GoodReads Best Fantasy Of 2019 (RESPONSE)

My response to a popularity contest goodreads wants you to think is the best fantasy of 2019!
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[@DanielGreeneReviews]

Am I over reacting? Idk, maybe. Will I stop? Also maybe. I want to talk about a lot of different things.

[@Grimscribe732]

Nope, not overreacting. I had the same reaction. Also, the way the categories are chosen is off. Last year had probably the worst offender so far with Stephen King's Elevation winning the award for horror. That book is a drama with an SFF gimmick, not horror, not even by a long shot. But everyone and their mother just vote for King by default in that category. Recently there has been a discussion about the same topic in the SciFi and Fantasy Book Club group.

[@alwayssleeping2456]

No, don't stop, maybe if we point the bad things at Amazon, someday we can have something nice finally

[@digitalhunter42]

No. Pin a link to GRs suggestions page, perhaps if the 20K or so people who will watch this video say hey, they will add it. Though I doubt it.

[@Milkylogic]

God I hope Goodreads takes this to heart. Their lists are so often unusable.

[@leyoy]

Couldn't you (or someone who knows how to) make some kind of web scraper to extract goodreads fantasy books with their rating and their date of publication ? I don't know how feasible that is...

[@frozenpizza4]

I stopped paying attention to the good reads choice award after Harry Potter and the cursed child won in 2016 lol

[@griffithadams9232]

Wow that’s... completely crazy wtf

[@hitandruncommentor]

I stopped paying attention when a memory of light didn’t win fantasy of the year and then the following year when Brandon Sanderson didn’t get a mention despite putting out 4 books that year

[@nataliaweronikapetersson3425]

That. Exactly that comment.

[@cassandrac7491]

EWW TRUE

[@sixstringsher]

SAME

[@killjoy004]

Goodreads is that lazy friend who just sits and does nothing but we still love him.

[@kianadresse891]

Pallab Dutta I don’t have a... oh, it’s me isn’t it?

[@i_dont_know_who_i_am69]

We still love him because he's our only friend (like daniel said, there's really no other website like it)

[@deanryanmartin]

I love GoodReads despite of its imperfections.

[@Docsfortune]

This sounds like therapists and psychologists.

[@perryfox6060]

The way they're doing it isn't even going to make them more money. People are already going to buy the popular books. By highlighting the less popular but higher rated books, Amazon would likely end up selling MORE books overall!

[@UltimateKyuubiFox]

I assume they must have private deals with publishers to continue marketing successful books on the website.

[@Addfour]

They've been doing the, "Goodreads choice awards" since 2011. I think @Daniel Green has a point about making a separate list, but the b plot that amazon is doing to make money is a bit overplayed. Wrong way to make change, instead join with a handful of influencers and go to them to create an up and coming list they can feature on their channels.

[@kmolnardaniel]

You are right, they are just dumb. In the goodreads app, you dont have the options to visit the book on amazon or elsewhere. (they have this on the website.) So if I found a good book on this shitty website, I need to open amazon in an other app, and order the kindle. This is downright goes agains business.

[@carlylarsson]

@@kmolnardaniel This is also how Audible worked for a long time, and makes no sense from a business or technical standpoint.

[@whateverson1720]

I'm still mad at Goodreads because we can't do .5 ratings.

[@noahrodriguez]

I know right!!!

[@raywhite7179]

I'd just be happy if they could fix their search engine.

[@Ascarion47]

I actually think that's reasonable. If you add half points, you might as well do 10 points without them. And once you have 10 points people are going to demand half points again, because they can't decide whether to give a book 9 or 10 points. Goodreads has decided to adopt a 5-star system. I think that allows enough distinction between ratings. Especially if people were to actually be less afraid to use the lower ratings.

[@six2make4]

Just think of it like tiers... How I do it... Crap - Bad - Mediocre/Nothing special - Good - Amazing Usually if I can't decide if it's a 4 or 5 it's probably a 4. Which again, is a good book, but if it's amazing then I feel I should know without a doubt.

[@pretendtheresaname9213]

@@Ascarion47 10 points is design wise an awful choise, while .5 is not and it gives 9 rating possibilities, being able to make a more accurate representation of what you're saying; I don't know how many books were 3.5 for me and I just had to put 3 or 4, it's frustrating.

