The 10th anniversary of Life is Strange is fast approaching: next January will mark a full decade since Max, Chloe and Co. first entered our lives and, in many cases, captured our hearts. Many of us who loved Life is Strange the first time can safely say that even after all these years, we are still just as infatuated with the world and its characters as we were then.

For a fairly niche choose-your-own-adventure series about marginalized superheroes growing up in the modern-day United States, Life is Strange has grown into a surprisingly sprawling franchise over the past decade, no doubt boosted by the deep pockets of publisher and IP owner Square Enix. Life is Strange: Double Exposure, due out October 29, will be the fifth main game in the series; however, focusing only on the main releases means depriving yourself of some delightful side stories in the form of DLC chapters, comics, a planned TV series, and now even a couple of novels.

Life is Strange: Heatwaves was released on July 31, a prose addition to the franchise that’s perfectly timed for anyone looking to get a dose of LiS before Halloween. It follows Life is Strange: Steph’s Story as the second prose entry in the series, and now that there are two LiS companion novels to compare and contrast, I’m more confident than ever in my overall assessment of the current state of the franchise. Sure, like most long-running series, it’s essentially a fanservice machine, but I’m continually impressed by the wildly different interpretations of “fanservice” at work here.

You only have to compare Steph’s Story to Heatwaves to see what I mean. An interquel between Before the Storm and True Colors, Steph’s Story follows fan-favorite Steph Gingrich on her off-screen journey from supporting character in BtS to deuteragonist (and optional love interest) of TC. Writer Rosiee Thor nails Steph’s voice from the games absolutely perfectly, and it’s a wonderful Gaiden look at what an ordinary resident of Arcadia Bay was doing, thinking, and feeling during the devastating aftermath of the original game. If there’s a downside, it’s that there are no surprises whatsoever for anyone who’s played the games. Steph’s Story was literally fleshed out from start to finish before Thor wrote a single word, and while they gave an absolutely perfect look into Steph’s inner workings, there’s not much else for lore fans to sink their teeth into.

Heatwaves, written by Brittney Morris (also, incidentally, author of the companion novel to Marvel’s Spider Man: Miles Morales), takes a completely different approach. Set after one of six possible endings to Life is Strange: True Colors, Heatwaves is more or less a self-contained story about what might happen next should Alex decide to leave Haven Springs to pursue a music career with his new girlfriend Steph in tow. The prologue makes it very clear that the existence of Heatwaves – like all other companion materials, which inevitably always follow one timeline or another to some degree – is not intended to canonize that particular ending of the game, but rather just to show one possible future that results from a specific set of choices. Less a character study like Steph’s Story, it’s more of a small-town mystery in line with most games in the series, and devotes considerable subplot time to further developing the popular (but optional) romance between Alex and Steph.

So yes, both books clearly exist for fanservice—let’s be honest, what video game companion novel doesn’t?—but even so, the approach is very different in both cases. This isn’t a review, but if you want a snap judgement, I’d have to say that Steph’s Story captures the characters and world of Life is Strange in a way that feels more authentic than the games, but Heatwaves is a more interesting read thanks to branching out into an original narrative. Superfans of LiS should definitely read both; casual or non-fans of the series will likely be disappointed in both cases (again, this is a companion novel in short).

While it’s narratively unrelated to the upcoming release of Life is Strange: Double Exposure – which returns to the perspective of original protagonist Max Caulfield and, fittingly, takes her forward 10 years after the events of the first game – the fact that Heatwaves took the risk of alienating parts of the audience to deliver a sequel that would satisfy other groups of fans shows why Squeenix’s unexpected decision to make a direct sequel to Life is Strange a decade later is no reason to dismiss the new game outright. Much like giving Alex and Steph their ride into the sunset, a follow-up game for the original main characters has been a popular topic of conversation among the fanbase since the end of the debut game. But fittingly for fans of a series all about making difficult choices, the LiS community is anything but a hive mind, and not everyone is happy that Double Exposure will serve as a continuation of the two different endings to Max’s story, meaning Chloe will be sidelined in one way or another.

Still, it seems unfair to suggest that a Max-led follow-up means the developer has run out of ideas for the series when each main entry has been so markedly different from what came before. Following up the original game with a prequel, then a numbered but otherwise unrelated sequel, then an anthology-style sequel, and now a direct sequel may make Life is Strange as messy as one of its disastrously bisexual main characters, but at least they can’t be accused of using the same idea over and over again. In the likely event that a sixth LiS game does pop up in a few years, all I know to expect next is the last thing I would have expected from them.

The Life is Strange novels (and to a lesser extent the comic series) are now heading in a similarly chaotic direction; but thankfully, chaotic good is my preferred direction. While Heatwaves unfortunately received minimal marketing from Square, I’d still be pretty surprised if they didn’t release another book at some point in the future. Now that we’ve broken the seal of sequel endings to games that didn’t include time travel as a convenient narrative device, can we even hope for a Life is Strange 2 follow-up novel? Probably not, I think this spin-off of that franchise might actually be dead and buried… but then again, as we’ve already established, Life is Strange seems to like to stay bold when it comes to giving fans what they’ve been asking for.