Given your taste, I'm sure you'll enjoy it, but I don't know if you'll be AS emphatic and me and most others I've seen discuss it. It's really great, but it's quite a fast paced book that almost reads like the first three Red Rising books or a Megan O'Keefe book if you've read her work. Velocity Weapon by her is great, but I prefer Blighted Stars. I think you'll really enjoy the Tyrant Philosphers though, it seems more your speed! It reads a bit like Long Price. Thanks for telling me the series name lol. I had no idea what you were talking about at first, I had to look it up.
Thank you for the recommendations. Here is my top 10 books. 🥇"Speaking Bones" - Ken Liu 🥈"Blood Over Bright Haven" - M. L. Wang 🥉"The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi" - Shannon Chakraborty "The Book That Wouldn't Burn" - Mark Lawrence "Spinning Silver" - Naomi Novik "Perdido Street Station" - China Mieville "Bloodchild and Other Stories" - Octavia E. Butler "Lone Women" - Victor LaValle "Talonsister" - Jen Williams "Godkiller" - Hannah Kaner
I'm very curious about Blood Over Bright Haven. Everyone raves about Sword of Kaigen and I cannot fathom why because I legit think it's one of the worst, most fanfic, amateur author book I've ever read but people are obsessed with it. So I'm hesitant about Bright Haven but I'm hoping it's decent. Also I haven't read LeValle yet but I wanna start his book Changling because I watched the first episode of the TV show.
My Top Favorite Read of 2023, is a tie between «Under Heaven» by Guy Gavriel Kay & «The Veiled Throne» («Dandelion Dynasty #3) by Ken Liu: «Under Heaven» should be teached next to «War & Peace» and «Le Miserables» for GGK’s prose and Ken Liu’s Character Work has few if any rivals! A character that has only one scene in «TVT» (though a series veteran in «The Dandelion Dynasty»), earned with that scene alone my favorite character of 2023: Cogo Yelu! Next is another tie between «The Retreat to Avalon» by Sean Poage & «The Winter King» by Bernard Cornwell: Poage has written my favorite take on «A Historical King Arthur» and the Seige of Yves Trebon/St. Michel in «TWK» shows why Cornwell might be the best at writing battles! The next are unsorted: «The Winter Road» by Adrian Selby «The Way of Edan» by Philip Chase (You might have heard about him! 😄) «Bold Ascension» by Vaughn Roycroft «Salammbo» by Gustave Flaubert «The Farthest Shore» by Ursula K. Le Guin «The Name of the Wind» by Patrick Rothfuss «Brigantia» by Adrian Goldsworthy «Tortilla Flat» by John Steinbeck «The Little Emperors» by Alfred Duggan My Honorable Mentions «The Conscience of the King» by Alfred Duggan «Tehanu» by Ursula K. Le Guin «The Black Gods Kiss» (Jirel of Joiry) by CL Moore
Great picks and thanks for the recommendations. I gotta give Under Heaven another try. It's one of my lower rated GGK books, but I ABSOLUTELY ADORED the companion novel River of Stars. Dandelion Dynasty is really great too. I only wish my fav character had gotten to impact the story the way I had hoped. I feel like the series kinda promised me something and didn't deliver. The Winter Road is sooooooo good and so insanely underrated. It's crazy it doesn't get the love it deserves. The brews are such an interesting idea. I really want to get to Philip's trilogy but I haven't yet.
