Aug 22, 2023
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The Mageworlds Series by Debra Doyle
If you like magic mixed with spaceships, multi-cultural exchanges, non-human characters, secret identifies, gender-fluid biromantic demisexuals, and wish the Jedi could get married... MAGEWORLDS is the series for you.
The Mageworlds series is everything Little Me wanted Star Wars to be, and everything Star Wars could never be because it was written by a misogynistic, racist old man who liked erasing and humiliating women.
Price Of The Stars
Starpilot's Grave
By Honor Betray'd
Gathering Flame
The Longhunt
FOR THE LOVE OF GOOD SCI-FI GO READ THE MAGEWORLDS SERIES. https://www.goodreads.com/series/53631-mageworlds
NOTE - Beka doesn’t identify as these things on the page because she the book was written in the 90′s. She switches between masculine and feminine pronouns fluidly, easily, and regularly throughout the first few books. She has a single lover who accepts being considered homosexual/bisexual without a blink is a pretty cannon-bi. Beka is written as having no sexual interest in anyone ever except for one person, which is pretty darn demisexual bordering on asexual.
Other fun things include: sex-positive talks about sex workers (and a sex worker as a main character in the 3rd book), magic in space, well-developed world-building, space pirates, women in positions of power.
Devil’s Elbow #10: “Up the Airy Mountain” by Debra Doyle and James MacDonald
Wing recaps the werewolf and fairy short story "Up the Airy Mountain" by Debra Doyle and James MacDonald, part of their Bad Blood werewolf series. (Note: Episode picked up some scratchiness in a few places; we're working to keep that from happening in future episodes. Apologies that we didn't catch it in time to stop it for this one.)
Links mentioned in the podcast:
Written Recaps: pointhorror.com
Episode Media: "Up the Airy Mountain" by Debra Doyle and James MacDonald
Recaps for the rest of the series:
#1 Bad Blood
#2 Hunters' Moon
#2.5 "Up the Airy Mountain"
#3 Judgment Night
Facebook: Devil's Elbow
Tumblr: Devil's Elbow
Patreon: Devil's Elbow
LISTEN TO THE EPISODE
Got a nice little book haul from the library’s sale
Mercedes Lackey:
Heralds of Valdemar: Arrows of the Queen, Arrow’s Flight, and Arrow’s Fall
The Last Herald Mage: Magic’s Pawn, Magic’s Price (they didn’t have the second book, though)
Royal Assassin and Assassin’s Quest - Robin Hobb
Hunting Party - Elizabeth Moon
Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr
The Price of the Stars - Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald
Empire in Black and Gold - Adrian Tchaikovsky
Phylogenesis and Diuturnity’s Dawn - Alan Dean Foster
The Longest Way Home - Robert Silverberg
The Godfather - Mario Puzo
The Pleasure of My Company - Steve Martin (yes, THAT Steve Martin)
The White Lioness and The Return of the Dancing Master - Henning Mankell
Alaska - James A. Michener
Red Harvest, The Dain Curse, The Maltese Falcon, The Glass Key, and The Thin Man - Dashiell Hammett (omnibus)
Skinwalkers, A Thief of Time, and Coyote Waits - Tony Hillerman (another omnibus)
Sanibel Flats - Randy Wayne White
15 Travis McGee novels that I’m not going to list because it’s 15 books - John D. MacDonald
Wing Recaps Up the Airy Mountain by Debra Doyle and James Macdonald
Title: Up the Airy Mountain by Debra Doyle & James Macdonald (Bad Blood series)
Summary: Valerie Sherwood is a werewolf. That doesn’t make her high school social life any easier. Good thing her boyfriend’s cool with it. But tonight she’s followed her nose into more trouble than she knows, and the question stops being can she save her friends and becomes can she save herself.
Tagline: None
Initial Thoughts
Considering we only just found these books about a year ago, my excitement over this additional short story is as extreme as if I’d been waiting for more for the past thirty years. I love Val and this series and this world so damn much, and I am thrilled to get to spend one more month recapping it.
(Val and friends have previously shown up in Bad Blood, Hunters’ Moon, and Judgment Night, all recapped earlier this year.)
READ THE RECAP
Bad Blood (Bad Blood #1) by Debra Doyle & James Macdonald
Title: Bad Blood (Bad Blood #1) by Debra Doyle & James Macdonald
Summary: It started with a group of teenagers telling scary stories around a campfire. No one believed Jay’s wild tale of moonlight and werewolves. They thought he was kidding when he said, “By morning, you’ll all be dead.” But Valerie saw the strange hunger in the boy’s eyes – and that night, she felt the sharp touch of his fangs…
Tagline: The moon is full. Beware the beast.
