5 books if you only read scifi & fantasy, and 5 other books you should read anyway 

wow, incredible

You should do a Collab with Quinn's ideas now.

The two genres have been around for so long, and still there’s regularly new authors and new books out. Huh… It’s almost like they’re the best two genres out there 🤔

Best book I've read this year is either Dante's Divine Comedy or The Ranger 's Apprentice.

You should read the metro trilogy by dmitry glukhovsky, those books are underrated. Everyone just plays the games, which are good, but the books are definitely better. Some of the best dystopia I've ever read and each book is extremely distinct but you never feel like any of them don't fit. Rupert Degas also does a really good Russian accent in the audiobooks.

Agreed

Yes, do it!

Honestly, I find it kinda tiring.

Litteraly the reason why i follow Tim's channel

@@Joenah5 honestly you've never seen avatar and if you did that's Just sad

This is a great idea! ~ Tim

@@drewwilson8756 Meh. Could be anything.

Now off to make good friends before my next birthday.. :)

I always feel bad for offering books but omg gifting your fave book is always like... such a cool thing like please we can even swap books I don't know, SHARE

Also with every other medium like film, series, music etc.

I love fifth season, shame nk has just lots of terrible takes outside her writing

I really enjoyed the first book of the trilogy. I saw the twist coming, but it was well done nevertheless. The 2nd book is the typical case of a middle-book of a trilogy, I'd say. Progress was slow and the ideas didn't feel so fresh anymore as they did in the first one. The third book, well, I don't know. I mean, obviously you want your climax to be well established. But I guess one can overdo it? When the finale came, it was so clear what must happen, that it didn't take me by surprise even in the slightest. It was inevitable. And I think N.K. Jemisin was aware of that, for the climax felt oddly short and kind of laconic to me. So yeah, it's a good trilogy for all the ideas packed into it, like a magic system that is so unique in effect and foundational world building, that it would be worth to read the books just for it. And the characters excel as well, at least the main ones. But in my opinion, the first book is by far the strongest of the trilogy. That doesn't make the other two a waste of time - at least I didn't regret the time spent. But they won't deliver the same "Wowzer" as the first one did.

While I liked the first book okay (haven’t yet read the others), I loved her Inheritance trilogy and Dreamblood duology much more

Just bought fith season looking forward to reading it. Just finishing off the Vagrant series

Ok, but grammar?

I recommend the Stuff that Onision and Norman B. wrote. Not the Books themselves, DUH, but the Book-Reviews RU-vidrs made of them. They are hilarious. One is a Famous Unhealthy Atheist, the other is a Famous Unhealthy Theist. They are literally 2 Sides of the same Coin. I never saw an Reaction- or Coverage-Video about those Books that isnt hilarious. Its always a Blast; though if i had to choose one Reviewer, I'd go with Krimson Rogue. But again: MANY reviewed those hilariously-bad and hyper-cringey books! Whetever you like cringe (like Neckbeard-Stories on Reddit) or not: I warmly recommend it still.

Foundation (the 5 books) that I read in th 90s were the reason I got hooked on SF.

I loved Foundation, except for the final book. It seemed like Asimov left it in a weird place. Maybe he wrote himself into a corner with it.

this guy has no business reviewing sci-fi at all. he;s a book nerd who doesn't understand the stories... he just sees characters and plots and the covers.. he doesn't get the authors..

