Monthly Archives for December 2022

My Favorite 2022 Reads and a Streaming Series

Narrowing down my 2022 reading list to a short selection of favorites was difficult, but I managed.

• Flames of Hope (Wings of Fire #15)
by Tui T. Sutherland
I loved all 22 books connected to this series.

• The Last Graduate (The Scholomance Series, Book 2)
• The Golden Enclaves (The Scholomance Series, Book 3)
by Naomi Novik
Last year’s list included
A Deadly Education (The Scholomance Series, Book 1)

• The Shelterlings
by Sarah Beth Durst

• All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries books #1)
• Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries books #2)
• Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries books #3)
• Exit Strategy (The Murderbot Diaries books #4)
by Martha Wells

• To Sleep in a Sea of Stars
by Christopher Paolini

And, I’ll add to my favorites for 2022 a streaming series.

• Dreamworks’ Dragons Rescue Riders
(29 Netflix episodes followed by 24 Peacock episodes)

Dragons Rescue Riders is based in the Dreamworks How to Train Your Dragon universe, but unlike all of the other entries in that movie and TV franchise, which are stories about humans with sidekick dragons, Dragons Rescue Riders is about the dragons and their two human friends who can understand the dragon language. (Precedent was set in Cressida Cowell’s original How to Train Your Dragon books where Hiccup could speak dragonese.) The characters are wonderful, the stories are fun with great foreshadowing of future episodes and callbacks to previous episodes, and layering of complexity, inspirations, jokes, and insights. I loved it.

Book covers for Flames of Hope, The Last Graduate, The Golden Enclaves, The Shelterlings, All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, and title card for Dragons Rescue Riders
Book Covers and Streaming Series Title Card

Good Deeds

My 100-word Christmas story for 2022.

Good Deeds
by Lester D. Crawford

I looked. No one was there. Still, I felt someone was watching me.

It’s been a terrible year. My day job sucks, and this feeling of being watched makes me concerned I have mental health issues. My volunteer work helping people and the community is all that’s kept me going.

I looked again. A shimmering red and green and silver and gold Christmas dragon stared at me.

He said, “I have been watching you. You have been performing good deeds. Performing good deeds is the purpose of life. Continue performing good deeds.”

Then, he was gone.

Yep, mental health issues.

Audio version.


Years ago, Loren Eaton at I Saw Lightning Fall inspired me to write a 100-word Advent Ghosts Christmas story. Now, every year, I write a 100-word Christmas story. It’s always fun.

Read stories submitted by other writers here: Advent Ghosts 2022: The Stories.