Brandon Sanderson has confirmed that he has now sold over 50 million copies of his novels. We only had confirmation earlier this year that he’d reached 45 million, so this is an impressive achievement.

Back in January 2024, I assembled the latest incarnation of my “SFF All-Time Sales List,” which had sales figures of 40 million for Brandon (in 29th place). These were very healthy figures.

The updated figures for Sanderson would move him up to around 23rd place, just behind Diana Gabaldon, Casandra Clare, Robert Heinlein, Richard Adams and Terry Brooks. Very healthy company to be in. Unsurprising as in the meantime he’s released his long-awaited fifth Stormlight Archive novel, Wind and Truth, short novel Isles of the Emberdark, and is now working on a return to his perennially popular Mistborn sequence, with a new trilogy projected to begin publication in 2028. He’s also just published a short story collection, Tailored Realities, and has confirmed a new …

I made it a goal this year to exclusively read indie and self-published fantasy books. I wanted to see if the stigmas around self-publishing were valid, or if they were mostly grounded in generic stereotypes (but we’ll dive more into that in another post).

The point of this post is to highlight the hidden gems I discovered from author submissions. So, out of the 40 books I read, here are my top 6 favorites:

6. Isaac Unknown by James McFadden

This is an urban fantasy that feels like the show Supernatural. The main character reminded me a little of Dean Winchester as he went about these little adventures to get rid of classic monsters. I’m usually not a huge fan of urban fantasy, so it was nice to have my expectations subverted here.

5. Demonology & the Art of Pickling Demons by Matt Moore

I know the title is a little outrageous, but this was a fun read. It’s more for YA audiences I’d say, but it’s a great coming of age story about a boy who learns …

I have been trying to figure out what the difference between these two sub-genres is. Every time I look it up, I either see conflicting responses or I see definitions that don’t really seem distinct from each other. Can anyone explain, as basically and succinctly as possible, what exactly each sub-genre is and how each differs from the other?

Wheel of Time, Game of Thrones, The Lord of the Rings, Stormlight Archives, Harry Potter, The Wandering Inn, Dungeon Crawler Carl. All lead to war or culminate in it. Any good series that doesn’t?

Kinda getting tired of grand battles and want something different. Sure, Kingkiller might not but who knows when that’ll happen.

One of my favorite things in fantasy is watching a society fall apart or change under pressure. Give me barricades, secret meetings in basements, magic being used to print illegal pamphlets, all of that. But the more I read, the more I notice how many fictional revolutions feel strangely weightless once you step back from the cool moments. Alot of books hit the same beats - evil empire, ragtag rebels, one big battle, then we cut to “and then everything got better”. No one is arguing about food shortages, no one is mad that the chosen hero just replaced one monarchy with another, the city just sort of snaps into a nicer version of itself. It can still be fun, but it leaves me feeling like I watched a fireworks show instead of a real change, if that makes sense.

What really sticks with me are the stories that slow down and show what rebellion actually costs people who arent on the front line. I love when the magic systems get tangled up with class and power, when the rebels …

I’ve watched my fair share of time-loop stories—Groundhog Day, Edge of Tomorrow, Palm Springs, and more. I love the genre, so when I heard about Mother of Learning, often called the gold standard of time-loop story, I had to try it. Last week, I completed my third read, and it genuinely hurts me that this novel still doesn’t receive the recognition it deserves.

Things I Liked the Most

• A true progressive fantasy. Zorian (protoganist) doesn’t level up magically overnight. He studies, fails, repeats, refines, and improves. It’s character progression that actually makes sense.

• The protagonist is not the chosen one.

• Time-loop mechanics is explained properly. Unlike most time-loop stories that rely on mystery or convenience, this one spells out its mechanics in a way that is coherent, structured, and believable.

• No romance. Personal preference, don’t like half baked romance in my fantasy novels.

