10 Series I Plan on Continuing Someday, I Promise!

It has been interesting to see how my reading habits have shifted the more I read. Used to be that I read 20 books on a good year, and I would read series back to back if they were out. Now I’m probably going to top 200 reads this year, and it feels painful to devote time to a sequel when I could be discovering something new. It’s increased my preferences for standalone books and duologies, and my interest in long series has dwindled.

Some of these I’ve left behind for so long that I’ve forgotten important details, while others are new discoveries that I know I plan on continuing. For each, I’ve put the cover and link for Book 1 in the series.

1. Streets of Flame by Matt Weber
   This series focuses on illegal draconic street racing in a city with South American influences. Book 1 was incredibly short (50 pages!) and was a rather serious epistolary novella in the form of a journalists’ essays and interviews of a racing duo. I think the sequels will be more traditional, but the first blew me out of the water and I’m obsessed. Also nobody has heard of this. See a longform review here.
   
2. The Dark Profit Saga by J. Zachary Pike
   This is a rather dark comedic fantasy that takes a Dungeons and Dragons setting, filled with adventurers and guilds and monsters. Then it plops capitalism in the middle, gets insurance coverage involved, and spins the yarn out into an exploration of how badly capitalism fucks over those just trying to get by. It was a Self Published Fantasy Blog-Off winner, and it well deserves it. Book 2, Son of a Litch, had me in tears. I’m surprised I haven’t chased book 3 down yet, honestly. I have nothing but praise for this series.
   
3. Noss Saga by Joaquín Baldwin
   This is not a series that will be for everyone. It’s an epic fantasy in the 90s style, full of big infodumps, magical artifacts, and ancient evils. It also engages pretty clearly in queer subcultures and doesn’t shy away from sex. I’m inching my way through this, but any book longer than 500 pages is a bit a tough sell these days, even when I love them. There’s just nothing else quite like this out there with a gay lead. See a longform review here.
   
4. Tinkered Starsong by Gail Carriger
   Think American Idol or a K-Pop Bootcamp, but at an intergalactic scale. Lots of fun explorations of how alien music works, mixed with a surprisingly chill slice-of-life approach that avoids many common – and overdone – YA plot points. Book 2 sees them going on tour, and I’m jazzed for it. See a longform review here.
   
5. Penric and Desdemona by Lois McMaster Bujold
   Another book I read for my Novella readathon back in July. This is a pretty well-known and long-running novella series. A himbo gets possessed by a demon, but he decides to make friends instead of fight back. People praise this, and book 1 was amazing. Also Bujold has a sterling reputation for a reason. See a longform review here.
   
6. Pact and Pattern by JT Greathouse
   This series came out right when anti-imperialist fantasy started to get mainstream traction. I think it largely and rightfully got overshadowed by Traitor Baru Cormorant in that space, but this book did some really interesting things with a hubristic character who thinks he can fix everything, is torn between two heritages, but ends up belonging nowhere truly. The sequel was a step up in every regard, which also gave a POV to my favorite teacher/mentor protagonist in a fantasy book.
   
7. Arcana Imperii by Miles Cameron
   This is a bit of an odd series. It’s mostly a slice-of-life story about a spaceship worker on a massive trade vessel who exchanges goods with aliens – whom have never been seen – at the edge of the known universe. Some ‘plot’ starts kicking in near the end, and I suspect the second half of the duology will be a more traditional structure. I think I’ll need to reread book 1 though, as its been so long that details have slipped my mind.
   
8. Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky:
   I didn’t love the first book as much as most people. Give me more of the evolutionary biology on steroids – spider culture was very cool – but the human sections felt like padding to get us to the inevitable culture clash. Tchaikovsky is becoming a default for light and mostly mindless reading that won’t ever make my all-time-favorites, but is reliably going to be a fun popcorn type book. See a longform review here.
   
9. Psycop by Jordan Castillo Price
   Another series that doesn’t require much brain power, this is a paranormal police procedural with a grumpy gay lead. I have a soft spot for snappily written police stories (thank you to my mother for introducing me to Janet Evonovitch. Somehow I never figured out that you knew all along I was gay, but this should’ve been a very easy signal that you were on to me) and this plays into my guilty pleasures delightfully. I read each of the first three in a day, and will probably keep binging this extremely long series on and off. See a longform review here.
   
10. New Crobuzon by China Miéville
    This iconic series is definitely not a popcorn book, and is foundational to the New Weird genre. It’s got crazy worldbuilding, a serious focus on social issues, and an interest in telling stories that aren’t always easy or convenient. I need to be in the right mood to pick up the sequel, but it’s been sitting on my book shelf patiently, and I promise I’ll get to it. See a longform review here.
    

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.