@@agnidas5816 Yeah, how dare someone let the characters or the plot of a story get in the way of their enjoyment of the themes of certain books. After all, while themes and the author's vision is only part of what make a story, we should just ignore when we don't like the plot or the characters in a story, if the characters and or the plot of a story seem like they're only there to serve the theme of the story, everyone should just ignore their own feelings on a book, and if a book does things that break our suspension of disbelief, we should just ignore all that I guess. I guess that's how feelings work, if we don't believe the characters in a story act like real people, we should just pretend they do, for the sake of 'muh themes'. I guess that's what people mean by books stimulating our imagination. 'Good' books stimulate our imaginations, by causing us to have to pretend that we enjoy bland characters or a boring or non-sensical plot or whatever, so long as there is a theme. Because heaven forbid we define good writing in such a way that includes more than one element of the story actually be good. But yeah, this guy has no business reviewing sci-fi at all, because opinions other than your own are somehow 'wrong' I guess, even if they do a much better and more thorough job explaining theirs than you did. Actually, he talked about what the stories were about, their themes, so what part of the stories could you possibly claim he didn't understand? Clearly he 'sees' more than character and plots, if he also talked about the themes and subjects of these stories. Also, he didn't even mention the covers, don't know where you got that one, just another empty claim by you. Also, if you think this guy has no business reviewing books, maybe you should try and make a sort of gate, and try and keep him out of it. And definitely, definitely, get your knickers in a twist over either my comment, him having a different take on Foundation, or whatever it is that bothered you, or both. And just winge about it. I'd tell you to also do jack about him reviewing books and talking about them, but you don't need to be told do that, you ain't doing a damn thing about him and his channel. Just let that sink in, that no matter how much you don't like him or his reviews, all you can do is complain on the internet. I'm sorry I typed this comment, because I know it's a waste on you, and you'll probably just continue to ignore half or more of whatever people say, just to try and pretend you have a rebuttal.

That is a sign of a true nerd my friend he makes us all proud 🥲

I was looking away from the screen when I heard him say it and only barely saw him put a book down as I turned to see, and had a sly gut feeling🤔…I rewound to see what he picked up and my suspicions were put to rest.

Ha, I'm currently reading it. I haven't gone a single page so far without consulting the index of names at the back xD

His delivery and timing of that joke was brilliant 🤣

@@lukeb8526 Keep the pronunciation guide from RotK handy too. I find not knowing how to pronounce things correctly a big hindrance.

Which of his short stories would you recommend? Gaiman is among my favorite writers, but I didn't really enjoy Fragile things.

@@Korilian13 Im looking at the "Trigger Warning" collection. Looking at the contents I'd recommend: "The Thing about Cassandra", "Adventure Story", "Orange" for the weird story telling style, "Click-Clack the Rattlebag" but in particular: "And Weep, Like Alexander". Fragile things might be his weakest collection in my opinion. But it has a few bangers like "Other People" and "The Day the Saucers Came". "The Sunbird" had a very strong American Gods-feeling. You can always expect some of the stories not to affect you or be difficult to understand but then you find a gem of comedy, horror or that makes you think.

House of Leaves will live rentfree in my head for the rest of my life. God I love it so much.

Agreed, I just read it recently & I love it too - one of the most unique books I’ve ever read in my life. It was extremely skin-crawling in its creepiness at times (there was one night I legitimately had to sleep with my light on because I was feeling too spooked to sleep with the closet in the dark behind me), and yet it had some very heartfelt moments and bits of writing, as well.

Dune = StarWars, Foundation = StarTrek. Depends which scifi consumer you are.

@@polishedpebble4111 ahhhh, that makes sense! I like Star Trek best.

I found that I liked foundation until the jester broke everything. Then it just became a dull "whoever speaks last wins!" situation. and the twist that the 2nd foundation was right where the first one was (or the capital, can't remember wich twist he went with) was a really boring twist that felt like he was self congratulating how smart he was.

i havent watched star trek, or most of the star wars movies for that matter (Since i am oh so very young) but i *have* read foundation just a month ago, and i had dune read for me like, 3 years ago? Point is, i liked Foundation better, so i am guessing i would like star trek.

Up until the 4th... I’d say. I liked it because it was so "upscaled". Asimov‘s prose was always a little wooden though.

And those first 2 books are the only ones worth reading. Xenocide is a mess, and Orson Scott Card is a bigot.

