Puzzled about where to start? Here’s a guide to my books/series! I have adult sf/f, middle grade sf/f, YA sf/f and nonfiction.
ADULT SF/F
Standalones
Forthcoming from Saga Press on October 27, 2026 (Saga Press, USA) and February 25, 2027 (Solaris Books, UK).
In the stars-spanning Censorate, languages other than the Republic’s own lingua rubra, which has reality-altering properties, are forbidden. Nevertheless, there are discrepancies. The Censorate’s star forces are called the Athenaeum Navy, and each of its ships is referred to as a codex. Instead of port and starboard, its soldiers refer to verso and recto. The unholy “stigmata” gouged into the ships’ hulls might, to a foreign scholar, bear a resemblance to verboten texts in other languages.
The Censorate is ruled by its Peacock, Aurelia, feared for the power of panopticon: she can look through anyone’s eyes. Moreover, Aurelia’s mastery of lingua rubra lets her force anyone who can understand her to follow her orders. Valentina, sold to Aurelia’s family as a child to be Aurelia’s oath-sister and companion, is its Swan, responsible for extracting useful information from foreign texts, then destroying them as well as entire languages through arcane arts. Valentina is assisted in her work by lower-ranking linguists and AI assistants who accept temporary contamination by foreign languages as a necessity of their work.
But this isn’t enough for Aurelia. She wants to control and deploy the Censorate’s thousand-year traitor and prisoner, the Basilisk, a man with a gaze so lethal that he destroyed its fleet of old through camera feeds. Unfortunately for her, the Basilisk gave himself a form of aphasia that makes him immune to her commands…
Phoenix Extravagant
Silkpunk fantasy in an occupied Korea that never was, with bonus mecha dragon.
Series
MACHINERIES OF EMPIRE
She’s a mathematician. He’s a mass murderer. Will they save the tyrannical Hexarchate—or destroy it?
#1 Ninefox Gambit – Locus Award for best first novel; finalist for the Nebula and Clarke awards.
#2 Raven Stratagem.
#3 Revenant Gun.
#4 Hexarchate Stories, featuring the sequel novella “Glass Cannon.”
By request, a hexarchate faction cheat sheet.
Possibly also of interest:
- Candle Arc – self-funded 2D animated short film in early production. Based on the prequel short story “The Battle of Candle Arc” (Clarkesworld #73, October 2012).
- Ninefox Gambit RPG from Android Press.
- from every spark a fire – Twine game about Cheris’s days at Kel Academy. ‘Ware the content notes!
- Turnabout Is Fair Prey – Twine game about Kujen/Jedao. NSFW and ‘ware the content notes.
Other stories in the world of the hexarchate, which can be read as standalones:
- “Extracurricular Activities,” about Shuos Jedao back when he was a (living) hotshot spaceship captain, and a spy mission. A Hugo finalist.
- “The Battle of Candle Arc,” which is what it says on the tin.
- “The City Unbreachable,” a standalone f/f romance that takes place in the cloistered world of a generation ship fleeing the heptarchate.
Collections
The Candlevine Gardener and Other Stories
Flash fairy tales and figments, ebook-only; available as free/pay-what-you-want at itch.io!
Conservation of Shadows
Collection of some of my earlier stories, currently out of print.
The Fox’s Tower and Other Tales
Whimsical flash fairy tales.
MIDDLE GRADE SF/F
THOUSAND WORLDS trilogy from Rick Riordan Presents
Korean mythology in space, featuring a fox spirit heroine in #1 and a nonbinary tiger spirit in #2, among others!
#1 Dragon Pearl – New York Times bestseller; won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature and Locus Award for best YA novel.
#2 Tiger Honor
#3 Fox Snare
Possibly also of interest: a tie-in story about Min taking place between Dragon Pearl and Tiger Honor, “The Initiation,” appears in the anthology The Cursed Carnival and Other Calamities along with other stories about your favorite Rick Riordan Presents characters!
YOUNG ADULT SF/F
MOONSTORM TRILOGY
In a society where conformity is valued above all else, a teen girl training to become an Imperial mecha pilot is forced to return to her rebel roots to save her world.
(Originally Lancers, but the publisher wanted a catchier title!)
#1 Moonstorm.
#2 Starstrike
#3 Crownworld is CANCELED by mutual agreement with the publishers. The trilogy will not be completed.
Longer explanation (February 5, 2026)
Wanted y’all to hear it from me: CROWNWORLD (book 3 of the Moonstorm trilogy) is canceled. I will not be completing the book (the trilogy). I’m very sorry to readers who were hoping for the conclusion.
This was a mutually agreed, amicable decision between the primary/US publisher (Delacorte), the UK publisher (Rebellion Publishing – Solaris Books), and myself.
Between sales and publishing realities (MOONSTORM sold poorly and its prospects are unlikely to improve for political reasons you can guess), this was a rare situation where this benefits both publishers and myself. I could not announce the cancellation earlier for legal/contract reasons, and can’t “simply” release the partial draft of CROWNWORLD for same.
I didn’t plan on MOONSTORM being a market failure. But novel-writing is a career with baked-in instability and career risk. I knew that going in.
Abbreviated version of what happened on my end: I have 66,000 words of a near-finished draft that I don’t plan on resuming. The breaking point was when I had a concussion in March 2025.
You might ask why I don’t “just” yeet the last 10,000 words to have a book for release to readers even if the print publishers are no longer interested in publishing it. After illness and family crises, I’m exhausted. More than one person close to me nearly died; I set writing aside for months to do caretaking. I have peripheral neuropathy (among other things); my hands and feet might recover, or they might get worse and curtail my ability to do the things that bring me joy.
Both my publishers extended incredible grace and kindness to me during this period. This is not on them. The trilogy existence failure is on me.
I’m moving on. I’ve spent the past several years writing about three books every two years (or 1.5 books per year – releases won’t line up because of production/publishing variables). This probably sounds slow/leisurely but was not sustainable with my health as unstable as it is. There would have been a breaking point down the line even if it hadn’t happened with this specific book. I’m going to spend some time on endeavors just for the joy of it.
I hope y’all have many books you’re looking forward to reading, by other writers.
Note: I’m not in financial distress at present. Please don’t worry on that account.
Best,
YHL
NONFICTION