Top Ten Tuesday – Series I Wish to Continue

So the topic for this week was supposed to be bookish wishes, as in a list of books that I would love to own. You see the problem with that is that I have a lot of books that I own that I need to read. I want to at least try reading every single book I own. Storygraph says that I own just under six hundred and fifty books, and there are more books that I own because I haven’t been updating that part of Storygraph.

Also when I’m looking to own a book, I usually don’t go to the bookstore and go looking for something specific. No, I wander around until something catches my eye and I buy that book. There are some books that I would like to own, but not enough to make a list and the books I want to own are kind of expensive. They’re special books (not rare books or special editions, just books that tell their stories in different ways like House of Leaves and need to be physical).

There aren’t that many books that I’ve been wanting to buy, so instead I’m going a different route. There is a whole pile of series that I have started and have yet to finish. I figured I might as well go through them and make a list. This is a list of ten series I would like to finish. Some of them are ongoing series, others are complete. All are series that I wish to complete at some point if possible.

This is a part of Top Ten Tuesday which is currently being run by That Artsy Reader Girl. This will hopefully be the last one I write up the night before for a while because I’ve been writing ahead. Anyway here is my list.

Red Queen series by Victoria Aveyard

I picked up Red Queen at the start of this year and it was a pleasant surprise. Though I have a lot of questions about how this world works, I think the way this is a fey fantasy series with no actual fey. Mare Barrow lives in a world where some people have silver blood and power both magical and politically, while everyone else has no power. The silver-blooded noble elite rule this world while the red-bloods can only serve the silvers. She lives as a thief trying to make things work for her without being forced to fight in the war as a conscripted soldier. Unfortunately because of how everything turns out the only way she can escape being a soldier is to serve in the palace, a job which a kind stranger got for her somehow.

During her first day on the job, she discovers that she has an ability in front of everyone. As a red this is impossible, so to cover this up the queen declares to everyone that Mare is Mareena, a long-lost silver princess. Suddenly she has to take on a new identity in a world she doesn’t know or risk death, while in the background a rebellion is brewing.

I recently finished the second book in this series, Glass Sword, and I found it better than the first book. I feel like the theme of connection and identity will continue into the third book. I don’t know how the third book will start, but I’m excited to read it whenever it becomes available to me. By the way, Glass Sword is a book I could write about for a while. I would just be writing spoilers though so I’m going to hold off.

The Coldest Fae by Katerina Martinez

I’m moving from a fae series that has no actual fae, to a series that is so blatantly a fae story that it only has a handful of humans. This series follows Dahlia, a human seamstress with a pixie friend raised by a family that makes magical dresses. One day she is taken from her home by fae soldiers and brought to Arcadia to the Winter Court where she must participate in a competition to see who will become the next queen alongside the Prince. The problem is everyone thinks she’s fae, which she isn’t, and everyone else around her has been preparing for this competition for a very long time.

This isn’t a very difficult series to read. I could probably finish this series in a week if I tried. The main reason I don’t is because the only type of series I tend to binge are comics or manga, and even then I probably shouldn’t binge the entire series. I need a break. I do own the entire series in this case and I’m currently reading the third book. I like some of the choices that were made within this series and I’ve been enjoying the series so far. I’ll probably finish this series by the end of the year just because I can, then I will move on to Katerina Martinez’s other series.

Shadows and Crowns by S.M. Gaither

This is a series that I started and then decided I would never return to. Then I ended up continuing it a couple of months ago and I’m glad I did. This is an interesting world. Casia is Fade-marked. This means that she survived the deadly disease that has been spreading throughout the kingdom. No one knows why she survived, not even she knows that. She works with an outcast crew of mercenaries.

She is surprised when the king wants to work with her to find a cure. This means that she must also work alongside the captain of one of the most prestigious branches of the military. That is Captain Elandor who has secrets of his own that he tries to hide and connections to dark death magic. They work together, but quickly realize that something dark is brewing within the kingdom and not everything is as it seems. Very few parts of this story are what they seem.

The thing I like most about this series is the power system. People are granted a mark by a god which allows them to use magic. The gods then feed on the magic that is used by these marked ones. There are a wide variety of powers including some that I feel are less common. There is more than just fire, water, air, and earth. A sky mark can give the ability to create barriers and shields. A person with a feather mark can calm everyone around them. I want to see what more marks do. Also, the plot is pretty cool. I will continue the series to see both of them.

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

This was a really good series. I’ve read the first three books and now there is only one book left. There are also some little prequel stories I will likely want to read. This novel follows two people. Elias is a Martial soldier who is training to become a silver mask at the academy and has been working towards this for his entire life. He wishes to be free and resists the silver mask he puts on his face every day. Laia on the other hand is a Scholar slave who lives with her family. She doesn’t challenge the empire or try to resist, however, when her brother is arrested for treason she finds that she must make a choice. The two meet and they quickly realize that their destinies are intertwined. Their choices will change the empire forever.

This isn’t a super magical series, at least at first. There are silver masks which bond to the faces of those who wear them. Some ancient monk-like people can see into the future, read minds, and are the driving force of a lot of the events. There are even ancient magical beings and monsters who are believed to be myths. Now that I think about it, there is a fair amount of magic in this series, it just doesn’t contain as much magic as other series on this list.

This is a well-written series that I want to read at the end of so that’s why it’s on this list.

