ArtsBooks

Wizards Vs. Lesbians

Isaac and Alexis

A queer sf review podcast about the emerging wizards vs. lesbians microgenre.

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22 episodes
fortnightly
Avg 1 hr 10 min
English

Episodes 22

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#147
October 11 · 1 hr 5 min
THE GIRLS I'VE BEEN
Searching for a more grounded take on gender and trauma than we're used to getting from our adult science fiction we turn, inevitability, to a non-speculative YA thriller. Let's all agree that charisma is a kind of magic and call this a book about wizard battles. THE GIRLS I'VE BEEN - TESS SHARPE
#146
September 27 · 1 hr 15 min
SPOILED MILK
It's a girls' boarding school in the 1920s - a time and a place that might cause a reader to indulge in flights of romantic fantasy, which this book first indulges and then dismantles. Whenever and wherever we are, the question remains: who gets to be final girl?
#145
September 14 · 1 hr 24 min
RADIANT STAR
Lee joins us to discuss the latest Raadchaii book. (Our policy remains: if there are Raadchaii, there are lesbians.) This is a hearty meal (ironically) if you're interested in religion, colonialism and/or political power - and, of course, there's cannibalism.
#144
August 30 · 1 hr 3 min
HELL'S HEART
We were promised Moby Dick in space with lesbians, and that's what we got. It's kind of a thankless task, being Moby DIck in space with lesbians - particularly if you're not playing it for laughs, which this book isn't - because the best you're ever going to do is "better than expected." On the plus side, this one is better than expected. HELL'S HEART - ALEXIS HALL
#143
August 16 · 1 hr 4 min
THE SUBTLE ART OF FOLDING SPACE
This book is about struggling with your terrible family while eating lots of lovingly-described food, which means it's the kind of thing we're supposed to like. This episode is mostly dedicated to figuring out why we don't. The Subtle Art of Folding Space - John Chu
August 9 · 1 hr 24 min
BONUS: CITY ON FIRE
Lee joins us to talk about a book which is difficult to boil down to a paragraph - it's about power, and the means by which power is acquired and lost, and it examines this on a multitude of scales, from the granular to the metaphysical. Also it's set in a world where every inch of available territory is covered by a city which generates its own geomantic power and humans (and mutants) are barred from space travel by a giant atmospheric shield. Fundamentally, though, it asks the question: what if there was a hot guy who sucked? City On Fire - Walter Jon Williams
#142
August 2 · 1 hr 9 min
ESCAPE PLANS
A cyberpunk colonial parable from one of our favorite authors - or, at least, the author of one of our favorite books. This one is not quite Divine Endurance, but it's certainly something. It's not a pleasant read but it sure is full of historical interest. ESCAPE PLANS - GWYNETH JONES
#141
July 19 · 1 hr 17 min
AFTERPARTY
A book about drugs that make you see god. It's day-after-tomorrow SF from the day before yesterday, and it gets all of its predictions so catastrophically wrong that its primary use case is as a time capsule from the war on terror. Also preserved: jokes we thought were funny ten years ago. Afterparty - Daryl Gregory
#140
July 5 · 1 hr 2 min
EAT THE ONES YOU LOVE
It's Little Shop of Horrors but with lesbian Irish millennials! That's the whole pitch. It fulfills the brief, and arguably overdelivers. Eat The Ones You Love - Sarah Maria Griffin
June 28 · 1 hr 13 min
BONUS: ORLANDO
It's gay, it's magic, it's a literary classic. Featuring our old books correspondent Kat Weaver! Orlando - Virginia Woolf
#139
June 21 · 1 hr 2 min
LOLLY WILLOWES
A charming little novel from 1926. We're normally pretty relaxed when it comes to spoilers, particularly for a book that's a century old, but we think the less you know about this one going in the better. Lolly Willowes; or The Loving Huntsman - Sylvia Townsend Warner
#138
June 7 · 1 hr 7 min
SAWKILL GIRLS
A familiar setup - a misogynist demon who possesses girls and infects them with its predatory desires - executed in a way which is, yes, bad, admittedly very bad, but also very funny. Sawkill Girls (2018) - Claire Legrand
#137
May 24 · 1 hr 10 min
THE CHILD GARDEN
A debilitating novel - simultaneously enormous and petty, tragic and hilarious, insightful and insular. It wrecked us down the stretch but left us unmoved at the end. We think it's great but we're not sure if you should read it.
#136
May 17 · 1 hr 10 min
STORIES FROM THE SINGING HILLS
We return to Nghi Vo's Singing Hills series and discuss the three next most wizlez-adjacent books in it (to date.) Covered in this episode: The Empress of Salt and Fortune, The Brides of High Hill, and A Mouthful of Dust.
#135
May 3 · 1 hr 15 min
ON A SUNBEAM
This week we're talking about a classic webcomic in both senses of the word, as it feels like it comes from a departed era of the internet despite being barely a decade old. Part of that vibe stems from the fact that you can still read it, in its entirety and ad-free, on its own dedicated website - an unimaginable luxury these days. Check it out (it's a classic for a reason) and then join us for a discussion of what's aged well and what hasn't.
#134
April 19 · 58 min
THE CINDER HOUSE
It's a Cinderella retelling! But it's Freya Marsk, so it's better than it needs to be, and stranger.
April 12 · 1 hr 31 min
BONUS: WHAT WE ARE SEEKING
Anthropological SF in the mold of Cherryh or Le Guin, updated for our era and its preoccupations - funny, surprising, and smart. We have a lot of fun discussing the return of Cameron Reed. Our guest Louis Evans has a new story out! Find it here.
#133
March 31 · 1 hr 5 min
THE SECRET MARKET OF THE DEAD
This is that good, chunky, deeply strange fairy tale stuff. You don't have to settle for Gaiman - you never did, honestly. Plus it's Italian and there are cats.
March 22 · 1 hr 1 min
BONUS: Q & A 5 (FIVE YEARS!)
A particularly silly one.
#132
March 15 · 1 hr 4 min
THE MEMORY HUNTERS
This is what we've come to call an Area Studies Fantasy, except the area in this case is suburban Atlanta. (You could say it's science fiction because it's meant to be set in the future, but in my book a post-apocalypse that sets everything back to 19th century technology and conveniently erases all world religions is a fantasy.) It's possible that familiarity breeds contempt, and we're more likely to object to the moral underpinnings of a book based on the mores of southern Protestants than we are on Buddhists or what have you, but even given that the execution here is a little shaky.

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