These Queer Books Just Won Hugo, Lodestar, and Astounding Awards

This is one I read because of you all! I had it on my TBR, and it got the most votes to be my next read. This is a sapphic sci-fi story about Kyr, who has been trained as a soldier her whole life, eager to take revenge on the alien threat that destroyed Earth. But when she’s assigned not as a solider, but to the Nursery to endlessly bear children, she starts questioning everything she’s been taught. This is such a thought-provoking book, and Kyr changes dramatically from the beginning to end. Part of her character development is realizing that she’s queer — something she was raised to despise. This book takes such a turn. I’m still thinking about it long after reading it, and it’s one I’d love to discuss with other readers.

The Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book goes to…an adult fantasy novel! This book does have a teen main character, but it’s not YA — in fact, a plot point of the book is that culturally, she is considered an adult, but the white institution she is in insists on treating her as a child. This is a bisexual book about an Indigenous woman who finds a dragon egg and is forced to attend a colonizer’s school to train it. I’ve heard great things about this one, and I can’t wait to read it!

Xiran Jay Zhao is a Chinese Canadian nonbinary writer who was unfairly excluded from the 2023 Hugo Awards because their book was seen as possibly controversial to the Chinese government (the awards were held in China that year). This year, Astounding Award sponsor Dell Magazines requested that their eligibility be extended into this year, and they won the award for best new writer! In this first book in the series, Zetian (who is bisexual) aims to be a concubine-pilot to get revenge on the pilot who killed her sister. It’s “Pacific Rim meets The Handmaid’s Tale“!

This romantic queer fantasy series was on the short list for Best Series. The first book is A Marvellous Light, which is “Red White & Royal Blue meets Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.” It’s set in Edwardian England and explores a hidden world of magic, but it also has a steamy hate-to-love romance between Robin and Edwin. The second book, A Restless Truth, is an F/F fantasy mystery following Robin’s sister. The final book in the trilogy, A Power Unbound wraps up the story with an M/M enemies-to-lovers romance between Jack and Alan as they and their friends try to stop a dangerous ritual that could upend magic in Britain.

Another short listed queer series — this time in sci-fi — is the The Universe of Xuya series, which encompasses short stories as well as novels, all set in a shared universe. The Red Scholar’s Wake is about a marriage of convenience between tech scavenger Xích Si and pirate leader Rice Fish as they investigate the murder of Rice Fish’s first wife. Did I mention Rice Fish is a sentient spaceship?

More queer runners-up (all sequels in a series) include The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older, Promises Stronger than Darkness by Charlie Jane Anders, and Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo.