Like so. Because I read that first book like 4 years ago and I barely remember it.

I’ve just watched the first three episodes of Season 3 and they’re quite good. Is it some outstanding masterpiece like the books were (in my opinion)? No. But it’s good TV, it’s paced well, has great character development, engaging politics, and a good amount of tension. It’s also course-correcting a bit from the weird decisions of the first season and feels more loyal to the books than it was before—though it still makes a lot of changes so I wouldn’t call it a faithful adaptation by any means, but I still think it’s a good one.

If you’re looking for a faithful adaptation of the books, it still won’t be for you. But if you want some good fantasy TV, I really think there’s a lot to like about The Wheel of Time. It’s a good show and I hope Amazon doesn’t cancel it.

What do you guys think of Season 3 so far?

”*The Road to the Spear* is undoubtedly one of the finest episodes in fantasy television.” -GameRant

“The writing, directing, acting, and every other aspect worked perfectly together to create not only the best episode of *The Wheel of Time* but one of the best episodes of TV in the fantasy genre.” -CBR

“This is television, baby. Enjoy it while it lasts.” -Vulture

“A stunning episode that showcases the absolute best of what *The Wheel of Time* has to offer.” -Collider

It’s been a long time since I’ve heard an episode of fantasy TV praised so profusely. I have my gripes with the show, but this episode was great and as a long-time WoT fan, I am grateful we at least got this.

EDIT: More reviews

“The Wheel of Time season 3 episode 4 has already been dubbed not just the best episode of the entire series so far, but one of the best episodes of fantasy television ever.” -RadioTimes

So, the aristocracy, wise and cunnning as they are /s, decided:

“Hey, we did such a good job at stopping treachery; I have an amazing idea, trust me. Let’s round up all the adorable children of those despicable traitors, make some of them watch their parents die, and then ostracize them and brand them and treat them real proper, oh AND THEN LETS GIVE THEM DRAGONS! They won’t harbour a grudge right? No chance they will become super popular and influencial and eveerrrr consider treachery after we were so lenient with them right? Right?

Please. Someone….. Make it make sense 😩

For those trying to power through finishing a book that isn’t clicking with them, it’s ok to put it down.

I made the mistake of forcing myself to finish a novel, which my brain was telling me to DNF about 30% of the way through. Now I feel absolutely burnt out. It’s been a few weeks, and I still feel too drained to dive into another book. I started a short novella, which I’m actually enjoying the premise, but still having trouble focusing.

Reading is meant to be a hobby, something we enjoy doing during our spare/down time. So if you’re not enjoying something, it’s ok to stop!

Has anyone else gone through this as well?

My pick: The Name of the Wind. People rave about it, but I just couldn’t get into it. Kvothe felt too perfect - like he was great at everything with little struggle. The writing is beautiful, sure, but the plot meanders a lot, and after a while, I just didn’t care what happened next. It felt more like listening to someone brag about their life than an actual story unfolding.

This Executive Order eliminates non-statutory functions and reduces statutory functions of unnecessary governmental entities to what is required by law. Affected entities include the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, United States Agency for Global Media, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Institute of Museum and Library Services, United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, and Minority Business Development Agency.

Not only will this affect day to day library operations, this will also affect programs like Libby, and libraries being able to send books to other branches for loans

I wasn’t a big reader growing up. Didn’t read for pleasure and stopped reading after college for about 7 years. Made a new year’s resolution in 2023 to read 6 hours a week and have stuck with it ever since.

Saw this list last year and thought “there’s no way anyone’s actually read all of these”. I’m sure some have, but probably not many. A couple months later I decided to read all of them. At the time I had read 23. 6 back in high school and 17 as part of my new reading. Today I finished the 51st book. Been focusing on the shorter ones lately, so page count-wise I’m only like 40% done.

Overall, skews extremely male and western, which isn’t a big shocker for 4chan. A lot of these books are just not that fun to read, but I’m no quitter. They’ve given me information that’s useful and helped me with my attention span issues.

Here’s what I’ve done. The ones with End Dates are the completed ones. …

“From trips on private jets and encounters with world leaders to shocking accounts of misogyny and double standards behind the scenes, this searing memoir exposes both the personal and the political fallout when unfettered power and a rotten company culture take hold. In a gripping and often absurd narrative where a few people carelessly hold the world in their hands, this eye-opening memoir reveals what really goes on among the global elite.” -book review

This. Book. So well written, pointed, thoughtful and detailed. Meta has been filing nonstop against its release due to their having not been given a chance to “fact check” it (crazy how they will so that in relation to themselves but assume no responsibility in the public realm of the meta-sphere). Not typically a nonfiction reader but this one pulled me in and kept me riveted, as an ex corporate mgmt hire, mother and woman in Corporate America during the first two decades of the new millennium, this was both a familiar and uniquely …

Either things that are annoying or things that are too reasonable, any kind of behavior you see repeatedly shown in books but that no one actually does in real life?

