Episode 6: Mysterious Galaxy Summer Bingo Showdown – Part Two
You can listen to episode six on any major podcast provider HERE and on Apple Podcasts HERE.
We made the rookie mistake of recording in front of an open because it was a beautiful day and who closes their windows on a beautiful day?
A: people recording podcasts, because that “gentle breeze” causes some weird vibrations.
(Sorry, everyone. Our bad.)
Also, note that spoiler alerts appear at the following times throughout the episode:
Trouble the Saints, 13:05 to 18:50
Soul of the Sword, 22:55 to 23:15
A Song of Wraiths and Ruin, 54:50 to 56:10
This is the LONGEST post ever, you guys, omg.
Book Tournament/Competition
To review our summer bingo reads, Gabi and Smack wrote all the titles they read on little pieces of paper and put them in bowls. They swapped the bowls (so they’re pulling titles that the other person has read) and then have to convince each other that the title they read was better than the title the other person read.
This is round two of that competition! You can find the show notes for part one here.
Fierce Fairytales: Poems to Stir Your Soul by Nikita Gill vs. Shadow of the Fox by Julie Kagawa
Fierce Fairytales is good, but it’s no Shadow of the Fox. ‘Nuff said.
Lycanthropy & Other Chronic Illnesses by Kristen O'Neal vs. Galactic Hellcats by Marie Vibbert
A queer space motorcycle found family with a heist!
It’s AIDS, guys. Ki’s friend died of AIDS.
But that’s only the inciting incident! The rest of the adventure is madcap and pretty great.
Lycanthropy & Other Chronic Illnesses:
Galactic Hellcats was good, but Lycanthropy & Other Chronic Illnesses really hits all the right notes. Also it’s hilarious. <3
Also at the very end of this round, we messed up and compared Galactic Hellcats to Shadow of the Fox. Oops! Shadow of the Fox was just that memorable/traumatizing.
Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson vs. Burning Roses by S.L. Huang
Smack just about lost her mind when she realized Gabi had DNF’d it–not because she’d DNF’d it, but because THAT ENDING just about destroyed Smack. (Just like white supremacy destroyed the characters.)
Gabi's issues: too much angst, nobody would just accept that they were morally gray, etc.
Gabi: It was very good, do not get me wrong. The writing was beautiful. It was not for me, that was my thing.
Smack: (laughs) Yeah, no kidding.
Smack: It’s really depressing at the end.
There’s no summary on the back or the inside fold?? Possibly because it’s so difficult to summarize.
Despite what Smack says, the magic powers that POC get in this book are actually called “Saint’s hands,” not just “hands.”
Also worth mentioning that Phyllis was not only a black woman working as an assassin for a white mobster, but she’d also spent most of her life since leaving home as a teenager passing as white. (“Future Smack heeeere…”)
The other woman whose name Smack couldn’t remember is Tamara. The main characters are Phyllis, Dev, and Tamara.
Don’t read this one as an audiobook if you can avoid it! (Like Gabi did. Silly Gabi.)
Also, don’t forget that we noted spoilers for Trouble the Saints from 13:05 to 18:50.
We didn't really get into this one because we talked about it in detail during episode one.
This round was a TRUE battle that resulted in a tie.
Pocket Workshop: Essays on Living as a Writer ed. by Tod McCoy and M. Huw Evans vs. Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard
Pocket Workshop is a series of short nonfiction essays by speculative writers on writing. It’s got every big name SFF writer ever (Octavia Butler, Ursula K. LeGuin, etc.).
Again, we didn't really get into this one because we talked about it in detail during episode one.
Smack has read both so she got to pick the winner in this round. (Muahaha!)
Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker vs. Soul of the Sword by Julie Kagawa
Soul of the Sword was the weakest of the trilogy, BUT.
Mooncakes was cute, though.
Reminder of a spoiler alert here, though! Gabi just sort of blurts out the entire ending for the Soul of the Sword trilogy from 22:55 to 23:15.
Galactic Hellcats by Marie Vibbert vs. The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected on Water by Zen Cho
Smack hasn't read the Zen Cho novella, so Gabi got to call it this round and send Smack to the loser pile!
Lobizona by Romina Garber vs. The Shell Game by Janet Evanovitch
The Shell Game is a short prequel to The Heist, which we discussed in the previous episode.
It’s cute! It shows how the main characters of The Heist first met.
LOBIZONA, THOUGH: Argentinian immigrant werewolves running from ICE! With a magic school! (ICE: immigration and customs enforcement, boooooooooo, never open the door to them.)
Smack hasn’t gotten her hands on the sequel because she’s being precious about paperback vs. hardback–she owns a paperback of Lobizona but can only get a hardcover copy of the sequel, Cazadora. So now she’s on the local library wait list for the next forever and a half.
Edited on August 9, 2022 to add: Gabi doesn't know it yet, but the sequel, Cazadora, is going to deeestroooooy her. :)
Smack won this round hands down.
Trans Wizard Harriet Porber and the Bad Boy Parasaurolophus by Chuck Tingle vs. One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
Trans Wizard Harriet Porber and the Bad Boy Parasaurolophus:
Phew, this one requires some explanation. Basically, Chuck Tingle is a satirist who self-publishes extremely topical books that poke fun at whoever's most recently shown their ass in public (usually within the writing world, but many times in the real world as well).
Repeated response that Smack has heard from people reading Chuck Tingle books: *weird-ass descriptions of weird-ass books* …but actually it was really good??
