Books Backlist Bonanza Backlist Bonanza: 5 Underrated Books for Hot Commie Summer Tired of the status quo? Try these books featuring revolutionary governments some communal weirdos… By Alex Brown | Published on July 7, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share Tired of the status quo? Ready for change? Eager for some activism and advocacy? Excited to build new coalitions instead of pouring money into systems that are designed to oppress? I’ve got three words for you: hot commie summer. These five books aren’t really about communism anymore than that phrase is; rather, the stories herein are about asking “what if we did something different?” We have some revolutionary governments and some communal weirdos, both seeking to make life better, whether on a small scale or large. The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion by Margaret Killjoy (Danielle Cain #1 — Tordotcom, 2017) We don’t get much speculative fiction set in anarchist communes, but I love the way Margaret Killjoy takes “the deer is fucked up” subgenre of horror and applies it to a group of outsiders. In Freedom, Iowa, a bunch of anarchists summon a deer god to deal with internal conflict, and Danielle wanders into the middle of it. She’s searching for clues about her dead best friend Clay, and her journey takes her to a collective struggling to live up to its grand ideals. It is to my utter disappointment that we never got more than two novellas when it was primed to be a series as vast as Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries. Maybe one day someone will have the great sense to option this for a TV show.  Summer in the City of Roses by Michelle Ruiz Keil (Soho Teen, 2021) Michelle Ruiz Keil only has two young adult novels out, but both are dreamy historicals featuring a band of lefty alternative weirdos forging a found family under magical realism vibes. This one is inspired both by the Grimm fairytale “Brother and Sister” and the Greek myth of Iphigenia. Iphigenia was the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, rulers of Mycenae. Pops pissed off Artemis during the Trojan War, and she retaliated by interfering in his march. To beg for forgiveness, he decided to sacrifice his daughter to Artemis. Lucky for her, the goddess intervened at the last minute by offering a stag instead. Or the sacrifice went ahead as planned. Or Artemis turned her into Hecate. Who knows. Not the point. This story is about two Greek-Mexican siblings, Iph and Orr who are separated in 1990s Portland, Oregon. Orr is packed off to wilderness bootcamp to toughen him up and escapes, finding refuge with a pack of punks. Iph runs away to search for him and finds George, a queer teen with ties to the underground. These new friends offer the teens a new way of moving through the world. They don’t have to accept things as they are; they can strive toward something more meaningful.  The Siren, the Song, and the Spy by Maggie Tokuda-Hall (The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea #2 — Candlewick Press, 2023) The sequel to the phenomenal YA queer fantasy The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea doubles down on the anti-colonial themes. In the first book, Florian and Evelyn escape their colonial oppressors, transforming psychologically and physically. The second book features them only tangentially, instead focusing on a pair of siblings whose homeland is invaded by colonizers, Florian’s brother Alfie who is trying to foment a revolution from the heart of the empire, and Genevieve, a spy-turned-traitor trying to atone for all the violence she did on behalf of said empire. This isn’t just a book—or series, really—about taking down the empire. It’s about asking if the revolution is worth it if everyone has to die to achieve it. It’s about asking how much blood is too much, how much we must pay for freedom and who has to pay it. It wants us to think about the world that will be left behind once the rebels are victorious. How we fight matters as much as what we are fighting. Blackheart Man by Nalo Hopkinson (Saga Press, 2024) I always feel like I’m cheating a bit on this list by including more recent titles, but this book was so good and not enough people read it! Years ago, the island of Chynchin successfully threw off the shackles of their colonial oppressors, the Ymisen. They rebuilt their society in a more equitable way…unless you’re Mirmeki, soldiers press-ganged into the Ymisen military who turned traitor on their overlords during the rebellion. When some Ymisen emissaries visit, Veycosi is forced to play tour guide after accidentally flooding Carenage Town. The outsiders have a hard time appreciating how the islanders work together for the benefit of the community and honor their ancestors. Cosi also gets tangled up in a mystery about children going missing, a troop of undead Mirmeki soldiers rising from the tar pits, and a potential imperial invasion. It’s Nalo Hopkinson. That’s really all you need to know. Metal From Heaven by august clarke (Erewhon Books, 2024) This book got a ton of buzz last year, and I expect it will end up on a bunch of Best Of lists this year, so it’s not exactly “underrated.” However, it’s also the first book I thought of when I came up with this theme, so get ready for even more buzz. Marney Honeycutt is a child when she witnesses her family and entire community massacred while protesting dangerous working conditions at the Chancey ichorite factory. Ichorite, a magical metal mined from newly conquered lands, turns some children, like Marney, “lustertouched,” giving them hallucinatory experiences and strange abilities. After she’s taken in by a group of queer guerillas and trained in the art of sabotage and rebellion, she is set on her greatest mission: convince the Chanceyco heir to marry her so she can destroy the corporate empire from the inside out. It’s a ferocious, lyrical novel. august clark wrote a story that is both a labor manifesto and rallying cry. It is a brick thrown at the Stonewall Riots and a protestor standing up to agents of the empire.  [end-mark] The post Backlist Bonanza: 5 Underrated Books for Hot Commie Summer appeared first on Reactor.