trans woman, he cares for Max in a way she’d always dismissed as a foolish fantasy. But he is also carrying baggage of his own. When the fall-out of a decades-old entanglement resurfaces, Max must decide what forgiveness really means. Can we be more than our worst mistakes? Is it possible to make peace with the past?

Funny, sharp, and poignant, Disappoint Me is a sweeping exploration of love, loss, trans panic, race, millennial angst, and the relationships—familial and romantic—that make us who we are.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Is it possible to love someone after you know their worst moments? Is it possible to love someone when you don't know their worst moments?

That's an existential question, applying to each and all of us. It's one to ask yourself when thinking about any relationship, including your relationship with yourself. Max is doing a lot of thinking about relationships to self, and to Truth, and to facts...and Vincent. She's been blindsided in her complex developing relationship to him. Add to this a quite conservative Chinese family (pretty much a trope heading into stereotype-dom at this point) that's honestly struggling (I mean struggling, and being honest about it) with her transfem identity, and to the past actions Vincent undertook that form a separate narrative strand.

When Max decides she is going to pursue a heteronormative identity, it came after a crisis in her life. This makes it feel a bit forced. If this had been something Max was mulling over, I'd've found its narrative suddenness a bit less jarring. That said, I'm actually kind of relieved not to have the narrative focus on Max's transition...it's happened, it's done, what's next? Vincent being okay with her transness was, dare I say it, a bit less startling than I was perhaps expected to find it. Until, that is, we move into a timeline of Vincent's past and discover what Max now learns; this event is going to change everything in the present as it did in the past.

What matters in all these deftly plucked strands of Author Dinan's story-web is the essential unknowability of one's emotional life once given into the hands of another. What we feel for the other, what is felt by the other, how all that will intertwine to make the web that couplehood sticks us to, what new information—truth, fact, realty—means in that web is where we're meant to focus. At times the quotidian world intrudes and distracts, or is allowed to intrude and distract. The attentive reader will notice register shifts in Author Dinan's prose from pleasantly descriptive to nearly florid at those moments. I'm assuming food is a comfort drug to Max and her found family....

Where do we end up in this web? In it. I read the book assuming I'd reach a conclusion to some of those issues raised above. I do not think quite a few people will find the openness of the ending, the real lack of closure for Max and, to a lesser degree of investment, Vincent, to be satisfying. I took a star off because I was not given a sense that, by the end, Max had any kind or sort of response, still less plan, to all she's learned. We simply...leave the story, trailing web-strands of it behind us.


Not a perfect read, then, but one I very much enjoyed. More from you soon, please, Author Dinan!

DEAR CIS(GENDER) PEOPLE: A Guide to Trans Allyship and Empathy, when you wonder "what do They want" best ask Them

DEAR CIS(GENDER) PEOPLE: A Guide to Trans Allyship and Empathy
KENNY ETHAN JONES
DK Books
$24.99 hardcover, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: A powerful call to arms to empower cisgender people to be better allies, blending memoir, detailed research, and interviews.

The trans experience is all too often the subject of fierce debate in the media and online. While we’re having more and more conversations about the trans experience, the stark reality is that hate crimes against the trans community have quadrupled over the past five years and that two in five trans young people have attempted suicide.

But behind the shock headlines and the distressing statistics, what does it really mean to be trans?

In this powerful, extensively researched, and deeply personal book, Kenny Ethan Jones, a trans activist and writer, offers an authentic and in-depth insight into the trans experience. From gender dysphoria to surgery, from being outed to finding love and considering parenthood, Kenny Ethan Jones draws on his own life and the stories of others from the trans and nonbinary communities to create discussion around the complexities and reality of the trans experiences in today’s society.

Dear Cis(Gender) People is a powerful call to arms, equipping people of every gender with the tools to step forward as allies in order to bring about meaningful change. Through acting and speaking out, we can create a safer, fairer world for trans people—a world in which all of us can exist as our most authentic selves and celebrate who we are without fear.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I can not say this loudly, often, or long enough: PAY.

ATTENTION.

TO.

WHAT.

THEY SAY THEY WILL DO.

You can start here, with this book made up of trans peoples' words. It's addressed at all cis people, a group I am very much part of. I needed to hear these trans voices. These voices are not heard in any systemic way even in the QUILTBAG community. Trans people can and should speak up...and all too often, risk the direst imaginable consequences for doing so. I think the best way to learn is to ask, and if the silence imposed on trans people in F2F reality is blocking that avenue, then we can read! This book marries asking with reading because Author Kenny Ethan Jones has spoken to his fellow trans folk and used their own words to address us cis people, regardless of our sexual identities, about the nature of being trans.

The ball is in our court, cis folk. We possess the information, now we need to listen to what trans people want us to know. There is no more fig-leaf for our ignorance. Now it is a choice to remain ignorant. I think almost everyone who reads this blog, being readers themselves, will take this chance to lift the veil of unknowing and see what the most Othered people in the QUILTBAG rainbow of identities want to get in the way of support and acceptance.

I hope this compact, unchallenging read will make its way into your reading this #PrideMonth. There are so many ways to offer the gift of acknowledgment. The price is, honestly, negligble to the giver; the gift is precious to the receiver, as the stories told here will show you. Please do the whole angry, shouting world this favor:

Sit and listen to what your Othered siblings would appreciate you offering to them.

IN UNIVERSES, on under beyond them, too...big ideas said loud and proud

IN UNIVERSES
EMET NORTH
Harper
$26.99 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4* of five

WINNER OF THE 2024 OTHERWISE AWARD!

The Publisher Says: Raffi works in an observational cosmology lab, searching for dark matter and trying to hide how little they understand their own research. Every chance they get, they escape to see Britt, a queer sculptor who fascinates them for reasons they also don’t—or won’t—understand. As Raffi’s carefully constructed life begins to collapse, they become increasingly fixated on the multiverse and the idea that somewhere, there might be a universe where they mean as much to Britt as she does to them…and just like that, Raffi and Britt are thirteen years old, best friends and maybe something more.