[@jaikiratsandhu7950]

Goodreads has an absolute monopoly when it comes to readers keeping track of their reading. Amazon won't put much efforts into improving it until a competitive product comes to market that people switch to.

[@Iza56]

But you need to keep track of your reading anyway? I'm sure anyone can remember what and how nany books they read in a year, bookmark pages. Do you really care how many books you read fee years back?

[@jaikiratsandhu7950]

@@Iza56 There are a lot of stats that a lot of people care about. They care about things like their diversity in genre, diversity in authors, how many pages they read etc etc. Not saying I care about them, but a lot of people do. And GoodReads serve that purpose. Also, research shows that people tend to read more when they have stats to back them. They just read more. I am not saying to not use GoodReads. I am saying to try new platforms for tracking your reading

[@robpaul7544]

Actually don't remember everything I have read, or series or authors I want to get back to. And since I often buy many books in advance I also forget that I have them and buy them again - not often but it has happened. And since I started watching booktube vids I kinda need to keep recommendations organized.

[@leiselclayton5772]

Rob Paul I’m thinking I need to add a way to organize recommendations. Can I ask how you organize yours?

[@marcusmusings]

well, alternatives are to make spreadsheets, and there are a lot of templates out there to help chart your reading if you want to keep it to yourself

[@lizz_jacks]

Sit back and get ready for Daniel to destroy goodreads pt. 3

[@deanryanmartin]

Hahaha

[@ThePortjumper]

Daniel "I was a software engineer" Greene.

[@albinodeer7449]

Fully agreed. Goodreads should step up their game here Only thing: King of Scars is YA fantasy, which has its own category, where it was the 4th most popular

[@readittwice]

you missed the best part - Ninth house got 53,430 votes but has only 24,429 ratings, how did that happen.... did the people who did not read the book voted for it.....your point, popularity contest, exactly.

[@Grimscribe732]

It is a mix of two issues. One, as you have correctly pointed out, a lot of people just vote based on name recognition of the author even when they haven't read the book. Two, you can vote several times for the same book. Once in the quarter-finals, once in the semi-finals, and once in the finals. As far as I can tell all rounds are aggregated to a final score and there is no reset of the votes between the rounds.

[@keeprockin69]

Not everyone rates a book when they have read it, I don't do it for most of the ones I've read :)

[@UltimateKyuubiFox]

TT That’s not a problem, the problem is making a review without having read it. Giving a review is a decision a person makes after experiencing a book, not a gut instinct before interacting with it.

[@caspianhedlund1695]

@@UltimateKyuubiFox I think what he is saying is that some people read the book, vote in the "best of" contest, but never actually rate it. I also do rate most books I read, but if I had seen that contest I probably would have voted.

[@jeddstevie8252]

Swati Vaidya it has 24k ratings but more often than not people mark books as read but don't rate them...thus the number of people that rate a book is almost almost always lower than the number of people who actually read it. Further more the number of goodreads ratings is not reflective of the number of people that bought and read the book. It could have 24K ratings but have sold 200k copies, as there are a lot of people that don't regularly use Goodreads.

[@stanwillmott2336]

Anyone else want a Greene reads website with your critism built in and overall just better... but we can only dream

[@bookittyblog]

That’s actually what I wish Goodreads was: a website to find new books!!!! It’s so stressful navigating the site to find new books.

[@AikiraBeats]

Honestly same like if they had that option it would be so much better

[@16SF]

Also, their recommendations are very often ridiculous/random. I once got the "The Blade Itself" recommended for reading a cozy mystery. Da fuq. I feel bad for the authors who aren't reaching the audience they could.

[@Loganva]

the blade itself is pretty good tho lol

[@Grimscribe732]

To be fair, I will also recommend The Blade Itself. Always.

[@MaxCadyS]

It recommend me The Lies of Locke Lamorra after I read the Way of Kings and the Name of the Wind, which was a perfect suggestion. It's pretty polarised, I'll tell you that much.

[@irockmajorly]

Okay but did you read the blade itself or not

[@UltimateKyuubiFox]

Guys, OP meant they didn’t think it was a comfy mystery, not that it wasn’t good.

[@KitchenSinkSoup]

As someone who got a D in Computing Science even I know how easy it would be.

