I read The Tainted Cup and A House with Good Bones last year. I'd rank them pretty high. Very high, in fact.…But, really, I can't recall what I've read a week ago much less a year ago. 200 books? 300? No idea.…I see a big overlap in our reading but also a huge gap. I think you lean more toward epic fantasy, which I lost interest in maybe 40 years ago. And romance, which I've never liked and can rarely tolerate. Those differences are what make discussions fun, totally sympatico one moment and open mouthed perplexity the next (you like what?).…Interesting selection you're choosing from.

Loved Wolfskin. Love love love Juliet Marrillier!! I need to read The Rook and the Rose trilogy. It sounds so good!

My new favorite books and author I wish I knew more authors that wrote like this

Nice one!

I've been a fan of the Valdemar books for a very long time now. It's nice to see them get the occasional mention. Best books in 2024 for me (sorry, I read over 350 books; this is the short list): Suspense The Rock Hole (Red River Mysteries #1), Reavis Z. Wortham First Frost (Walt Longmire #20), Craig Johnson Stone Cross (Arliss Cutter #2), Marc Cameron Fantasy The Wizard's Butler, Nathan Lowell Exile's Honor, Mercedes Lackey College Arcane (Demon Accords #8), John Conroe (I didn't remove this because book 18 sucked, but I thought about it) A group award for the Penric & Desdemona novellas, by Lois McMaster Bujold, which are all very good to excellent. SF The Iron Prince (Warformed: Stormweaver #1), Bryce O'Conner A Call to Arms (Manticore Ascendant #2), David Weber & Timothy Zahn What Price Victory (Worlds of Honor anthology series #7), David Weber, et al. Vanguard (Codename: Freedom #4), Apollos Thorne And a special award for the first 4 Murderbot novellas treated as a group. The first three are individually rather weak, but the fourth novella completes a story arc that is just excellent and together they tell a complete story that is very affecting. Sports LitRPG (really) Player Manager (Player Manager #1), Ted Steel Aside: If you're looking to do a top-N list, you might want to check out the Pub Meeple Ranking Engine, which does pairwise comparisons and gives you an ordered list at the end. Most people who use it feel the need to tweak the results a bit, but it's a pretty good place to start if you have enough things that it's hard to do a ranking.

Nice, just finishing up 5th book in sun eater series 4th one was very dark, this one both happy and very sad, we see how Hadrians journey into abyss happens its taken me 3wks to get through it, because I hate sad scenes and it has some terrible ones, will finish the book today, I think..excellent series, if I was the editor I would shorten many parts of the series so far, but I guess it goes into world building..

I devoured Blood Over Bright Haven. I feel the need to reread it now. Anyway, since Wolfskin impacted you so heavily, I've already ordered it. Tainted Cup will be going on my reading list, also. Thank yiu.

The tainted cup is going on the to-read list.

Ooh i feel this so much! I have to force myself to finish series! I absolutely loved rook & rose!

If you’ve never read the Valdemar books before then you’re in for an AMAZING ride. I’ve been reading the entire series over the past year or so, and it’s one of my favorites. As for a starting point, I recommend one of three series: Tarma and Kethry. It collects two novels and a collection of short stories and tells the story of Tarma and Kethry (and Need) meeting, and who they were before you meet them in By the Sword. They are also some of the earliest published stories so if you like publication order, this is the best way to start. The Complete Arrows Trilogy that you already have. This one gives you a more in-depth introduction to the Heralds, who they are, what they do, and why. And I THINK it’s the “official” starting point. The Last Herald Mage. Magic’s Pawn/Magic’s Promise/Magic’s Price, this is the first trilogy I read many many years ago, and it’s one of the most popular in the series.

"Star Wars Extended Universe"?!? Seriously?

Third book of the children of time. Still haunts me. Great book.

Armor

Happy New Year! I'm planning to start The Sun Eater series this year, so I'm happy we'll be on this journey together! I've only read The Appeal from Janice Hallett and loved it, also hoping to read more from her in 2025. Fingers crossed for a good reading year ahead.

The outcast mage sounds pretty interesting. Im going to have to add that one to the tbr. Also going to pick up The Wood in Midwinter

I look forward to hearing more of your journey through valdemar!!

Nice list, I’m middle of 5th book in sun eater series so far so good, all these books can get long winded at times, if you get past that, they improve one after the other, although half the 4th is very dark, but probably required to justify the story arc if a genocide..tbd I agree Hadrian’s actions are infuriating at times..great series so far! PS the homage to dune continues in so many way, often surprising it’s interesting

Ursula Vernon is one of the finest writers out there. I've only recently begun working my way through her T. Kingfisher titles. I just read Paladin's Grace earlier today. What a pleasure. She and Elizabeth Bear seem to write effortlessly. That should get a laugh out of either of them.