In Universes is a mind-bending tour across parallel worlds, each an answer to the question of what life would be like if events had played out just a little differently. The universes grow increasingly strange: women fracture into hordes of animals, alien-infested bears prowl apocalyptic landscapes. But across them all, Raffi—alongside their sometimes-friends, sometimes-lovers Britt, Kay, and Graham—reaches for a life that feels authentically their own.

Blending realism with science fiction, In Universes explores the thirst for genius, the fluidity of gender and identity, and the pull of the past against the desire to lead a meaningful life. Part Ted Chiang, part Carmen Maria Machado, part Everything Everywhere All At Once, In Universes insists on the transgressive power of hope even in the darkest of times.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: A blast of a read, in all the usual meanings of that word: Loud, trumpet-like; maximally fun; shattering and sudden; destructive.

Emotionally shattering because there is a great deal of grief and grieving inherent in exploration of self in relation to others, among other reasons. Raffi is protean, contains multitudes, and will not be nailed down to one meager choice when the entire multiverse is spread before them. A more adventurous take, then, on the idea of Everything Everywhere All At Once as it includes greater intentionality. Destruction, demolition blasts are very much here; Raffi, in some universes, rivals Kali as a destroyer of worlds, for self as well as, particularly, for others. There is no relationship in this story that is not utterly destroyed. They just don't get destroyed at the same time, by the same person, method, or for the same reasons. As you read along, wondering where the HELL Emet is taking you, you'll be suddenly shattered by the complete inversion of your expectations multiple times.

The fun of this read, and it is indeed fun to read, is the take-no-prisoners verve with which the story's told. Leave your pearls at home when you embark on this trip. Like Henry Miller, Emet North has no time for, interest in, or fear of you pearl-clutching linear, polite, unadventurous souls. Getting down into the baseness, the base, the bases of reality is the project and that simply cannot be done with clean white cotton gloves turning the pages.

I will say that, as a resolutely gay male, I was somewhat battered by the sheer preponderance of vaginas. I still read it; look at those four stars. That's a loud statement of my level of investment. A boon to me, in this overwhelmed-by-labia state, came from the fact that this is not a Beckett or Joyce-flavored excursion into vaggieland. Back to the Henry Miller comparison: The point of view doesn't really change, just the angle of the sightline...no one's holding your head in place like Joyce or Beckett both of whom want you all the way down until you have no air and start to gag on the overload. Miller's eternally shuffling around, foul fair foul fair all the same sight but never still long enough to be sure exactly what sight that is; this is closest to Emet North's method of shaking the kaleidoscope to fracture the multiverse as well.

What you should know is, this read doesn't want you to love it, like a shirley temple. This read wants you to live in it, to get into its unmarked white delivery van, to be fully present as you're shaken (and stirred) before being poured out in a thin stream of pungent, colorless, powerfully mixed sophistication. If that sounds unappealing, horseman, pass by. If you're in the mood to be renewed or renovated after some pleasant undemaning reads, this story will give you more than you expected.

This raving ramble accompanies four, not five, stars because the entire edifice is built on a largely ignored foundation of cosmology. I think, if one's calling something science fiction, and making the protagonist a cosmologist, that should figure in the story fairly prominently. I think my pleasure in the read also took a hit because there was often so little of a narrative strand to follow...this makes the setting down of the book very, very easy, and can make the picking up of it less so.

I recommend it to those weary of predictable plods. I recommend it to QUILTBAG readers. I do, above all, recommend it.

EVEN GREATER MISTAKES: Stories, Charlie Jane Anders does the "doesn't get better than this" victory lap

EVEN GREATER MISTAKES: Stories
CHARLIE JANE ANDERS
Tor Books
$27.99 hardcover, available now

WINNER OF THE 2022 LOCUS AWARD—BEST COLLECTION! Watch the entire ceremony here.

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In her short story collection, Even Greater Mistakes, Charlie Jane Anders upends genre cliches and revitalizes classic tropes with heartfelt and pants-wettingly funny social commentary....

The woman who can see all possible futures is dating the man who can see the one and only foreordained future.

A wildly popular slapstick filmmaker is drawn, against his better judgment, into working with a fascist militia, against a background of social collapse.

Two friends must embark on an Epic Quest To Capture The Weapon That Threatens The Galaxy, or else they’ll never achieve their dream of opening a restaurant.

The stories in this collection, by their very outrageousness, achieve a heightened realism unlike any other. Anders once again proves she is one of the strongest voices in modern science fiction, the writer called by Andrew Sean Greer, “this generation’s Le Guin.”

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: This is a collection to dip into not slurp down greedily. I mean, where else do you find, "A whole book of short stories can be overwhelming, like imaginative speed dating." This isn't even in a story! It's in the opening act, the Introduction! She's not keepin' her powder dry, unlikely for a seasoned campaigner who's founded geeky websites; or she's just got that immense an arsenal and knows she doesn't need to pace herself.

The best thing I can say of this epitome of Author Charlie Jane Anders's career is that you are unlikely to become bored. A story about time travel that includes, as I've never seen any other place, the fact that the Earth is moving in space; the Sun is moving in space; and not one bit of that enables a careless time-traveler to land where they began. Another story about time travel, but for an extremely specific time, and how that affects a love affair. Love, in every guise you can imagine, underpins every story. Love unspoken, love requited, love rejected...love all over the shop. Seriously. Get some towels.

You'll note that I'm using the venerable tool called the Bryce Method to bring you the flavor of the tales.

As Good As New elicits one of Author Anders's fun personal revelations in its intro...LeVar Burton read this story aloud! I can see why...it's a deceptively simple story about a deceptively simple solution to world peace placed in the executive power of a decidedly not simple heroine. One who does not hesitate to think and plot and carefully consider where others have already gone wrong. A writer, in other words, who loves the craft more than the plaudits.

