Wait. Let me clarify something about the chapter split here. Chapter 19 covered the journey from Serra’s realm through the multiverse and arriving at Equilor. Chapter 20 goes deeper into the Equilor visit and ends with their return to Dominaria.
This is part of my series retelling Diary of a Very Bad Year. Today we’re covering Chapter IV - the start of Part 2: The Collapse.
Book: It’s About Squirrels… | Author: Lynn Abbey
So we made it through the whole story. Squirrels, ghosts, brownies, a fairy queen who can’t pronounce “electricity,” and a Rube Goldberg trap made of beer cups and silverware balanced on a rocking chair. What a ride.
Chapters 12 through 14 give us a dead father reunion, a sister intervention, and Lauzoril having a very bad day with his undead relatives. These are the chapters where every thread starts pulling tighter.
Book: A Name to Conjure With by Donald Aamodt (1989)
There’s something about desert stories that just hits different. The constant threat of death by dehydration. The emptiness. The heat. When you strip away everything else, survival comes down to one thing: water.
Chapter 19 is the “time passes” chapter. And a lot of time passes. We’re talking thousands of years compressed into one chapter. Lynn Abbey pulls it off, though.
Previous: The Phyrexian Portal Is Destroyed
Chapter 18 covers a lot of ground. Urza builds a new weapon. Months pass. Ratepe becomes a secret agent. And Xantcha walks straight into the demon she hoped was dead.
This is part of my series retelling Diary of a Very Bad Year. Today we’re covering Chapter III.
It’s September 4, 2008. The Dow is at 11,188. Unemployment just hit 6.2 percent. Over 300,000 foreclosures this month. And HFM is back in his midtown office, looking out the window at the same city. But things are worse now.
Chapters 9 through 11 are where the book shifts gears in a really satisfying way. We jump between three very different settings: Thayan spy games, the Simbul’s disastrous private chambers, and Lauzoril’s complicated home life. And honestly, these chapters are some of the most character-revealing in the whole book.
Book: It’s About Squirrels… | Author: Lynn Abbey
So we’re at the part where Nic decides to rescue a brownie from a dead hard drive using beer and Vienna sausages. I love this story.