@@Richard_Nickerson this. I tried reading Xenocide, but it was so bad and disappointingly horrible that I threw it in the trash and angry-cried for a bit. Then I decided to find out more about the man… I don’t enjoy spending time on social media, so I was extremely late to finding out that he’s actually an absolutely shit guy. I angry-cried some more, but at least I read Ender’s game from my local library and got a physical copy of Speaker for the Dead from a second-hand bookstore… I was gonna read the books when I was way younger; thank god I waited. I’ve had one childhood-forming author end up being horrible, and I don’t know if I could handle 2

OSC's really dangerous views and problematic religion shows up in so many of his books. It's vomit inducing. I still have to admit, he's a great writer, but his propaganda is gross.

Realy? Because Ender's Game started as a short story way before it became a novel.

Not overly concerned with your politics. Was discussing the book.

Foundation is an amazing series with an amazingly layered story structure.

It was unclear if he read the full series. I agree with his assessment of the first book. It's essentially a collection of short stories like Robot. The story gets better, though the characters mostly don't. edit: Ha got to the point where he says Asimov's short story selections are good. I feel like the first Foundation book definitely should be considered a short story collection and not a 'novel'

@@JediWreith, yeah, the Foundation series is nothing but short stories till you get to the 80's Foundation's Edge and beyond. They were compiled after they were written in to the books we have now. But I guess he didn't know that? They even READ like short stories, so I'm rather surprised he missed it.

So glad to find some others who enjoyed/appreciated Foundation* I asterisk it because I can’t really speak to what reading just foundation would be like as I read all three series (robot, foundation, and.. empire? I always mess up the names) consecutively (not by publish date). Perhaps Foundation itself is less then impressive by itself, wouldn’t know. Personally I loved each book, and the greater story they were telling. (Cosmere anyone?) I actually got into those Asimov books after hearing Brandon Sanderson cite it as one of two main things that kind of lead to/motivated him to write the Cosmere (if you know you know.. gah I hate that phrase, so cocky, but seems best way to put it)

Yeah the first book is riveting for me. The first and second crises are so incredible, with Salvor Hardin’s masterful politicking weaving a thread through each that truly feels like the only possible solution. One mark of a great writer is to make their characters truly feel intelligent without breaking the internal rules of the novel, and many characters in Foundation feel like pillars of intellect in their world.

Oh, wow. I love the 3x genre of videogames, so maybe I would like it. Quick summary of the genre: gameplay is made up of turn-based exploration and often galactic-scale interactions between players controlling one nation-sized group each. Most of 3x is staunchly sci-fi anyway, and even though I lean far more into character stories when deciding what to read, I enjoyed The Silmarillion to the point of it being on equal footing with The Hobbit and LOTR when it spends far more of its time building the world than building the characters in it. I enjoyed Nightfall to the point of it being my favorite short story ever written, (for the past 6 years now) so I know that there MUST be more of his stories that I’ll enjoy… I just haven’t found them yet.

Yes! It is the life of a species, instead of of a character. For me the dry prose (especially in the early books) was a good choice. It gives it the feeling that you are reading an sociological paper of a culture yet to exist. It reinforces the idea that behavior prediction could be primarily quantitative data driven (sociology), instead of qualitative/anecdotal (like old school anthropology, and much of our day to day policy).

Yeah, the moment I realized Tim values character driven stories over plot or idea driven ones, I knew I probably won't have to worry about the books he doesn't like.

Foundation had such an awesome premise. I use it for most of my D&D settings to justify why there's ruins full of treasure everywhere. The profound message that Tim is missing is that all societies are doomed to fail, even Terminus (The Foundation).

You know there are more than three books? Its been a while since I've read them but I think there are like seven in the series. He kept adding on after he wrote the trilogy. A couple of the books in the series have returning main characters but you are right in that the Foundation series cares much more about the story of the universe than a character story. I love the series but I can completely understand why some one wouldn't get into the series.

Foundation had some creative ideas but it was the most boring book to me, i had to painfully force myself to finish the first book.

I second that.

Her short story collections are incredible as well. The Birthday of the World is one i keep returning to

Also Wizard of Earthsea is like if Steinbeck wrote Tolkien

@@truegrandhighwonko alright. Interesting idea, I guess.

About to dive into the Dispossessed for the first time. So far I’ve read from Ursula only non-fiction and Earthsea. Really looking forward to this.