Marisol had...gone back to the pre-med books, staring at the exposed musculature and blood vessels as if they were costume designs for a skeleton theatre troupe.
–and–
Maybe she would have done more good as a playwright than a doctor, after all—clichés were like plaque in the arteries of the imagination, they clogged our sense of what was possible. Maybe if enough people had worked to demolish clichés, the world wouldn't have ended.

4.5 stars

Rat Catcher's Yellows runs the reader smack into the wall of early-life dementia. A mutated virus does it in her story—cytomegalovirus did it in mine. It was so awful reliving those dark, hopeless almost-the-end days thirty years gone that this is where I stopped reading the book my first trip through.

...Shary is forming relationships with these cats in their puffy-sleeve court outfits and lacy ruffs. In the real world, she can't remember where she lives, what year it is, who the president is, or how long she and I have been married.

But Shary wanted me back, and kept nudging me to man up and finish her life with her...because it really was, like my man's ending, a beginning for something new. 4.5 stars

If You Take My Meaning is, per Author Anders's explanatory note, a giant ball of spoilers for The City in the Middle of the Night, which I haven't read yet, so this is me skippity-skip-skipping to the next read! I'm sure I can swing back around to it after I've done the necessary reading.

The Time Travel Club confirms what I've always believed: the only way anything at all ever gets done is the desperation of belonging, of making one's own space in a crowded, empty cosmos, meeting social isolation in a group of one's fellows. It lifted my sadness into a higher orbit to read Lydia's group's happiness-building involvement in a fantasy world that barely approached reality until it became reality. Plus now I know the word "fauxropean" really exists. My joy is unbridled. 4.5 stars

Six Months, Three Days got an entire review to itself in 2013. Go look.

Love Might Be Too Strong a Word has such a great backstory...maybe threatening the story itself for pre-eminence in my heart. And getting a seven-fingered hand on your four-fingered knuckles does a completely scary number on my head.

Until, of course, the true alienness...the multimorphic species with complex reproductive anatomies and even more baroque sexual ethics...hit me. And the pronouns...! Gadzooks! The pronouns make "they/she/he" a doddle! The beautiful weirdness of the alien city, its voyage across space, the fanciful glories of forbidden romance between...castes? morphs?...in defiance of carefully engineered plans, then the Big Reveal gives the intended perspective and, well.... 5 stars

Fairy Werewolf vs Vampire Zombie brings one into range of one w-bomb and what I'd have to call a w-grenade. (Mostly because it makes sense in context to drop the w...but it's still That Unnatural Ocular Act.) Zombies, Fae, vampires, werefolk...all real. And all ready for a drink at the bar where the wolf-bit Faerie princess chooses the most creepy of Cabaret's creepy numbers, "Don't Tell Mama", to settle a magical duel. A magical karaoke duel. There's also brains for a hungry zombie, in a lovely balsamic vinaigrette. That's the kind of world we're in when Author Charlie Jane is at the helm. We're in Weirdsville, sure, but that does not mean we can't have nice things. 4 stars

Ghost Champagne is the weirdest story yet...a comedian with a seriously fucked-up life (not narrowing that down much, am I?) has a strange variation on Cotard's syndrome that helps (?) her cope with crippling depression. Her Evangelical mother's midlife crisis is recognizing she's a lesbian and marrying a woman her daughter's age. And that's where the normal part ends. While Cotard's gets its act together, she's got her groove as a drunken vomiting ghost whose body's now inhabited by the ghost that's been haunting her. Who happens to be the woman who's being haunted, only older. And dead. 4 stars

My Breath is a Rudder is as plain as the nose on your face: Getting older in a city full of Peter Pans is a bear. Not one soul knows or cares about the city you fell in love with and there's no one left to be yourself with. You're as creative as you ever were but that's now the fantasy you're creating for sale. Wonder why no one's biting....

San Francisco, land of my birth, holds little appeal for me. This story brilliantly encapsulates why: Even in the near future, the city believes its own hype. 3 stars

Power Couple has my very favorite Charlie Jane line of all time in it:

Much later, I discovered that his butt fit perfectly inside my cupped hands, the curve of his undercheek resting just right against my crinkled life lines, as if copping a feel was the whole reason I had palms in the first place.

Too much? Not enough! And then there's the story itself, how the World is not designed for people which is deliberate since people designed the World...so why isn't it better?

Because somebody likes the way it is, and that somebody ain't interested in what works for you. Which is why kludges seem like good ideas. 4 stars

Rock Manning Goes for Broke is the longest piece in the book, the revenant of a novel from the early 1990s that had story-stuff in it that was not about to let the eyelashes of its creator go...you'll see why, or possibly have seen why if you've read it in some anthology from the past. I understand...there's a lot in here...but I did not enjoy the violence. It starts from Rock getting slung off the roof by his daddy in the first paragraph. I get the joke...violence ramped up isn't violence anymore, it's a joke...but I'm past the point of my life where I think that joke's funny. In fact, I'm a little bit embarrassed I used to think it was. 3 stars

Because Change Was the Ocean is what will really happen after The Apocalypse. People left will have babies, grandkids, whatever their hard work and their fates allow; these will be the natives of a new normal; they'll decide what to do, how to do it, what happens next, and you know what? San Francisco will still summon the misfits, the wannabes, and the loudly Othered to its sacred hills.

After a few days on Bernal, I stopped even noticing the other islands on our horizon, let alone paying attention to my friends on social media talking about all the fancy new restaurants Fairbanks was getting. I was constantly having these intense, heartfelt moments with people in the Wrong Headed crew.

It still, after decades and centuries, calls its own home to be weird together. 4 stars

Captain Roger in Heaven made me squirm as a monster grew before my eyes.