Greg Bear's War Dogs trilogy is actually very good. It deals with aliens, ancient aliens, other alien manipulation and man's fight to fit in and understand his place and role in it all. It's all fought in our solar system, with Mars and the moon Titan as major locals. It's worth a read if this is your genre.

Dune sucks as well

A memory called Empire was not good as far as I am concerned

Old guy here, I thought this was awesome!! You made a comparison I didn't fully understand, but it's always nice to have something to look up!

I would recommend you to read Full Spectrum Barrage Jamming, a short story by Cixin Liu. This short story, to me is the very definition of military sci-fi.

Pleas hold up the front cover of the book for viewers, while speaking.

I tend to recommend Pub order because you get the chance to see her writing grow along with the world-building, and while the different series jump around in the timeline, the questions raised in one series are expanded in the next by written order. If you count By the Sword as your 'current' timeline, Arrows trilogy takes part in the middle of BtS, the Mage Winds + Mage Storms series continue forward from BtS/Arrows (and Winds/Storms are basically a two-part trilogy), then the Owl series goes further forward after a small timeskip. But you really Really need the context of The Last Herald-mage series to understand current events in Valdemar (though it is set about 500 years in the past), and you Want the context of the Mage Wars (Gryphon series, thousand or so years in the past) to understand the world, and the reasons there is so much messed up wild magic and places devastated by ancient mage battles. Though for you personally having started with By the Sword you might want to read Vows & Honor next because that is Kethry and Tarma's story (Kerowyn's grandmother and sword-grandmother) and drops you back about 60 years and will fill you in on all of their adventures with Need. It's not set in Valdemar at all but helps expand the world-building and helps you have appreciation for how odd Valdemar is with their Heralds and magic horses. Then go to Arrows and onwards in pub order. Talia's books are a good start because the main POV in a young farmgirl from a remote border area and she actually doesn't know much about her own country, so as a reader you learn with her. My hands down favorite series is The Last Herald-mage trilogy, it was written 1989-1990 and were the first books I read as a young teen that had a gay protagonist. It's won a LAMBDA Award and has had a place in my heart ever since I first read it, and I still reread it! (But fair warning, you will cry your eyes out!) And if you are interested, here is a recording of the song "Kerowyn's Ride" (there are like 8 albums of music from the books!) kzbin.info/www/bejne/eqPMZ6msdtF3eck

The owlsight trilogy part of the valdamar series is my favorite three books. Love the Crown of stars!! If you havent read them the green rider series is good, The Mistborn trilogy is great. Black Magician Trilogy i love. Sorry i can go on forever lol. Love you videos 👍

Thankfully for me there are only a few new books coming out this year that I will make a high priority for myself. Maybe ill be able to catch up on some of my backlog reads.

No Martha Wells? A sequel to The Witch King is coming. She's also working on a new Murderbot but I don't know if the date has been set. A new space opera installment by Elizabeth Bear. Vivian Shaw.…What I want to read are the finale's by Philip Pullman and Tamsyn Muir. Who knows when we'll see either.

Nice list. A couple caught my eye, and I've pre-ordered the Outcast Mage. Two questions for you, thought; 1) have you read/reviewed "A Flame in the North" or "The Fall of Waterstone"? I see them on your shelf, and was curious. And 2) Where did you find the gnome? I'm thinking my wife would love one. As always, thanks for your thoughts and ideas. Hope the jolly, fat man brings you lots of interesting and exciting stories this holiday season.

Interest list, just wrapping up the 4th in the sun eater series, this one took a dark turn, after the mostly positive 3rd book, still very good, thinking the 5th will be more positive, tbd..Merry Christmas to you and your family, pet the crew especially chip!

Sorry! My bad. Frank Herbert wrote The Dorsadi Experiment. While the Dorsai books were written by Gordon R Dickson. I always got these titles mixed up. A great book by Gordon R Dickson is 'Naked to the stars'.

Elizabeth Moon 'Vata War Saga' and her 'Serano Legacy' stories. Read them you won't regret it. I also like Frank Herbert's 'The Dorsai Legacy'. (or books he wrote with 'Dorsai' as part of the title).

Hey Lee, I'm a newly published author and I would love to send you a review copy of my book. Let me know if we could possibly arrange that. Cheers.

honor universe

One of the few books I couldn't finish. The feel of it reminded me of Chuck Palahniuk, who is someone I'll never read again.

Chip multiple appearances! Yes! Sounds interesting, not sure I’ll read it, don’t like stuff like that, rational mind says these things are rubbish, my Imagination agrees but than imagines, than I remember many unexplained things in this world..almost all of them with a rational logical explanation, which we haven’t figured out yet..

This one sounds like a solid pass. Not a fan of the horror/suspenseful thriller type genres. Having to stop the flow of the story to go read footnotes is too much like work.

Your list overlaps my own favorites a lot. Based in that I'll be adding Memory Called Empire to my TBR list. 😁

At some point you'll want to try and tackle The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. Set aside the time to read it twice as you'll miss most of what's going on in the first read.