Neverwhere was originally a BBC miniseries that he later re-wrote into a book. Like a lot of BBC stuff, the production design is lacking, but the story is great.

I also found Anansi's Children a lot easier to read than American Gods

@@jasontankable Apparently it's more like a book that was adapted by the BBC before it was published. Gaiman had the story down, and then they kept changing bits and he kept saying 'That's fine, I'll put it right in the book,' until one day the producer came up to him and said 'we're cutting this scene, and if you say 'I'll put it back in the book' _I_ _will_ _kill_ _you_ .'

I think you will like Clive Barker's Abarat series and The Thief of Always

Neverwhere is amazing! Good Omens, that Gaiman co-wrote with Sir Terry Pratchett is also well worth a read (I also highly recommend the TV miniseries, Michael Sheen and David Tennant are absolutely brilliant).

That book and stranger in a strange land made me fall for Heilein

👍for both books!

Yes those two and starship troopers are my top three heinlein books

Yeah, but all the cool kids say it's bland (no character development, yadda yadda yadda...), so I better hop on the cool train. Now seriously, I was surprised when I started hearing these kind of critiques of Foundation. Did we read the same book(s)? I'd give anything if I could erase it from my memory so I could read it again for the first time (and all the rest of Asimov's work, for that matter). I have a theory of why people say (think?) this of this series (I mean, beside the fact it doesn't check the boxes of "proper writing" some fake guru invented and everybody accepted as gospel): they can't accept there's no 'character development' for example because it emphasizes the fact that any one person is completely insignificant on galactic scale of space and time and they just can't deal with that thought. Somewhat like why many people embrace religion even though their reason tells them it's a bunch of fairytales. If you just say "I didn't like it, it's not my cup of tea, it didn't click with me", that's perfectly fine. But no, they (the reviewers) usually start elaborating why it's 'objectively badly written', thus not good (not necessarily the author of this video, but you can see he's part of that pack). The story of Foundation spans several centuries in time and immense distances in space. People are not immortal in that universe. How can you expect any deep character development of particular persons when their lives are but a speck of dust in a dust storm? The Empire and the civilization is in some way the only constant protagonist throughout the whole story, beside (SPOILER ALERT!) that 'guy' from the Robot series after the universes merged. And while we're talking about Asimov, why is no one mentioning "Gods themselves"? I've had some people who haven't read Sci-Fi before and to whom I recommended the book say that it's the best book they ever read, period.

@@DukePaprikar Yes the point of "Hard" ScFi is that the science *IS* a (the?) main character. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but many of us LIKE "idea" driven ScFI....

huh? it's not hard scifi at all. it based on the fantastical idea that some mutant can control the minds of people.

I knew they were originally published like that, but they have long been reframed to be a single story nowadays. Even within the text, it does not treat them as short stories, but as a continuation of a single narrative. At no point does the text itself even refer to itself as an anthology or collection. But even if I talked about them as short stories (which I didn't because they aren't presented as that these days), in my opinion they pale compared to other collections I've read. ~ Tim

I came here to say that. Sure, that’s not how they are packaged, but it’s what they are: an anthology linked by a central conceit. If you look at each story, it is very much constructed like a short story. It’s hardly surprising as Isaac Asimov was a master of the form. From (distant) memory the later books might be more novel-ish in structure, but it’s been decades.

Exactly my worry - I'm perfectly happy reading both but, if the first isn't really all that and I can jump in to SFTD straight away and not be lost, I wouldn't be against that. Not planning on reading the rest anyways seeing as it seems to be that they got worse so, if only reading one is an option, I'm game.

@@kassimbabika I enjoyed all of them and think they are worth reading.

Yeah when I read them it felt like reading a connected series of short stories, and that wasn't an unusual thing. Ray Bradbury had done the same with the Martian Chronicles and several other books. And the as the Foundation series continued it seemed like he invested more into the characters he was developing for those books.

great book though i don't remember it being a collection of short stories, more like a web of personal tales that all tie into a single narrative of events but to provide context for each character. great fucking book though

Read that, didn't like it. The endless thread of fear of death never really chimed with me.