@@BooksRebound Yeah, I just finished Selby’s standalone sequel to «The Winter Road», «Brother Red»: That man knows how to twist and break your heart! Can really recommend «Edan»! DD: Was it Phyro? My notes from «River of Stars» (I have tried to edit them into (questionably) understandable sentences! 😅😆): The 12th Dynasty of Khitan is clearly based on the (Northern) Song Dynasty of China and the Xiaolu on the Khitan Liao Dynasty. The Altai shares their name with the Turkic Altai People in Modern Day Russia, while their role is more of the Jurchen Jin Dynasty (from which the Manchu would later grew out of), which replaced the Khitan and conquered Northern China, forcing the Song south to establish the Southern Song Dynasty. The Kislik are compatible with the Tangut Western Xia Dynasty, and their capital of Erighaya has multiple possible inspirations: Xingqing (the Xia Capital, Modern Day Yinchuan), as well as Lingzhou (a Xia City) and Nanjing* (*Modern Day Beijing, Southern Capitol of the Khitan Liao Dynasty) for reasons mentioned later. The name of Hanjin seems to a mix of Beijing & Han (the Majority Chinese Ethnicity), while serving a similar role of Kaifang, the Capital of (Northern) Song China Yenling: Luoyang, one of China’s oldest city and a cradle of Chinese Civilization, the Western Capital of Song, famous for its Peonies and its Peony Festival/Zhaozhou, which held out for a long time under command of Han Shizhong during the 2nd Jurchen Jin Invasion of Song China. Peonies have indeed been popular since the Tang Dynasty, and was named the National Flower of China during the later Qing Dynasty and in a recent poll in PRC, while the «Peony Craze» slightly mimic the «Tulip Mania» of 17th Century Netherlands! While Ren Daiyan is mostly based on Yue Fei, a Song General and later Folk Hero, with similar victories against the Jurchen, his skill as an archer and having a similar tattoo as Ren in some stories, the outlaw aspect of him is lifted much more from the 108 «heroic» bandits of the Classic Song Novel «The Water Margin»/«Outlaws of the Marches»/«All Men Are Brothers», which battle and tricked corrupt bureaucrats and tax collectors, not unlike Robin Hood and his Merry Men of Sherwood Forest in the Western Canon: The Wine Seller Heist is almost straight out of «Water Margin», though with Date sellers, and not hemp! As such Ren as also shares aspects with Song Jiang (the Leader of the 108 Heroes, based on a real life leader of a campaign against the Khitan Liao Dynasty), Wu Song (The Tiger Killer of the 108) and Hua Rong (The Master Archer of the 108). Zhao Ziji is similarly based on Han Shizhong, a Song General who held the Northern City of Zhaozhou during the Jurchen 2th Invasion before escorted the future first Southern Song Emperor to safety in the South, but also «The Water Margin» Characters: Lu Zhishen, a former Army officer turned Bandit (and Munk!) among the 108 and Yang Zhi, a Bandit turned soldier against his will, which lead the Birthday gift caravan hit by the Wine Seller Heist, before he later joined the 108. Prime Minister Hang Dejin is clearly based on the Historical Song Minister Wang Anshi, (in)famous for his «New Polices»: He intended to balance the Song Treasury with cuts to state expenditure, nationalizing industries and fund silk production, a major revenue for the Song State. Similarly he attempted to improve efficiency within the Song Bureaucracy, by de-emphasize the study of Confucian Classics in civil servant education over more practical and balanced education. The Military was also reformed: Army units were reformed into combined forces of infantry, cavalry and archers rather than as seperate units, local militias were established to relieve the army of internal duties and increased military spending went into an aggressive foreign policy against the Northern Border and the Empires of the Steppe. Finally Wang attempted to alleviate suffering among the poor farmers, by tax cuts and public loans («Green Sprouts Law») for struggling farmers, hiring workers over corvee forced labor, and targeting those leaching of their poverty (money lenders, speculators, big landowners and private monopolies) by buying surplus wares to store in new granaries and deal out in harsher periods. However, local bureaucrats exploited the loans, which only reinforced the debt struggle of farmers, and famine combined with conservative/reformer rivalry and corruption and financial mismanagement by Wang’s followers, would leave the Northern Song open for the Jurchen invasion which fell the Northern Song and left China divided between the Jurchen Jin Dynasty in the North and the Southern Song Dynasty in the South. The Former Prime Minister Xi Wengao is based on Sima Guang, the main conservative rival of Wang Anshi and labeled China’s Greatest Historian, while Kai Zhen is based on Cai Jing, a Song Minister and «The Water Margin» Antagonist, and Wu Tong mostly on Tong Guan, Eunuch General allied with Kai Zhen also made an antagonist in «The Water Margin» for his failed Campaign against the Khitan Liao Dynasty to capture back the city they had turned their Southern Capital (Modern Day Beijing), but also on Liu Fa (a