That was the thing {he} had left art school understanding: people make complicated pieces of art to explain human behavior, when the real explanation is almost always stupidity.

It is. And stupidity alone, among all that the Universe contains, has no beginning and no end...we surrender ourselves to it in order to make something, some lack or some surfeit, make ourselves whole with/out that. Like that can ever come from outside. 5 STARS

Clover builds on a dangling thread of All the Birds in the Sky which I've read...and liked...so I read this with a little shiver of anticipation.

Forgetting that it's about a c-a-t. My most beloathèd mammal next to Humanity. I finished it without feeling anything I think a cat-lover would except maybe relieved. But for different reasons. 3 stars all of which are grudgingly granted.

This is Why We Can't Have Nasty Things made me cry like a baby without his bottle. It's "I Love This Bar" only queer. And about an entire city. My Manhattan...the 70s, the 80s...gone forever. And I still love it. 5 stars

A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime is silly comedic space-opera joyfulness.

"See what I mean? I may have only one cell, but it's a brain cell!" He whooped and did an impromptu dance in his seat. "Like I said: you're the stealthy one, I'm the flashy one."

You are everything, Author Charlie Jane. You can give me more, and I wants it, preciousssss. 5 stars

Don't Press Charges and I Won't Sue is the nightmare/fever dream/body horror of what 45 and the clowncar of deplorables who rode his back to more power than they ever should've had want to do to Others. It's body horror, so be aware of that. It's also nauseating and claustrophobic and just when you thought it couldn't get worse, it does: Your ex-best friend, the one you had to leave behind with your deadname, is the one doing the awfulness to you. Because it's a job. Not rage, not revenge.

Because. It's. A. Job. 4.5 stars

The Bookstore at the End of America proves that the best people on the planet are book people. Bar none. 5 stars

The Visitmothers is proof that, in the end, asking from the heart gets you nothing. Unless you're open to the newfangled idea that your happiness is achievable by making others happier and better and new all over again. Sweet, touching, and delightful. 4 stars

THE HEXWORLD SERIES II, four novels & three short stories of M/M paranormal romance

HEXSLAYER
JORDAN L. HAWK (Hexworld #3)
Widdershins Press LLC (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 3.8* of five

The Publisher Says: Horse shifter Nick has one rule: never trust a witch.

Nick has devoted his life to making his saloon a safe haven for the feral familiars of New York. So when a brutal killer slaughters a feral under his protection, Nick has no choice but to try and catch the murderer. Even if that means bonding with a handsome Irish witch.

Officer Jamie MacDougal came back from the war in Cuba missing part of a leg and most of his heart. After his former lover becomes one of the killer’s victims, Jamie will do anything to solve the case.

Nick comes to Jamie with a proposal: after making a temporary bond, they will work together to stop the murders. Once the killer is caught, they walk away and never see one another again.

It sounds simple enough. But the passion that flares between the two men won’t be so easily extinguished. And if Nick can’t learn to trust his witch, he stands to lose everything—including his life.

My Review: An entertaining read, befouled by six (6) w-bombs, one extra heinous because it occurs midway through a sexual encounter. I mean! How the hell is one supposed to maintain an erection while some goofball w-verbs? Mr. Softee pretty much guaranteed.

Anyway, the story itself builds out Hexworld more completely. We learn that there are seven popes; we learn the ancience of familiars' existence with a reference to Altamira's cave paintings...an explanation of their odd actions that's just flat genius! We're "treated" to an expanded take on the plight of the familiars. We're shown why so many familiars are same-sex couples. And, in trul Author Hawk fashion, we're also given little cameos from earlier stories:

Detective Tom Halloran crouched beside the hex. His familiar, Cicero, observed closely as Tom laid his hand carefully on the bloody marks.
–and–
“I know better than to disturb a crime scene.” She lowered her voice. “I read the Howl and Roger dime novels, you see.”

And the story itself? Well...I wasn't thrilled. Nick, the angry stallion, got old fast. His witch, Jamie, puts up with being lied to, manipulated, abused physically and emotionally, and absorbs with stunning rapidity the fact that "he didn't mean it."

He started for the door. “Wait,” Nick called.

“You ain’t given me a reason to,” Jamie said, and slammed the door behind him.

Um. Yeah...no. The man's a classic narcissistic abuser. The last-minute conversion/forgiveness isn't thrilling to me. But Nick's conversion to decency at least an admission that he wasn't a great guy to begin with. Rook, his brother, doesn't seem to be anywhere near critical enough of Nick's rage's effects of those around him.

I felt parts of the tale were rushed, eg the smuggled ferals, the quasi-redemption of a duplicitous relative; I suppose this is inevitable when publishing a book in this category where 100,000 words is way past the norm of 70,000. I'm also pleased that so many of the previous couples in the series get the screen time that they do. It's not a lot but it's used to reinforce the interconnectedness of problem-solving activities in this world. No one, nor any couple-unit, is required to rely solely on their own resources...IF they can get their issues out of the way of asking for help. Nick, angry stallion that he is, learns that lesson very late but very effectively.

God. Jamie’s cheeks burned, but he wasn’t going to let Nick walk out like nothing at all had happened. “It was good. You know.”

Nick swallowed, the brown skin of his throat working. “It won’t happen again.” He spoke the words with such finality that Jamie couldn’t think how to answer. Nick ducked his dark head, hunched his shoulders, and vanished back out into the overcast fall day.

It always feels good to me when the abuser gets abused...though in fact that's a terrible way to resolve the actual underlying lack-of-respect issue.

I have nothing but happy feelings about the nature, identity, and fate of the baddies.

“Ingram is crazy if he thinks people are going to stop using magic. Especially the rich. No society lady is going to give up the witch in the laundry, using hexes to make her whites brighter, let alone the rest of it.”
–and–
Pick a group, demonize them, and use the resulting fear to pass whatever laws you like.

