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We've Always Been Queer

The podcast is Books That Burn because the original idea was "books that burn you", discussing fictional depictions of trauma. It's also an intentional reminder of the pile of burning books, you know the photo I mean, the one from WWII. It's a pile of books about queerness, gender, and sexuality. Just in case you don't know, the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexual Science) was headed by Magnus Hirschfeld.  It was a resource for gay, intersex, and transgender people, both of knowledge and medical help. It also helped the community with addiction treatment and contraception. It wasn't perfect and some of the ideas they had seem out of date now, the ones we know about anyway. But they were trying to make queer people's lives better, and they were a community resource at a time when people really needed it. Which is all the time, we always need these accesses. And the Nazis burned the whole library. It took days, they had to drag the books ou

Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard

Fire burns bright and has a long memory....

Quiet, thoughtful princess Thanh was sent away as a hostage to the powerful faraway country of Ephteria as a child. Now she's returned to her mother's imperial court, haunted not only by memories of her first romance, but by worrying magical echoes of a fire that devastated Ephteria's royal palace.

Thanh's new role as a diplomat places her once again in the path of her first love, the powerful and magnetic Eldris of Ephteria, who knows exactly what she wants: romance from Thanh and much more from Thanh's home. Eldris won't take no for an answer, on either front. But the fire that burned down one palace is tempting Thanh with the possibility of making her own dangerous decisions.

Can Thanh find the freedom to shape her country's fate--and her own?

TITLE: Fireheart Tiger
AUTHOR: Aliette de Bodard
PUBLISHER: Tordotcom
YEAR: 2021
LENGTH: 106 pages
AGE: Adult
GENRE: Fantasy
RECOMMENDED: Yes

Queer Rep Summary: Lesbian/Sapphic Main Character(s).

“I didn’t remember that everything I touched caught fire.”

Princess Thanh is trying to reconcile what she wants as the youngest royal child in a small country being pressured by a larger one. She has a strained relationship with her mother, a past romance with one of the royal foreigners, and a strange connection with a girl made of fire. Short and good, this blends interpersonal and political drama as Thanh figures out what she wants and whom she loves.

CW for sexual content, toxic relationship, colonization, fire (graphic).

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A woman walking furtively, holding a small cup with flames coming out.


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