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October Daye / Inheritance - Essay Series Part Five: Long Series and How to Read Them

Hello Patrons and general audience members! Welcome to another Books That Burn essay by Robin. Thank you to Case Aiken, who receives a monthly Patron shoutout. [Full Audio Available Here] This is the fifth and final entry in a five-part essay series discussing two long-running book series by queer authors: October Daye by Seanan McGuire, and Inheritance by A.K. Faulkner. I chose these series because I love them both, they were intended from the start to be long series, neither of them are finished yet, and the authors have different structural approaches to developing each series across so many volumes. Purely coincidentally, they are both long-running contemporary fantasy series mainly set in California in or near the 2010's, with major characters named Quentin, and whose fast-healing protagonists have a tendency to quasi-adopt a gaggle of magical teenagers. After a brief moment in the 1990's, October Daye begins in earnest in 2009 and has reached 2015 as of the eighteenth boo...
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The Hork-Bajir Chronicles by K. A. Applegate

The Hork Bajir-Chronicles tells the origins of the Yeerk invasion, Hork-Bajir as shock troops, and the immediate aftermath of Seerow's Kindness. A slow revelation combines with a sense of inevitability in this exploration of the drive to conquer and the resolve to stay free.

The rotating perspectives give some dimension to the Yeerks as villains, they have reasons for what they do beyond simple cruelty. Because reading the main series tells you where this story will end up, there is a sense of gloom when reading it. It also has some hope, because it is told in a time of new freedom for some Hork-Bajir. The ending is hopeful on a first reading and kind of ominous since I know where things lead after this. It's a pretty good snapshot of the tone of the series as a whole, with Aldrea and Dak as guerrilla fighters instead of the Animorphs.

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