Skip to main content

Featured

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...

The Final Six by Alexandra Monir (The Final Six #1)

When Leo, an Italian championship swimmer, and Naomi, a science genius from California, are two of the twenty-four teens drafted into the International Space Training Camp, their lives are forever altered. After erratic climate change has made Earth a dangerous place to live, the fate of the population rests on the shoulders of the final six who will be scouting a new planet. Intense training, global scrutiny, and cutthroat opponents are only a few of the hurdles the contestants must endure in this competition.

For Leo, the prospect of traveling to Europa—Jupiter’s moon—to help resettle humankind is just the sense of purpose he’s been yearning for since losing his entire family in the flooding of Rome. Naomi, after learning of a similar space mission that mysteriously failed, suspects the ISTC isn’t being up front with them about what’s at risk.

As the race to the final six advances, the tests get more challenging—even deadly. With pressure mounting, Naomi finds an unexpected friend in Leo, and the two grow closer with each mind-boggling experience they encounter. But it’s only when the finalists become fewer and their destinies grow nearer that the two can fathom the full weight of everything at stake: the world, the stars, and their lives.

TITLE: The Final Six
AUTHOR: Alexandra Monir
PUBLISHER: HarperAudio
YEAR: 2018
LENGTH: 297 pages (7 hours 40 minutes)
AGE: Young Adult
GENRE: Science Fiction
RECOMMENDED: N/A

Partial Queer Rep Summary: No canon queer rep.

DNF 1 hour 49 minutes in (24%). I almost stopped at the second chapter because I wasn’t feeling it, but I tried to keep going for a bit. NASA’s plan makes no sense and the AI’s feel out of place.

CW for grief (graphic), suicidal thoughts (graphic), suicide attempt (graphic), parental death, child death, death.

Bookshop Affiliate Buy Link

Add this on TheStoryGraph

A star-filled sky over the silhouette of rolling hills


Comments

Popular Posts