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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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Animorphs Book 53: The Answer by K. A. Applegate

Damn. Jake's trying his best but a lot of beings are going to die, and he's responsible for it. He does everything he can, and it's both too much and not enough. No one is going to be okay when this is over, even if they live.

 It's damn hard not to hate Jake in this one. It really is. Maybe that's because I identified with Tobias when I was a kid, maybe it's that this read-through now has me loving Rachel as a character. But I have enough Marco enough to see the bright line.

I see how he got there, but Erek didn't deserve this. None of them deserved this. This one really affirms for me the central thesis of our podcast: The authors are the only ones with agency. Jake is doing his best, and no matter what he does, a lot of beings are going to die, and the author is the one who put him there.

This series is really great, it's amazing, you either love them or you didn't read them. I've yet to meet anyone who read the series and was ambivalent.

I've only read this one once before because I read The Ellimist Chronicles first and knew the end would have things I didn't like, but this one still hurts.

Some random thoughts: Arbron was great, I like the Taxxon endgame and I hope it works out. Tom's Yeerk is terrible (great character, terrible person). I like seeing Toby grow up since the start of the series. We found out how much time has passed and how young the Animorphs are, and it's a good answer, but it's heartbreaking that they were so young.

A boy (Jake) turns into a snake

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