So... this video made me add to my Kindle: - Promise of Blood - Seasons of Albadone - We Are The Dead Super cheap from Amazon !! .. and added 6 more "first book in a series" from your video to my watchlist 🙂 THANK YOU for the great content!
I would complete these series in 2025: The Dandelion Dynasty by Ken Liu, Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling, The Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee, The First Law by Joe Abercrombie, The Bloodsworn Saga by John Gwynne, all the works of H.P Lovecraft plus some Young Adult... I hope I can make it
First law.... I have never hated the end of a trilogy so much. I was angry. I understand that this was grimdark but. Please, lets have the protagonists slightly better than when we found them.
@@albertstebbins7590 youre going into it expecting better from the people in a grim dark story, thats your first mistake. First law is a story about characters regressing, not improving.
Hyperion was my top book of 2024 too! Even though we don't get answers at the end, the time I spent with the characters made it so worth it and I look forward to reading the rest.
I do think the 2nd Jurassic Park book, The Lost World, is worth reading. I read both this year and really enjoyed them. It's quite a bit more intense with some more shocking parts than the first, but they're both so interesting for how different they are from the films. Definitely fun and quick reading.
I’m surprised I don’t hear anything about the Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks. I really love that series. I just finished Wingfeather Saga with my kids and I absolutely love that series.
@@Carlos-fh8wk I’m on part 3 right now in the second book. Why do you think it’s just okay? I feel like the first book wouldn’t be so good without the second book so far. Also I had heard that Dan Simmons wanted the first two to be one book but his editor had made him split it into two
I feel like my 2025 is going to start where 2024 ended... with the red rising series, I'm on iron gold and the series is just fantastic and gets better every book
«Memory, Sorrow & Thorn»!😎🙌 As for myself, I would say: 1) Split: The «Cicero» Trilogy by Robert Harris (Historical Fiction about the Eponymous Roman Statesman: Harris is such an amazingly witty and knowledgeable Historical Fiction Writer, his Cicero is easily my Favorite Character of 2024!) & «A Brightness Long Ago» by Guy Gavriel Kay (part of GGK’s standalone «Jad» Universe, Fantasy inspired by the Mercenary Wars of Renaissance Italy: What can I say that is not already said about GGK, the Prose, the Characters, the Interactions, the Descriptions, all top notch!) 2)Split: «Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn» by Tad Williams (Epic Fantasy: What an amazing width, going from the cozy to the horrific, the mundane to the epic, that is simply astonishing and deserves to be more celebrated! ) & «The Prince of Nothing» by R. Scott Bakker (Grimdark/Dark Epic Fantasy inspired by the Crusades, Silmarillion & Dune: A genuinely challenging author in his themes & descriptions and an intricate world-builder, who puts his characters literally through Hell and back!) 4)«Sun Eater» by Christopher Ruocchio (Space opera: I love how effortlessly he weaves in both Genre & Classic Literature and Art into a natural world building and is not afraid to go weird, philosophical and esoteric!) 5) The «Rigante» series by David Gemmell (Heroic Fantasy/S&S inspired by Celtic Britain and the Roman Invasions of Julius Ceasar (with a dash of Napoleon too): Easily the best character ensemble writer of this year, you get humbled by the empathy Gemmell gave to even his minor characters or antagonists, with incredible emotional callbacks!) 6) «Brother Red» by Adrian Selby (Grimdark Fantasy, standalone «midquel» to «Snakewood» & «The Winter Road»: Selby has a unique mix of deadpan humor and trauma, trauma, trauma, with inspiration from the East India Company) 7) «The Kingkiller Chronicle» by Patrick Rothfuss (Fantasy: Whatever you say about Rothfuss, an amazing prose writer, who effortlessly mix wit and tragedy, and has an very interesting world lore ripe for theories and speculations, even if we never get a (final) book #3!) Cheers!
I wish I could've finished the Dragon Bone Chair. I liked it, but it was so slow, and halfway through I just felt exhausted. It ended up putting me in a 3 month long reading slump.
Ok, I get some validation here for Licanius. Book 1 was awesome. Jumped right into Book 2, and when I finished it I had no clue wtf I had just read 🤣🤣🤣 so I tried listening to the latter half w/ Michael Kramer and, I think because Kramer reads Sanderson and Islington was inspired by the same, listening to Licanius felt like listening to a knock-off Stormlight but with time travel. It drove me bonkers.