For me it’s characters tossing their watch to the side in what is written as badass behavior when their watch is broken

From Jurassic Park, when Tim Murphy (the brother) gets tossed by the Rex in the Jeep:

He looked at his watch, but the face was cracked; he couldn’t see the numbers. He took the watch off and tossed it aside.

Problem is, everyone I know who ears a watch actually likes their watch and would keep it to either get fixed or keep in a box later, as a keepsake

Why would anyone take off a watch and throw it away? In a location they’ll never return to?

I have seen this behavior multiple times in multiple books and have never met someone who would do this

A couple months ago I asked for recommendations for more hard sci fi after reading Diaspora and you guys all came through for me in a major way, I’ve read many of the books you referred me and have some thoughts on them. I am honestly so happy i discovered this niche subgenre because I used to THINK I was reading the hardest sci-fi before, and many of those books [which i still love] seem softer to me now.

I see a few other posts of people requesting hard sci fi recommendations, I can recommend all of these books! But there will be some spoilers included in my thoughts below so if you want to avoid them I’ll just write what I personally would recommend here as the best of ultra hard sci-fi:

• Greg Egan: Diaspora + Permutation City
• Robert L Forward: Dragon’s Egg + Starquake
• Neal Stephenson: Anathem
• Poul Anderson: Tau Zero
• Charles Stross: Glasshouse + Accelerando

And here are my thoughts;

Greg Egan;

Diaspora: Still my number 1, just incredible.

Schild’s Ladder: Good book, I liked …

That is all.

This is an extremely fun, engrossing novel that took me to another place for a while, and sometimes that’s what you need. Hamilton is also notorious for writing ridiculously long books, which makes this shorter read (a hilarious thing to say about a 900 page book) the perfect introduction to Hamilton’s writing. It’s also stand-alone vs being part of an enormous series.

Here’s the no-spoilers setup: >!a dead body has washed up on the docks of Newcastle, which has become one of the most important cities in the world because it is linked via wormhole gate to the enigmatic jungle planet of St. Libra. The body looks like one of the Norths, the clone brotherhood that controls the interstellar gateways and the entire interstellar economy - but none of the Norths is missing. !<

!As Detective Sid Hurst investigates, links appear to a horrible mass murder that also targeted the Norths 20 years ago on St. Libra. Angela, the woman who was convicted of that crime, always insisted she was …

Behind its innocuous cover, The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction Fifteenth Series is full of magic space dust.

This is how I discovered both Roger Zelazny and Fritz Leiber. As a kid, living on a remote military base (my dad was in the Navy), I used to haunt the base library.

SF had started to take over my reading diet after I read (and loved) Asimov’s novelization of Fantastic Voyage. I’d walk over to the library and check out stacks of books with spaceships or androids on the cover.

Eventually, I was “stuck” reading this book after I had gone through almost the entire SF section. I never checked it out because that cover never caught my eye.

The first story, Zelazny’s “The Doors of his Face, the Lamps of his Mouth” absolutely floored me (and still does every time I read it), and Leiber’s “Four Ghosts in Hamlet” was so atmospheric and creepy that I couldn’t put it down. I instantly became a fan of both writers, …

I’ve gotten great recommendations here in the past and read a lot of them! Hoping y’all can provide some more insight.

I’m looking for contemporary literary science fiction. By this I guess I just mean: an excellent sci Fi story told beautifully. Stunning prose and prescient themes. I want a book with sentences that will make me stop and re-read. Give me your most beautiful sci Fi books! Thanks in advance!

I’ve just realized that I’ve only ever read two sci-fi books by a female author (The Left Hand of Darkness and Sea of Tranquility), and want to fill out that blind spot. I’m open to any book at all, of any sub genre of sci-fi, but if you want to be more specific here are some of my favorite books:

• The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer. Not sure if these count as sci-fi but they’re definitely adjacent.

• Dune Series by Frank Herbert. My favorite of these are Messiah and God Emperor, but I really enjoyed the first four in general. The last two I could take or leave.

• Exhalation and Stories of your Life and Others by Ted Chiang. My two favorite books I’ve ever read.

• Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel. Again, not sure if this counts as sci-fi but it has a few sci-fi elements in it. I’ve loved all of her books that I’ve read, still haven’t gotten around to her pre Station Eleven work.

Thank you all in advance!

Edit: overwhelmed by the amount of responses. Thank you …

The Man From Earth.

It’s about a history professor that suddenly decides to quit his job and move away. His fellow professors decide to leave the party, and during that time they ask him why he’s leaving. He decides to tell them he’s 14,000-years-old, and he has to move on when people realize that he doesn’t age. That’s not giving anything away about the movie, even if it seems like it is. It’s an absolutely fantastic movie, where they try to decide if he’s crazy, or if he’s telling the truth.