It's an evergreen for a reason. So there it is...more to like than to frown at, more to applaud than to censure. Hexworld is a terrific creation. Not every hero is blemish-free, not every villain is a wicked mustachio-twirling caricature. And in the middle of it all are men trying their damnedest to grab and hold some happiness, spread some kindness, and sit in the sunshine with their loved ones, absorbing the world's sweetness.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

WILD WILD HEX
JORDAN L. HAWK (Hexworld #3.5)
Widdershins Press LLC (non-affiliate Amazon link)
99¢ Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: Can a lawman witch find love with an outlaw familiar?

After weeks spent tracking down the gentleman bandit Rafael, Hexas Ranger Enoch Bright finally has the outlaw in his sights. He doesn’t expect to find out Rafael is his familiar.

When Enoch runs afoul of the murderous Bone Gang, he and Rafael strike a deal to take down the gang together. As lawman and outlaw work together, Enoch soon realizes the next thing the gentleman bandit steals will be his heart.

My Review: Charming short extending Hexworld out to the Wild, Wild West. Rafael the Hawk, Enoch the Black Ranger...how will Author Hawk weave y'all into the main Hexworld story? And, more to the point, WHEN?!

Also: 3 (three) w-bombs, not one of 'em necessary. Three-quarters of a star off.

A lawman's worst nightmare is a miscreant whose nature makes them untrappable.

Banks, debt collectors, and taxmen hated the Gentleman Bandit with a passion, and would be happy to see him hang. Ordinary folks…less so.

Ordinary folks, whether they're bystanders with no dog in the fight or beneficiaries of the Bandit's largesse, more often than not celebrate the deeds of the underdog. And the underdog's almost never the lawman. Not even one of the US Marshals, Magical Law Enforcement Division, usually called the Hexas Rangers.

Rafael, who is a sort-of Robin del Hood the Gentleman Bandit, shifts into a Harris's hawk, the only raptor I know of that hunts in co-operative groups! It's just perfect for this series: A predator, but like a wolf one that is predisposed to co-operation instead of the solitary territoriality of most raptorial birds. It explains why he's got these urges to help the prey of banksters and railroad land-grabbers...he's sociable even in his shifted form, and inclined to help not hurt by his human (murky) past. He and Enoch have each run afoul of the Bone Gang in the past, so what could make more sense than co-operating until they take the bastards down? We know where these "this far and no farther" things lead....

The sex between the men was smokin'; the setting was a lovely surprise; the way that the bonding between witch and familiar functions as a form of love-at-first-sight is played for laughs here, and that worked.

I hope that we'll see more of these men and this setting. There was nowhere near enough time to get into their inner connection. I would adore that to happen in the very near future. Hint, hint.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

HEXHUNTER
JORDAN L. HAWK (Hexworld #4)
Widdershins Press LLC (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Detective Bill Quigley fell in love with the familiar Isaac the night they met. But after more than two years, it’s time to admit to himself that Isaac doesn’t return his feelings.

Isaac knows he’s too broken by his experiences for anyone to fall in love with. Especially someone like Bill, who deserves a partner unplagued by Isaac’s nightmares and doubts.

When children go missing from an orphanage, Bill and Isaac must work together to find them. And as years of yearning threaten to ignite into passion, they must decide once and for all whether to take a chance on love.

I RECEIVED THIS BOOK FROM MY SECRET SANTA! *SMOOCH*

My Review: First, read this:

Nothing seemed odd about the figure itself, other than depicting the Holy Familiar. Which, yes, this was a Belfastian institution, but he still would’ve expected Saint Jerome, patron of orphans.
–and–
“Denying a part of yourself is never a good thing. Familiars who stay too long in animal shape start to forget they were ever human, and those who stay human forget they were ever an animal. They lose half of themselves either way.”
–and–
"It’s significant because it revealed details of a civilization known to us only through the tales of the Greeks, tales recorded long after the Minoans—the ancient inhabitants of Crete, that is—vanished. There are many interesting points irrelevant to tonight’s discussion, but one of the things claimed by the legends—and supported by the excavations—is that the royal family were all familiars.”

If you've followed me long enough, you know that I'm an old fan of Author Hawk's Whyborne & Griffin Lovecraftian-horror series. I'm a sucker for expanding the Cthulhu Mythos in ways that would appall and repulse Lovecraft! And I'm always down for some good, old-fashioned men-shaggin'-men action.

On screen or off. *leer*

So here we are in a different late-Victorian/early-Edwardian/Gilded-Age New York City, another of my personal favorite settings for fiction or non-fiction. In this Manhattan, the world has SEVEN Catholic Churches, an underclass made up of magical familiars who can assume animal shapes, and an overclass of witches whose control of the magic inherent in the familiars renders their powers usable and useful to Humanity at large. Which does not, of course, translate into being valued at their correct level.

What this series does, in its set-up, is interrogate 1) crony-capitalist dystopian society; 2) the role of hatred and prejudice towards all those who make up the QUILTBAG community; and 3) the intense miseries of being trapped in an identity that simply is not yours, bears no resemblance to your true nature, and being reviled for daring to claim your proper place in the world.

“Denying a part of yourself is never a good thing. Familiars who stay too long in animal shape start to forget they were ever human, and those who stay human forget they were ever an animal. They lose half of themselves either way.”
–and–
"Rook said this case has something to do with missing familiar children?”

“Potential familiars, yes.”

Bill felt suddenly sick. “Saint Mary, Holy Familiar of Christ. You don’t think whoever has them is doing this, whatever this is, to them too?”
–and–
“Assumed to be the wrong gender at birth?”

“Exactly. Yet, {the Minoan royal familiars} took the familiar form associated with their proper gender. Nathan, you would have been a bull, not a snake. Which to me suggests human intervention.”