This year has been a year of a lot of stand alone. I’m hoping to finish Lonesome Dove next year and pick up the next book. I also want to finish Wind and Truth. I’m almost half way through, but I’m not enjoying it at all.
Love your work, always look forward to new videos from you! I agree with you about The Licanius Trilogy, I loved the first book, the second didn’t interest me and I crawled through the last book. It was way too confusing, it was hard to picture the how the Magic of Kan was being used, and the ending didn’t have the payoff that a series this long should have, left me feeling short changed.
I love Mythago Wood!!!!!! BUT OMG !!!! The next book in the series..... Lavondyss is so much better. This is probably my favourite fantasy book of all time. Even more mysterious, a little bit more dark and disturbingly addictive. It is more coherent than Mythago Wood since it is a more linear story. Cannot recommend enough!
Love Green Bone 💚❤️💙 Albadone was really interesting. The War Eternal is a favorite. Hyperion is my top novel from a new to me author this year too. That ending 🤯 I'm excited to start Tad Williams this year 🙌🏻 Have you tried The Elder Empire by Will Wight? Licanius takes some serious focus 😂 Fun video 🤪
I am really curious to hear what you'll think about Fall of Hyperion. I was also super hyped after the first book (though it already had one or two red flags) and the second one ended up being one of the dumbest books I've ever read (not one of the worst by any means, but just amazingly dumb and forced this or that way).
I was surprised at how many of the series you featured I have in my digital library, to be read. I'll definitely move a few up the list, based on your recommendation. I TORE through the entire Dungeon Crawler Carl series in October this year, I loved it enormously. KJ Parker's work is worth checking out, if you haven't yet. Also, I like Robin Hobb, but that's about it, when it comes to female fantasy writers. I've tried dozens, and it's extremely rare that I find one I like enough to finish, much less recommend. Maybe I'm just too analytical and female authors are too emotional, I don't know. But beyond Hobb's Madships trilogy, I recall enjoying Rachel Aaron's first Eli Monpress title, and the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by NK Jemison, and that's about it. Also kind of burnt out on Sanderson as well.
Licanius didn’t work for me either. The first book was ok for me, but I ended up dnfing book 2. However, I loved The Will of the Many. Hopefully you’ll enjoy that one.
Rage of dragons is great, but Fires of Vengeance is not, it ends really abruptly. Books 3 is due out in May so hopefully that improves as I really enjoyed the setting.
It would be helpful if you could list the books, authors or series in the description of the video. Especially when you're going through so many, so fast. Or keep the book cover on screen while you're talking about it.
Yeah, “Godkiller” was a DNF for me. Loved the worldbuild but man. What s letdown Powdermage Trilogy is flirting with being my all-time favorite trilogy. So unique, so good You didn’t like “Never Die”?! Dang. All of Mortal Techniques I thought was solid
I don't know if you read these, but do you do reviews of books when requested? It's selfish of me to ask, I know, but I wanted to ask. And yes, I'll be brutally honest and say that I've just been hopping around youtube looking for book reviewers because I'm desperate at this point and the only thing I have going for me are my books.
Godkiller is a 5-star book for me but I abandoned Sunbringer because I found it incredibly boring... so you definitely made the right choice by not continuing the series
I just finished reading the Faithful and the Fallen. It seems I was reading a video game script. The plot was okay but beyond that it was just fight and more fight. I saw amazing reviews for Pierce Brown series of Red Rising Saga. Didn’t appreciate it much, it lacked character depth. Everything seemed superficial to me. May be my expectations are too high or I might need to switch genres to get a better investment of my time.
Is Faithful and the Fallen worth finishing? I was so disappointed by how incredibly shallow the characters were in book 1 and how everything quickly became "here's the super perfect Chosen One who can do no wrong" and dropped it, but reviews are really good, so I wonder if I'm missing something and the following 3 get better.
@ of course. You should finish it. It’s quite predictable however a fun read. However if you decide to DNF it then the world will still spin and you won’t lose much. My only gripe is that most book tubers rate it as 5 stars which it is not. I need to give a big applause to John Gywnne for an extremely good effort and I am hopeful that his performance will be better and better in the future.
@ check out 1. Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee. 2. GRR - Game of Thrones 3. Storm light Archives by Brandon Sanderson 4. Memory, Sorrow and Thorne by Tad Williams Sorry - I should have started with Harry Potter series. That has better character depth.
