9 Queer SFF Novels Coming Out in 2020

Last week was my favorite queer SFF releases of 2019, and now I’m looking ahead and filling up my TBR because…anxiety is totally a thing I can conquer and does not affect me at all. Nope. Nope. Not. At. All. 100% completely calm and focused.

Anywho, here’s my list—sorted by author’s last name.

And yes, I have some of these in ARCs but that’s not affecting my list at all.

Also: curse you, Tor, for making it very, very hard to maintain my embargo on all things Macmillan by putting out all this amazing SFF. For those of you who don’t know about how Macmillan is fucking over libraries across America, here’s a primer, along with the American Library Association’s response. Macmillan started this shit last year by restricting sales to their Tor books, and lemme tell you as a library user (and employee), I am not pleased.

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho

A bandit walks into a coffeehouse, and it all goes downhill from there. Guet Imm, a young votary of the Order of the Pure Moon, joins up with an eclectic group of thieves (whether they like it or not) in order to protect a sacred object, and finds herself in a far more complicated situation than she could have ever imagined. June 23, 2020 (Tor)

Finna by Nino Cipri

When an elderly customer at a big box furniture store slips through a portal to another dimension, it’s up to two minimum-wage employees to track her across the multiverse and protect their company’s bottom line. Multi-dimensional swashbuckling would be hard enough, but our two unfortunate souls broke up a week ago. February 25, 2020 (Tor)

Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott

A plot by the powerful governors of Lee House to unseat Princess Sun as heir to Queen Eirene catapults disgraced daughter Persephone Lee into Sun’s orbit. Naturally set against each other, with conflicting goals and personalities, the two young women nevertheless share a distaste for Lee House machinations. July 7, 2020 (Tor)

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

Esther is a stowaway. She’s hidden herself away in the Librarian’s book wagon in an attempt to escape the marriage her father has arranged for her—a marriage to the man who was previously engaged to her best friend. Her best friend who she was in love with. Her best friend who was just executed for possession of resistance propaganda. The future American Southwest is full of bandits, fascists, and queer librarian spies on horseback trying to do the right thing. February 4, 2020 (Tor)

Lady Hotspur by Tessa Gratton

Hal was once a knight, carefree and joyous, sworn to protect her future queen Banna Mora. Lady Hotspur, known as the Wolf of Aremoria for her temper and warcraft, never expected to be more than a weapon. Banna Mora kept her life, but not her throne. These three women, together or apart, are the ones who have the power to bring the once-powerful Aremoria back to life—or destroy it forever. January 7, 2020 (Tor)

The City Born Great by N.K. Jemisin

Five New Yorkers must come together in order to defend their city in the first book of a stunning new series by Hugo award-winning and NYT bestselling author N. K. Jemisin.Every city has a soul. Some are as ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York City? She’s got five. March 26, 2020 (Orbit)

Phoenix Extravagent by Yoon Ha Lee

For generations the empire has spread across the world, nigh-unstoppable in their advance. Its power depends on its automata, magically animated and programmed with sigils and patterns painted in mystical pigments. A symbol-painter – themselves a colonial subject – is frustrated in their work when their supply of Phoenix Extravagant dries up, and sets out to find the source. What they’ll discover is darker than anything they could have imagined… June 9, 2020 (Solaris)

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsin Muir

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, last necromancer of the Ninth House, has been drafted by her Emperor to fight an unwinnable war. Side-by-side with a detested rival, Harrow must perfect her skills and become an angel of undeath — but her health is failing, her sword makes her nauseous, and even her mind is threatening to betray her. June 2, 2020 (Tor)

The Seep by Chana Porter

Trina Goldberg-Oneka is a fifty-year-old trans woman whose life is irreversibly altered in the wake of a gentle—but nonetheless world-changing—invasion by an alien entity called The Seep. Through The Seep, everything is connected. Capitalism falls, hierarchies and barriers are broken down; if something can be imagined, it is possible. January 21, 2020 (Soho Press)

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

A young royal from the far north is sent south for a political marriage. Alone and sometimes reviled, she has only her servants on her side. This evocative debut chronicles her rise to power through the eyes of her handmaiden, at once feminist high fantasy and a thrilling indictment of monarchy. March 24, 2020 (Tor)