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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 Last Olympian by Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #5)

The Last Olympian ends this series well while opening up the possibility (now fulfilled) of more works in this universe. The twists feel clever and appropriate to the earlier books, the battles are gripping, and I'm not ready for it to be over.

This book accomplishes a very tricky thing (and, frankly, does it quite well): It has to cap off a series which is literally the stuff of gods, have stakes to match, pull off an appropriate resolution, and successfully make the pivot to explain the state of the world after the battle when the prophecy is fulfilled while still leaving room for more books in this universe. Speaking of the prophecy, that is handled well: It feel appropriately tricky in the pattern of mythic prophecies, the resolution defies expectations without feeling cheap, and there's enough groundwork laid in this book to match up the final resolution with the expectation laid by the earlier books. Without spoiling anything, I like how it was handled, and it worked out better than if it had been as was expected based on assumptions made early in the series. This assessment applies to one big thing and several smaller plot points. Tldr: having the twists made it more powerful instead of feeling cheap.

I wasn't expecting to be blown away by this series, but this final book feels better than how it started. I was worried that the casual affect and quippy nature of the main character, Percy, would be grating after a while, but around book three I stopped worrying about it and just enjoyed the story.

I like this book, I would recommend the whole series, and I'll definitely put the other books in this universe in my queue to get to someday. I want to spend more time in this world, and I wish I'd done so sooner.

CW for violence, major character death.

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