After falling in love with the world and characters of Prosperity, I jumped on the chance to read this collection of short stories/novellas. There are both prequel and sequel stories, both origin stories and what-happened-afterwards. All the characters from Prosperity showed up again AND there were some fun new ones! Shackle, the first story, is how Ruben and Milord got together! It’s just as painful and powerful as their scenes in Prosperity, and it is also super hot. I think this (younger) Ruben is somehow more aware of how impossible it’d be to change Milord than the (older) Ruben in Prosperity, which makes me wonder what happened between this story and that one. Squamous with a Chance of Rain is how Jane became an insane mistress of monsters. It’s a gothic horror story written in letters and is full of fun lesbian undertones and overtones. There are references to Rebecca as well, which made me happy. Cloudy Climes and Starless Skies is Byron Kae’s memoirs of how their life from childhood to becoming captain of the ship, with bonus kissing and sexytimes with Dil. Said sexytimes is fairly undetailed, which seems unusual for this series because every other sexytime is VERY detailed. Since it’s from Byron Kae’s POV, though, and not Dil’s (who is the master of sexytime details), I suppose that makes sense, character-wise. But it was still a strange difference from every other couple. Liberty is my favorite story of the set, and not just because it gives heaps of more information about the world of Prosperity. It’s super exciting! There is a mad scientist, monsters, slightly dishonorable soldiers, spies and sky pirates! It’s also told in reports and letters and depositions, which is a fun format for a novella. I very much enjoyed getting back into the world of Prosperity, and I can’t wait to more stories and books set in it. Yay! Read: January 2, 2015