Відео

Moin, zum Wachsen mal wieder ein Kommentar von mir: Nö, ich schaue mir booktube nur zum Vergnügen an, bin was Literatur betrifft, reine Hedonistin. Ich betrachte die Beiträge von booktubern (m/w/d) als "Meinungen", und Meinungen müssen nicht belegt werden. Ich schau mir die Leute//Videos an. Wenn sie über Bücher, die ich auch kenne, eine Meinung vertreten, die ich nachvollziehen kann oder sogar teilen, dann vertraue ich ihnen. Wenn sie "Stuss" erzählen (meiner Meinung nach), vertraue ich ihnen nicht. Im Zweifel, bzw. wenn man als Leserin (m/w/d) gerade startet, muss man eben ausprobieren und Bücher auch mal SELBER LESEN um vergleichen zu können. Um meine Meinung über "Dune" zu ändern, nützt es nichts, mir Berge von Sekundärliteratur um die Ohren zu hauen. Das macht den Schreibstil nicht besser. (Tolkien mochte Dune auch nicht...) Außerdem findet man heute für jede Meinung einen Beleg und den Gegenbeleg auch.

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I would add that there needs to be more responsibility on viewers and consumers to question what they see on social media. This goes well beyond just booktube, but I get the sense that people tend to believe anything they see online, especially if someone they know--parasocially!--is tellling them the so-called facts. Someone who has built a large following should absolutely be transparent and hopefully feels some responsibility to be honest, but viewers should ALSO be practicing some media literacy and critical thinking when watching any material. Consumers should question the authenticity of a book review from someone with 1.2+million subscribers who gets sent free boxes of free books every week in the same way they should question articles a news organization owned by a media mogul (looking at you, Washington Post). It's a two-way street. I really appreciated hearing this take from someone who's "creating content" and I hope that other "content creators" take it to heart.

Great video! Daniel Greene actually said today he's refraining from touchy topics because of lawsuits... I have a feeling it's tied to that Beagle thing. I watched viking's video and didn't really agree with his framing. It seemed like booktube should just leave the serious stuff to academics. Both serve their purposes and one of the best things that booktube has done is make being a "serious" reader fun. Dovetailing with your Gaiman video... it's just so hard to judge what should be said or not said about any given controversial author. That's not to say nothing should be said and we should just shrug. Idk what the solution is. So I think each booktuber saying what they feel comfortable and compelled to say or not is fine. I'm not expecting everyone to have the same take. But we should expect some accountability from booktubers on here even if our corner of youtube is small in comparison to others.

Seeing the Company continue on at the end after losing all the members we'd gotten to know best was a really depressing bit of writing. I enjoyed getting a glimpse of what the new generation of the Company would look like with characters like Suvrin, Tobo, Arkana, & Shukrat, but them becoming the most prominent figures left standing in the Company really hammered in the feeling that we'd just seen the end of an era. Croaker told us plenty of times that The Black Company always endures and comes back, and we'd seen that back in Shadow Games, but seeing it happen again without all the people we'd come to know the Company through was probably the most painful part of the whole series for me. Great discussion, great book, and great series!

we need like a So You're Becoming a Bigger Booktuber: the Parasocial Talk video somewhere. I agree that there's plenty of streamers and youtube personalities that have figured out (to varying degrees) the parasocial aspect of these spaces. Setting boundaries, understanding how being able to give money or gifts to you affects people, etc. It's a bit that i've struggled with internally on both sides of the coin and we absolutely need to discuss it more. might need to do more research now. great video.

It’s the internet. People expect to be lied to, and general they prefer it. The responsibility lies with the viewers themselves. Consumers of any online content should already know that the standards of journalism are low across the board, and they should already know how to navigate parasocial relationships, and they should spend their own money on whatever they like, even if it’s a nice BookTuber’s patreon. People in all professions and in all communities will say what people want to hear, especially if money is involved. I admire what you’re saying and love you a little bit for saying it, but I’m not sure BookTubers do owe viewers anything.

Your overarching point is an excellent one -- that BookTubers should always be alert and attuned to the potential impact (positive and negative) their videos can have. Like you, I believe channels should aim for high standards of transparency, substance, context and good faith in their videos, and this is particularly true for larger channels because of the outsized influence they can have on viewers. Thanks for making this video!

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Can’t say I’ve watch the video you’re responding to. I think you have some fair points, particularly the last one. One of the reasons it takes longer to make more informative videos (for me) is because I need as accurate info I can provide. Makes sense to me. Brings to mind all the bad definitions of sword and sorcery before which just treat it as a synonym for fantasy. But I’m called out here! I don’t always share in a video whether I got the book for free. I don’t always review books I do get for free and I don’t read some, either. I have mentioned it before and do sometimes. I guess I should get in the habit of doing so though I like to think where I got a book hasn’t changed what I thought of it.

thanks Raf you da man!

Cheers Raf!

