Spirit Marriage, by Megan Rose (history/personal experience prose, 2022)

[lb_lee]

"This is a love story—a love story disguised as a piece of scholarly research."

Blurb: "Megan Rose, Ph.D., examines the practice and purpose of spirit marriage around the world, presenting transcultural evidence of this form of sacred union. [...] She shares her in-depth interviews with ten contemporary practitioners of spirit marriage, including a Faery Seer, a Shakta Tantric, a West African Shrine Keeper, a New Orleans Voodoo Mambo, Haitian Vodou practitioners, and a ceremonial magician," along with her own spirit marriage.

Why is it worth your time?: This is an unusual entry for this catalog, since it is anthropological research from a religion and magic perspective, but it is easy enough to read and crammed with personal stories of spirit marriage, along with possession, channelling, and indwelling, and that seems super-relevant. If you have been itching to read about metaphysical or religious experiences of pluralish phenomena and love, this book fills a big hole in a lot of plurals' education. Megan Rose is herself in a spirit marriage, and she states at the start that she will not spend the book arguing about the reality or truth of her subjects' (or her own) experiences--and indeed, she does not.

Plural Tags: creator speaks from experience, abuse not mentioned, mindsharing, otherworld, dreamfolk, nonhumans [gods, spirits, lwa, fairy], the dead, romantic relationships, teamwork, community, and metaphysical/spiritual

Content Warnings: Much discussion of religion, mentions of religious oppression but nothing too intense. That said, this can be an emotionally intense read, just because of its subject material.

Access Notes: Available in paper and ebook forms.

System's Out!, by the Inmara Ktletaccete Fenumera (sici-fi prose, 2022)

[lb_lee]

Submitted by monsterqueers !

" “Metabang, if everyone is genetically engineered, then why are there people like us?”

I was expecting this question. It’s common for Students with major differences from their peers to ask it. I’ve had a lot of Students, and the Pembers were one of the rarest types.

I could tell that it was Myra who had asked the question because of xyr posture, expression, and vocal inflections. The differences were very subtle between xem and xyr other system members, but I’m particularly suited for tracking these things.

Myra continued as if I didn’t already know what xe was talking about, “Why are some people plural and some not? Wouldn’t the Crew make us all singlet?” "

Blurb: "A story about plurality, consciousness, the fight to overcome physical dysphoria, and self advocacy in a world without assigned gender. Also, some good old fashioned wish fulfillment."

Why is it worth your time?: Have you ever wanted to read sci-fi with a central plural and nonbinary characters? Have you wanted to read sci-fi with characters like that that that *isnt* a coming out/discovery story and is BY a transgender plural system explicitly about their system members? Do it! Theres a free version even!

Plural Tags: Temporary Fusion/integration, Introjects, Realitymashing, Otherworld, relationships: community, queerplatonic, teamwork, switching, nonhumans (note- they call themselves humans but they do not look like humans do)

Content Warnings: Quoted from the websites blanket content warning list; " eugenics, suicide, a bombing, descriptions of severe physical dysphoria, dissociation, conflicting needs, possibly messy depictions of various disabilities, cultural amnesia, personal amnesia, social engineering, carceral “justice”, transhumanism, social stratification at birth, explorations of consciousness and self, accidental death, mourning, and the monster from under our bed writ large "

Accessibility Notes: the free version on the website is screenreadable as it's html. You can get it at https://sunspot.world/ (Back-up link here.)

Misc. Notes (if any): This story is explicitly about the author system heavily fictionalized and put into a science fiction setting. Even if several characters in the book were not plural, its a plural story just because of that. Submitter has only read the first story in the sunspot chronicles in full, and is working through the rest, so only the first has been submitted at this time.