Sounds thought-provoking. I am having difficulty finding either used Russo books or library copies. Ki is not as prevalent in the US as she is over the pond. Since I don't keep books after reading them, I don't usually buy new copies unless I'm sure I will enjoy them... Of the 6 books I'm currently reading, only 2 are fantasy - Dragonquest and Dungeon Carl. McCaffrey's use of apostrophes in her characters' names just adds to the difficulty in reading. I constantly get T'bor, T'gor and T'ron confused!! I do really like the tiny fire lizards though. Hope you are having a fun holiday!!

Will get back to this once I read it! :)

loved the video glad you got to finally enjoy Way of Kings! Can’t wait for you to get to the other ones

Wat een mooie reis door boekenland in het fantasiegenre. En wat fijn om te zien dat er ook andere zijn waarvan de TBR groter is dan de stapel met gelezen boeken. Op je nog maar vele mooie reizen mag maken en de ervaringen daarvan met ons kan delen. Tot de volgende keer

You’re powering through!

I think you'll really enjoy Memory, Sorrow & Thorn based on your love of literature. There is much savour in Tad Williams' prose.

Historical fiction is my guilty pleasure - I had a health problem that afforded me plenty of time- so I started reading again. I picked up “The Pillars of The Earth” and “1Q84” I was hooked to reading after those books and soon I found myself reading The Wheel of time, Red Rising and soon I’ll start “The Dragon Bone Chair”.. I appreciate what you do.

David Eddings! 🎉

If you like dragons: Anne McCaffrey!!! She knew how to write dragons long before dragons were a thing. Ah, I see she has a prominent position on shelf four.

Looks like things are going really well!

Watching your fantasy journey is a lot of fun! You have so many authors that I have not heard of!! So many mammoth sized fantasy books are the equivalent of 3 or 4 normal books. If you get discouraged by lower numbers of completed books, remind yourself of this. I've been an avid reader for more than 60 years but fantasy only the last 5 or so. The length of the books is for me the biggest weakness of the genre. Many of them are very repetitive! Equal Rites was my first Pratchett and I really enjoyed it! Hope you do too! I was watching a live by Red Fury a couple of weeks ago and was thrilled to notice that Janny Wurts was a participant. Did you catch that video? I have yet to read any of her books. Enjoy your reads!!

Really enjoyed it. I could never do this haha. Ive got around 5000 novels (paper) and read 1450 (around 28%). I still buy more and more haha.. unless you have a problem with shelves/spaces or money i cant understand this challenge. Buttt ive been teying to buy less.. FOMO is really bad

I see that you have The Codex Alera Series by Jim Butcher on your TBR shelf. May I recommend his amazing The Dresden Files Series to you good Sir. Dresden is my favorite Urban Fantasy Series and my 2nd favorite Series overall behind only Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere. Have a good day!

I recommend you a trilogy that it is not famous and not many people talk about. The prince of nothing by Scott Bakker. Very philosophical novels.

I've been on a pre Tolkien fantasy kick for about a month and a half now, so it's funny you mentioned The Princess and the Goblin. I'm about 100 pages into it right now. I need to get the Discworld books. I've heard they are great short books to read between the epic fantasies. I'm on the same journey into The Stromlight Archive. I read The Way of Kings last month, and started Words of Radiance yesterday. I'm planning to read one a month in preparation for book 5.

🎉🎉🎉🎉

With The First Law hopefully you will find humour in even the darkest places.

Steven Erickson who wrote Malazan Book of the Fallen I believe listed Kay as one of his influences. Erickson’s prose can have some high highs in the main series but I think it’s most consistently amazing in his prequel book Forge of Darkness.

Thank you for introducing me to this author.

The first page of Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe

Under Heaver is my choice from Kay. Such a beautiful, nuanced and misterious story, I love it so much.

I have this trilogy sitting unread on my shelf. This inspires me to finally get to it!

First, I am glad you enjoyed it as you did. But, for me, it was okay (certainly better than many fiction writers out there), but it doesn't rise to the diction-oriented prose of Fritz Leiber, sounding as if those stories were oh so ancient. Also, I would adjure you to read Broch's The Death of Virgil, a 500 page prose poem about that poet's last day. Well done.

Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles is for me still the most sublime prose.

Oh my! More for my TBR - lol. Sounds like I will love Jane. I just started Dungeon Crawler Carl by Dinniman for a try at GameLit (which I've never heard of before last week!), and I recently finished a "Paranormal romance". All these labels can be annoying... they're both SFF. Last week was an urban fantasy/mystery/horror involving shapechanger sex - not one I'd recommend 😳. I'm ready for a regular mystery!! You're almost to 2K subs!! Great!! Thank you for the mystery reviews 🤩

Your soft and soothing voice beautifully narrating that poignant and poetic passage elevated it even more, an absolute delight to the senses, subbed, hello and good day Ser!