The broken land is quite a unicorn here in the UK 🤘

I read the first book in The Expanse and while i didn't dislike it, i didn't continue the series. I don't know yet if i wanna pick up this book. i might, but i'm not in a rush. I do like trial/competitions in stories, so who knows what'll happen

I still have to watch some of the Black Company Videos. They're still in my watch later list for when i ever find the time. I'm currently a little busy with my special project hehe. I'm reading currently Wide Sargasso Sea for that and i just got an email that i can pick up another book that i ordered for it at the post office, so once i read those two (and probably also Goblin Market, but that one is really short, so shouldn't take me more than a day) i can watch stuff that involves a bit more brain again. I haven't seen Library of a Viking's video, so i don't know exactly what he says in it and therefore also not what your reaction to it would be, but i personally don't mind a little repetition between two different videos if that makes you feel more comfortable

Good video Raf, I've been considering talking about the Gaiman stuff too, as I said to Liam. Though with my video, I'm gonna try and focus on authors in general who disappoint us with bad/inappropriate behavior. I don't know how well it'll go, and I don't have your finesse when it comes to tackling tough subject matters. But it's something I need to get off my chest, because I can't hold it anymore. Anyway, good work. Keep it up.

I think Gaiman is an interesting one. It feels safe to say that such a problem is not what most people ever talk about on BookTube, I definitely haven’t. I mean, if it came out Ed Greenwood or someone of the like was a creep I would (I pray that is not the case so never happens). I’ve never read Gaiman, had no interest before and now that lack of interest feels justified but that’s largely my thoughts.

I want to try MacDonald, might go with River of Gods.

Very glad to see you finishing up this video series Raf! Had a few very brief exchanges with you on Twitter about this (I'm High Fist Dylan on that app), but I read through The Black Company this year and followed up each entry with one of your videos, so I was a bit bummed when I ran out of your content haha. Not just that but as far as I'm aware, there's nothing up on either UA-cam or Spotify for the last two books in the series from any creator so it's also cool to see you correct that.

Great review! Now I really want to read the series again!

Cnaiür is more than his abuse. And he's far deeper than Karsa.... His homosexuality doesn't stem from his abuse. Ironically, his heterosexuality is probably a manifestation of his abuse from his culture, and masculine expectations. Cnaiür doesn't kill Moengus out of vengeance for any abuse, he kills Moengus because he made him love, and broke his heart. He knows Dûnyain cannot love. He was deceived into loving Moengus. So it's vengeance for deceit, not for any physical abuse.

Great review! Perhaps I zoned out during it, but another big theme that shows up in this book is the generational turnover. We see the new generation take over the Company as Croaker and co. are getting too old for it, which mirrors the turnover we first see with the original Captain et al dying/leaving/etc in the first couple books. It's very comforting in a strange way. The more things change the more they stay the same.

I agree with your categorization of the series. I still think the inciting incident was Croaker writing romantic fanfic about Lady in the Annals. Without that, the rest of the series wouldn't have happened in anywhere near as interesting a way as it did.

One Eye’s sexist jokes Yes, One-Eye is sexist and the jokes are horrid. I always read these exchanges as One Eye’s misguided and futile attempt to help Sleepy breakout/get over their self-imposed isolation. One Eye is after all, aside from being a right cunt, empathetic, intelligent and has been around war, soldiers and trauma enough to recognize PTSD when he sees it. If what he sees is actually what there, that’s a different discussion. Sleepy’s sexuality and gender presentation I always read Sleepy as having isolated their sex and gender and through mental surgery completely separated that from their sense of self and identity. And therefore is rather non-sexual and genderless, as opposed to (what I understand about) asexuality and non-binary-ism. I think what speaks for this view is that they are also emotionally and mentally very cut off, both from themself and the group. I agree that the Head Librarian’s pursuing Sleepy has homophobic undertones. I do think that these parts would not have read that way if consensual, homosexual relationships had been a part world. The homophobic portrayal, as far as I remember, is more in the trope of the predatory, older homophile in a position of power pursuing a younger, man/boy who is dependent on the Librarians good graces. I don’t remember anything standing out that is explicitly homophobic and in a more diverse world the dynamic would lose some of its implied homophobia and become more a universal portrayal of powerful people preying on the less powerful. I think the Head Librarian story line is very poignant and one of the reasons I hold Glen Cook to be one of those who handle gender, sex and sexual assault the best. If you disregard the build in homophobia of the time, it is a very good portrayal of power dynamics and gender. Both together and separate from each other. As I touched on above, there is the predatory nature of advances on a person in a position of dependency. I always thought that Glen Cook did a magnificent job of showing how this is in its nature predatory and puts the object (Sleepy) in a terrible position. And this is regardless of whether the Librarian sees himself as predatory, or whether he has any intention of retaliating if Sleepy were to reject him. Impact vs Intent. Honestly, I’m disillusioned enough about the general audience, and fantasy readers specifically, that I believe that the only way of communicating the predatory nature of the situation to a large part of readers is for both predator and victim to be male. Any other gender in either role would have obscured this for a majority/sizeable portion of readers, and downplayed the severity. Unfortunately, this is because of who our society is able to envision as predator/victim. And therein lies the homophobia as its build into that role-assignment. And this is true today, and even more in the 1990s. I also see the Librarian as being an answer to assumptions in earlier books about biological sex and gender. If I’m not mistaken, it is relieved that “he is a she” during the company’s march to assault Overlook, when Murgen is annalist. The stated assumption is that Sleepy has disguised herself as a boy/man in order to keep herself safe from the sexual dangers in the world at large, and in a company of soldiers/mercenaries specifically. Having this subplot in the following book, with Sleepy as annalist, can be read as a rebuttal to these earlier assumptions. While yes, being perceived as a girl/woman is statistically more dangerous from a sexual assault perspective, but a boy/man is not safe either. Just safer. In a more modern reading, it can also be read as a rebuttal of the assumption of gender on the basis of biological sex. A progressive writer now might even complicate Sleepy’s gender expression and non-sexuality and explore the nature/nurture aspect. Is she hiding her gender and presenting as a man, or are they non-binary? Is she non-sexual (ie a conscious or subconscious choice that could change) or are they asexual? Is it trauma? Or an inherent, natural part of Sleepy? And the dynamic between the trauma/natural orientation.