General whose army was crushed by the Tanguts when attempting to take their Capital) and Gao Zunyu (who attacked the Tangut Xia City Lingzhou without seige weapons)! Lu Chen is based on the Poet and Statesman Su Shi/Dongpo, who also wrote a Battle of Red Cliff Poem: «Ode to the Battle of the Red Cliffs», about the famous Historic (but also much romanticized and mythologized) Battle during the Three Kingdoms Period. Szechen: Sichuan Empress Hao: Empress Wu Zetian, the only empress of China ruling in her own right, much maligned by some as bloodthirsty and power hungry, hailed as a champion of women, the arts and fair government by others. Love the detail GGK put into lifting several of «The Six Arts of Ancient Chinese Education» in this story: Archery, music, rites, calligraphy & equestrianism (mathematics was the only one not particularly mention of the six)! The use of two swords mimic the Samurai Warrior Caste of Japan, who also held the bow up as the most noble weapon. The ninth day of the ninth month as a holy day: 9X9=49, a holy number tied to the number of days Siddhartha Buddha sat under the Bodhi Tree before gaining enlightenment. The Emperor’s line over owning poems by Lu, «Prehaps we must be exiled, ourselves!» showed a great sense of humor for the Emperor, but also served as a hint for his future… I am curious to know if GGK might be a fan of the 70s movie «March or Die!», about the French Foreign Legion defending Archeologists against Desert Raiders in the Sahara! Published in 2013, I also can not help but think comparisons also to more recent history: The disastrous Kislik War, the poverty crisis of Kitan and the infamous «New Polices» also seems as take that against the «Neo-Conservative» US Wars in the Middle East with support by the «New Democrats» and British «New Labour» (I also can not help but think of the devastation done to both humans and archaeological artifacts by terror groups in the region both then and later with the Altai Pillaging), the «Neo-Liberal» economic failures of the Financial Crisis of 07-08, and the much maligned office policy of «New Public Management» of «efficiency and costumer service, over quality and working environment». Which would be slightly ironic, given that Wang and his good intentions have a better reputation among the Chinese Communist Party and US New Dealers!
I read Blindsight and found it to be challenging but also extremely thought-provoking. Echopraxia is the follow up that I have yet to read. Glad you found it interesting. 👍
I have yet to read Blindsight but I'm for sure going to after how great Echopraxia was. If you like the book, I've recommended checking out The Quantum Magician/Garden/War trilogy by a local author in my city Derek Kunsken. It's a trilogy that's super interesting and worth picking up and quite scientific in an interesting way.
Some good sounding reads!
Excellent list! I am curious about Will of the Many and The Tyrant Philosophers Series. Hope you find many new favorites this year!
Given your taste, I'm sure you'll enjoy it, but I don't know if you'll be AS emphatic and me and most others I've seen discuss it. It's really great, but it's quite a fast paced book that almost reads like the first three Red Rising books or a Megan O'Keefe book if you've read her work. Velocity Weapon by her is great, but I prefer Blighted Stars.
I think you'll really enjoy the Tyrant Philosphers though, it seems more your speed! It reads a bit like Long Price. Thanks for telling me the series name lol. I had no idea what you were talking about at first, I had to look it up.
Thank you for the recommendations. Here is my top 10 books.
🥇"Speaking Bones" - Ken Liu
🥈"Blood Over Bright Haven" - M. L. Wang
🥉"The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi" - Shannon Chakraborty
"The Book That Wouldn't Burn" - Mark Lawrence
"Spinning Silver" - Naomi Novik
"Perdido Street Station" - China Mieville
"Bloodchild and Other Stories" - Octavia E. Butler
"Lone Women" - Victor LaValle
"Talonsister" - Jen Williams
"Godkiller" - Hannah Kaner
I'm very curious about Blood Over Bright Haven. Everyone raves about Sword of Kaigen and I cannot fathom why because I legit think it's one of the worst, most fanfic, amateur author book I've ever read but people are obsessed with it.
So I'm hesitant about Bright Haven but I'm hoping it's decent.
Also I haven't read LeValle yet but I wanna start his book Changling because I watched the first episode of the TV show.
My Top Favorite Read of 2023, is a tie between «Under Heaven» by Guy Gavriel Kay & «The Veiled Throne» («Dandelion Dynasty #3) by Ken Liu: «Under Heaven» should be teached next to «War & Peace» and «Le Miserables» for GGK’s prose and Ken Liu’s Character Work has few if any rivals! A character that has only one scene in «TVT» (though a series veteran in «The Dandelion Dynasty»), earned with that scene alone my favorite character of 2023: Cogo Yelu!
Next is another tie between «The Retreat to Avalon» by Sean Poage & «The Winter King» by Bernard Cornwell: Poage has written my favorite take on «A Historical King Arthur» and the Seige of Yves Trebon/St. Michel in «TWK» shows why Cornwell might be the best at writing battles!