I loved The Fionavar Tapestry as a young person and read it multiple times. I still think it has one of the most beautiful fantasy covers I've ever seen, and Guy Gavriel Kay is a wildly underrated author.

Oh, you have to read The Lions of Al Rassan. It is often regarded as his best. The greatest ending to the plot and an intriguing epilogue which keeps up the suspense as to who actually died.

Wonderful prose, and well presented. Thank you for sharing!

Answer: yes it can, just read Malazan.

So I don’t know the wider context of these lines (author, time, work, etc.) But just from the examples I found them rather heavy handed in that they employ a great deal of cliché (I. E. The gentle rain in the scene, and many of the expressions)

I'm rather sorry that you didn't read the whole five pages, it would have been a pleasure to hear you reading them and to relive this exquisite section of Gavriel Kay's book. I first read this trilogy as a teen and have reread it a few times in the decades since then and, like yourself, find there to be passages of such ravishing beauty and emotional poignancy that I must instantly reread them. I've read (and reread) most of GGK's oeuvre and rate Tigana amongst his two best works (with Lions of Al-Rassan being the other) so I almost envy you that you will be discovering his other cleverly plotted, unexpectedly moving and exquisitely expressed novels for the first time. Great video!

My favourite series is the guards one. I have read all of them. The guards story doesnt get serious until the night warch. Til then you get to know and love the characters of the guard and need to bear with what is going to happen with them. The magicians saga (rincewind) is great too but it's the weakest of the series.

Well, I shall have to come back to this one later!

Kay has been my favorite author for decades now, ever since I picked up Tigana in high school. The only author I ever enjoyed reading as much is Sanderson, and he was a very recent discovery for me. I haven't read for years (doing a PhD will exhaust your reading capabilities, lol) and got back into it this year with the Dune series and Wheel of Time (yes, I don't know moderation; it's either all or nothing), which then led me to Sanderson. Because it's been more than a decade since I read it, I completely forgot that Fionavar has some similar themes to Wheel of Time. Thank you for that reminder and for reminding me I should re-read Fionavar, as I think I will enjoy it even more now that I am a bit older and can appreciate it in its original form (I read Fionavar in my mother tongue first, and while translation is done really well because I remember it being well written, it is not the same) :)

The joy felt from you sharing this experience with me is one of my favorite moments of the year. Your kind soft spoken words mixed with your heartfelt and true joy for both the prose and the story strike me at my soul. Thank you for sharing such a beautiful and wonderful reading experience with us.

You’re making me want to check his books and add on to my ever growing TBR. I just bought Dragonflight because of you as well. 😂

Interesting to hear you say The Way of Kings is more mature than The Hero of Ages. I think I agree with you on the whole (though I would say Sazed's storyline in THoA is very mature, and Shallan is pretty immature in TWoK compared to Kaladin and Dalinar), but it's hard to say when it comes to the Cosmere. Do you measure one series against another-Mistborn vs. Stormlight, for example-or do you take it all in as one, big series? I've read every Cosmere story there is to read thus far and I don't have a good answer for you. My favorites are my favorites (for now), but how to compare, really? Maybe I'm just too deeply Invested to see clearly... Either way, I'm glad you enjoyed TWoK so thorougly. I'll never forget my first time reading it in 2016, being absolutely swept away by the characters and scope of the world. If you think you're ready for Words of Radiance, though... think again! It's a whole new ballgame, one you'll appreciate in a whole new way.

Guy Gavriel Kay is a stellar author. The way he writes so many passages is simply breathtaking. A lot of his later books are just as good, or even better. Lord of Emperors and River of Stars in particular are some of the most profound books I've read period.

How beautiful!! His writing is a gift! Did you hear that another stand-alone is due out next year? Written On The Dark I have not yet read #2, but I got no hint of the Camelot group or even threads from book 1. I was mostly just confused from all the characters... His books are not easy reads! I'm not a fan of note making while reading (too reminiscent of a school assignment), but I did make notes in an attempt to keep the characters straight. I'm not sure that it helped 😵‍💫.

Thank you for sharing that beautiful prose! I'm always looking for books as articulate and clever as my favorites, A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles and A Song of Achilles and Circe by Madeline Miller. I will check out some books by GGK next.

Dude, that intro is fucking sick! What is it?

Kay is sold as the author for the authors. Every author knows him. General people dont.

Tigana is good, though there are a few scenes that made me wince. A much better book by GGK, if a bit less fantasy oriented, is A Song for Arbonne. I enjoyed Piranesi, but I don't think it belongs in your list. It's less fantasy and more psychological, or modern magical. For what it's worth, I found the whole chimes thing when announcing a book to be rather annoying. Good luck with your channel.

Great video and super excited to see your journey. Make sure to fit in Edgedancer and Dawnshard in between the next books.