My girlfriend is looking for recommendations for queer sci-fi books, ideally ones with lesbian space pirates, and I thought maybe I should ask my mutuals on what she calls 'the sneaky commie twitter'
@FuchsiaShock "lesbian space pirates" that would be Barbary Station by R.E.Stearns.
Without the "pirates" component:
"Gideon the Ninth" by Tamsyn Muir: lesbian space necromancers;
"The Luminous Dead" by Caitlin Starling: lesbian space spelunkers (although admittedly the space is a bit outside of the frame there);
"The Outside" by Ada Hoffmann: lesbian space scientists dealing with lovecraftian horrors;
"A Memory Called Empire" by Arkady Martine: lesbian space ambassadors and officials trying to deal with the "byzantine" empire;
"Ascension" by Jacqueline Koyanagi: lesbian space not quite pirates, but close enough!
Half of works by Benjanun Sriduangkaew, extremely lesbian and queer! (Another half is not in space)
"The Machineries of Empire" by Yoon Ha Lee... it's a bit difficult to describe this, but it has a lot of queer characters, and the protagonist is a lesbian (when she is not a shadow (and I mean this literally... and things get more complicated after she eats the carrion glass) of an undead general / mass murderer (at Hellspin Fortress). And it also has space moths: voidmoths, needlemoths etc; but they have to use slow invariant engines when there are enough heretics who do not use the calendar mandated by religious dictatorship.
Honorable mention: "Hoshi and the Red Circuit City" by Dora M. Raymaker, if the descriptions online sounds interesting to her (it's a great book! But, just as with Luminous Dead, most of the story is confined to a single planet; and unlike Luminous Dead, it doesn't have a lot of lesbian interaction on screen... but it has so much more!)
@FuchsiaShock I completely forgot about "Mirage" by Somaiya Daud! It's lesbians (although that doesn't really become apparent until the second (last) book where it very much becomes apparent) in space and very good entertaining reading!
And "Genesis of Misery" by Neon Yang; "totally not-a-prophet in mechas made of angels in space" doesn't even begin to describe it, but somehow I totally forgot that there are intense lesbians (including main character) that started as your typical "does she want to kill me or does she want to kiss me" cliche.
And speaking of queer sci-fi books but without lesbians or space:
"This is How You Lose the Time War" by Amal el-Mohtar, enemies to lesbians (not in space, but in time, which makes it even cooler);
"Iron Widow" by Xiran Jay Zhao, very angry feminist polyam book with mechas;
"Light from Uncommon Stars" by Ryka Aoki, protagonist is a trans girl, there are lesbians, but also spaceships, devils (of the kind you make deals with), and violins;
"In the Watchful City" by S. Qiouyi Lu, it cannot be described but it's incredible; it's also not that long and you get for stories at once;
"Imperial Radch" series by Ann Leckie, who can say if there are non-lesbian couples, when there is only one third-person pronoun in imperial language, and it's "she", and the protagonist doesn't speak other languages very well / doesn't understand other cultures very well, not enough to determine gender correctly in cultures with gender? :rollsafe:
"The Seep" by Chana Porter, it's utopia (? (?)) created on earth by aliens and the protagonists are lesbians;
Also "The Broken Earth" trilogy by N.K.Jemisin, but it's really depressing.
And "Terra Ignota" by Ada Palmer; to Wikipedia descriptions of setting and style and plot and characters (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_Ignota) (don't pay attention to it gendering characters, probably a transphobic asshole vandalized the page) I can only add that some relationships or people still read as queer, even though (or because?) they're described by an asshole (?) who is really into the Renaissance and insists on (not even always consistently) gendering people (in accordance with the ideas he read in 700-year-old books) in 25th century society that banned gender long time ago.
"The Risen Empire" by Scott Westerfeld. Necromantic Empire vs Cyborg women. Has around 15 POV and 6 of that important, but two of these are a buff butch cyborg commando and her enemy/lover a female human neurodivergent military worker
"A Memory Called Empire" by Arkady Martine: Ambassador of a small space station coming to the Mayan-inspired Empire finds out her predecessor has been murdered and she is next. Slow building romance with her female assistant, but there is more queerness in the background too