i am now on crown of swords, about halfway through. and the book is just ok. lord of chaos was really good and my favorite so far. it’s the only one i loved all the way through. book 4 was also excellent. but the farther along i get in this series, the more i realize jordan’s writing isn’t really that strong.

he repeats himself so much it’s quite annoying to be frank. “she sniffed” “breasts, bosoms” “woolheaded man” “WOMEN” “she smoothed her skirts” “braid tugging” like my god dude. the gender dynamics are of course really poor in this series. i’m sick of hearing about how men hate women and women hate men. the repetition is what bothers me the most though about the entire series. i also think some of the plot threads are generally uninteresting at times. i can only hope the rest of the series is great. i can’t wait for sanderson to take over so i dont have to hear breasts all the time.

I recently read the first book. It didn’t take me long to fall completely in love. I loved everything about it. Strong interesting characters, a compelling plot, world-building for days, and overt use of scary powerful magic unlike any other fantasy I’ve read.

Then at the end of the book, there were a lot of loose ends for characters and plot. I assumed this would be fine, as with any fantasy series, because I still had many books left to devour…

I have now begun book 2, and I’m a bit derailed and a bit disappointed/possibly devastated (?). Not only are we on a whole new continent, but we’ve also left behind about 90% of our main characters?

Do future books eventually circle back? Do all these plot threads and character arcs eventually get resolved? What’s up with the author change partway through the series (that can’t be good, right?)?

This could end up being one of my favorite series of all time, but I don’t know if I should …

It was the year of dense fantasy series and fluffy romance novels…and now I just sound like a Dickens novel. I tell everyone that I tend to prefer the writing of female authors. To my dismay, this list, unfortunately, does not reflect that sentiment. I feel I owe my gender an apology. I’m sorry - will you forgive me? Now, in no particular order:

The Age of Madness series by Joe Abercrombie

“Winning teaches you nothing,” said Tunny. “You see what a man really is when he loses.”

I have to be honest. I still need to finish the last book of this series. It’s not because this series isn’t fantastic. It’s because it’s so fantastic that I need to mentally and emotionally prepare myself for the final instalment. This might be a hot take, but I think The Age of Madness series is better than it’s prequel, the First Law series…?

Joe’s writing is not lyrical. It’s grimy and straightforward. His characters are not pretty. They’re dirty and morally-corrupt. But somehow he makes me care about the …

Most people know of Bernard Cornwell through his popular Saxon Stories series (also adapted to The Last Kingdom TV show), but he’s one of the best historical fiction writers in general out there today, and has written some other really good series.

IMHO his magnum opus, and the series I’ll be glazing today, is the amazing Warlord Chronicles trilogy, made up of the following books: The Winter King, Enemy of God and Excalibur.

The Warlord Chronicles, at a high level, is essentially a grounded, “realistic” re-telling of the King Arthur myths. The story in these books is told through the perspective of Derfel Cadarn, a soldier who goes on to become one of Arthur’s closest friends. It incorporates basically all of the major characters in the Arthurian folklore, including Lancelot, Guinevere, Merlin, Galahad, Mordred, Tristan and Isolde etc., as well as some of the popular concepts such as Camelot, the Knights of the Round Table, Excalibur and more. A big part …

s to some of the great background mysteries of the world. But then, inevitably, the action cuts away, and we are left following the main characters, who are almost always less interesting (to me at least).

I am currently reading The Crimson Queen by Alec Hutson, which is a great example of this: The prologue shows a powerful shadowy cultist or sorcerer. We learn only tidbits about, and I was gobbling it up and thirsting for more. But that lasted only 10 pages or so. After that we are saddled with this rather bland fisher-boy for several chapters. (I am not saying that The Crimson Queen is a bad book. Far from it. But so far I am not attached to the main guy.)

For me, relatability is not very important (possibly related to my autism spectrum disorder). The main character is seldom my favourite. Most of the time my favourite characters are the larger-than-life ones, be they heroes or villains. As such, the prologue is often one of my favourite bits, and the “character …

Quite frequently I feel fantasy treats bureaucracy as an annoying obstacle for the MC to overcome. I’m interested to see if there are any fantasy books (or comics, TV shows, etc) that explore the pros of bureaucracy? Like maybe bureaucratic institutions are dissolved and then people realize they were necessary, the MC bypasses bureaucratic processes and there are unintended consequences, the main problem of the book is solved by going through bureaucratic institutions, etc.

OK, I have some complaints to make, so sit back and relax (SPOILERS, OBVIOUSLY)

First of all, yes, I read all 814 pages, but the last 300, maybe even half, were a hate read. In fact, that’s my first complaint - how was this thing not edited down? Did we really need another “Jude cuts himself” scene? Another “Jude is back in the hospital” scene? An Andy or Harold “I’m worried about you Jude” scene? Another detailed description of a fancy dinner, party or trip? Is the author aware how many people “he” could refer to in the story as many times as she used that pronoun?

Here’s more: There were so many flashbacks that it was hard to follow the current narrative in the timeline of the book. A character would begin to do something, think back to an incident years ago, and 20 pages later finish the task. There would be years-long leaps in time where the reader would then have to be caught up in what happened in the interim. It …

A few weeks ago I went to a bookstore where they had an author promoting their book. The concept seemed cool so I spoke to them and bought a copy.

