It’s already steamy where I am–90 F and a thunderstorm is coming in. Everyone is getting their Pride outfits and do’s together. Summer is basically here. Maybe you’re getting ready to go camping or making plans for a trip to the beach. Maybe you’ve even booked a hotel somewhere or will be staying at a friend’s cottage or cabin. Maybe you’re looking forward to your apartment building emptying out and enjoying some peace and quiet in the heat of your city. Maybe your only plan is you and your couch and a blanket this summer.

Whatever your summer plans this year, you’re going to need something to read. And I’ve put together a list of novels, novellas, short stories, comics and a graphic novel just for you. There’s pulpy space opera and pulpy barbarian fantasy. There are stories of friendship and messy love. There’s a Murderbot and Lesbian vampirism, though not in the same story… yet. There are cyberpunk dystopias, faux academic texts, baked goods that bake, and new looks at old characters. And there’s Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen and other vaguely disturbing things.

Bake Sale (First Second, 2011 ) by Sara Varon

Cupcake and Eggplant live in New York City. They’re best friends. They’re both in a band that marches in every seasonal and holiday parade. They go to the Turkish bath together. They eat lunch together. Cupcake runs a bakery. Eggplant is planning a trip to Istanbul to visit his Aunt Aubergine, the world famous chef. And it just so happens that Aunt Aubergine knows the greatest pastry chef in the world, Turkish Delight! Cupcake becomes obsessed with the idea of meeting of Turkish Delight and discovering new baking tips—maybe even impressing Turkish Delight! So obviously, Cupcake and Eggplant make plans to take the trip together and that means a lot of baking for events to raise money and a lot less band practice. Does this interfere with Cupcake and Eggplant’s friendship? Not in the way you might expect.

Bake Sale was recommended to me by the Gutter’s own Sachin Hingoo and is a follow-up to Varon’s lovely Robot Dreams—recently made into one of my new favorite films. Bake Sale has much of the same humor, gentleness and love of New York as Robot Dreams. And like Robot Dreams, Bake Sale is an all ages book, but it’s more emotionally complex than many books for people of any age.

Bake Sale also has recipes. You can learn how to make Cupcake’s raspberry bars!

The Big Book of Cyberpunk (London: Penguin-Random House, 2024), edited by Jared Shurin

I was fortunate enough to receive The Big Book Of Cyberpunk in a 2 volume set, but if you are looking for a massive book to be your summer read, there is a big ol’ 1,100 page paperback version out there. The Big Book of Cyberpunk is exactly what it says on the cover. There are a lot of cyberpunk stories by a lot of authors from all over the world in here—authors from William Gibson, Pat Cadigan, and James Tiptree to Nisi Shawl, Arthur Liu, Janelle Monaë, and Gerardo Horatio Porcayo. All the stories are in English, but they weren’t all written in English. And flipping through, you are sure to find an old favorite or something completely new. You can find something challenging or something comforting in its familiarity. Maybe find something that changes how you think about cyberpunk, about stories, or even how you think about the world. You can read The Big Book Of Cyberpunk in big binges and still have plenty of stories to read. Or you can be selective-flitting through the stories till you land on something that appeals to you depending on how you feel. Personally, in a world this dystopian, I need to take my cyberpunk reading slow.

The Big Book of Cyberpunk is a fantastic anthology from a fantastic maker of anthologies: Jared Shurin, friend of the Gutter and former editor of our sister site, Pornkokitsch. Full disclosure: Jared sent me a copy of the anthology and he has written a piece for us on cyberpunk and BBQ that you can read here.

Carmilla (Philadelphia: Lanternfish Press, 2019), written by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, edited by Carmen Maria Machado. Illustrations by Robert Kraiza.

Bat faces decorate the cover of this edition of Carmilla like adorable mugshots. It’s good sign in a vampire book or really anything. This is a nice, easy-to-read edition of Carmilla. It’s easy to hold and easy to carry with you wherever you might wander—the lonely woods, the cliffs overlooking the crashing waves, your bosom companion’s bed on a moonless night when your suspicious guardian is asleep.

