Campaign for the American Reader: Nine books that center asexuality

Friday, May 16, 2025

Nine books that center asexuality

Debbie Urbanski is the author of the novel After World (2023)—which was named a best book of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle, Engadget, the Los Angeles Times tech,

Booklist, and Strange Horizons—and Portalmania (2025). Her writing focuses on the intersections of horror, fantasy, science fiction, asexuality, memoir, and/or the planet. Over the past two decades, she's published widely in such places as The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, The Best American Experimental Writing, The Sun, Granta, Orion, and Junior Great Books.

At Electric Lit Urbanski tagged nine "narratives [that] push against the traditional definitions of love that confine all of us." One title on the list:

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

The narrator of All Systems Red (who calls itself Murderbot) is a wry, socially awkward, agendered, self-hacked security cyborg who enjoys watching soap operas (though it fast-forwards through the sex scenes due to boredom). Murderbot’s current assignment is to watch over a group of researchers on an unnamed planet. Soon some anomalies are noticed on the planetary maps, and Murderbot has to figure out what’s going on while trying to protect the team of scientists it has grown to care for. In less confident hands, the robot-as-asexual trope may have come off as irritating or wrong. But Murderbot is one of my favorite narrators ever. Funny, shy, self-aware, and occasionally snarky, it connects with people only in its own way, forming some moving and unique relationships. All Systems Red leans a little toward “hard” science fiction— think drones, implants, hubs, transports, hatches—but I still believe typical literary readers who don’t often read sci-fi can deeply enjoy this one.