This is some heady, high-level worldbuilding. Think about the mental pathways that this creative leap took: Minoan civilization vanished; we know now it existed but for millennia it was a bad legend of a woman who transgressed her marriage vows and produced a monster; then we see the art of Knossos, men leaping bulls and women handling snakes tranmogrifies into familiars who can assume these forms, mutates through the generations as "normals" try to control/exterminate the weirdos, and even explains why there is such a hatred for Mary Magdalene, her being Witch-Christ's familiar, and seven—seven!—Catholic churches resulting from the chaos of getting on top of the facts behind the legends. (I like the idea of the Pope in Belfast...Celtic Christianity seems to me a less virulent thing than the Roman variety.)

But Author Hawk, a transman, isn't likely to let us off that easily. The worldbuilding is the stage...the story is the people on it. And they are all in for it, poor lambs, because there's a wicked, vindictive worldbuilder at the helm and they will suffer for their bad luck in being summoned into life by him!

I've said above that I like and appreciate the way charcters in Author Hawk's series come back from their abeyance to inform the stories with an enhanced level of reality. You go around your life with the same, or a roughly similar, group of people in it...so do these folk. They have families, they have friends, they have bosses and co-workers...all is the same in these stories as in the stories of our lives. These characters, Isaac and Bill, have shown up briefly in other tales; Malachi, Dominic (ugh!), Nick and Jamie, Rook, Cicero...all make their presences know in here, too. It's so very warming, like seeing an old childhood friend on the streets of your vacation destination.

Family, birth family, comes in for a lot of knocks in this series. I am not the product of a happy family, so I think of this as merely a reflection of reality. Then there are the good birth families that exist here, too, like the Yates siblings. I suppose someone somewhere has one of those. They would be wise not to talk much about it lest they be placed in a zoo for us ordinaries to gawk at.

And of course, the role of the closet...Isaac the mastiff familiar being treated the way he was by Martin, the witch his magic longs to connect with, retreats into wounded silence about his essential nature; Bill, the rejected poor-quality witch-son, runs from even the least hint that he is a witch:

So Isaac had pulled away, before the inevitable rejection. Because he was spoiled, broken, unworthy. Bill surely knew it as well as Isaac did. Now he knew, too, that Isaac wanted him.
–and–
It was time to move on. Time to accept Isaac would never return his affection. Bill’s own da hadn’t wanted him; stupid to have imagined anyone else ever would.

Realizing that your own family rejects who you are ("love the sinner, hate the sin" is the cruelest and most invidious formulation of "I don't like who you are") is not a fast-track way to get your richly deserved portion of love on this Earth. And they've both got this obstacle to overcome, so Bill and Isaac aren't going to get together easily or quickly. As this story takes place two years-plus after the last, that was a given.

Category romance, laddies and gentlewomen. HEA is standard equipment.

I give nothing away when I say that the couple becomes one, then. The circumstances of that are for you to discover; as is Author Hawk's guaranteed twist on expectations. Bill's life isn't one of luxury but he at least had a mother who loved him. Isaac's life wasn't ordinary for many reasons, but his Jewish identity was always going to Other him no matter what. How these broken places mesh is a delight; how they learn to accept and value each other is a pleasure, if one that was slightly rushed by the demands of the adventure plot.

As always, the fight against evil-doers and vile malefactors is pursued on multiple fronts. This time there is a court case for Isaac to assist with, involving the poor trafficked familiars/slaves from earlier stories; there's also a larger conspiracy taking place that ties together the past, the present, and a dreadful authoritarian future that our Scooby-group of witches and familiars are aware of and fighting further back with each battle.

Martin's position in this story, pivotal on two fronts, is not one I want to spoil for you. The links of the larger story-arc are, as in all good series stories, growing more and more restrictive around our dramatis personae. And that explains my overall delight in and eagerness to push these reads at you.

And there is the basic human lovingkindness of the world these men inabit as well. They are there for, supportive of, each other; they accept the bonds of Family and carry them with willing hands and hearty acceptance of responsibility and for support. This is a world where someone says to a belovèd friend, “Sometimes strength means asking for help when you need it," and isn't criticizing or belitting him; reminding him, rather, that this is what he is being offered.

Isn't that a beautiful dream. Even in the midst of the pain and chaos of fighting an uncaring-to-cruel world for your existential survival, these men offer their own strength, their own lives, to help and support others.

Tell me, please, what kind of story could possibly be more 2021 than that.

THE HEXWORLD SERIES I, four novels & three short stories of M/M paranormal romance

THE 13TH HEX
JORDAN L. HAWK (Hexworld #0.5)
Widdershins Press LLC (non-affiliate Amazon link)
99¢ Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Romance. Magic. Murder.

Dominic Kopecky dreamed of becoming a member of New York’s Metropolitan Witch Police—a dream dashed when he failed the test for magical aptitude. Now he spends his days drawing the hexes the MWP relies on for their investigations.

But when a murder by patent hex brings crow familiar Rook to his desk, Dominic can’t resist the chance to experience magic. And as the heat grows between Dominic and Rook, so does the danger. Because the case has been declared closed—and someone is willing to kill to keep it that way.

The 13th Hex is the prequel short story to the all-new Hexworld series. If you like shifters, magic, and romance, you’ll love Jordan L. Hawk’s world of witch policemen and the familiars they bond with.

My Review: Three w-bombs in under 40pp means one entire star off.

A perfectly fine story. I like Rook a lot, but am less enamored of Dominic Kopecky.

Dominic pulled Rook closer. “Of course I do. You’re everything I ever dreamed of, Rook.”

He tenderly cupped Rook’s smooth jaw in one hand. “You’re beautiful and clever, and I would have wanted you even if you weren’t a familiar. But you are, and you’ve given me magic.”

It just feels...opportunistic? like an emotional manipulation? I'm putting that aside for now, more data needed, and the books are mostly out.