But this edition is more than a reprint of Sheridan Le Fanu’s classic tale of Lesbian vampirism from 1872—perhaps the classic tale of Lesbian vampirism. This edition contains a Borgesian introduction by Carmen Maria Machado, author of My Body & Other Stories. And this introduction alters Carmilla a bit as a work of art. If you haven’t read Carmilla, I suggest reading the novella before you read the introduction. The introduction almost integrates Carmilla into a whole new work. Once you’ve read Carmilla and the introduction, you might be interested in this “perfectly normal interview with Carmen Maria Machado where everything is fine,” too.

The Murderbot Diaries (Tor Books, 2017-23) by Martha Welles

I know. I am conflating a bunch of books into their series title. To be clear, as of now, The Murderbot Diaries comprise: All Systems Red (2017); Artificial Condition (2018); Rogue Protocol (2018); Exit Strategy (2018); Network Effect (2020); Fugitive Telemetry (2021); and, System Collapse (2023). This doesn’t include two short stories. I could be recommending any one of them for Summer Fun Time Reading. So yeah, start with All Systems Red, but All Systems Red sucked me into reading the whole damn Murderbot series.

Murderbot is a rogue security unit living in a future that seems like it’s not too far off from our own. Murderbot has attained autonomy, and ever since would like to be left alone to watch serials, especially The Rise & Fall of Sanctuary Moon. But Murderbot discovers it cares more about its job and its humans than it realized. Part of the series’ pleasure for me, is watching Murderbot remain absolutely, unapologetically Murderbot, while also seeing how Murderbot is absolutely bullshitting itself—or increasingly, trying very hard not to know what it does about itself and its feelings. And just to be clear, Murderbot is not becoming more human. Murderbot is figuring out who it is. Over the course of its jobs, contracts, adventures and mysteries, Murderbot is making friends, though it wouldn’t call them friends. It calls them its humans. And it really doesn’t like anyone messing with its humans.

I started reading The Murderbot Diaries in text and finished listening to audiobooks from Hoopla*. I wanted to finish The Murderbot Diaries before the Murderbot tv series aired and Murderbot possibly became “he” by default. I wanted to make sure the Murderbot in my head stayed the same. The novella format is a refreshing change from the trilogy structure in so much science fiction and fantasy. It’s a dip back into an era of quick pulp space opera reads. It’s a series of short novellas and two longer novels, each of which you could get through in a day if you want. But once you’re finished with one, you generally don’t have to wait, because there’s another book ready to go when you are.

The Gutter’s own Alex MacFadyen has an excellent piece about the Murderbot series here.

Red Sonja: Consumed (Orbit Books, 2024) by Gail Simone

Sometimes you want a story of warriors with rippling muscles and pantherish grace confronting cruel kings, undead sorcerers and eldritch magic. Sometimes you luck out and there are cool wolf-themed warriors, or tiger people living somewhere and fun stuff like that. Maybe you like mighty-thewed people in fur underpants and boots calling on strange gods. As 2024’s Gutterthon suggests, we are all about that. So is Gail Simone, thankfully. She wrote some sweet Wonder Woman as a barbarian comics. She wrote some sweet Red Sonja comics. And now Simone has written a sweet novel about one of her favorite characters–and one of the characters Simone writes best–the often unbathed Hyrkanian huntress, the She-Devil, Red Sonja!

Red Sonja: Consumed is eminently readable, thoughtful fantasy. The book delivers all your barbarian story needs, with no racism, sexism or homophobia. Aside from adventure, fights and dread magics, there is a lot of humor in Consumed and some horror that reminded me how good Simone is at writing things that genuinely disturb me. Consumed also has some fictional scholarship for those of you who, like me, enjoy fictional academia and histories.

