BONUS: 4TH ANNUAL WIZZLY AWARDS
We persevere through technical issues to bring you this, our annual extravaganza of self-indulgence. Is it possible four years in that we're actually worse at this than when we started?
Feb 23, 2025•1 hr 43 min
Wizards Vs. Lesbians
A queer sf review podcast about the emerging wizards vs. lesbians microgenre.
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Episodes
A DARK AND DROWNING TIDE
In fantasy Germany a fantasy Jewess and her fantasy Aryan forest princess must go up the river to save the cat, or something. Not as much blood as you'd expect in this one but there's plenty of soil.
Feb 09, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 104
AN EDUCATION IN MALICE
We're dipping our toes into Dark Academia here. This book asks the question: what if your abusive academic advisor was literally a vampire? And the answer is it would be kinda cool. A classic example of horror elements blunting the actual horror, down to a 1960s setting that elides all the worst parts of the era.
Jan 26, 2025•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 103
THE LYREMOUTH CHRONICLES (BOOKS 1 & 2)
This one takes a while to get going - at first it seems like a genderswapped swords & sorcery novel, but it turns out that's only one part of a much larger world. Recommended for Steerswoman fans.
Jan 12, 2025•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 102
THE MINISTRY OF TIME with Vajra Chandrasekera
A book about empire, memory, historical trauma and the consequences of dating your blorbo. Huge thanks to Vajra for suggesting this one and for coming on to talk about it!
Jan 05, 2025•1 hr 10 min
BONUS: THE SUMMER PRINCE
Our esteemed pal P.H. Lee joins us for a rundown of this charming bit of YA. It's Brazilian! It's Really Brazilian!
Dec 29, 2024•1 hr 5 min
THE SCORPION RULES
We return to the schools that resemble the prisons for a book that predates the Ninth House but has a couple of startling similarities, including a proto-John Gaius Gen-X godhead.
Dec 22, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 101
BONUS: Q & A 4 (100 EPISODES!)
On the occasion of our 100th mainline episode we treat ourselves by answering your questions.
Dec 15, 2024•1 hr 14 min
KILL LA KILL
In perhaps our most controversial take yet, we posit that this anime is good, actually. Your tolerance for breast collision physics will factor in whether you agree.
Dec 08, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 100
THE SEEP
Helpful alien friends take over the world and make everyone immortal and kind of chill, man. It's a metaphor for something or other. Maybe AI, maybe legal weed. Maybe california in general. It doesn't amount to much.
Nov 24, 2024•50 min•Ep. 99
BONUS: SCUM VILLAIN'S SELF-SAVING SYSTEM
We have fandom historian and BL expert Naked Bee on to discuss this extremely charming bit of gay metafiction.
Nov 17, 2024•1 hr 20 min
AMMONITE
We return to Nicola Griffith to get a more measured take on the lesbian space colony genre, written if not in direct response to Daughters of a Coral Dawn then to books like it. (We know this because of a helpful author's note.)
Nov 10, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 98
BONUS: PALE FIRE
We get to do a literary classic - significantly, an extremely funny literary classic - in the company of the excellent Kat Weaver. A joy.
Nov 03, 2024•1 hr 8 min
DAUGHTERS OF A CORAL DAWN
Vintage lesbian separatist science fiction from 1984. It's almost charming until the implications set in - since women can't commit sexual assault and men can't not , pederasty for the one and extermination for the other only makes sense.
Oct 27, 2024•1 hr•Ep. 97
DAUGHTERS OF CHAOS
A lazy, racist, sexist, ahistorical wankfest of a novel. At least we got a podcast out of it.
Oct 13, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 96
DAUGHTER OF MYSTERY
Come with us to fantasy Liechtenstein for some feel-good classic yuri. The society is high, the stakes are low and the names are terrible.
Sep 29, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 95
BONUS: THE SCHOLOMANCE TRILOGY
After Ann Leckie brought us Foreigner we decided to invite some other authors whose work we've enjoyed to bring us books to talk about. Jenna Moran has elected to bring us the Scholomance, which is highly entertaining, and silly, and incidentally a highly detailed study on the phenomenon of the tsundere.
Sep 22, 2024•1 hr 22 min
SPIRITS ABROAD (JUST THE LESBIAN PARTS)
You already know we love Zen Cho, so we decided to do an easy breezy runthrough of the gayer stories in her ever-expanding short story collection.
Sep 15, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 94
SHORT FICTION ROUNDUP #5
It's another short story roundup! Featuring: Miss Bulletproof Comes Out of Retirement: https://podcastle.org/2022/03/08/podcastle-725-miss-bulletproof-comes-out-of-retirement/ (or https://giganotosaurus.org/2020/08/01/miss-bulletproof-comes-out-of-retirement/ ) Selkie Stories are for Losers: http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/selkie-stories-are-for-losers/ Nuca: http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/nuca/...
Sep 01, 2024•52 min•Ep. 93
THOSE BEYOND THE WALL
The Space Between Worlds got itself a darker, angrier sequel. It has a really strong character study at its heart, but the further afield you go from that anchor point the fuzzier it gets.
Aug 18, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 92
BONUS: DISCO ELYSIUM
This one got away from us - with returning champion Leora in tow we spend a good two hours mostly gushing. You should play this game if you haven't.
Aug 11, 2024•1 hr 57 min
SOMEONE YOU CAN BUILD A NEST IN
You are a horrible man-eating goo monster. You grew up alone, with nobody there to teach you right from wrong. But somewhere deep in your ooze there slumbers an entire tumblr-approved lexicon of therapy speak, consent theory and minute identity parsing which allows you to become the ethical human chaser. This is thankfully funny on purpose - at least initially.
Aug 04, 2024•57 min•Ep. 91
THE SPEAR CUTS THROUGH WATER
It's witches versus gay boys this time around! It's a richly-textured epic journey through fantasy Southeast Asia and there's a whole metatextual second-person out of time narrative framework and it all adds up to less than the sum of its parts.
Jul 21, 2024•58 min•Ep. 90
CARMILLA (CARMEN'S VERSION)
A 150-year-old sexy vampire story, re-released and given a kinda-sorta makeover by Carmen Maria Machado. None of it feels particularly necessary, but the illustrations are cool!
Jul 07, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 89
THE BOOK OF LOVE
A debut novel from a short fiction specialist. How'd it go? The review writes itself, unfortunately.
Jun 23, 2024•1 hr•Ep. 88
ALL GOOD CHILDREN
So, the horrible vulture monsters have emerged from hiding deep within the earth, and they have read Nietszche, but good news: the US Government has figured out the most efficient way to appease them! It involves summer camp.
Jun 09, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 87
NIGHT IN THE WOODS
Kiana joins us to discuss one of Isaac's favorite games. We talk about furries, murder and a decidedly pre-Trump vision of rural Pennsylvania.
May 26, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 86
CAMP DAMASCUS
It's Chuck Tingle's debut novel! It's not great!
May 12, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 85
BONUS: FOREIGNER
We discuss a series which is arguably foundational to the wizards vs lesbians microgenre (despite a distinct lack of lesbianism) with special guest Ann Leckie.
May 05, 2024•1 hr 8 min
PLANETFALL
Bad news: you've gone to heaven, but it's a terrible English country village in space and your neighbors are not respecting your neurodivergence. Better climb the mountain that is God!
Apr 28, 2024•59 min•Ep. 84
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