I just wanted a toe-dip into the world of the series before committing myself to it. This short tale was enough to allow me to get the sense of what Author Hawk was planning...a New York City imbued with magical energy that expresses itself via pseudoscientific means...to see if this could keep my soap-opera lovin' story-slurpin' soul from parching into dust. I mean, Whyborne & Griffin is now complete on my reader radar! I need sudsy sweet seriesness! Now I'll get my Hawk fix here.

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HEXBREAKER
JORDAN L. HAWK (Hexworld #1)
Widdershins Press LLC (non-affiliate Amazon link)
99¢ Kindle edition, available for a limited time!

Rating: 4.75* of five

WINNER OF THE 2016 RAINBOW AWARD: GAY PARANORMAL ROMANCE!

The Publisher Says: Will a dark history doom their future together?

New York copper Tom Halloran is a man with a past. If anyone finds out he once ran with the notorious O’Connell tunnel gang, he’ll spend the rest of his life doing hard time behind bars. But Tom’s secret is threatened when a horrible murder on his beat seems to have been caused by the same ancient magic that killed his gang.

Cat shifter Cicero is determined to investigate the disappearance of one friend and the death of another, even though no one else believes the cases are connected. When the trail of his investigation crosses Tom’s, the very bohemian Cicero instinctively recognizes the uncultured Irish patrolman as his witch. Though they’re completely unsuited to one another, Cicero has no choice but to work alongside Tom…all the while fighting against the passion growing within.

Tom knows that taking Cicero as his familiar would only lead to discovery and disaster. Yet as the heat between them builds, Tom’s need for the other man threatens to overcome every rational argument against becoming involved.

But when their investigation uncovers a conspiracy that threatens all of New York, Tom must make the hardest decision of his life: to live a lie and gain his heart’s desire, or to confess the truth and sacrifice it all.

My Review: Tom the Hexbreaker = Yes. Big, solid, muscular boys are always welcome in my world, fictional or factual.

Cicero the Familiar = ...
...
...he's a C-A-T and I ***HATE*** those creatures. The make me sneeze. They have TOXIC SPIT faGawdsake. Their dander, designed by them in conjunction with their lord and master Satan, is so shaped that it causes acute irritation in human mucus membranes.

Cicero closed the door soundlessly behind him and shifted into cat form. Instantly, the room brightened; he could make out every detail of the worn fabric, the flaking paint on the hobby horse, the silk flowers twined around the swings. The smell of mice tantalized, mingled with the scents of the various people who had traipsed through. Sloane, Kearney, others he didn’t recognize.

And I still gave the book almost 5 stars. (The passage above is one of the main reasons I did...Author Hawk brings me into a cat's world in a way I haven't thought of before.) That, laddies and gentlewomen, is still nothing short of astounding. I have lived in or near Manhattan since the 1980s, and visited the city fairly often after my first taste of it in my long-ago childhood (before they started digging the basement of the long-gone Twin Towers, that's how long ago it was). This is my home, this is the place I want to be. So yes, I'm inclined to give stories set here a big head start into my good graces.

I'm also a history buff. In the post-book note left by Author Hawk, I was pleased but unsurprised to see they acknowledged Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890-1940 as one of their sources. I got this book in the 1990s and have read and re-read it a few times as research and as pleasure reading. The gay male culture of New York has arguably always been the gold standard (pace you San Francisco queers) in this country. I was eager to learn about it then, and happy to see it used so very well in this series of books.

Most of my happy croons are reserved for the alternate history of this New York, part of a world where magic is real and imperfectly understood as well as unscrupulously used thus necessitating an entire branch of law enforcement dedicated to detecting and preventing malefactors from taking unfair advantage of its gifts.

Tom didn’t mean to stare, but he couldn’t help it. Of course, he’d been staring nonstop since he’d entered the Coven and asked to speak to someone about a dead man and a bad hex.
–and–
“I follow the pope in Belfast, if that’s what you mean."
–and–
The one with the shotgun pointed it at Tom. “I said hands up! Revolver on the floor, now!”

The world seemed to sharpen to unnatural clarity. The black bore of the gun trained on him. Cicero’s coat, bright against the washed out clothing of the anarchists. The smell of gunpowder from the barrels. The hum of hexes from the boxes and barrels, so many he could feel them vibrating in his teeth. Meant to keep the gunpowder and dynamite from exploding too early, or catching fire from open flames.

The plight of the unbonded familiar is a strong theme in this first novel of the series. It's clear that the familiars, those whose abilities create the magic channeled by witches, are the downtrodden second-class magical citizens. Cicero the cat-shifter is a survivor of an abusive unbonded past. It informs his every waking moment. It's also obvious that most witch/familiar bonds are same-sex; this makes the gayness quotient of the world quite high, an agreeable development from my PoV. That there is still homophobia out there is depressingly inevitable, human beings being what they are.

It wasn’t Rook’s fault he and Dominic {from The 13th Hex, above} were perfectly suited as lovers as well as friends.

It was the fairytale every familiar wanted to believe in, and the MWP did nothing to dissuade. One day, a familiar would be minding their own business, look up…and there would be their witch. Dashing, charming, strong, funny…whatever the familiar needed them to be.

The events of this book bring the politics of the creation of New York City from the independent cities of Brooklyn, Manhattan, the County of Queens, and the Bronx to bear on the lives of the characters, and in that teaches each of them what it means not to fit into any corner of society. There are competing factions attempting to redress the very real wrongs of the place and time, but in ways that wouldn't lead to a better world only a replacement of those at the top with themselves.

Tom knew how the world worked, knew money flowed mostly in one direction and to hell with the poor bastard who ended up with empty pockets at the end of the day. But there was wrong and then there was wrong, and this seemed terrible in a way he couldn’t articulate.
–and–
"Show the people that the real threat to their safety comes from a corrupt government enslaved to the whims of rich men who would work the rest of us to death for their profits.”

