Pledging Season

In a world where gender is turned inside out, the struggle for equality continues...

Brilliant scientist Ya'shul thinks he has everything a man could ask for: the honor of caring for his family, the opportunity to help conceive children, and a groundbreaking chance to prove he's just as good at science as any woman. But Ya'shul isn't growing up on Earth. Instead, his life is shaped by a faraway matriarchy, one whose traditions and power structures demonstrate just how arbitrarily human beings organize gender-and why they choose to do so. When a backlash Ya'shul never expected shatters his dreams, he'll have to find out whether attempting to have it all will mean losing everything he's ever known.

Wanderer Andeshe is all too aware that the life her people have led is ending. Looming solar storms will force her family to give up the giant pterosaurs they've always flown-unless she and Ya'shul can work together to save the majestic creatures from starvation. But Andeshe is unprepared for the cost of working so closely with Ya'shul. Suddenly dependent on a culture that sacrifices repair and restoration in favor of punishment and shame, she must choose between abandoning her deepest values and becoming expendable herself. As the unlikely allies navigate a web of ruthless politics and fragile trust, everything is on the table: loyalty, justice, and the meaning of freedom itself.

Both refreshingly new and eerily familiar, Pledging Season aims the power of speculative fiction directly at the assumptions that make sexism and misogyny possible. Filled with insight, compassion, and ultimately hope, it is a must read for anyone ready to reimagine the world we think we know.

Content Advisory: Contains explicit consensual sex, no violence.