[@marcusmusings]

when Cursed Child was voted best fantasy, I knew there was no hope for the Goodreads Choice Awards

[@dillongunn]

Huge fan of your work. Your vids got me into Sanderson, and now I'm obsessed with reading every entry in Mistborn and The Stormlight Archive, so thanks

[@firesandflowers]

Someone really should make a competing site. Honestly Daniel - you'd get thousands of people on it almost instantly if you made one. That could grow to hundreds of thousands pretty quickly. Even if you didn't want to actually take time to run the thing, amazon would probably take notice of yours by then and hopefully improve theirs or you could hire people to run it. I don't know all that much about how to actually make money off a site like that - but I'm assuming you could!

[@ninakocjancic9346]

You could try Bookaxe? Or there was this one other website that hosted hundreds of reading groups, but i cant think of the name right now?

[@MsWillowbayOrelse]

One of my biggest pet peeve is that they allow ratings and reviews before the book is even finished... Like There are full on reviews from years ago and the book isn't even out!!

[@robertblume2951]

Well earc's do exist so there is some precedent for allowing early reviews. Baen monthly subscriptions will allow you to read books up to 4 months before publication but they are advanced reader copies so you are getting the sort of unedited version a quarter at a time for 4 months and then the final edition on release day.

[@Awol991]

For a site that is all about social discussions, having the two lists would be a good way to start discussions.

[@name.camron1126]

goodreads recommendations really be giving Sanderson the cold shoulder after all this time

[@jasonmontgomery4708]

Most popular is literally every award across all entertainment. It's almost never the best. EDIT: Watching it late, but I absolutely love the holiday flair. Please do it again next year.

[@Klemeron]

I like how A Little Hatred (rated something crazy like 4.6) is around 10th on the list because it was only a write-in option.

[@anam.1467]

We went from beautiful children to filthy animals 😅🤚🤚

[@Trisjack20]

He's been watching Home Alone for the holidays.

[@ishtarduzzie]

I don’t trust GR reviews as a whole. Random peeve with Goodreads: Allowing ‘reviews’ before release date.... are the 5 star ”can not wait!” reviews or the “this author is shit, don’t bother”..... If ARC’s haven’t gone out.... then no review allowed! Edit: eg.... Peace Talks has 954 ‘ratings’ and 41 ‘reviews’. 4.42 stars.... They probably need a pre-release chat board option instead

[@artbyandia]

I ignore the awards because people vote even without reading all of the books in each category. That way of course the most popular book wins and I can't take it seriously. Especially this year that the only two books in the awards that I read won and I disliked both of them...

[@sawyer7973]

I appreciate how these feel like they are talking directly to good reads about how to improve, instead of complaining

[@jelielm.8103]

BooksandLala already came for the good read award, and she explained how it works. In the beginning, there's like 50 books, than it gets cut down to 20 and then 10, all by popular vote. And that's why the most popular get to top 10, because people can't vote for a book they haven't read (they can, technically, but wont, obviously). She predicted most of the books in the Thriller category and it's quite hilarious 😂 Good reads team should wake up

[@leiselclayton5772]

Jeliel M. They can’t vote for a book they haven’t read? I’m not sure that’s the case, because many of the winners have (a lot) more votes in the contest than they have ratings (via another booktuber’s rant).

[@harinimarchadi1204]

I think it's more like the really big authors have fans who will vote for their books even if they haven't read them

[@jelielm.8103]

@@leiselclayton5772 i said they technically can

[@UltimateKyuubiFox]

Jeliel M. You said “But won’t, obviously”. Which, I mean. It’s okay to admit you missed a factor, everyone’s done that at some point.

[@roselightz_3027]

When the 5 write-in books were added and she went "I know all of these 5 will get cut again in the next round, so I won't even look at them for this challenge"😂

[@ZwischenTausendZeilen]

I guess King of Scars is considered YA. That's why it wasn't in the "Fantasy" category, because... Reasons 😩 I wholeheartedly agree on everything (the Romance category is a whole other mess btw).

[@Grimscribe732]

The categories are all over the place anyway. I don't even know how or who chooses them. It is not by what people shelve the books, that is for sure.

[@danakinstreetrider]

That voice for Pips! 😂 Alvin and the Pipmunks. 🤣

[@cheekysod3123]

It's like Amazon forgot they had GoodReads. It's honestly kind of sad

[@Moonwired]

Kingdom of Ash by sarah j maas won this year, and I was like sure I liked it, but it’s a 2 star book at best qualitywise. :/. It’s definitely the popular vote.