It seems revolutions never do what they are supposed to do.

But Tom and Cicero are there, ably assisted by Dominick and Rook from The 13th Hex and joined by the next book's MC Dr. Yates, to make sure the body count is kept to a minimum and the worst excesses of evil are prevented from making the city a shambles. This is what I like about Author Hawk's books: The stakes are high, the issues are drawn from reality, the resolutions are based in the logic of the world created and include the requisite Happily Ever After for the main characters.

In this series, the magical system is wonderfully presented, the alternate timeline is sketched in with intriguing spaces left to be filled by future events' historical roots, and PoV characters from previous books will appear in supporting roles. I very much like this method of world-building as it lets me feel I am discovering something instead of arriving at a destination in time, conclusions in hand, to watch events unfold.

The sexual reality of the setting is probably going to put hetero readers off their feed. If men sexin' up other men makes you squeamish, seek elsewhere for your entertainment reads. If it doesn't, then here's you a terrific new series to enjoy.

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HEXMAKER
JORDAN L. HAWK (Hexworld #2)
Widdershins Press LLC (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A straight-laced policeman. A lighthearted thief. A murdered millionaire.

Fox shifter Malachi steals for one of the biggest crime rings in New York City. But when he witnesses the murder of a millionaire, the only person who can keep him safe is Dr. Owen Yates, forensic hexman for the Metropolitan Witch Police—and Malachi’s witch.

Owen is horrified to discover his familiar is an uneducated thief. Even worse, Malachi threatens to unleash Owen’s deepest desires…desires Owen can’t act upon, as he’s destined for an arranged marriage to secure the Yates family fortune.

Their agreement: Malachi will be Owen’s lover as well as his partner, until the day of the wedding. But as their hunt for the murderer carries them from teeming slums to Fifth Avenue mansions, Owens begins to realize Malachi commands his heart as well as his body.

With dark forces drawing ever closer around them, Owen must decide whether to bow to the demands of duty, or to risk everything for the man he loves.

Hexmaker is the second book in Jordan L. Hawk’s Hexworld series, following the adventures of witch policemen and the familiars they bond with. Download today to enter a world of magic, romance, and intrigue.

My Review: All good things must end. My unbroken streak of adoring Author Hawk's books has ended: I don't grok these characters. And then there's the overuse of the w-bomb: There are seven (7) of them in the book which is eight too many.

I didn't like Owen because he reminds me of Franklin Pangborn from old-timey post-Code movies. When they needed a gay man, they got Franklin Pangborn or someone like him to play a fussy, mousy, icky stereotype.

UGH.

Owen straightened and clasped his hands behind him, as if preparing to deliver a lecture. The sight brought a grin to Mal’s face.

“The device is a remarkable feat of hexology and engineering,” Owen said. “Today, we’ve uncovered one of the lost secrets of the ancient world.”

Athene shot him an impatient look. “Get to the point, Dr. Yates.”
–and–
“Shut up, Owen,” Kirk said. “God, you’re tiresome. I can’t believe Father would so demean Edith as to hand her over to a prissy fussbudget like you.”

I just so completely agree with Kirk...And that meant I couldn't really get a grip on the stakes of the story. Wasn't much on Malachi, either, and their sex scenes...I can't believe I'm typing this...were dull, so I skimmed them. I mean, of course Owen was bottoming, he's such a squishbag I can't believe he could ever do anything else...and that's not Big Daddy's kink.
“All I ever wanted was you,” Mal said. “Just as you are.” And, to quote the late, great Rodney Dangerfield, "you don't want much, do you?"

A sad day for me.

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A CHRISTMAS HEX
JORDAN L. HAWK (Hexworld #2.5)
Widdershins Press LLC (non-affiliate Amazon link)
99¢ Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A Hexworld Short Story

Roland knows he will never find love. Everyone views wolf familiars like himself as dangerous beasts, unable to rein in their savage impulses. He’s resigned himself to his fate—or so he thinks, until he meets the dashing Augustus Cao. His witch.

Gus is on the trail of a gang of thieves, and Roland holds an important clue. Even though they can never bond, Roland can’t pass up the opportunity to spend a night with his witch.

Can Roland conceal his secret, while helping Gus catch the thieves? Or will the handsome detective be the one to steal his heart?

My Review: Not a lot of room to maneuver in 56pp. A sweet Yuletide story, another facet of the Hexworld, and a half-hour spent quite pleasurably.

We're out in the Metropolitan Witch Police's purlieu this time, which is interesting; and the Hexworld's additions of prejudice to the already awful nineteenth century include ones against wolf shifters. Roland's family chucked him out when they discovered the dangerous animal in their midst.

Roland had known better than to get close to anyone. A decade of hiding had taught him that much. No one would ever see him as anything other than a dangerous beast.

He's made his peace with it, though of course he's very unhappy at Yuletide...who isn't whose people don't want them?...but as a successful writer of adventure stories he's made a good life and wants for little materially.

Now, eating at a Chinese restaurant, he meets his witch: An Irish-Chinese private detective whose present case is finding and stopping a gang of thieves using a dangerous, mesmerizing hex to in order to steal and kill. Roland saves Gus, whose sex appeal he's noticed immediately and whose existence as his witch is fizzing between them, from certain death, and tags along with him on the case. Truth is he's too afraid to share the truth of his animal nature, and of their magical connection, but just can't bring himself to let Gus face the very real danger he's in alone.

A successful resolution to the case, a Happily-Ever-After, and all in a corner of the Hexworld we barely slid into in Hexmaker. The dangerous-animal shifters aren't bad people; they're being true to their inner selves. They're no worse, no better, than anyone else!

The author, a trans person, knows how very deeply this resonates with all sorts of QUILTBAG people. They wrote this perfect summation of the happiness most all of us seek: "For once, the future didn’t matter; just this man and this moment."

Happy Yule, everyone.