In the book, Red Sonja is in love, maybe, but she’s definitely in trouble. Queen Ysidra is certainly in love with the She-Devil. But Sonja can’t help ruining a good thing and steals a very shiny, very appealing armband from Ysidra that’s important to Ysidra’s people. Is it just that Sonja is great at fighting, but is self-sabotaging as hell when it comes to love? Or is it more? It’s true that Sonja is a helluva mess, but it’s probably both.

Star Wars: The Original Marvel Years Omnibus, Vol. 3 (Marvel, 2015) So many writers and artists, with an introduction by Jo Duffy

Why volume 3 and not volume 1? Because volume 3 is what they had on the shelf at the library and I kinda enjoy joining in media res. Star Wars: The Original Years Omnibus, Vol. 3 is another big book. In fact, it is a formidable book. When I took it home from the library, it needed its own tote bag. If Luke used the Force to levitate this book, you would be really impressed. Yoda might even be impressed. It’s easily as heavy as a cinder block or the Star Wars equivalent of a cinder block, because it’s printed on that nice art book paper.

This omnibus is bountifully and delightfully filled with crazy and wondrous Star Wars comics from 1978-1986. The Marvel Star Wars Omnibus has all the excellent weirdness of the pre-Phantom Menace expanded universe. They represent a time of wild speculation and imagination in Star Wars stories and writers wondered things like if the Clone War had been about a series of cloned Palpatines ruling the Galactic Empire for a thousand years. Which really, I think, sounds better but I’m not George Lucas, so. Oh, the utter disappointment I felt realizing the Empire is only like 25 years old.

Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia/ General Organa, Han Solo, Chewbacca and Lando Calrissian are on a mission to unite the galaxy and build something better. They meet with representatives and inhabitants of planets all over the galaxy, like Jaxxon the space rabbit and a bunch of space cat people. And Lando is in disguise, at least once, looking very much like Captain Harlock, pulling off a heist with Chewbacca. Hell Yeah.

Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen? (DC, 2020) Matt Fraction, writing; Steve Lieber, art; Nathan Fairbairn, colors; Clayton Cowles, lettering.

Steve Lieber is consistently one of my favorite artists. And Matt Fraction has written a lot of comics that made me laugh or that I loved or both. Clayton Cowles’s lettering is perfect. The typography he chose for when Batman puts on the grim and menacing Batman voice is fantastic. Nathan Fairbairn’s colors are vivid and thoughtful. In short, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen? has one of the best teams in comics right now. And in comics in general. Together, they’ve created that rare thing, a perfect comic. It’s a smooth, well-thought out mix. It’s a playful, effortless read and that is not an easy thing to accomplish. It’s silly, funny and grounded in as much comics history as you care to pay attention to. It uses the conventions and crazy continuity of the 1950s-1970s Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen comics, but it doesn’t over explain or over rely on readers’ familiarity with comics history.

Somebody murdered Daily Planet photojournalist, strange attractor of strange events, and Super-Friend Jimmy Olsen, and Jimmy Olsen is on the case! Well, they murdered the decoy clone body of Jimmy Olsen that Jimmy postitioned as an assassination decoy. Jimmy Olsen’s pal Superman is under strict orders not to help—no matter what! But there’s no stopping Batman from interfering if he wants to, especially when Jimmy… well, you’ll have to read to find out. But it’s always fun when Batman’s dignity is outraged. If you enjoy old comics covers of Jimmy Olsen turned into a giant turtle or disguised as a hot lady or wearing a mustache, all those things are in Who Killed Jimmy Olsen? It’s well-made silly fun and that’s something I really appreciate.

*Why yes, I am pointedly encouraging people to use libraries and all the library resources, from taking physical media—books, movies, music, puzzles, tools—to taking out audiobooks, movies, comics, puzzles, etc. And whatever else your local public library offers.

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Carol Borden produced this whole list of summer fun time reading without using an algorithmic prompt once.