The way you described feeling when reading the Licanius Trilogy is exactly how I feel about Stormlight. It started out interesting, but became a slog to get through and thoroughly uninteresting. I DNFed Rhythm of War. If I have enough time in my 70s when all the books are released I might try again with audiobooks, but I doubt it. I also understand about Licanius. It starts out simple and interesting and turns into something wildly complex. Based on the ending of The Will of the Many, I think that series is headed the same direction.
My intro to SF was Jack Vance's Demon Prince series when I was in my early teens in the late 70's. Love this series but can understand that it may not be to the taste of younger readers of SF
So... this video made me add to my Kindle:
- Promise of Blood
- Seasons of Albadone
- We Are The Dead
Super cheap from Amazon !!
.. and added 6 more "first book in a series" from your video to my watchlist 🙂
THANK YOU for the great content!
This makes me happy. Happy reading!
I would complete these series in 2025: The Dandelion Dynasty by Ken Liu, Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling, The Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee, The First Law by Joe Abercrombie, The Bloodsworn Saga by John Gwynne, all the works of H.P Lovecraft plus some Young Adult... I hope I can make it
John Gwynne,Joe Abercrombie and Fonda Lee I enjoyed alot.😊
First law.... I have never hated the end of a trilogy so much. I was angry. I understand that this was grimdark but. Please, lets have the protagonists slightly better than when we found them.
@@albertstebbins7590 loved the ending so fucking much
Happy reading!
@@albertstebbins7590 youre going into it expecting better from the people in a grim dark story, thats your first mistake. First law is a story about characters regressing, not improving.
oh cool - always wondered abt Hyperion. Will def read.
I only read the first book, and wow, was it great. I am planning on finishing the series in the next few months!
I hope you like it as well! :)
@@gigglingchicken8444If you thought book 1 was great, wait until you read book 2. That will blow your mind to pieces!!
Hyperion was my top book of 2024 too! Even though we don't get answers at the end, the time I spent with the characters made it so worth it and I look forward to reading the rest.
I do think the 2nd Jurassic Park book, The Lost World, is worth reading. I read both this year and really enjoyed them. It's quite a bit more intense with some more shocking parts than the first, but they're both so interesting for how different they are from the films. Definitely fun and quick reading.
Next year I’m going to read the stormlight archives and Harry Potter.
The swedish version of the dragonbone chair is 12 books instead of 3.
I’m surprised I don’t hear anything about the Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks. I really love that series. I just finished Wingfeather Saga with my kids and I absolutely love that series.
My next 3 planned series are Earth's Children, Red Rising, and Mistborn
Sounds amazing :)
Red Rising is fantastic
Thank you so much for shouting out Paladins of the Harvest!
Any time!
That Will Wight series is something I’ve wanted to try-but… based on the expectations you lay out maybe it isn’t something I prioritize heavily 😂
Hyperion is intense, also brings together many different genres into a single book masterfully.
Currently reading the second one right now. With the first one being so intense and leaving on cliff hanger I had to get fall of Hyperion
It's an absolute masterpiece
@@xipleadthe5th the 2nd book, was ok. But it does tie everything together really well.
@@Carlos-fh8wk I’m on part 3 right now in the second book. Why do you think it’s just okay? I feel like the first book wouldn’t be so good without the second book so far. Also I had heard that Dan Simmons wanted the first two to be one book but his editor had made him split it into two
100% agree with Hyperion and Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn - loved the trilogy, but definitely needed an editor
A few of these I haven't tried, but for the ones I read, they were easy favorites. Great picks!
You're a beast when it comes to the amount of books you've read!
@libraryofaviking far too much free time, unfortunately 😅
I feel like my 2025 is going to start where 2024 ended... with the red rising series, I'm on iron gold and the series is just fantastic and gets better every book
Funny, i finished 2023 and then started 2024 with iron gold
@Cinephilemo that's kinda funny. I'm only about halfway through iron gold right now
«Memory, Sorrow & Thorn»!😎🙌
As for myself, I would say:
1) Split: The «Cicero» Trilogy by Robert Harris (Historical Fiction about the Eponymous Roman Statesman: Harris is such an amazingly witty and knowledgeable Historical Fiction Writer, his Cicero is easily my Favorite Character of 2024!) & «A Brightness Long Ago» by Guy Gavriel Kay (part of GGK’s standalone «Jad» Universe, Fantasy inspired by the Mercenary Wars of Renaissance Italy: What can I say that is not already said about GGK, the Prose, the Characters, the Interactions, the Descriptions, all top notch!)