[@lizardslaw2661]

As a former programmer , yazzzzzz I completely agree. You nailed it on the head. So frustrating.

[@annelooney1090]

GR Choice Awards isn't even really a popularity contest. So many books end up on there because people are EXCITED to read it and haven't actually done so. The best fiction category went to The Testaments this year. I'm not saying anyone is WRONG to like that book, but it seems like SO many of the people who did read it ended up disappointed in it. Someone on reddit pointed out that a book's GR score is partially a function of how well it selects its audience. This is why many classics have scores lower than four while something like a LitRPG will often have a very high rating. No one is being forced to read a LitRPG. People who don't like LitRPGs generally just don't read them. Meanwhile, a book which is hyped among the wrong audience might take a hit to its score (this may be why Ninth House has a lower score than King of Scars--I don't know, I haven't read either). Ultimately, I think that if you're really looking for general quality, well, this is what professional critics are for. My solution, personally, is to have the GR choice awards for a year not take place until the summer of the following year. Books are not movies. You need more time to read a book. And hopefully, by then, hype will have died down.

[@fictionalreality1010]

Merry Christmas Daniel Green...looking forward to a new decade of your videos

[@turtlecomicreviews7599]

Not being able to discover new books and just being told Harry Potter and Percy Jackson was all i needed to read turned me off from reading for a long time, luckily we have Booktuber Guys and Gals helping me discover new books. Now im willing to read a lot more books, i picked up so many books this Christmas and im super happy! Thanks Daniel and company!

[@Marco_Onyxheart]

It would also be nice if we could just download their database in sqlite. Then we can query it ourselves if they can't do it right. Edit: actually, there are some community-made tools that kind of do that. Daniel should Google "goodreads sqlite".

[@selantrian]

You probably know this but if you didn’t: King of Scars is part of Bardugo’s GrishaVerse and reading it spoils her other two series majorly! If you’re interested in Grisha stuff, you should start with Shadow and Bone if you want to eventually get to King of Scars (this trilogy is very old YA which people drag it for but I love it). If that doesn’t sound like your thing, Six of Crows is more gritty and more intricate. It will spoil the ending of the Grisha trilogy but only if you know what to look for. King of Scars, in my eyes, was a bridge book between the series, which follow completely separate countries and characters. Two storylines from King of Scars catch up with some fan favorites from Shadow and Bone and its sequels, and the other follows one of the main characters of Six of Crows. Personally I have serious problems with the execution of King of Scars’s plot and expansion of the world, but her character work was waaaaay better than it was in Shadow and Bone (and honestly my love for the characters and finally seeing some previous side characters fleshed out drove my enjoyment of it). Her character work in KoS was, in my opinion, on the level of that in Six of Crows (with the exception of one main...), which is super character-driven Also, after reading Mistborn, I saw a lot of similarities in themes to that trilogy and Shadow and Bone. We know who did it better, per se, because Sanderson is a genius. But Shadow and Bone is more YA than Mistborn and meant to be an easier, less intricate read and so it doesn’t bother me that Bardugo didn’t go absolutely everywhere Sanderson did. And people always compare Six of Crows to The Lies of Locke Lamora, which, as someone who is nearly halfway through Locke Lamora right now, I see the resemblance. Locke Lamora is grittier and more intricate, but again, they are targeting completely different audiences, so I don’t mind it :)

[@Trisjack20]

This is a really helpful comment and I hope a few more of those who watched the video read it.

[@selantrian]

Trisjack20 thank you!!

[@Spretzjnjikhow]

Just wanted to say that you are soaring up my list of favourite youtubers, Danny-boi! Your wonderful sense of humor combined with book-stuffs fills a void in my media consumption I did not know I had.

[@joshuashoults2105]

I just wanna say that the quality of your content makes your opinions matter. Love all your videos and the work you put into them :) Especially love how you're unbiased too. Keep em coming!

[@stagelinedpro]

Daniel why didn't you tell us Pips could talk?

[@AikiraBeats]

Right this whole time

[@HarveyGinger]

You should review different reading and writing softwares as a series.

