Amplitudes

About Amplitudes

Revolutionary and visionary, these twenty-two speculative stories edited by Lambda, Nebula and Hugo finalist Lee Mandelo explore the vast potentialities of our queer and trans futures.

From self-styled knights fighting in dystopian city streets to conservationists finding love in the Appalachian forests; from social media posts about domestic “bliss” in a lottery-based, state-housing skyscraper to herding feral cats off of one’s scientific equipment; from street drugs that create doppelgangers to dance-club cruising at the edge of the galaxy—Amplitudes: Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity interrogates the farthest borders of the sci-fi landscape to imagine how queer life will look centuries in the future—or ten years from now.

Filled with brutal honesty, raw emotions, sexual escapades, and delightful whimsy, Amplitudes speaks to the longstanding tradition of queer fiction as protest. This essential collection serves as an evolving map of our celebrations, anxieties, wishes, pitfalls, and—most of all—our rallying cry that we’re here, we’re queer—and the future is ours!

Featuring stories by Esther Alter • Bendi Barrett • Ta-wei Chi, trans. Ariel Chu • Colin Dean • Maya Deane • Dominique Dickey • Katharine Duckett • Meg Elison • Paul Evanby • Aysha U. Farah • Sarah Gailey • Ash Huang • Margaret Killjoy • Wen-yi Lee • Ewen Ma • Jamie McGhee • Sam J. Miller • Aiki Mira, trans. CD Covington • Sunny Moraine • Nat X. Ray • Neon Yang • Ramez Yoakeim

Praise

Praise for Amplitudes: Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity

“A vibrant collection of queer and trans lives! In these dark times, there’s nothing more radical than what Amplitudes says just by existing: there is a future, and we are in it.” —Adam Sass, award-winning author of Surrender Your Sons and The 99 Boyfriends of Micah Summers

“Rooting through a broken, still-breaking world, Amplitudes finds amid the danger to trans and queer people real possibilities for resilience, connection, even flourishing. Clear-eyed, breathlessly imaginative, deeply felt, and defiant, this anthology showcases the best of our determination to make a life better than we found it.” —Theodore McCombs, author of the Octavia E. Butler Award finalist Uranians

“The heraldic moments within Amplitudes gloriously reveal the most impossible and necessary truths of what a queer and trans foregleam can be; a revelation for those who need a guiding light towards the future and fully embodies the hope, rage, fear, and, most of all, the love that is the beating heart of every queer revolution.” —Linda H. Codega, author of Motheater

“Amplitudes is a tidal wave of excellent science fiction, brought up from the deep sea of trans and queer talent in our genre. Every story is like a pearl, birthed in grit but shining in perfection, each one strung after the other masterfully by editor Lee Mandelo. Lee knows better than most that our mere existence is resistance, and to look into our future is transcendental. This book is so good. Cherish it.” —Cecilia Tan, award-winning author of Black Feathers

“Amplitudes is a fantastical kaleidoscope of queer futures, encompassing the full spectrum of joy and hardship, resilience and vulnerability. This is the anthology I want with me in the coming years, as a reminder of everything we have to fight for and all the wonderful queer possibilities that await us.” —Ann LaBlanc, editor of the anthology Embodied Exegesis