Trans Wizard Harriet Porber etc. was released after J.K. Rowling came out as a TERF. (It stands for "trans-exclusionary radical feminist," they're the assholes who want to send transgender people back into the closet. [This is an oversimplification, but not by much.])
Chuck Tingle might be anti-TERF, but it's important to support actual trans authors! There are SO many out there, so we're going to link a few lists encompassing a few different criteria rather than listing specific authors. We strong urge you to take a look and pick a few titles!
Here are some lists you can trust:
Trans SFF by Trans Authors – #ownvoices
Enby/Trans – Spec Authors
Novels By Trans Authors With Trans Protagonists
Trans Books by Trans Authors
Transgender Memoirs and Biographies
Yes, the world of SFF had a nazi problem shortly before the rest of America did.
Smack: Chuck Tingle has actually been nominated for a Hugo [award] twice.
Smack: Yeah, by the sad/rabid puppies… did you hear about that?
Sooooo here's an overview of the whole debacle: Vox wrote a fairly good overview of what happened titled "How conservatives took over sci-fi's most prestigious award" (although you should replace "conservatives" in the title with "alt-right," because this dates back to the days that journalists weren't comfortable using the term).
Also worth noting the irony of the fact that the rabid puppies were led by a nazi who goes by Vox Day. (Get it? Vox, writing about Vox?)
And if you were REALLY unplugged during 2014–2015, here's an overview of Gamergate. This part is really only relevant because one of the women originally targeted by Gamergate, Zoe Quinn, attended the Hugos ceremony for Chuck Tingle. Chuck invited her to give the speech in his stead if he won (he didn't).
By the same woman who wrote Red, White, and Royal Blue, except this one is lesbians.
Time travel! Sweet lesbian romance with a meet-cute! The main character has awesome investigative skills!
Everyone is queer and broke and awesome, including awesomely-weird.
Smack also won this round.
Blood in the Thread by Cheri Kamei vs. Gifting Fire by Alina Boyden
One of the bingo squares was for “A fairy tale retelling published in 2021.” Blood in the Thread might have been a cheater entry for the bingo sheet (because it’s so short), but it’s still really good!
Read it here: https://www.tor.com/2021/05/12/blood-in-the-thread-cheri-kamei/ (Content warning for domestic abuse)
It's a retelling of The Crane Wife, which is a story from Japanese folklore.
In the retelling, the ending could be read multiple ways–Gabi found the comments at the end of the text fascinating.
Gifting Fire is the sequel to Stealing Thunder, though, so Gabi cried uncle and Smack auto-won.
Smack: It's darker than Stealing Thunder but still turns out okay.
I Really Am A Slag Shou (我真的是渣受) by Your Glory (你的荣光) vs. The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson
Pronounced "slag show," which Smack took to mean something completely different. (Porn, she thought it was porn.)
(To which Gabi replied "it's not exactly.......NOT porn")
The story is here: https://www.novelupdates.com/series/i-really-am-a-slag-shou/
It's a foreign translated novel (FTN)
Translated gay lit with issues around women writers fetishizing gay romances. But the genre is also heavily denigrated because most readers and writers are women. This results in a twisty problem.
Discourse re: slash fics can be found here: https://fanofacertainage.blog/2019/07/17/the-problem-with-bl/
Smack noted that this issue appears a lot in Western fanfiction as well.
Slag shou: a trope where the main character has a relationship at the beginning of the story with a guy who is just, for whatever reason, Bad News before ending up with their one true luv.
In the one Gabi read for summer bingo, the main character is forced into the slag shou role, where he has to fulfill the role of a villain in order to avoid a true death and be resurrected.
He’s a nice guy, though, and is just completely unable to make the role work.
All the characters are lil’ dumdums, just doin’ their best. (aka Gabi’s favorite)
The Girl of Fire and Thorns:
If we were talking about the entire Girl of Fire/Thorns trilogy + novellas, that would immediately win all the tournament rounds BUT the main character for the whole series is still the main character for the first book, so Smack still eked out a win.
Among the Silvering Herd by A.M. Dellamonica vs. Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo
Among the Silvering Herd:
Among the Silvering Herd is a prequel short story to Daughter of No Nation, which includes: biology! Iguanas! Ecological stuff! Pirates! A portal world!
Very much #agabibook, she’ll get her hot little hands on it at some point.
Third book in the Shadow and Bone trilogy
Better than the other two (probably), since Bardugo starts to lean in on her writing strengths (particularly a large cast)
Although as Gabi put it: "But... good lord."
We're not big fans of the Shadow and Bone trilogy lol
A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown vs. The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid
A Song of Wraiths and Ruin:
Smack has an outsized reaction to Malik’s Big Mistake up at the beginning of the novel. (“Oh no! Oh no!”) Poor Malik, man.
Malik’s little sister gets a wish granted and it causes all sorts of problems. The inciting incident basically turns the whole book into The Gift of the Magi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gift_of_the_Magi) but with assassinations.
Don’t forget that we’ve got a spoiler alert for A Song of Wraiths and Ruin from 54:50 to 56:10!
(Smack got pretty excited about the spoilers.)
Turns out A Song of Wraiths and Ruin is the first of a duology and is not a standalone, as Gabi originally thought.
The Wolf and the Woodsman:
You know what is a standalone? The Wolf and the Woodsman. It’s 400+ pages, but it is a standalone.
This is somehow Ava Reid's first book??
But it’s SO smart and well written.
Religion! Politics! WOLF GIRLS!
Smack: 13 rounds (As she said, “what? How did that happen?”)
HERE’S HOPING: you win your next game of bingo!
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