Once upon a time, I would only read something if it had at least three volumes. As a (very fast) reader, I felt like anything else was truly unsatisfying. And it really was: it felt to me that I barely had time to get into the story that it was over. Let's not even mention short stories that made me feel I only had to blink twice before they were over. So I looked for and read voraciously anything that came with more than one volume.
But strangely, for about a year now, I've realised that I'm reading more and more stand alone novels.

Of course, one could blame life: I don't have as much time on my hands as when I was a young adult. Nowadays, I go to bed with the intent of reading at least 100 pages and have to give up that goal 40 pages later because my eyes are closing on their own.
Some backward looking persons could also say that I'm too distracted by social media and that I would have been reading when nowadays I just check Twitter. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is completely untrue as the time I spend on Twitter more or less equates the time I used to spend playing video games.
Curiouser and curiouser: I've even found myself enjoying novellas lately. Novellas! That's around 100 pages. I can do 100 pages in one reading session, you know. Where are the days when I would get lost in trilogies for weeks?

As all the regular readers of the Middle Shelf know, diversity is extremely important here.
The blog was open with one initial goal: to alternate reviews about books written by male writers and books written by female writers. In 2016, I added another guideline: a fourth of all the reviews per calendar year would be about writers of colour. In 2017, I am aiming for a third.
And so far, so good. I have no trouble finding excellent stories by female writers or by PoC writers even if, when it comes to PoC writers, there aren't that many offerings.
The problem is that in April I've decided to review novels I've liked from the Clarke Award submission list... And there are only five writers of colour on it.

It's almost always all about the characters. We can forgive a cliché story if it has characters we engage with. We more rarely forgive a story, however great, if the characters are bland or barely brushed.
The characters make us care. We identify with them, we reject them sometimes too, we recognise ourselves in them or aspire to be more like them. Because there are great characters, then we're ready to follow them wherever the writer leads them. With time, some become associated with moments in our lives and become a part of us.
It's all about the characters.
So here are some of our favourites characters in science-fiction and fantasy and what makes them special to us, in no particular order.
Warning: may contain traces of Pratchett and Tolkien characters.