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Kylara Vatta is about to graduate from Spaceforce Academy on Slotter Key at the top of her class when a scandal erupts that she unwittingly, innocently played a role in - and, to save face, they kick her out. Her family has a vast shipping empire, and to get her away from media attention and give her something to do, they make her a captain and send her on a "milk run" with an experienced crew to babysit her-- she's taking the Glennys Jones to Lastway. At the first stop she comes across a possible money-making venture and decides to risk it, hoping to make enough money to buy the old ship she's captaining for herself and repair it, rather than scrap it for salvage as she is supposed to do. Naturally, something goes wrong-- and Ky's military training ends up being very important.

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An introduction to the bizarre and entertaining Discworld (a world that is actually shaped like a flat disc, carried by four elephants who stand on the back of the great turtle A'Tuin). We follow the hapless (but lucky) tourist Twoflower, his semi-unwilling guide, the wizard (of sorts) Rincewind, and Twoflower's luggage made of sapient pear-tree wood, as they traipse about and see various parts of this strange world - from the seedy, greedy inhabitants of Ankh-Mopork, to a forest with dryads and a temple for an ancient, unspeakable evil, through the dry seas to the Rim of the great disk, where the waters spill off the edge of the world into space, and finally they become the unwilling guests of the Krull, who have constructed a metal fish to fly off the edge of the world and take a closer look at the great turtle.

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Honor Harrington is thrilled to take command of her first space cruiser in the Royal Manticoran Navy, the light cruiser Fearless. She is a bit dismayed, however, when she learns that they are gutting her normal armaments and defenses to put in a grav lance - a powerful new weapon that can only be used at very close range, the whim of an admiral currently in favor. They test out the new ship in some war games, and with some cleverness and subtlety, Harrington is able to get close enough to take out a superdreadnought. But as soon as the other side knows about the grav lance, it's useless, and they lose exercise after exercise, which is demoralizing for Harrington's crew. Finally, when the grav lance experiment is seen to be a failure, Harrington and the Fearless are punished by being sent to Basilisk Station, which is actually strategically important (a wormhole junction), but politically contentious and has somehow turned into a dumping ground for incompetent officers. Naturally, it turns out to be very fortunate indeed that Honor is actually incredibly competent.

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Brigitte is complacent and comfortable in her life - until she loses her job (where she has loyally served) and her boyfriend of 6 years (whom she'd always assumed she'd marry) dumps her to leave for his dream job, running an archaeological dig in Egypt. Brigitte tries to continue working on her own book, a definitive anthropological look at women's suffrage that she has been working on for years. She can't make any progress, so she goes to visit her mother and decides to help with some research on their family genealogy - first going to Salt Lake City. Then, when she discovers an Indian woman's name, Wachiwi, amongst their French aristocratic ancestors, Brigitte gets interested and follows the story, first to Indian archives and then eventually to France. Eventually she uncovers the story of a Dakota Sioux chief's daughter who was captured by the Crow, then seen with a Frenchman, and eventually made her way to France, where she was presented at court, married a Marquis, had children, and helped defend their Brittany chateau during the French revolution. Of course, along the way Brigitte comes into her own and is befriended by a kind Frenchman, an author who helps with her research.

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Chris and his daughter Becky created the imaginary world of Tamarisk wen Becky was a little girl going through scary leukemia treatment. They invented a world with fabulous colors and fascinating colors, and told stories about Princess Miea night after night in Becky's bed, before bedtime. Now, Chris has a strained relationship with his teenage daughter, and the haven't told any Tamarisk stories in the 4 years since Chris and Polly, Becky's mother, were divorced. Suddenly, Becky discovers that Tamarisk is real, and that she can visit - and even take her father - but only from her childhood bed, where they invented Tamarisk, now in her father's apartment.

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