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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 It wasn't perfect and some of the ideas they had seem out of date now, the ones we know about anyway.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
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July Reviews (2024)

Greetings

Welcome to the Books That Burn Fortnightly Roundup! Releasing every two weeks (one week early for Patrons).

After six months I finally found a job and adjusting to that has included drastic changes to my schedule. I mostly took July off to work on re-reading the Inheritance series by A.K. Faulkner and make headway in the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire. I’m working on a multi-part essay series about how these series handle their structures and various aspects particular to being SFF series with more than ten books planned.

I’ve also been working on a playlist project for the Inheritance series, that has absorbed a lot of my time. It’s helping me coalesce some of my ideas about the series, and at the end of it I’ll have playlists for the ten books which already exist. I plan to keep making these playlists as new books are released. The number of reviews may need to scale back for now as I get used to a new schedule and drastically reduced free time, but my goal is to release the playlists as they’re completed.

You can find a complete list of all book playlists here.

News and Events

I track upcoming book releases by authors we've previously covered on a shareable google calendar.

Notable July Releases:

  • Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle

  • Toward Eternity by Anton Hur

  • The White Guy Dies First by Terry J. Benton-Walker

  • Bells Hells by Cassandra Khaw

  • Nicked by M.T. Anderson

Signal Boost

If there's no ceasefire in Gaza by the time you read this, please use resources like Ceasefire Now to contact your representatives and ask them to support a ceasefire in the crisis in Gaza. The link includes information on planned protests and demonstrations, and has information for people internationally on what they can do to get involved.

Recent Reviews

TOWARD ETERNITY by Anton Hur is Sci-Fi/Speculative Fiction, with queer character(s), marketed as Adult. Researchers make an AI, and use nanites to save some people from cancer, told as a series of journalers tell of their experiences stretching far into the future within this legacy. Told in First Person with Ensemble POVs.

RITES OF WINTER by A.K. Faulkner, book 6 of Inheritance is Fantasy/Romance, with queer character(s), marketed as Adult. Quentin goes missing in New York, and Laurence must go to Otherworld to find him. Told in Third Person with Dual POVs.

Review forthcoming for Sigils of Spring by A.K. Faulkner.

Rereads and Older Reviews

I’ve been re-reading the Inheritance series by A.K. Faulkner and October Daye by Seanan McGuire.

Current Reads

Re-reading ONE NIGHT IN HARTSWOOD by Emma Denny, JACK OF THORNS by A.K. Fauklner, and ASHES OF HONOR by Seanan McGuire.

In Case You Missed It

This time last year I read IF I SEE YOU AGAIN TOMORROW by Robbie Couch, an excellent time loop story.

Pluggables and Podcast News

If you're looking for a place to buy any of the books I've reviewed, please consider our Bookshop page (if you use our links to purchase any books we get a small commission). Let us know if there's a category you'd like to see curated and we'll see if we can get some titles together.

Speaking of Bookshop, I've put together top picks lists for 2021 onwards. Books are included based on the year they were published, so occasionally older lists might get new titles. To be in the Top Picks list a book needs to get a five-star rating from me, and be published in the year of the list. You can find the 2024 list here.

As for the podcast, hopefully you're enjoying our most recent episode. If you'd like to receive episodes early, as well as bonus content, please consider supporting us on Patreon. Patrons receive this newsletter one week early, as well as a list of upcoming podcast episodes and even more planned reviews.

Patrons pledging $20 or more each month receive a bonus episode. Patrons pledging $50 or more can vote once per month on what we'll cover in the podcast. You can find all of those polls here. Patrons at any level receive the booklist with our planned episodes for up to three months at a time.

Thanks for reading, the next roundup will be in two weeks!

-Robin

Co-host of Books That Burn

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A tortoiseshell cat on a stuffed chair, the chair has clearly spent a while as a scatching post. The cat is in a playful pose, upside down with her yellow eyes clearly visible.


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