[@henrikssonlina]

Check out The Storygraph! It's an independent new site for tracking your reading! It has SO MANY features I didn't know I needed and it actually gives me book recomendations I want to read - crazy huh? 🤯 And the best part.. It's not owned by a giant corporate beast (Amazon..). It's still in beta but even in beta I like it better than Goodreads. Leena Norms made a video recently here on KZbin where she talked about goodreads and interviewed the founder of Storygraph, recommend watching the interview! 👍

[@MissMokate]

this reminds me I'm pissed at amazon for not allowing to sort their audible titles by fckin price when browsing

[@WitchyCoffeeGal]

Definitely most popular. I just had this discussion with another book friend who asked for my opinion, which I happily gave. Haha! Also many of the authors reached out to their fans on their social media platforms asking for votes. I'm not faulting the authors; of course they want to win. But again, reiterating the popularity contest.

[@GideonCyn]

I agree, trying to find actual good books is a nightmare on that website. Youre kinda just directed towards the big names like Pat Rothfuss, Leigh Bardugo, Brando Sando etc. (not saying that they dot publish amazing books but you know what i mean)

[@vitaemins4527]

I would love it if someone from Amazon or Goodreads saw these vids and hired you to fix the site or at the very least took everything you’re saying to heart and did something about it. You’re not overreacting, you’re 100000% right. You’re putting into words the concerns I believe most users have had with the site for YEARS. I mean just LOOKING at it tells you how lacking it is. It doesn’t even look like a 2019 website, it looks like what websites looked like at the beginning of the decade! Tbh that’s probably the last time the site received its last update.

[@nashotobitoyrover6408]

by the way, the king of scars is great. the first book I read by her, and I had no issue getting into it even though I haven't read other Grisha verse books.

[@Bailey_93]

I vote Daniel makes his own version of good reads and we just start using it

[@mystoreysofstories]

Bailey Kathleen Ha! Heck yes, please do it Daniel. We already know you’d do a better job.

[@MegaJotie]

Amazon should be a bookshop really. Goodreads should've been good to begin with.

[@safinan8008]

Merry Christmas!! I hope you have wonderful Happy reading month!!

[@strutter1989]

I wish I could like this twice.

[@aubreyjane6659]

And Ninth House has more votes than it does reads.....sketchy.

[@Grimscribe732]

Apparently, that is mainly due to people being able to vote several times. You have a vote in the quarter-finals, the semi-finals, and the finals. They all get accumulated and then you have books with 25k reads and 75k votes. Obviously, it is sketchy to aggregate votes across rounds instead of starting each round at zero but, well, it's Goodreads...

[@sabrina.lnd95]

@@Grimscribe732 wait what, they accumulate votes over all rounds? what kind of dumbassery

[@Grimscribe732]

​@@sabrina.lnd95 Yep. It is.

[@heathersbooks816]

Sabrina Lindholm Which is why the write-ins never make it to the finals.

[@Grimscribe732]

@@heathersbooks816 Btw. I had to write in freaking A Little Hatred by Joe Abercrombie. How was that not on there in the first place? o.O Despite me loving the book, it was easily one of the most anticipated releases in the genre this year. Abercrombie isn't as big as Sanderson or GRRM but he surely is one of the most well-known fantasy authors.

[@hugo_webster2]

As a Letterboxd user (what goodreads should be, but for movies) I am constantly shocked by just how bad Goodreads really is

[@mysticmajestic2360]

The best way I have seen to do these lists is to create your own. There are also lists that curate the fantasy genre by the rating, amount of people who've reviewed it, the year/decade it was published. A lot of the best, most reliable lists to go to on Goodreads are the ones made by the users.

[@dakforest5344]

I love the hot take, 50 reviews are the author and their friends. Bold of you to assume the author's social circle is a fraction of that size.

[@abigase135]

Daniel Please make a website, your ideas sound better than whatever GR is doing.

[@im2yz4u17]

I never use Goodreads because it sucks to find what is arguably the best books to read! Your video is spot on.

[@xaviercopeland2789]

I saw the Ascender graphic novel on there when you scrolled very fast looking for top rated fantasy of 2019, and I gotta say I’m happy. Descender and Ascender are some of the best up there with Tokyo Ghost, Transmetropolitan, Y the Last Man, Sandman, etc. Edit: Yes, I know it wasn’t sorted by best rated or whatever, but any advertisement on that fantastic piece of media deserves recognition. I would love to see you read some graphic novels here if that butters your biscuit since I think Tokyo Ghost is one of the best stories ever told in any medium, and it is really short compared to most series. It’s be a great start.

