Amplitudes: Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity

by Lee Mandelo (Editor)

Overview

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.

USA Today Bestseller!

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

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781645660873
Publisher:	Erewhon Books
Publication date:	05/27/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Lee Mandelo (he/him) is a writer, scholar, and sometimes-editor whose work focuses on queer and speculative fiction. His recent books include debut novel Summer Sons, a contemporary gay Southern gothic, as well as the novellas Feed Them Silence and The Woods All Black. Mandelo's short fiction, essays, and criticism can be read in publications including Tor.com/Reactor, Post45, Uncanny Magazine, and Capacious. He has also been a past nominee for various awards, including the Lambda, Nebula, Goodreads Choice, and Hugo. He currently resides in Louisville and is a doctoral candidate at the University of Kentucky. Further information, interviews, and sundry little posts about current media he's enjoying can be found at leemandelo.com or @leemandelo on socials.

Editorial Reviews

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

“I loved this anthology. Every story feels bigger than its word count, each a singular universe that stayed with me for long after I finished reading. Amplitudes left me expanded, curious, a bit heartsore, and terribly excited for the future of queer and trans literature. This is required reading.”—Chana Porter, Lambda Literary Award-nominated author of The Thick and the Lean

“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

“This is the book we need — a big, triumphant collection of stories that shoot for God. Lee Mandelo makes bold, rewarding choices as editor, and the result is a book that's more than the sum of its parts. These writers aren't just exploring the future. They are the future." —Isaac Fellman, author of Notes from a Regicide

“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 LeBlanc, editor of the anthology Embodied Exegesis

“The stories in Amplitudes transport us to the edges of time, space, and possibility as their authors dare us to imagine the future of queerness. Each one offers its own striking vision of how we survive and thrive in these speculative realities, yet they all reflect what has always been true—we will never stop fighting for a brighter tomorrow.” —Eddy Boudel Tan, author of The Tiger and the Cosmonaut and After Elias

“The stories of Amplitudes portray futurism and the speculative in a way that feels as real as the present. From a lesbian anarchist knight to a Love Shack circuit party, each story acts as a portal to a new universe, captivating in its own way. A queer and trans anthology that reminds us that as dark as it gets, we will always have each other, and that the future is ours for the taking, if we fight for it.” —Daniel Zomparelli, co-editor of Queer Little Nightmares

“The stories in Amplitudes all crackle with electricity. It was such a joy to get lost in these wildly different worlds—some frightening, all alive with wild hope—from Wen-Yi Lee’s wickedly beautiful “They Will Give Us a Home,” to the taut portrait of desire in Bendi Barrett’s lush “Six Days,” to the spiraling possibilities in Katharine Duckett's sharp-voiced “pocket futures in the present past.” Editor Lee Mandelo has crafted a set list that sings out with a bold sense of queer rebellion, and he’s inviting us all to a raucous dance party.” —Nathan Tavares, author of A Fractured Infinity and Welcome to Forever

From the Publisher

★ 2025-04-19
A powerful collection of queer and trans speculative fiction that asks the question, “But what if things were different?”

Here, queer and trans characters become rebellious teens experiencing their first heartbreak; participants in actual, violent rebellions; and collectors of futuristic artifacts. Sam J. Miller’s opener, “The Republic of Ecstatic Consent,” is a burst of queer, polyamorous joy that teases the palate for what’s to come. In “When the Devil Comes From Babylon,” Maya Deane imagines a brighter future for two closeted trans teens living on a religious cult’s compound. Dominique Dickey’s “Forever Won’t End Like This” examines the overlap between queerness and fandom, blending together the stories of an actor and the character he plays on a hit TV show. Ramez Yoakeim puts a gay couple at risk of being exterminated by a violent militia in “Fettle & Sunder.” In Sarah Gailey’s “MoonWife,” a digital medium channels the spirit of a trans man’s late friend, while in Esther Alter’s “The Shabbos Bride,” a Jewish trans woman receives a Shabbos miracle that remolds her entire body. Editor Mandelo has pulled together 22 stories from some of the strongest speculative fiction authors working today. The writing is crisp, clean, and evocative throughout. Every tale opens onto a different vision of the future—some far-flung, others right around the corner, and each as compelling as the next. Although the mood shifts frequently throughout the anthology—Miller’s tale is easily the most lighthearted, Yoakeim’s the saddest—each story is a poignant, unflinching look at what could be for the LGBTQ+ community.

A radically queer anthology of trans joy and suffering.

Kirkus Reviews