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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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Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (the world's only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655, before she exploded), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner.

So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers are flaring. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon—both of whom have lived amongst Earth's mortals since The Beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyle—are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture.

And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist . . .

TITLE: Good Omens
AUTHOR: Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
PUBLISHER: William Morrow
YEAR: 1990
LENGTH: 512 pages
AGE: Adult
GENRE: Fantasy
RECOMMENDED: No*

*If you'd like this you'd like the show, just go watch that.

Queer Rep Summary: Ace/Aro Main Character(s).

I liked most of this. The characters are engaging, the angel and demon are fantastic, the plot is pretty well paced, and most of the humor is spot on. However, it has threads of homophobia wound throughout the book, despite the character in question canonically being "sexless". A lot of the homophobic jokes are made by characters we're meant to dislike, but it disrupted my enjoyment of an otherwise great story.

If you're looking to the book to see if you'd like the show, the homophobia and pacing issues are some of the things that the show fixed, and I recommend you just watch that instead of trying to read the original material. 

CW for bullying, homophobia (graphic), ableist language, racism, sexism, eating disorders (brief), blood (brief), gore (brief), gun violence (brief), car accident (minor), animal death (brief), death.

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Crowley (complete with a formal suit, wings, tail, sunglasses, and a glass of wine, is lounging on his side.


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