Backlist Bonanza: 5 Underrated Works of Asexual Speculative Fiction - Reactor

(City of Spires #1 — self-published; 2018) Chances are, if you’re looking for asexual and/or aromantic speculative fiction, you’ve come across recommendations for Arseneault. She’s been a staple in queer and in particular ace and aro speculative fiction for years, and has carved out quite the reputation in self-publishing. Her books center platonic relationships between a wide variety of queer characters, often of the shades and intersections of queerness that rarely make it into traditionally published books. You could pick any of her books, but today I want to highlight the first in the City of Spires trilogy. Arathiel returns to Isandor after more than a century away. He makes friends with a crew in the poorest neighborhood in town, then suddenly one of them is accused of a high-profile assassination. His only hope may be Lord Diel, but he’s busy trying to manage an envoy from the cruel Myrian Empire. A sprawling story of political intrigue and high fantasy unfolds through a large cast and lots of high stakes moments. And there are several asexual and aromantic characters! Not just one!

(The Sound of Stars #1 — Inkyard Press; 2020) As far as I can tell, Alechia Dow is the only author writing Black young adult science fiction with asexual spectrum main characters. (She’s also one of only a handful of Black authors who are traditionally published in YA SF at all… it’s a slim field.) There are three interconnected books in this series, with The Sound of Stars being the first. All feature protagonists on various spots of the asexual spectrum. This book opens two years after aliens known as the Ilori invaded and conquered Earth, slaughtering a third of the population in the process. They banned music, art, and books, but 17-year-old Ellie has a secret stash in Ilori-controlled New York City. M0Rr1S (aka Morris), a lab-born being that looks human, discovers her private library, but is so fascinated by her music that he breaks the rules and doesn’t turn her in. They set off together to escape Morris’ family, and the groundwork they lay sets the stage for the rest of the series. This is one of those trilogies I think would kill as a streaming TV show adaptation. It’s wild and charming, sweet and romantic, and full of space opera adventure and teenage melodrama.

(Sourcebooks Fire; 2021) This was one of my favorite young adult books of 2021, and one I often still recommend to teen readers looking for dark fantasy. Set in a fantasy world where humans overthrew their gods and devoured them—literally—this book explores power and class. Lorena is the descendant of one of those devourers, but she’s special; she has magic from both gods, Noble and Vile. Because of her power, she’s forced into an indenture to the Vile crown price. He needs Lorena’s help to keep the Vile on the other side of the Door, lest the world be consumed. Lorena is morally gray and generally unlikeable, the ideal YA antihero in a bloodthirsty world. She may have magical power, but it’s curbed by political power, so she must find other ways to make the world a better place. Unfortunately for her victims, those ways often involve a lot of killing and pain. In this house, we love a complex protagonist.

(Tachyon Publications; 2022) Firuz and their family are Sassanian refugees from Dilmun struggling to build a new life in the Free Democratic City State of Qilwa. A plague decimated their homeland and drove them and hundreds of others into tenements in the poorest neighborhood in Qilwa, and now Firuz, a weaver of blood magic, works at one of the few clinics that cater to Sassanians. That’s when this fantasy story turns into a medical mystery. A strange, new disease spreads across Qilwa, and the refugees are blamed. Firuz has to not only find the source of the plague and stop it before it decimates their new home but also quell a rising swell of xenophobia and help a relative deal with body dysmorphia exacerbated by their relocation and loss of magic. The novella tackles a lot of topics with depth and nuance. Jamnia delves into oppression and subjugation, colonization and recolonization, and the diaspora and being a refugee.

(Interstellar Flight Press; 2024) Something I’ve noticed with a lot of asexual fiction written by acespec authors is that we tend to just let our characters be ace. There’s not much hemming and hawing over our identities. Other characters might have strong opinions about the protagonist’s asexuality, but they are happy with who they are and just living their life. That’s what you get with Han-gil, the protagonist in this urban fantasy novella. Han-gil is a police detective in Seoul as well as someone who can communicate with spirits. Oh, and he’s ace and bi. We meet him as he starts investigating a spate of suicides that he soon realizes are part of something much bigger. This is a fast-paced, tightly-plotted mystery with a ton of worldbuilding and character work happening in under 150 pages. I hope we get more from Kyung Yoo soon! Small Gods of Calamity is a stunning debut.