One of my favorite books of all time.

Oh dang, I read this one a decade ago. I wrote an essay about it for my college application, but I haven’t looked back on it since. It might be time to revisit it

@@mdeac48 pretty accurate vibe for a frickin Vietnam book though, wouldn’t you say? Some stories freaked me out too, especially “sweetheart of the song tra bong”, but i appreciated how real to the confusion and fear they were and how powerful that made the accounts

I read "The Magician's Nephew" like that. I can't remember if it was 2 o 3 am when I finish it.

I did something similar with rereading "the lost hero"

I recommend the Stuff that Onision and Norman B. wrote. Not the Books themselves, DUH, but the Book-Reviews RU-vidrs made of them. They are hilarious. One is a Famous Unhealthy Atheist, the other is a Famous Unhealthy Theist. They are literally 2 Sides of the same Coin. I never saw an Reaction- or Coverage-Video about those Books that isnt hilarious. Its always a Blast; though if i had to choose one Reviewer, I'd go with Krimson Rogue.

yes yes yes! such a good book, such a great trilogy!

Race baiting books. Black writers do not know how to write about something, without mentioning slavery and race.

Imagine being so fragile that a little melanin ruins your ability to enjoy a work of fiction

@@joshuaamy3010 I stated a fact, black writers do not know how to write book that doesn't include racism.

Ahh I Loved that trilogy too! Once I started, I couldn't stop

I recommend the Stuff that Onision and Norman B. wrote. Not the Books themselves, DUH, but the Book-Reviews RU-vidrs made of them. They are hilarious. One is a Famous Unhealthy Atheist, the other is a Famous Unhealthy Theist. They are literally 2 Sides of the same Coin. I never saw an Reaction- or Coverage-Video about those Books that isnt hilarious. Its always a Blast; though if i had to choose one Reviewer, I'd go with Krimson Rogue. But again: MANY reviewed those hilariously-bad and hyper-cringey books! Whetever you like cringe (like Neckbeard-Stories on Reddit) or not: I warmly recommend it still.

It took Me three different tries to get through it. Stick to it it. In the end i made it through the whole series and really glad i did.

You won't regret it. It's SO good.

The world of broken earth is so frightening!

ugh yesssssss its so gooooodddd

It’s my absolute favorite series. What an incredible story!!

Another vote for Broken Earth! Fantastic series.

I left that on the page 25 more or less...not a "light" read at all...maybe, I picked that up a wrong time. Will return to that maybe next year 😬

I recommend the Stuff that Onision and Norman B. wrote. Not the Books themselves, DUH, but the Book-Reviews RU-vidrs made of them. They are hilarious. One is a Famous Unhealthy Atheist, the other is a Famous Unhealthy Theist. They are literally 2 Sides of the same Coin. I never saw an Reaction- or Coverage-Video about those Books that isnt hilarious. Its always a Blast; though if i had to choose one Reviewer, I'd go with Krimson Rogue. Whetever you like cringe (like Neckbeard-Stories on Reddit) or not: I warmly recommend it still.

This book, along with A Deepness in the Sky are my favorite novels.

Ok that sounds amazing, I'm gonna look for it

@@bottlewishez7889 I generally agree, but I would put Alastair Reynold's Revelation Space there as well. I've heard similar things about Ian Banks The Culture (I just haven't read enough to have an opinion)

@@dauchande Of these, the Culture series was the hardest for me to really get into, even though I've read them all. The Vinge series is amazing, as is the multiple variations on Revelation Space by Reynolds.

@@tiskel2000 yeah, I've only read one culture novel so far, it's on my list to complete though

You absolutely should, or anything else by Butler

Yes! I cannot recommend that series (or, really, everything by Butler) too strongly.