2)Split: «Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn» by Tad Williams (Epic Fantasy: What an amazing width, going from the cozy to the horrific, the mundane to the epic, that is simply astonishing and deserves to be more celebrated! ) & «The Prince of Nothing» by R. Scott Bakker (Grimdark/Dark Epic Fantasy inspired by the Crusades, Silmarillion & Dune: A genuinely challenging author in his themes & descriptions and an intricate world-builder, who puts his characters literally through Hell and back!)
4)«Sun Eater» by Christopher Ruocchio (Space opera: I love how effortlessly he weaves in both Genre & Classic Literature and Art into a natural world building and is not afraid to go weird, philosophical and esoteric!)
5) The «Rigante» series by David Gemmell (Heroic Fantasy/S&S inspired by Celtic Britain and the Roman Invasions of Julius Ceasar (with a dash of Napoleon too): Easily the best character ensemble writer of this year, you get humbled by the empathy Gemmell gave to even his minor characters or antagonists, with incredible emotional callbacks!)
6) «Brother Red» by Adrian Selby (Grimdark Fantasy, standalone «midquel» to «Snakewood» & «The Winter Road»: Selby has a unique mix of deadpan humor and trauma, trauma, trauma, with inspiration from the East India Company)
7) «The Kingkiller Chronicle» by Patrick Rothfuss (Fantasy: Whatever you say about Rothfuss, an amazing prose writer, who effortlessly mix wit and tragedy, and has an very interesting world lore ripe for theories and speculations, even if we never get a (final) book #3!)
Cheers!
I'm guessing you missed all of Brian McClellan's short stories set in The Powder Mage world that fall between the trilogies books.
Love your videos - thank you
I really appreciate it. Thank you!
I wish I could've finished the Dragon Bone Chair. I liked it, but it was so slow, and halfway through I just felt exhausted. It ended up putting me in a 3 month long reading slump.
I gave up on it on the second book, i came back to it about a year later and finished, i would say you're not missing much if you don't finish it
Another brilliant video. Do you have Bluesky? I'm mostly on that now.
Hi 👋 I hope u had a good Christmas?? Look forward to next year reads!! 😊
Ok, I get some validation here for Licanius. Book 1 was awesome. Jumped right into Book 2, and when I finished it I had no clue wtf I had just read 🤣🤣🤣 so I tried listening to the latter half w/ Michael Kramer and, I think because Kramer reads Sanderson and Islington was inspired by the same, listening to Licanius felt like listening to a knock-off Stormlight but with time travel. It drove me bonkers.
This year has been a year of a lot of stand alone. I’m hoping to finish Lonesome Dove next year and pick up the next book. I also want to finish Wind and Truth. I’m almost half way through, but I’m not enjoying it at all.
I keep seeing Lonesome Dove on booktube!
Love your work, always look forward to new videos from you!
I agree with you about The Licanius Trilogy, I loved the first book, the second didn’t interest me and I crawled through the last book. It was way too confusing, it was hard to picture the how the Magic of Kan was being used, and the ending didn’t have the payoff that a series this long should have, left me feeling short changed.
@@TimBeverythingEDC Thank you so much for the kind words! It is a shame about Licanius. I really expected to love all three books!
The Powder Mage sequel trilogy is pretty good too.
I started Hyperion this year, and I've read 3 of the 4 books so far. The first two are incredible. The third is good but falls short.
I love Mythago Wood!!!!!! BUT OMG !!!! The next book in the series..... Lavondyss is so much better. This is probably my favourite fantasy book of all time. Even more mysterious, a little bit more dark and disturbingly addictive. It is more coherent than Mythago Wood since it is a more linear story. Cannot recommend enough!
Love Green Bone 💚❤️💙
Albadone was really interesting.
The War Eternal is a favorite.
Hyperion is my top novel from a new to me author this year too. That ending 🤯
I'm excited to start Tad Williams this year 🙌🏻
Have you tried The Elder Empire by Will Wight?
Licanius takes some serious focus 😂
Fun video 🤪
Hyperion is the go-to sci-fi book for me, too.
It's a masterpiece!
If you do audiobooks, my top #1 recommendation would be hands down The Wandering Inn series.
It’s 48+ hours for the audiobook version of the first book! That’ll take quite a while to finish!
The last war trilogy was incredible.
The Captives War short story Livesuit is excellent. I liked it better than Mercy of the Gods!
I am really curious to hear what you'll think about Fall of Hyperion.
I was also super hyped after the first book (though it already had one or two red flags) and the second one ended up being one of the dumbest books I've ever read (not one of the worst by any means, but just amazingly dumb and forced this or that way).