The next are unsorted:
«The Winter Road» by Adrian Selby
«The Way of Edan» by Philip Chase (You might have heard about him! 😄)
«Bold Ascension» by Vaughn Roycroft
«Salammbo» by Gustave Flaubert
«The Farthest Shore» by Ursula K. Le Guin
«The Name of the Wind» by Patrick Rothfuss
«Brigantia» by Adrian Goldsworthy
«Tortilla Flat» by John Steinbeck
«The Little Emperors» by Alfred Duggan
My Honorable Mentions
«The Conscience of the King» by Alfred Duggan
«Tehanu» by Ursula K. Le Guin
«The Black Gods Kiss» (Jirel of Joiry) by CL Moore
Great picks and thanks for the recommendations. I gotta give Under Heaven another try. It's one of my lower rated GGK books, but I ABSOLUTELY ADORED the companion novel River of Stars. Dandelion Dynasty is really great too. I only wish my fav character had gotten to impact the story the way I had hoped. I feel like the series kinda promised me something and didn't deliver.
The Winter Road is sooooooo good and so insanely underrated. It's crazy it doesn't get the love it deserves. The brews are such an interesting idea.
I really want to get to Philip's trilogy but I haven't yet.
@@BooksRebound Yeah, I just finished Selby’s standalone sequel to «The Winter Road», «Brother Red»: That man knows how to twist and break your heart!
Can really recommend «Edan»!
DD: Was it Phyro?
My notes from «River of Stars» (I have tried to edit them into (questionably) understandable sentences! 😅😆):
The 12th Dynasty of Khitan is clearly based on the (Northern) Song Dynasty of China and the Xiaolu on the Khitan Liao Dynasty.
The Altai shares their name with the Turkic Altai People in Modern Day Russia, while their role is more of the Jurchen Jin Dynasty (from which the Manchu would later grew out of), which replaced the Khitan and conquered Northern China, forcing the Song south to establish the Southern Song Dynasty.
The Kislik are compatible with the Tangut Western Xia Dynasty, and their capital of Erighaya has multiple possible inspirations: Xingqing (the Xia Capital, Modern Day Yinchuan), as well as Lingzhou (a Xia City) and Nanjing* (*Modern Day Beijing, Southern Capitol of the Khitan Liao Dynasty) for reasons mentioned later.
The name of Hanjin seems to a mix of Beijing & Han (the Majority Chinese Ethnicity), while serving a similar role of Kaifang, the Capital of (Northern) Song China
Yenling: Luoyang, one of China’s oldest city and a cradle of Chinese Civilization, the Western Capital of Song, famous for its Peonies and its Peony Festival/Zhaozhou, which held out for a long time under command of Han Shizhong during the 2nd Jurchen Jin Invasion of Song China. Peonies have indeed been popular since the Tang Dynasty, and was named the National Flower of China during the later Qing Dynasty and in a recent poll in PRC, while the «Peony Craze» slightly mimic the «Tulip Mania» of 17th Century Netherlands!
While Ren Daiyan is mostly based on Yue Fei, a Song General and later Folk Hero, with similar victories against the Jurchen, his skill as an archer and having a similar tattoo as Ren in some stories, the outlaw aspect of him is lifted much more from the 108 «heroic» bandits of the Classic Song Novel «The Water Margin»/«Outlaws of the Marches»/«All Men Are Brothers», which battle and tricked corrupt bureaucrats and tax collectors, not unlike Robin Hood and his Merry Men of Sherwood Forest in the Western Canon: The Wine Seller Heist is almost straight out of «Water Margin», though with Date sellers, and not hemp! As such Ren as also shares aspects with Song Jiang (the Leader of the 108 Heroes, based on a real life leader of a campaign against the Khitan Liao Dynasty), Wu Song (The Tiger Killer of the 108) and Hua Rong (The Master Archer of the 108).
Zhao Ziji is similarly based on Han Shizhong, a Song General who held the Northern City of Zhaozhou during the Jurchen 2th Invasion before escorted the future first Southern Song Emperor to safety in the South, but also «The Water Margin» Characters: Lu Zhishen, a former Army officer turned Bandit (and Munk!) among the 108 and Yang Zhi, a Bandit turned soldier against his will, which lead the Birthday gift caravan hit by the Wine Seller Heist, before he later joined the 108.