[@michaelshort2388]

all but one in the top 20 was published in 2019. :)

[@michaelshort2388]

www.goodreads.com/list/show/114794.Best_Fantasy_2019

[@starlessnight1]

Great comments. I am sure they could crank out a quick query as they probably have a database through AWS.... Sad they made it a popularity contest only.

[@sofiaamm]

also if you compare amazon's editors selection for best books of the year with the goodreads choice awards you'll see a lot of similarities... they put books on the gr list that they were paid/wanted to promote, and that kicked out some actual great books. the winner for best thriller this year was amazon's pick for best book of the year. what a coincidence

[@marklawrence8418]

The average score for a book declines rapidly over the first 1,000 ratings and slowly up to 10,000 ratings. After that it's fairly stable. YA books get higher ratings in general as the demographic seem to rate higher. So average rating is a dodgy way to grade "best".

[@luigi0654]

Omg, I can’t believe you have done this. I was happily ignorant but now that you have made me see what I’ve been missing, I won’t be ok until I have this functionality. Damn you Daniel! Damn you, haha

[@eleanorjones26407]

If only Daniel were a consultant or something for goodreads... it would be an amazing website

[@vaporiiz]

preach! i hope goodreads gets it together and hires some competent programmers

[@jenniferwood144]

I so agree....stopped using goodreads a few years ago.

[@DanicaChristin]

😂😂😂 you are so right. Also: I hate that I can't sort reviews by stars. I'd love to love Goodreads but .... noooo

[@AnotherNerdyPerson]

New subscriber here, I haven't had time to watch a lot of your videos, but I love what I've seen so far!

[@kmolnardaniel]

Dude! You are so right. KZbin just recommended this for me, and while watching this, I’m raving to my girlfriend how right you are.

[@laurafitzgerald7367]

im a simple woman. i see a video where daniel roasts goodreads, i watch it and SLAM the like button.

[@nijinoshita3301]

The Choice awards also always include the books that were released in the year before from November 15th onwards or something because they obviously can't count into the awards of the year they were actually released in because of the voting time... which is probably why the George RR Martin book was in there

[@charleslash4895]

I too have looked for this list at least once a year and only get publisher favourites

[@BigmanGeek]

Oh, now you did it... I want Pip's input on more videos. This needs to be a thing now,

[@lucaleone4331]

Yeah I never understood this. I could barely vote this year cuz I didnt read most of these bc they were mostly popular books I steered away from :/ (and I read 43 books) and I think only 3 of them were books I read.

[@katieamarsh]

Same, I don’t just read The NY Times bestsellers, I dabble.

[@rebeccamccreary8530]

I wouldn't say that either is Fantasy, and they are both the third book in their series, but The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden (Historical Fiction/Magical Realism/Fantasy) currently has over 25,000 ratings over 4,000 reviews and is sitting at a 4.52 rating. The Hod King by Josiah Bancroft (Steampunk/SciFi) has a 4.54 with over 3,000 ratings though only about 500 reviews. Again not epic high fantasy, but not current day Western society either. Also, being a later/last book in a series will skew the ratings as people who didn't like the earlier books won't get this far into the series, but maybe those are some new names for some people?

[@BookendsBagends]

It mirrors Booktube as a whole I think, on the surface you have a deep, deep layer of popularity. It takes an awful lot of work to find content/books which aren't mainstream and are usually criminally overlooked.

[@Qbone15]

You should make a video on how to properly and appropriately "rate" books on a 5 star scale. For example, what constitutes a 5 over a 4? And should people feel bad about giving a book 3 star even if they liked it? These are the things I think about when grading this world on a 5 star scale....

[@fayzulomar]

I've stopped using Goodreads a long time ago. You are correct. Their best books not actually the best just bestselling and popular... That's why I watched your videos for books to read 😁

[@jonathanstern99]

I suspect the reason Amazon does not implement this is that they have already had major headaches in connection with negative goodreads reviews that authors and publishers claimed were harassing or part of organized review bombing campaigns. This is an issue with other review sites like rottentomatoes. Another thing is, doing a "Best reviewed book of the year" list could potentially run the risk of damaging the quality of goodreads reviews, since fans of a particular book would take it upon themselves to organize mass upvoting campaigns and potentially mass downvoting campaigns against rivals for top spots.

