THE FAQ
What are the categories / tropes?
- Chosen One
- Secret Heir
- Evil Overlord
- Reluctant Heroine
- The Wise Mentor
- Big Epic Battle
- The Quest
- The Powerful Artifact
- Elves, Aliens, and Not-Quite-Humans
- Mecha
- Space Travel
- Time Travel
- Multiverse
- Artificial Intelligence
- Cloning
- Nano-tech
- Hard Magic System
- Soft Magic System
- Sufficiently Advanced Tech
- First Contact
- Generation Ships
- Pirates (Space or Seas)
- Dystopian
- Environmental Collapse
- Terraforming
- Magic Has Returned
- The Dark Lord
- Too Many Side Quests
- Damsels in Distress
- Training Montage
- Enemies to Friends
- Friends to Enemies
- Friends to Lovers
- Lovers to Enemies
- Revolving Door of Enemies and Lovers
- Orphan Heroine
- Taverns and Their Lack of Beds
- Dragons
- Unicorns
- Merfolk
- Magical Academy
- The Prophecy
- Lost Civilizations & Ancient Cities
- 404: Men Not Found
- Butch/Femme
- Butch/Butch
- Femme/Femme
- Transbian Protagonist
- “But the prophecy calls for (gender)”
- Protagonists with Disabilities
- Less Than 100 GR/SG Reviews
- Award Recognized
- Short Read
- Long Read
- Part of an Ongoing Series
- Part of a Completed Series
- Standalone
- Serial
- Slow burn
- Love at First Sight
- Vampires
- Witches
- Polyamory
- Cozy
- Epic
- Oops! All Chosen Ones!
- The Prophecy Was Wrong
- Arranged Political Marriage
- Fake Relationship
- Secret Assassin Organization
- Thieves Guild
- Demons and Dark Mages
- Blood Magic
- Rebellion and Revolution
- Rag Tag Group of Adventurers
- The Enemy of My Enemy
- Eldritch Horrors
- Scary Forests
- Ancient Curses
- Greek Retelling
- Fairy Tale Retelling
- Lesbians with Swords
- Lesbians with Blasters
- Lesbians Killing Gods
- Lesbians Becoming Gods
- Necromancy
- Court Intrigue / Political Intrigue
- Disaster Lesbians
- Distinguished Lesbians
- Disaster / Distinguished Lesbian Power Couple
- One Night to Forever
- Dash of Kink
- Muscle Mommy
- Toppy Femme / Bottomy Butch
- Sexual Tension Too Thick for a Knife
- “I probably don't know you're flirting with me.”
- “I'll destroy the world to save her.”
- Classic Lit Retelling
- Trans Awakening
- Portal To Another World
- “We come from different worlds”
- Second Chance at Love
- Age Gap
- Mortal & Immortal Pairing
- Protagonist over 30
- Dethawing the Ice Queen
- Grumpy / Sunshine
- Secret Identities
- Forced Proximity
- “Do I want to be her or fuck her?”
How do I submit my own books?
Submissions are open until the 15th of February. You can submit your book here. Please note, we do not allow transphobic authors, nor do we allow books which were partially or fully created with generative AI or have generative AI covers. If you are a low-income author and need and affordable cover, please consider GetCovers, a design house in Ukraine which helps junior designers gain experience while getting paid. Ebook covers start at $10 USD.
How do you define ‘lesbian?’
For the purposes of this challenge, lesbian is used as an adjective to define the relationship in the book. The two individuals in the relationship can be cis, trans, bi, pan, non-binary lesbians, etc. What I want to avoid is books where the central romance or plot revolves around M/F or M/M relationships.
How do you define science fiction and fantasy?
Any book with speculative elements. Any and all subgenres of science fiction or fantasy. Space opera, progression fantasy, magical realism, space fantasy, time travel, etc, all welcome.
Are there any rewards?
There will be digital rewards for anyone who gets at least one bingo, and each bingo also grants you an entry for a paperback giveaway! Leaving reviews and promoting the event can also get you entries!
If you want your book included in a physical or digital prize pack, please email me at sapphicsff@daxmurray.com and provide the title, how many copies you are willing to give out, and what format you would be giving them out in.
How long does this run? When does it start?
This will start in March and run through December. If everything is going well by the time November comes around, I’ll put out a call for authors to submit books for a full 2026 challenge!
Where do I get a bingo card?
I have created 40 bingo cards for the challenge for you to use! You can find them on in this Google Drive Folder.
How Does This Work?
Every month, starting in March, I will “draw” 10 tropes. During the month, you can read just 1 book that matches 1 trope, 1 book for all 10 tropes, or 5 books for 5 tropes! It’s up to you how much you read and up to you to pick which tropes!
Throughout the month, I’ll post blog posts for each trope, highlighting books that match the trope. You can choose to read those books or you can choose another book that matches the tropes and is a lesbian SFF book!
If you want to multi-bingo, you can! use multiple bingo cards, try to fill one up entirely before getting another, etc. Up to you!
Each “bingo” gets you 1 entry into a drawing for a paperback giveaway. Each review you leave gets you 2 entries. And each fully completed bingo card gets you 5 entries.
Everyone who gets at least 1 bingo will win some digital ebooks. There will be 2 winners from the year-end drawing.
At the end of the year, I will make a form available for readers to submit their completed bingo cards and ask for links to reviews left. Reviews can be left on Goodreads, StoryGraph, Indie Story Geek, Fable, personal blogs/vlogs, or any retailer platform where the books can be purchased!
Who is running this? Why?
This challenge / blog / bingo game is run by Dax Murray, an independent author and member of the Kraken Collective. Dax also runs Queer Books Weekly. After seeing both reader and author frustration that many of the 2025 Sapphic / Lesbian reading challenges and bingo games focused almost exclusively on categories / tropes used in contemporary romance, Dax decided that running an SFF-themed Sapphic / Lesbian reading challenge would be a great idea to ensure that spec fic readers and authors didn’t feel left out and side-lined in the sapphic space.
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Lesbian SFF Reading Challenge / Sapphic SFF does not collect reader data except what is provided for the purpose of sending the newsletter should a reader sign up to get those email messages. No tracking software or analytics software is used on this site.
If you are an author and at any point wish to have your books entries removed from the site, please email me at sapphicsff@daxmurray.com. I shall remove all information as soon as possible.
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