*might look into some of the very early works or George R.R. Martian especially the Thousand Worlds short stories and the ones in the Tuf Voyaging arc...there is an excellent channel here on YT run by Preston Jacobs who has audio book versions of these stories...think he reads some of these and his commentary on these worlds is very good and insightful...i really enjoy them*

Bruh, no need to highlight your comment

Read the entire series, that’s what I did for the first 7 months of quarantine. Actually enjoyed them a lot

I read the initial Foundation trilogy last year. I loved the first book, but it certainly didn't conform to the flow I typically expect from a novel. Books 2 and 3 weren't as good but still enjoyable. Later in life Asimov added a number of additional Foundation books that tried to tie his entire universe together into one large story-arc. I haven't read those yet, but they were all penned something like 30 years later. As a result I think they're probably far less interesting.

@@colin1818 They're a mixed bag. There are some neat ideas, but the uninteresting character thing is exacerbated by the fact they follow single characters instead of multiple characters throughout time. The exception being Hari Seldon himself in the prequels, but it helps there's and undercurrent in Forward the Foundation of "the author was literally slowly dying while writing this, so the melancholy of it is applied very well in the book".

​@@colin1818 Foundation's Edge + Foundation and Earth are great and the best titles of the series, I'd say. Prelude to Foundation + Foundation Chronicles are ALL about the character Hari Seldon and are very cool too; particularly to fill in blanck and explain stuff from how the Foundation came to be! I highly recommend them. They are all for sure different than the Foundation Trilogy and also much more dynamic in the narrative, with a bunch of worldbuilding!

Foundation and Empire was the peak for me, I loved the Mule as a villain. Foundation's Edge lost me though, I never read past it as I figured it was a sign of the spark going out. Good series but I don't think it deserves the enormous praise it received, but it came about in a different time.

@@MauroDraco - Planning on continuing through the series a bit later. Reading some other stuff now.

I’ve only read The Book of Sand, but that one alone was definitely super moving. I literally ended up writing a poem semi-inspired by it that same day haha

@@gracetopherkirk5742 That's really cool! I haven't read The Book of Sand yet, but I've read all his stories from the beginning of his career up until The Aleph, and I'm really excited to keep going.

The Library of Babel is in the running for the most thought-provoking piece of short fiction ever written.

@@xx99Username99xx Absolutely

Random fact: one of my professors at college studied under Borges, right before his exile.

@Suddenly huh

I read this as written: spiny, as in to do with the spine. Spinny* is what you meant to type, and spinning* is what you should've typed.

@@waggyn Yeah, I definitely see that. It didn't help that my english teacher didn't allow me to critique misogyny/racism in the classics (brushing it off as 'just the time period') or making his interpretation of the work the only one we were allowed to write about

@@waggyn Oof I have to read that later this year for AP Lang lol hopefully I like it more than you did

There is this great video series "Extra Sci Fi" by "Extra Credits" that tackles a lot of classic Sci Fi and shows us what makes them unique and why they are great (starting with Frankenstein): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DnSmGFmP8qU.html

@@waggyn What's your problem with "grapes of wrath"? I'm genuinely curious, because I went into it not expecting very much and ended up finding it genuinely amazing, earth shattering, landscape defining...

kind of! but not exactly he had already written the story of ender, but only as a SHORT STORY. he then had the concept for Speaker of the Dead in his mind but found it wasn't exactly working the way he wanted it to until he decided to make Ender the protagonist (or got that idea suggested to him by someone idr exactly) this then made him go back and rewrite enders story into a whole book, the Enders Game we know and love today, so he could develop enders character and backstory to the point of making Speaker for the Dead work as a sequel!

If you liked Hyperion, you need to read Fall of Hyperion - it's the sequel, and is necessary to complete the plot of the first.

Hyperion is an EXPERIENCE. I cannot recommend it enough. I also thought it would make a really cool premise for a D&D campaign!

I've been looking for an idea of what that book was about. Seems like this one review says more about it than most of the reviews online.

I picked up this book earlier this year and wasn’t immediately drawn into it. I think I may have just been too busy for it - did you find it pulled you in a little further into the book?

@@tonykirk8295 It's definitely one of those books you have to let pull you in and give it a bit of patience. And it does give you more the further in you go.

