Guest Host Alex Kingsley

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Hello Digest readers! This week, while I’m navigating illness recovery, the digest is being hosted by Alex Kingsley! Alex (they/them) is a writer, comedian, game designer, and playwright. I had the pleasure of meeting them a couple of months ago and was immediately struck by their clear creative vision. They are a co-founder of the new media company Strong Branch Productions, where they write and direct sci-fi comedy podcast The Stench of Adventure and other shows. Their games can be downloaded pay-what-you-will at alexyquest.itch.io. In 2023, they published their short story collection, The Strange Garden and Other Weird Tales. Their debut novel, Empress of Dust, will be published by Space Wizard Science Fantasy in Fall 2024! 

Take it away, Alex!

Space Wizard’s Lesbians in Space!

My publisher is running a crowdfunder for its new anthology, Lesbians in Space! Some fantastic authors are lined up to headline.

“What the Tiles Know” by Carol Scheina

Really lovely piece of flash fiction in Interstellar Flight Magazine that I read this week. 

Lunar Gothic: Crypt of the Moon Spider

Review: Interesting interview of Nathan Ballingrud! I love the discussion of "lunar gothic" as a concept, and the examination of asylum tropes in horror stories. I'm excited to read this book!

orangejuicefordinner’s Instagram Page

I love orangejuicefordinner and I always check the instagram page when I need a laugh. So cute and deeply relatable.

Sam Leigh’s Game Recommendations

Sam Leigh is a fantastic game designer who makes a point of uplifting indie creators! I always check her page for game recs.

2024 Fiction Podcast Zine Festival

Saw this zine fest on tumblr! For anyone in the world of narrative audio, totally worth checking out.

I’m Reading: An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Aster has little to offer folks in the way of rebuttal when they call her ogre and freak. She's used to the names; she only wishes there was more truth to them. If she were truly a monster, she'd be powerful enough to tear down the walls around her until nothing remains of her world.

Aster lives in the lowdeck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South. For generations, Matilda has ferried the last of humanity to a mythical Promised Land. On its way, the ship's leaders have imposed harsh moral restrictions and deep indignities on dark-skinned sharecroppers like Aster. Embroiled in a grudge with a brutal overseer, Aster learns there may be a way to improve her lot--if she's willing to sow the seeds of civil war.

Barnes & Noble | Bad River Website | Local Library | Find an Indie Bookstore

Featured New Release: Sky Full of Elephants by Cebo Campbell

In a world without white people, what does it mean to be Black?

One day, a cataclysmic event occurs: all of the white people in America walk into the nearest body of water. A year later, Charlie Brunton is a Black man living in an entirely new world. Having served time in prison for a wrongful conviction, he’s now a professor of electric and solar power systems at Howard University when he receives a call from someone he wasn’t even sure existed: his daughter Sidney, a nineteen-year-old left behind by her white mother and step-family.

Traumatized by the event, and terrified of the outside world, Sidney has spent a year in isolation in Wisconsin. Desperate for help, she turns to the father she never met, a man she has always resented. Sidney and Charlie meet for the first time as they embark on a journey across a truly “post-racial” America in search for answers. But neither of them are prepared for this new world and how they see themselves in it.

Heading south toward what is now called the Kingdom of Alabama, everything Charlie and Sidney thought they knew about themselves, and the world, will be turned upside down. Brimming with heart and humor, Cebo Campbell’s astonishing debut novel is about the power of community and connection, about healing and self-actualization, and a reckoning with what it means to be Black in America, in both their world and ours.

Barnes & Noble | Bad River Website | Local Library | Find an Indie Bookstore

Empress of Dust by Alex Kingsley

There are monsters outside the city walls.

Harvard is small, anxious, and plagued by a constant tremor, which is not an ideal combination for a desert scavenger. He and his crew are under constant threat of desertwalker attacks, and Harvard is nearly useless against them.

When the biggest mistake of Harvard’s life separates him from his crew, he must learn the secrets of the desert beasts in order to survive the dangers of the dusts. Returning to Bastion with a surprising ally, Harvard is forced to choose between saving his crew or allying with the “monsters” who rescued him.

Harvard never saw himself as a hero, but when the beasts of the dusts implore him to aid their rescue mission, he holds the lives of crabs and humans alike in his trembling hands.

If you’re a member of the Supper Club, go check out the exclusive recipe postcard I made for you this month! If you’re not a member yet, now’s the perfect time to sign up.

—Gailey