I was surprised at how many of the series you featured I have in my digital library, to be read. I'll definitely move a few up the list, based on your recommendation. I TORE through the entire Dungeon Crawler Carl series in October this year, I loved it enormously. KJ Parker's work is worth checking out, if you haven't yet. Also, I like Robin Hobb, but that's about it, when it comes to female fantasy writers. I've tried dozens, and it's extremely rare that I find one I like enough to finish, much less recommend. Maybe I'm just too analytical and female authors are too emotional, I don't know. But beyond Hobb's Madships trilogy, I recall enjoying Rachel Aaron's first Eli Monpress title, and the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by NK Jemison, and that's about it. Also kind of burnt out on Sanderson as well.
Licanius didn’t work for me either. The first book was ok for me, but I ended up dnfing book 2. However, I loved The Will of the Many. Hopefully you’ll enjoy that one.
It is such a shame. I look forward to The Will of the Many!
Rage of dragons is great, but Fires of Vengeance is not, it ends really abruptly. Books 3 is due out in May so hopefully that improves as I really enjoyed the setting.
It would be helpful if you could list the books, authors or series in the description of the video. Especially when you're going through so many, so fast. Or keep the book cover on screen while you're talking about it.
Yeah, “Godkiller” was a DNF for me. Loved the worldbuild but man. What s letdown
Powdermage Trilogy is flirting with being my all-time favorite trilogy. So unique, so good
You didn’t like “Never Die”?! Dang. All of Mortal Techniques I thought was solid
How come you deleted the harry potter video. I was so looking forward to it. I've been fighting that corner for years
@@silverx_1848 I was testing two titles/thumbnails in the first two hours. The video is now titled 'Way of Kings is overrated'
I don't know if you read these, but do you do reviews of books when requested? It's selfish of me to ask, I know, but I wanted to ask.
And yes, I'll be brutally honest and say that I've just been hopping around youtube looking for book reviewers because I'm desperate at this point and the only thing I have going for me are my books.
Powder mage is AWESOME. Whats the magic system? Cocaine. LOL
Godkiller is a 5-star book for me but I abandoned Sunbringer because I found it incredibly boring... so you definitely made the right choice by not continuing the series
Read Orconomics if you haven't yet. Enjoy
1:13, 4:43, 5:46, 8:23, 12:30, 16:39
Bro Videos this coming literally every month on this channel wtf
I just finished reading the Faithful and the Fallen. It seems I was reading a video game script. The plot was okay but beyond that it was just fight and more fight. I saw amazing reviews for Pierce Brown series of Red Rising Saga. Didn’t appreciate it much, it lacked character depth. Everything seemed superficial to me. May be my expectations are too high or I might need to switch genres to get a better investment of my time.
Is Faithful and the Fallen worth finishing? I was so disappointed by how incredibly shallow the characters were in book 1 and how everything quickly became "here's the super perfect Chosen One who can do no wrong" and dropped it, but reviews are really good, so I wonder if I'm missing something and the following 3 get better.
@ of course. You should finish it. It’s quite predictable however a fun read. However if you decide to DNF it then the world will still spin and you won’t lose much. My only gripe is that most book tubers rate it as 5 stars which it is not. I need to give a big applause to John Gywnne for an extremely good effort and I am hopeful that his performance will be better and better in the future.
What fantasy books have you read that have character depth you liked?
@ check out
1. Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee.
2. GRR - Game of Thrones
3. Storm light Archives by Brandon Sanderson
4. Memory, Sorrow and Thorne by Tad Williams
Sorry - I should have started with Harry Potter series. That has better character depth.
@@DragonWarrior976 I've read most of these with GOT being my favorite. I agree with your assessment of faith and that fallen.
The way you described feeling when reading the Licanius Trilogy is exactly how I feel about Stormlight. It started out interesting, but became a slog to get through and thoroughly uninteresting. I DNFed Rhythm of War. If I have enough time in my 70s when all the books are released I might try again with audiobooks, but I doubt it.
I also understand about Licanius. It starts out simple and interesting and turns into something wildly complex. Based on the ending of The Will of the Many, I think that series is headed the same direction.
My intro to SF was Jack Vance's Demon Prince series when I was in my early teens in the late 70's. Love this series but can understand that it may not be to the taste of younger readers of SF
You know conclusions could be even harder than the rest of what you write. But that’s just my opinion.
1st Comment. I love your videos 😍
Thank you so much ❤️