Awesone video on an awesone book in a awesome series :) I wrote an essay... So many thoughts!

Im relativ young and not a huge fan of scifi before the dune movie but i wanted to try reading hyperion i was really intrested in the idea of a palestinian Charakter till the Rebellion back Story and i noticed a lot if islam hate in there

Great review! You make a lot of really great points about how well the book has and hasn't aged. It is great to see someone talking about this part of the series. I don't know what it is about booktube but it seems like most people never read past The White Rose. Which is infuriating. They are missing the best parts of the series! Keep up the good work!

Hey Raf. Thanks for this 🤘 Binged the first 7 expanse books a few years ago and got sidetracked waiting for book 8&9 to release, will read them all eventually I think. They were fun, in a popcorn kinda way. But think it's definitely over hyped, Peter f Hamilton, and like you say Alastair Reynolds, Ian M Banks etc,, definitely did it better! Just picked up a few Ian McDonald books (desolation road, river of gods and Brasyl.) Cheers 🤘

Ah another series by these two, didn't know they were doing that. I've only read Leviathan Wakes, enjoyed most of the show (didn't watch it). I read the first Expanse same time as I read the firs Spiral Wars book by Joel Shepherd, Renegade, and I decided to go in the direction of the Spiral Wars (just finished book 9 last month). Not sure I want to start another space opera right now, but this doesn't sound bad and sounds entertaining enough.

Down for all those videos.

You know I like metal!!🤘I am always interested in an author's view point on how to read fiction, so that would be great to hear about Eco's veiws.

I'm not big into metal, but I know many who are. I wish I could travel more! I often can't get off work or afford it if I can to go to things. Glad your computer is good. I always fear when mine will finally die, well my original one did but I had my old gaming computer that still survives. Cheers!

Cheers! Yeah, the Umberto stuff would be interesting. And please do the blindness ramble.

Das klingt wirklich gut. Ist die Originalsprache Englisch oder Spanisch? Wenn Spanisch, warte ich auf die deutsche Übersetzung.

Thank you

Moin moin. Man kann sagen: Don' judge a book by his author. Ich mache es auch so, kaufe keine Bücher neu von Idioten, solange sie leben. Allerdings weiß ich nicht jedes Mal, wer ein Idiot ist. Ich habe z. B. ein Buch von Peter Thiel im Regal. Würde ich kein Geld mehr reinstecken, jetzt, da ich weiß, wer das ist.

Yay! I thought I was the only one who didn't like Mike's Book reviews! lol

I’m just getting to this novel now and I think it expertly applies to both the left and the right. Each are guilty of the things Eco highlights here, fascism or anti-semitism or conspiracies, etc. Pretty much ideologues looking for narrative that fits their wants, and that’s not one sided in politics.

Also to be fair, I didn’t say you wouldn’t do it. I just said I wasn’t sure you would lol.

Thanks for the tag, Raf! This was interesting! The beginning was also quite funny

Ironic because my next review is Orson Scott Card 😅 oops

Hey, you did it! Great answers man!

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Thank you for the Tag! I love doing BookTags! Not sure when I'll get to posting a response, but i definitely will! Cheers! 💜

Haha thanks for the tag. Not sure I'll do it. Because I'm not sure I have anything interesting to say on these questions 😂. Gorgeous edition of Blake ❤

2:24 hahahaha brilliant! Very nicely put Raf 8:20 it’s because you’re an educated man Raf you threaten those who don’t understand. 11:49 excellent answers Raf this was so good to watch and hear your answers.

Why didn't you tell anyone, Raf? Ofcourse you can talk about it afterwards. I want to hear your thoughts on it! But no pressure, just glad you like it 🎉🎉🎉❤

I dropped the book in the middle, and it's a short read, I could have ploughed through. Not sure why I started it in the first place. The voice acting seemed to be spot on and I like narratives involving immortality. But it bored me to worse than sleep.

The perpetual sniffing, spanking, & braid-tugging would put me off. As well as the sexism. And the story is far too long. It does not need to be 11,963 pages long, unless all the books are good. They famously are not.