Prime Minister Hang Dejin is clearly based on the Historical Song Minister Wang Anshi, (in)famous for his «New Polices»: He intended to balance the Song Treasury with cuts to state expenditure, nationalizing industries and fund silk production, a major revenue for the Song State. Similarly he attempted to improve efficiency within the Song Bureaucracy, by de-emphasize the study of Confucian Classics in civil servant education over more practical and balanced education. The Military was also reformed: Army units were reformed into combined forces of infantry, cavalry and archers rather than as seperate units, local militias were established to relieve the army of internal duties and increased military spending went into an aggressive foreign policy against the Northern Border and the Empires of the Steppe.
Finally Wang attempted to alleviate suffering among the poor farmers, by tax cuts and public loans («Green Sprouts Law») for struggling farmers, hiring workers over corvee forced labor, and targeting those leaching of their poverty (money lenders, speculators, big landowners and private monopolies) by buying surplus wares to store in new granaries and deal out in harsher periods.
However, local bureaucrats exploited the loans, which only reinforced the debt struggle of farmers, and famine combined with conservative/reformer rivalry and corruption and financial mismanagement by Wang’s followers, would leave the Northern Song open for the Jurchen invasion which fell the Northern Song and left China divided between the Jurchen Jin Dynasty in the North and the Southern Song Dynasty in the South.
The Former Prime Minister Xi Wengao is based on Sima Guang, the main conservative rival of Wang Anshi and labeled China’s Greatest Historian, while Kai Zhen is based on Cai Jing, a Song Minister and «The Water Margin» Antagonist, and Wu Tong mostly on Tong Guan, Eunuch General allied with Kai Zhen also made an antagonist in «The Water Margin» for his failed Campaign against the Khitan Liao Dynasty to capture back the city they had turned their Southern Capital (Modern Day Beijing), but also on Liu Fa (a General whose army was crushed by the Tanguts when attempting to take their Capital) and Gao Zunyu (who attacked the Tangut Xia City Lingzhou without seige weapons)!
Lu Chen is based on the Poet and Statesman Su Shi/Dongpo, who also wrote a Battle of Red Cliff Poem: «Ode to the Battle of the Red Cliffs», about the famous Historic (but also much romanticized and mythologized) Battle during the Three Kingdoms Period.
Szechen: Sichuan
Empress Hao: Empress Wu Zetian, the only empress of China ruling in her own right, much maligned by some as bloodthirsty and power hungry, hailed as a champion of women, the arts and fair government by others.
Love the detail GGK put into lifting several of «The Six Arts of Ancient Chinese Education» in this story: Archery, music, rites, calligraphy & equestrianism (mathematics was the only one not particularly mention of the six)!
The use of two swords mimic the Samurai Warrior Caste of Japan, who also held the bow up as the most noble weapon.
The ninth day of the ninth month as a holy day: 9X9=49, a holy number tied to the number of days Siddhartha Buddha sat under the Bodhi Tree before gaining enlightenment.
The Emperor’s line over owning poems by Lu, «Prehaps we must be exiled, ourselves!» showed a great sense of humor for the Emperor, but also served as a hint for his future…
I am curious to know if GGK might be a fan of the 70s movie «March or Die!», about the French Foreign Legion defending Archeologists against Desert Raiders in the Sahara!
Published in 2013, I also can not help but think comparisons also to more recent history: The disastrous Kislik War, the poverty crisis of Kitan and the infamous «New Polices» also seems as take that against the «Neo-Conservative» US Wars in the Middle East with support by the «New Democrats» and British «New Labour» (I also can not help but think of the devastation done to both humans and archaeological artifacts by terror groups in the region both then and later with the Altai Pillaging), the «Neo-Liberal» economic failures of the Financial Crisis of 07-08, and the much maligned office policy of «New Public Management» of «efficiency and costumer service, over quality and working environment». Which would be slightly ironic, given that Wang and his good intentions have a better reputation among the Chinese Communist Party and US New Dealers!
I read Blindsight and found it to be challenging but also extremely thought-provoking. Echopraxia is the follow up that I have yet to read. Glad you found it interesting. 👍
I have yet to read Blindsight but I'm for sure going to after how great Echopraxia was. If you like the book, I've recommended checking out The Quantum Magician/Garden/War trilogy by a local author in my city Derek Kunsken. It's a trilogy that's super interesting and worth picking up and quite scientific in an interesting way.