Science-fiction author Becky Chambers is visiting Utah for the first time on Thursday, October 15, and the bookstore bringing her here is as notable as the author herself. The Legendarium, a fantasy and science-fiction bookstore in Salt Lake City that has been open for four years, will host Chambers for an author event at Kingsbury Hall on the University of Utah campus, timed to her new novel “As You Wake, Break the Shell.”
The event, titled “Thrive in Daunting Times Through Hopepunk Futures,” carries ticket prices ranging from $31 to $70, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. Chambers is touring behind “As You Wake, Break the Shell,” a new two-book duology scheduled for release on October 13, 2026, through Harper Voyager in the U.S. and Hodder & Stoughton in the U.K., according to HarperCollins. The Legendarium is partnering with Under the Umbrella, the Queer Student Union of Utah, and the University of Utah Gender Studies Program to put on the event, the Tribune reports.
A Bookstore Built By and For Utah's Trans Community
The Legendarium is owned and operated entirely by transgender people, and it has become both a community space for book lovers, role-playing gamers and other nerds, and a home to Utah's transgender community, per the Tribune's reporting. Chambers is the store's top-selling author, and staff say her books reflect the store's own ethos of hopepunk — a literary term coined in July 2017 in a Tumblr post by author Alexandra Rowland as a counterweight to cynical “grimdark” fiction, defining stories where empathy, radical kindness, and community solidarity serve as acts of political resistance, according to Den of Geek.
Orion Enceladus said Chambers pioneered and helped invent hopepunk, focused on radical hope amid societal and environmental collapse and love worth fighting for, the Tribune reported. Enceladus also said the bookstore is more than a physical space — it is a community for people navigating a world that would rather they not exist, per the same account.
The Legendarium's Place in a Growing Network
The Legendarium opened in August 2022 at 349 E. 900 South in Salt Lake City as a specialty science-fiction, fantasy, and horror bookstore combined with a tabletop role-playing game cafe and coffee bar. Founded by sisters Stephanie and Raelle Blatter, the two-story converted residence focuses on curating inclusive and marginalized literary voices, according to QSaltLake Magazine.
Its co-organizing partner for Thursday's event, Under the Umbrella, opened in November 2021 in downtown Salt Lake City after raising more than $57,000 through an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign, establishing itself as the city's first dedicated LGBTQ+ bookstore and community space. Founded by Kaitlyn Mahoney, the store pairs book sales with mutual aid projects such as a free gender-affirming clothes closet and harm-reduction supplies, as reported by Shelf Awareness. Queer-specific gathering places in Salt Lake City have been limited.
A Historic Theater for a Marquee Stop
Kingsbury Hall, the event's venue, is a historic 1,900-seat performing arts theater built in 1930 on the University of Utah campus. The hall was the site of the 2020 U.S. Vice Presidential debate, according to Wikipedia.
A New Story of Care, Illness and Rogue Botanists
“As You Wake, Break the Shell” follows two protagonists across two timelines and two colonies, depicting one harsh, inhospitable world and one utopia, the Tribune reports. The harsh colony is Fortune, a dangerous place to live.
She has said hope is difficult to maintain and is a marathon, not a sprint, and she hopes readers come away understanding that hope is necessary, per the Tribune.
Readers Find Themselves in the Pages
Max Brunt said he first saw non-binary representation in Chambers's “A Psalm for the Wild-Built.” Brunt said he finds comfort in both Chambers's work and in The Legendarium itself, telling the Tribune the store provides a lasting community space.
Raelle Zephyr Westwind and Orion Enceladus said the deep relationships in Chambers's work resonate with their business, with Westwind noting that the present can feel hopeless and bleak, making people draw their circles close. Westwind compared the future home depicted in Chambers's book to the community built at The Legendarium itself, per the Tribune's account. Chambers's books, Westwind and Enceladus said, depict building community rather than overthrowing an empire or killing a king.
Shem Greenwood, who has read all of Chambers's books, said her hopeful stories feature people pulling together and affirming who they are. Greenwood said people need authors willing to encourage solving problems and caring for one another, a sentiment that staff at both The Legendarium and Under the Umbrella say captures exactly why Thursday's event matters to them.