I could praise this story all day, but honestly, it’s better if new readers go in …

Confronting Evil by Bill O’Reilly is sold as a nonfiction book about some of the worst villains throughout history, and the events that resulted from their actions. I was really excited to read this book. It seemed interesting, and I was curious about the conditions and personalities that lead to atrocities. I quit in the third chapter because NONE OF IT IS PROPERLY RESEARCHED. O’Reilly made an accusation against king Henry VIII that didn’t seem right, and was in fact disproved by the shallowest google search possible. I then went to the book’s reference section. Of the 11 chapters most have less than 5 sources, and all these sources seem to be for things like newspaper articles and population data, not biographical information. His chapter on New Orleans slaver has ONE SOURCE. This could have been a really cool book, and it is instead a massive waste of time. The only good thing about this book is that I got it from the library instead of paying good money for it. If you’re interested …

What I am about to write probably FEELS like a spoiler but it really isn’t. Think of this as a contextual nudge so you can just hop on the ride and enjoy the twists and turns yet to come that leave your jaw on the GROUND.

Okay so long story short: it is the longest book that you never want to end and perhaps the greatest revenge story ever told. The first 100 pages have the narration putting the reader “in the know”. What that means is YOU see more than Dante than does. And what you see is an innocent young man get his life completely destroyed without having done anything to deserve it. Like, literally nothing. Nada. Zilch. It’s almost comical in how petty it is. He’s thrown in prison with NO idea why but you do.

Then the narration FLIPS after a couple of hundred pages… suddenly Dante knows more than YOU do as the reader and it remains that way for the rest of the book. He’s out of prison. He knows who did this. He knows who destroyed him. …

I just finished it, and thought it was an absolute masterpiece.

I described it to a friend as “probably the best quantum cosmic horror detective thriller you could ever want to read.”

I think the best way to think of it is as a novel-length, professional written SCP entry.

It IS a detective novel. Or at least, it keeps telling itself that, as a means of holding it together. The MC is an agent of a weird super special investigations unit. And she spends the story trying to solve some crimes.

What kind of crimes, what special investigations unit? Well…

Suffice to say, in this story, there is a quantum drive that allows you to take a trip into a possible future, and come back. Or, to the farthest reaches of space (to distant galaxies).

There is a lot to the mechanics of the way this works that is fascinating, mind-bending, and horrifying.

The horror aspect is right up front: it’s a horror novel as much as an sf novel, the horror elements seem gratuitous at …

I’ve only read “There Is No…”, has anyone read the others? Roberts is one of my favorite living authors, so I’ll probably give them all a shot…

Circular Motion
Alex Foster (Grove)
Alex Foster’s novel treats climate catastrophe through high-concept satire. A new technology of super-fast pods revolutionises travel: launched into low orbit from spring-loaded podiums, they fly west and land again in minutes, regardless of distance. Since every action has an equal and opposite reaction, our globe starts to spin faster. Days contract, first by seconds, then minutes, and eventually hours. It’s a gonzo conceit, and Foster spells out the consequences, his richly rendered characters caught up in their own lives as the world spirals out of control. As days become six hours long, circadian rhythms go out of the window and oceans start to bulge at the equator. The increasing whirligig of the many strands of storytelling converge on their inevitable …

Because of him I know more about Centaur reproduction than I ever imagined.

Reading this book makes my heart hurt. On one hand I’m glad NASA didn’t go this way and that people still dream about space. It’s not the 60s but the enthusiasm hasn’t died… I think. I hope.

On the other, it’s very hard to read about the fictional president Maclachlan and what he’s doing (and how the book paints him). Klan members out in the open, tariffs of 50% on China, a wall along the border, a stop to foreign aid, rolling back abortion rights, rewriting textbooks, even cutting off programs that “benefited blacks and other minorities,” to use the text. There’s more but you get what I mean.

Did everyone know this was coming, even back in 1997 when this book came out? Was it always so obvious? I hope this doesn’t count as stirring up political drama. It’s just uncanny.

I just finished Shadow of the Torturer last night - wow. No BotNS spoilers please! This is unlike anything I have read, and I absolutely love the little mysteries buried throughout the novel (I’m sure I missed many, but that makes it more even exciting). I am actually giddy and can’t stop thinking about this book, something I haven’t felt since Hyperion.

That said, I rated the book ⁹⁄₁₀, docking a point for two minor reasons. I felt that Severian’s romantic dealings with about 17 different women was over the top. I also disliked the completely abrupt ending, but I do not hold anything against Wolfe for that knowing this is a continuous story.

I have never anticipated a reread so fast in my life. It might happen 3 years from now after I’ve consumed the entire Solar Cycle and a bunch of other literature, but I know it will happen and be rewarding to do so. This feels like when I learned you could modify Oblivion on the PC and use console commands - …