Y’all. This book is BAD. Like, the descriptions are so terrible I could barely figure out what characters were doing or where they were, the plot was boring, the characters were as memorable as the extras in a B horror movie. Just bad.

I went on Goodreads after reading it to see it had like 4 stars! Apparently this person is popular on TikTok and has a large following who bought their book and gave it 5 stars.

I want to give this book like 1-2 stars. It is certainly the worst thing I have read in years. I just kinda feel bad because this is a newbie author who is really excited. There is only 1 other book I have read in my life that is worse than this - its that bad.

Do y’all give honest ratings online?

Like how humans don’t really stop and acknowledge bugs, are there any books where aliens are so advanced that they don’t consider humans as intelligent species?

I read a healthy mix of modern and classic science fiction. But as an academic, I like to really dig into topics/genres. Recently I’ve put together a list based on online lists and some previous posts on subreddits like this one of classic must-read books in the genre. I would love to know if there are any important works that I’ve overlooked.

Edit: Thanks to everyone for the suggestions. I have added many of your recommendations to the list and organized them all by year. I have left out anything published in the 2010s or later, as well as short stories. (Not that those aren’t important, I just had to draw a line somewhere, and this is already at over 100 books.) Hopefully this new list is more representative.

19th Century - Frankenstein - Shelley - 1818 - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Verne - 1870 - The Time Machine - Wells - 1895 - War of the Worlds - Wells - 1898

Pre-1950s - Princess of Mars - Burroughs - 1912 - We - Zamyatin - 1924 - Last and First Men - Stapledon - 1930 - …

same as caption! I am reading their work for the first time

In the US, works that were published in 1930 just entered public domain. There are some interesting addition this year:

• Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon. Quite dense reading, but it’s one of the most influential books for modern SF. Along with Star Maker, which will enter public domain in 7 years, it established many tropes that are used in literature till this day.
• Short stories by Robert E. Howard. Some of his stories, including two from his Solomon Kane series, were published in 1930. At the time of writing, three of these stories have already been added to Project Gutenberg.
• Other Weird Tales stories from 1930. Full list is here. Note that some works have been republished from earlier years, so they are already in public domain. I don’t recognize most authors, but I’m curious about Lovecraft’s Fungi from Yuggoth.
• Various mystery books. Not directly SF, but had influence over future SF literature. These include Hammet’s The Maltese …

A new acquisition. Something beautiful to read on a cozy winter morning.

I must say the Sparrow caught me off guard, hit me hard and left me drained and haunted. It was a disturbing story that ended with hardly any resolution and I really wondered why it’s so popular. The prose and presentation is beautiful, the story itself original and unexpected.

I felt really sad afterward. I did a short search and realized there’s a sequel and finished it yesterday with the goal of cleansing the palette and establishing resolution and I’m super grateful I read it.

To read the Sparrow and not CoG would be heartbreaking. The level of detail on the language and culture in both books was wonderful and unique in the sci-fi realm. The books combined is a beautiful story that I will read again, and maybe again.

As a whole I loved it.

Is there any other must reads by Mary Doria Russel or are these her pinnacle?

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Over lighting, sets that look fake as hell. The over use of depth of field to blur the background on almost every scene and shot.

Hardly any practical effects even when it could have been done. I am just so tired of this sloppy look. Not even going to mention the horrible exposition heavy dialogue where they explain what they are doing every 20 seconds.

I’ve had some time off these holidays so I started Frasier. I watched all the seasons in about a week. I have no friends, I work a job that is dead end but pays enough to keep me going. I live in the PNW so the Seattle setting is quite relatable. I come home, I watch Frasier, I go to bed.

I have unfortunately created a parasocial relationship with the cast. I speak like Frasier and Niles at work sometimes to the point my coworkers commented “you sound different.” I’ve started buying more menswear even though I’m a mechanic. I’ve been reading Freud and Jung even though I have no idea what they’re talking about. I’m Frasiering out, I’ve gone too deep in Frasier space and I need to Frasier myself out, I’ve even gotten a shrink just experience being spoken too in the way Frasier would speak to a patient.

I know it’s a phase and it’ll end in a couple months but it just feels so right to live like this, a glimpse into the Frasierverse from a disciple.

Every year, I go to the movie theater as much as possible. It’s my favorite place in the world. I first started keeping track/scores/reviews/ticket stubs in 2015. Since then, I’ve seen 1,827 different movies in theaters: 5 in 2015, 9 in 2016, 146 in 2017, 162 in 2018, 192 in 2019, 44 in 2020, 86 in 2021, 270 in 2022, 325 in 2023, 298 in 2024, and 290 this year.

For this ranking, I’m only counting movies I saw in theaters, nothing that I watched at home. I’m not counting re-watches. I don’t have a specific scoring system, it’s just a rating I give to the movie right after watching. I’ve included a few re-releases, short films, and TV series, as long as they were seen in a theater (and for the first time). This is all just for fun and not meant to be taken super seriously, I’m not a professional movie critic. I just like going to the movies.

I attended 9 film festivals in 2025 for a total of 124 movies. 97 movies had cast and/or crew in …