The Halfling Saga by Melissa Blair

I think this is the first series on this list where not all the books are out yet. I’ve read the three books that have already been published and now I’m patiently waiting for the last book in this series. Until then I may as well write about this series at least once on my blog to try to get people to read it.

Keera is the King’s Blade. This means that she’s a very talented spy and the king’s favoured assassin. She is also a halfling meaning that she has Fae blood and much of her job involves killing the king’s enemies, even if those enemies are her people. There have been stories about the Shadow moving through the kingdom and Keera has been dispatched to catch whoever this mysterious person is. She tracks him to Faeland where and investigates there. It quickly becomes clear that nothing is as it seems. All through this Keera is haunted by a promise that she made years ago, one that she sees little chance of actually keeping.

This is a story of an oppressed and broken girl who throughout the series is healing and rediscovering her heritage. It made me cry a couple of times. I picked up the first book because it was on an A-frame sign outside my local library for multiple months and then before I knew it there were three novels out. I think that the series only gets better with each new book. Though I should warn you, each book ends in a bit of a cliffhanger which only raises questions you will have until the next book comes out.

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

This is a series I picked up earlier this year because the most recent book won a best cover award on Daniel Greene’s Fantasy News Award Show for 2023. I just saw this picture on the screen and knew I had to try this series. I’ve read the first book and I have the second book on my Kindle. I’m planning on getting future books as audiobooks because I’ve heard good things about audiobooks. This is a series I want to finish because I found it funny and it was also my introduction to litRPG which I see as a pretty fun genre.

It follows Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat Donut as all the buildings on the planet are flattened and all the surviving humans are herded down into a mysterious dungeon. Of course, Carl has no pants or shoes on so he hopes he can find some of those later. He discovers quickly that this dungeon contains monsters and traps just like a typical RPG. Not only this he has levels and skills that he can level up. To make matters worse this dungeon is a form of competition edited into the form of a reality TV show for the entire galaxy to watch. Now he must progress to survive.

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

I started this series last year when my hold for the first book was ready in Libby. This first book wasn’t very long, and when I look at the page counts of all the books in the series only two of them surpass 200 pages. Despite this short length, I felt like a lot happened in this book. I liked the character of Murderbot and I like the setting of a corporate-driven space age. I also like how the protagonist isn’t a human like the rest of the characters, but rather a literal robot. It’s really interesting being in the head of Murderbot.

A group of human scientists is conducting surface tests on a planet. There is one other team on that planet performing tests on the other side which is better funded. Each team is given a Company-supplied security android both to protect the team and to make sure they follow all protocols and don’t attack the Company too much. This team’s android is special. It calls itself “Murderbot” and tries to hide the fact that it can not only think for itself but also isn’t directly connected to the Company. It’s free and it wants to stay free. Murderbot also wants to discover who it is. When the other team goes dark, it’s up to the humans and Murderbot to find out what happened and hopefully stop the same thing from happening to them.

Moonfall by Sarah A. Parker

I find it funny how there are two Moonfall series that I could have put on my list. I put this one on because I enjoyed it slightly more than the other one. Honestly, I had some problems with both of them, however, I found this one better written and it also has a world that I quickly came to understand. This is another fey world where Creators sang everything into existence including both fey and dragons. When dragons die they at least try to fly up to the sky and petrify, becoming moons. There are many moons in the sky and many fey can hear and use at least one of the Creator’s songs.

Raeve is an Elding Blade of the Fiur du Ath whose job is to kill. She goes a little above and beyond with what she does because she hates to see any form of abuse of power. She dreams of one day killing the king. One day, a bounty hunter kills the one person she loves and so she goes after him. She got captured put on trial, and executed. What most people don’t realize is that she was rescued, by another king, the King of the Burn. She doesn’t know what to think about this, however her goal is to escape at her first chance. What she doesn’t realize is that when the king looks at her, he is reminded of someone he once loved in the past.

There are mysteries in this series that I want to see solved. The main problem I have is that there are scenes that I don’t enjoy, and these scenes are paired with some exposition so it’s hard to skim through them. Despite that, I did understand what I read and ended up enjoying this world.

The Winnowing Flame by Jen Williams

This is a darker fantasy series than any of the others I’ve added to this list. In it, you can find ancient and dying elves who can only watch as their entire empire falls and crumbles slowly around them while waiting for the next rain. The Jure’lia are coming, monstrous beings that come from the sky and which only the elves can defend against. It’s up to an eccentric explorer, Lady Vincenza, the elf Tormalin who doesn’t want to wait to die with his people, and a rogue witch who has been known to accidentally set things on fire, to find a way to deal with this threat before its too late.

My favourite part of this series was the witches. They can all wield fire and they are imprisoned until they can be used. The flames are an important part of the series as you can tell by its title. This is a story of a fallen world and the attempts to protect what is left. I want to finish reading this series at some point.

Discworld by Terry Pratchett

This is a good series to end this list with. I read a graphic novel which was a condensed version of the first book when I was young and it showed up at my local library. I kept hearing all about the series and wanting to read it. It looked like something that I would like.

Then a couple of years ago I got the first book, The Color of Magic, in a book swap and I read it. I did end up enjoying it and now I want to steadily read all of the other books. There are a lot of them and that’s okay. That just means I will be reading this series for a while.

If you don’t know it takes place on top of a massive disc which is in turn on top of the back of four elephants which are then in turn on the back of a massive turtle hurtling through space. It follows various characters who live within this disc and contains magic, more magic, and humour. This is one series I know I will enjoy.