[@marianaipiranga4846]

You should check out SFF bookTube Awards, they have a Winner by popular vote, and a Winner by actual best

[@puhtahtoe]

select top 100 * from BOOKS where Rating > 4 and RatingsCount > 500 order by Rating desc If you're feeling fancy throw in a group by genre. Of course they may store ratings info in a related table so actually a join on that table may be required. Scary.

[@Milkylogic]

I love this and very much agree. Please listen to this goodreads.

[@joshuafowler883]

I agree wholeheartedly. The website is good if you just wanna keep track of your own reading but little else. Most of their best books are usually titles that I have never read. I know the titles only because I'm a librarian but none of my patrons have even checked out half the titles they list as best of genres. King of Scars was a nominee for YA Fantasy but lost out to Holly Black's book.

[@simmonslucas]

select r.rating_score, r.number_of_ratings, b.book_name, b.url from reviews r join books book on r.book_id = b.book_id join genre g on b.genre_id = g.genre_id where r.rating_score > 4 and r.number_of_ratings > 1000 and g.genre = 'fantasy' and book.release_year between '01012019' and '12312019 order by r.rating_score, r.number_of_ratings, b.book_name simple. lol Glad there are resources, like you, that are curating books; the genre, it is growing so quickly...

[@whosgotrythm]

Goodreads has an API that can be used to get the book review data then we can query it ourselves.

[@andocommando3071]

It is a popularity contest. Best example of this is how every year now Stephen King wins the "Best Horror" category by a landslide unless by chance he doesn't release a horror novel. And in that case, he's probably won "Best Mystery/Thriller" award that year instead.

[@annelooney1090]

I haven't read Elevation, which won for horror this year, but a lot of people are saying it's not even horror.

[@MQLin910]

HIGHLY recommend that you put Twelve Kings of Sharakhai on your 2020 reading list!!

[@Pajali]

I had a similar reaction the first time I looked at the Goodreads Awards. I went there to discover some good books I hadn’t heard of before, except the list is overwhelmingly the most hyped books, so... the list doesn’t really offer me anything new. 🤷‍♀️

[@leonidasnoble6939]

If you don't drop another video before the 25th. Merry Christmas to You, your lovely Deja Thoris, and Pips the banth.

[@batulhabibullah8945]

Agreed totally! Also, the cat bits are hilarious! 😂 😂

[@asarishepard8171]

I love you, Daniel, can't wait for your Witcher episode reviews!

[@albamellark]

I totally agree with you, I would love a list like that. It would help a lot of people to discover new books

[@BimBamHeidi]

I love Pips's input. He should definitely voice his opinion more often. It provides some valuable insights. 🐈

[@kavanpuranik98]

I have an idea, you could go through Goodreads and search all the Fantasty titles and then make your own best of 2020, 2021 etc list. I mean, I know it's tedious as hell, but it would be a great video idea right? And maybe you could even send it to Goodreads, or Start your own award thingy with that data. Just saying.

[@nadakhalil3869]

Spot on commentary by Pips here

[@ShaneCopelin]

LOVE THIS VIDEO!! This made me start digging around for an API so we can build it ourselves. I wounder if I'll have to revert to scraping.

[@Halp88]

Daniel, the champion of the common fantasy loving youtube peasant

[@CablesComics]

Awesome take on Goodreads. I definitely agree with you about how the site is set up. I also agree with you about the newer (less known) authors not getting a spotlight on them or getting a chance to shine. That being said, I usually buy books based upon what you Book Tubers review and say is decent or great. My last 2 purchases (Ninth House and Rage of Dragons) were bought simply by watching you and other Book Tubers reviewing them and giving them such glowing reviews. I tried Byzans and didn't like it. Its only available on tablet and not on a computer desktop, so that being said I'm sticking to Goodreads BUT I do wish they would improve the overall quality of the site. Spot on review (rant) about it though. Happy holidays to you, Pips and your family. Take care.

[@ezikielchoke]

Hello, Daniel. Thanks for the great videos! I believe Goodreads has a read API.

[@morgangarner4027]

I completely agree! this has always drove me insane about Goodreads. Maybe you should write them a strongly worded letter??😂😂

[@Trisjack20]

BUt how do you get something like that read....

[@morgangarner4027]

@@Trisjack20 well I was kind of joking but maybe neon envelopes and keep sending several at once until you get a response 🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️