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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...

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James

TITLE: Black Leopard, Red Wolf
AUTHOR: Marlon James
PUBLISHER: Riverhead Books
YEAR: 2019
LENGTH: 640 pages
AGE: Adult
GENRE: Fantasy
RECOMMENDED: N/A

DNF page 25 (4% in).

I’m uncomfortable with the sheer number of descriptions of things that somehow involve people’s bodies in a sexual manner even when nothing sexual is even happening. It felt like everything was couched in terms of a male/female binary. The thing that made me stop was one character’s casual description of circumcision and female genital mutilation as equivalent and positive things to do to children’s bodies. It’s possible that the overall stance of the book doesn’t condone this (authors are not their characters, after all), but I’m too distressed to read more and find out.

CW for misogyny, drug abuse (not depicted), confinement, blood, domestic violence, violence, sexual content, child abuse (not depicted), child death (backstory), death.

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The stylized faces of a black leopard and red wolf superimposed over each other. A green fern-like vine wraps around their features.


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