Post #3975688
2026-07-21 02:55 UTC
Replies (5)
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@macroplastic@sh.itjust.works 2026-07-21 03:33
For the Hainish Cycle books the order doesn’t matter too much, they’re not direct sequels. I started with (and would recommend starting with) The Left Hand of Darkness. The first 3 Hainish novels are also her first novels and she was still developing her style, in my opinion. I think The Dispossessed is her finest work, although I haven’t read all of her novels.
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@blakestacey@awful.systems 2026-07-21 04:02
Barbara Rosenblat’s recordings of the Amelia Peabody novels are fun.
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@gerikson@awful.systems 2026-07-21 14:06
If the queer experience on the 90s island of Harris intrigues you, we’re halfway through Douglas Stuart’s John of John and really enjoy it. Narrator has a Scots accent though, if you find that hard to deal with.
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@mirrorwitch@awful.systems 2026-07-22 09:51
Ursula is great! I love The Dispossessed. You can kinda read them in any order based on what catches your attention, except stuff like Earthsea that is best consumed in order. if you like this kind of stuff I would recommend also: Margaret Killjoy (A Country of Ghosts is basically The Dispossessed spiritual successor; The Sapling Cage is queer fantasy also the Danielle Cain series has been published as podcasts, it’s like, anarchopunk post-collapse Scooby-Doo) The Serpent Gates series (this starts exactly like the Tombs of Atuan, except Tenar is a lesbian orc and the equivalent of Ged is using her for his own purposes and the rest of the story goes very different but the protagonist is a lesbian orc so I automatically like it) The Wayfarers series (slice-of-life sci-fi, kind of like Star Trek at its best, exploring diversity imaginatively) The two Robot and Monk books by the same author (feel-good hopepunk about how society could be good after collapse) Octavia Butler is the other undisputed giant. Lilith’s Brood series for some genuinely creative sci-fi, or the two Parable books for collapse fiction that is so prescient it’s downright uncomfortable. A Memory Called Empire and it sequel (sci-fi about colonialism and the Empire; sophisticated handling of these themes that I appreciated as a Global South migrant) The Locked Tomb series (lesbian Warhammer 40k. my favourite book series in the world. spectacular audiobook narration.) This Is How you Lose the Time War—absolute hoot of a book, just a delight from start to end. Picture the Spy × Spy comics from MAD. Now make one spy a time-traveling agent from future biopunk ecogarden utopia, the other spy an agent from future mind-upload cyperutopia. Their mission is to shift the timelines to their respective visions. Alas, they’re both lesbian… (Sorry, I have a bit of a pattern in my interests)
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@o7___o7@awful.systems 2026-07-22 16:33
If I may add to these excellent suggestions: The Night Circus and The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern Go in cold, do not spoil! The readera are phenomenal.