Book Recs: Gender in SFF

A while back, Anna asked for rec list suggestions and one of the ones that came up was nonbinary SFF. Now, they passed that onto me, since that’s not really their ballpark, and I sort of changed the rules ever so slightly. Instead of solely nonbinary rep (although most of the books here are still that), I’ve just gone for SFF that actually considers gender in its worldbuilding.

It’s a smaller category than you might think, sadly. But because it’s Christmas (or another winter holiday of your choice), I’ve lengthened this post from the usual 10 books to include a couple more.

So, enjoy!

She Who Became the Sun

Shelley Parker-Chan
Goodreads
Rep: Chinese nonbinary lesbian mc, Chinese lesbian mc, Mongolian bi mc, Chinese gay mc
CWs: violence

Why Should I Read It?

You can’t actually read this one until next year, so I profusely apologise for putting it on here like this, but I can promise you you do not want to miss out. If you want a historical sort-of-fantasy that will rip out your heart and stomp all over it, while looking at ideas and ideals of gender, then this is the book for you.

P.S. to note: I read Zhu as a nonbinary lesbian (she/her), but I’m not sure whether that’s how she was intended to be read.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune

Nghi Vo
Goodreads
Rep: Vietnamese-coded nonbinary mc, wlw side relationship

Why Should I Read It?

If you haven’t already heard of this one, then have you been living under a rock? It and its companion novella (When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain) follow a nonbinary cleric whose job is to collect stories. The novellas each follow one of the stories they hear (or tell, in the case of the second).

Phoenix Extravagant

Yoon Ha Lee
Goodreads
Rep: Korean-coded nonbinary mc, lesbian & bi characters, side polyamory

Why Should I Read It?

All of Yoon Ha Lee’s works feature trans or nonbinary characters to some degree, but I picked Phoenix Extravagant here because it’s the mc who is nonbinary here. If you want a fantasy with a reluctant rebel (they just want to be left alone to paint) and a mecha dragon, then this is the one for you.

Cemetery Boys

Aiden Thomas
Goodreads
Rep: Cuban American gay trans mc, Colombian American gay li with ADHD

Why Should I Read It?

You didn’t expect me to make this book without including perhaps the best YA book of this year, did you now? If you’ve read this, you know the drill (although a reread of it is never a bad idea). If you haven’t, well. I will welcome you back to this blog when you have.

Sing for the Coming of the Longest Night

Iona Datt Sharma & Katherine Fabian
Goodreads
Rep: Jewish genderqueer mc, Hindu bi mc, polyamory, bi, wlw & genderqueer side characters

Why Should I Read It?

The perfect book for a winter night! It’s about two members of a polyamorous triad who, on realising the third member has got himself mixed up in something magical and disappeared, are forced to work together to find him. The sticking point? They don’t particularly like each other…

Pyre at the Eyreholme Trust

Lin Darrow
Goodreads
Rep: bigender mc, pan li

Why Should I Read It?

Magical gangsters, turf wars and a jeweler who catches the eye of one of the bosses, what more could you possibly want from a book? And it’s also just recently been republished so you can once again get hold of it!

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water

Zen Cho
Goodreads
Rep: Malaysian-coded nonbinary mc, gay side characters

Why Should I Read It?

This is the third book on this list which features a nonbinary cleric-slash-monk-slash-member-of-a-religious-order, I think my subconscious must be trying to tell us something… But anyway, if you want a laugh-out-loud wuxia-inspired fantasy featuring a found family and a heist, then I would recommend you get on this one right away.

Burning Roses

S. L. Huang
Goodreads
Rep: lesbian mc, Chinese trans wlw mc
CWs: past abuse

Why Should I Read It?

The next book on my list is a sapphic retelling of Snow White and Rose Red featuring two older women, each on their own quest for redemption. It’s only a novella, so you can easily read it in a single sitting (which you’ll want to anyway), and when you’re done you’ll just want to go back and reread.

Ancillary Justice

Ann Leckie
Goodreads
Rep: nonbinary worldbuilding, sapphic characters

Why Should I Read It?

In this book, we’re introduced to societies that have different concepts of gender than you might have seen represented in sci fi. Sometimes gender seems to be the last thing that people think of changing when it comes to SFF, but that’s not at all the case here.

Master of Poisons

Andrea Hairston
Goodreads
Rep: Black cast, lesbian mc, nonbinary li, bi/pan characters, nonbinary characters

Why Should I Read It?

This is a fantasy that has its own words for nonbinaryness and its own pronouns too. And I loved that about it. You so rarely see fantasies discuss sexuality and gender in our terms, let alone coming up with their own to describe the phenomena (little bugbear because so much thought often goes into other aspects of worldbuilding, this seems to get left by the wayside). But this does and it does it so well.

The Vela

Yoon Ha Lee,S. L. Huang, Rivers Solomon, Becky Chambers
Goodreads
Rep: trans lesbian mc, nonbinary mc

Why Should I Read It?

The Vela is a serialised space adventure, where neither POV character is cis. Which should be reason enough alone for you to read it, let’s be honest. But it’s also got a stellar (pun not intended) team behind it. And season 2 has just been published so all the more reason to get on it.

The Black Tides of Heaven

J. Y. Yang
Goodreads
Rep: nonbinary worldbuilding, mlm mc

Why Should I Read It?

Another case of a SFF novel that considers how its society constructs gender differently. In the Tensorate novellas, the society is such that no one is assigned gender at birth and they choose how to identify when they reach a certain age. And they’re also a very fun (albeit also painful) set of fantasy novellas.

Elephants and Corpses

Kameron Hurley
Goodreads
Rep: trans mc

Why Should I Read It?

Okay so it’s a tor.com short and not a novel or novella, but hear me out. A trans body-hopping mercenary who gets caught up in something bigger than he’s expecting when he hops into the wrong body? Kameron Hurley always comes up with the best concepts (and slightly mind-fucking ones too, but in the best way).

What would you rec?

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