Note: As Dove requested, I’ve updated my template, because we now apparently call the Bad Guys Muffin Man. Hey, it makes as much sense as most Point Horrors. There’s no actual hidden Muffin Man in this story.
Initial Thoughts:
I love this damn book so, so much. Dove read it when she was younger, and then lost it for years. It took us ages to finally track down the title, and then I read it for the first time and fell in love. With it, with the entire trilogy. Here’s hoping I can manage an entertaining recap when I adore a book this much.
[Dove: As Wing said, I bought the sequel to this from a bargain bookstore, and I think a friend “borrowed” it and it never came back. Knowing how much Wing loves werewolf books, I told her about it, hoping she’d know who it was by. She didn’t. So every so often, at the end of a writing session, we’d devote about an hour to searching for it, and after so many years, Wing found it. And it’s just as awesome as it was back then.]
READ THE RECAP
Hunters’ Moon (Bad Blood #2) by Debra Doyle and James Macdonald
Title: Hunters’ Moon (Bad Blood #2) by Debra Doyle and James Macdonald
Summary: Bitten by a werewolf, Valerie had no choice but to accept the bloodthirsty call of the full moon. Even though she vowed never to kill humans, children were being murdered in the night–drained of blood. On their necks was the mark of the vampire. Valerie knew she had to stop the creatures from killing again. But she didn’t know the vampires had the power to control werewolves.…
If werewolves are only folklore…
…then why does Val Sherwood transform into a savage wolf every full moon? Because the legends are real. Val has no choice but to accept the ancient curse — and try to live a normal life in the town of Hillside.
If vampires are just a myth…
… then why are children slowly drained of blood, drop by drop, night after night? Because a dark master and his thirsty brood have come to feed upon them all, using their unearthly powers to enslave and destroy. Val is determined to track down the vampires’ lair with her own predatory powers. But…
If vampires are able to control wolves…
…then Val and her family are dead meat.
Tagline: Night calls the hunter — and the hunted…
Note: As Dove requested, I’ve updated my template, because we now apparently call the Bad Guys Muffin Man. Hey, it makes as much sense as most Point Horrors. I don’t actually use it here, even though there is a Muffin Man. Sort of.
Initial Thoughts:
I love this book so damn much. As we mentioned in the second episode of the podcast, Dove and I spent years searching for this series based on Dove’s hazy memory of some of the details of this specific book. I was both shocked and delighted when she told me there was a teen werewolf book I’d never even heard about, and probably built my expectations way too high, though I tried to keep them low, after some of the books I was most excited about recapping turned out to be terrible.
As with book one, I love this book. I marathoned the entire trilogy when I first bought it, and have already reread it multiple times since, over the course of less than a year. I’m so excited to share this recap with you all.
(THAT COVER YOU GUYS, THAT COVER IS SO RIDICULOUS AND SO WONDERFUL.)
READ THE RECAP
Judgment Night by Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald
Title: Judgment Night by Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald
Summary: “I HAD A BAD DREAM…”
Valerie Sherwood knew all about nightmares. Three years ago she was turned into a werewolf, and ever since that strange moonlit night, she understood the power of the darkness. The only thing to fear was fear itself. And tonight, that fear came to her in her dreams.
“IT SEEMED SO REAL…”
When Valerie awoke, the nightmare didn’t end. Even by day, she was haunted by terrible shapes and sensations: The horrible vision of a giant, skeletal bird. The foul smell of decay. The chilling sound of eerie music. And that was just the beginning.
“I’M SCARED…”
There are some things so dark and evil that even a werewolf would be afraid. Now Valerie is about to learn the awful truth about the ancient force that calls to her from the mountains: It feeds on her fear. And it’s hungry for more…
JUDGMENT NIGHT
The dark legacy of terror lives on — in the shattering sequel to BAD BLOOD and HUNTERS’ MOON.
Tagline: It’s the One Night That Every Werewolf Fears
Note: As Dove requested, I’ve updated my template, because we now apparently call the Bad Guys Muffin Man. Hey, it makes as much sense as most Point Horrors. Except I pretty much never call anyone the Muffin Man, so moot point.
Initial Thoughts:
I don’t know how many times I can say I love this book and this series, but it still holds true. I love this book and this series. To be fair, this is probably my least favorite book in the series, but I still adore it. [Wing: Note from the future. In recapping it, I realized how damn much I loved it.]
[Dove: I had never read this before — apparently in my excitement of finding the series, I read the first two, then passed out in the sheer joy of finding them. So if you heard me sounding proud on the podcast when I told Wing I’d read this, that’s why.]
READ THE RECAP