@@Kathywake23 I appreciate that. I feel like Piranesi sort of resists those "synopsis/here's what the book's about!" reviews somehow, you can't actually get the point of it without just reading the thing and the less said about it the better.

@@Kathywake23 Piranesi is great. The beginning is vague and a bit slow. There is some deeper fantasy stuff going on, but the book isn’t really about that stuff. It is more about the feelings it inspires in the first portion. If the idea of a tone piece doesn’t interest you, or if the first couple chapters don’t grab you, I don’t think I would recommend it. More stuff happens later on, but it builds on the first few chapters so skipping those defeats the whole point of the book.

Only kinda? It was published in a serialised format in the 40s, but more as chapters, not independent stories. And it doesn't present itself as an anthology in the text itself. ~ Tim

What's a "micro view"?

@@Takejiro24 Think of it as building a world from the bottom up, a small detail or tech that exists in the world. The micro view/perspective then builds on that to answer the "who/what/when/where/why and how" this item, saying, tech, etc regarding this detail. In Asimov's Foundation series (SPOILERS) the Thumb sized energy shield was a product of resource scarcity. They needed the item but couldn't produce the large ship generators, so they had to shrink it. Thus this society is clever, efficiently using limited resources and technologically advanced. Hope that helps.

@@CuriousDeadCat Thanks

By the time he died, he had made his three main series into one series. I won't spoil how he does that though.

@@seanclodfelter4242 you got a book or two that I can read for myself?

Yeah, sometimes you're not *supposed* to understand stuff. A very modern, "please spoon feed me" kind of attitude to expect that.

As I said elsewhere, it's a short story collection. If you read it with that in mind, there you go.

I'm a lifetime fan of Asimov, and I swear by the Foundation series... I still wouldn't recomend it to somebody starting on SciFi, and I wouldn't fight any debate where I would need to defend how well written it is. I love it because of both the premise and the story itself, but it's not really the best written novel out there (not even a well written one). Now, if you put your brain in the right headspace, and have a general idea of what to expect from an Asimov novel series, you enjoy it A LOT more

I enjoyed Foundation as well, but I aggree with Tim here, that it's very mechanical, idea driven and not for everyone.

@@yoshienverde I know it’s not for everyone, but taking notes while reading his works really helped me understand them (at least to the point of not feeling totally lost), and it seems to only work for me with just Asimov’s works. I try doing the same thing with poetry and uni course material, but it’s somehow not working for me. I think it’s because his ideas are still very solid now; they’re this fascinating intersection of stretched, yet still instinctually understood reality and sci-fi’s surrealistic awe in my eyes. There’s this awesome surge of feelings when one of Asimov’s short stories fully click in your head. I’ve unfortunately only experienced that with Nightfall so far, so if the Foundation series is similar - even if only in bits and pieces throughout - then I’ll pick them up. If not, I have a very short backlog.

I'm unsure if he read just Foundation (the first book), or the original Foundation trilogy, all of which were originally printed in serial in magazines. (Books 4 and onward are in an entirely different style and feature characters from other books he wrote.)

I was gonna suggest this before I saw your comment. Big agree; Red Rising and all it's follow-up is totally Game of Thrones in space, but actually hooked me in more for its brand of drama and spectacle. Hail Libertas!

YES!!! It's my favorite book series for this reason and I'm not a huge sci-fi fan. I actually read Dune because so many compared RR to it.

I tried N K Jemisin and second person present is just utterly inaccessible. Any recommendation of N K Jemisin--or any other second person novel, especially second person *present*--needs a disclaimer about it. It's so different and weird and hard to get into that readers need to know about it beforehand. I want content warnings for this narration style.

@@lunasophia9002 Would something like “Told In The Second Person” being present on the cover be enough of a warning? That narration frame is so incredibly rare to be in a published work, and it’s even rarer still to come across it by accident…

@@lunasophia9002 maybe try her inheritance trilogy instead? That series is really great too and a bit more accessible and conventional.

@@lunasophia9002 I can completely understand that - the 2nd person stuff is very difficult to get into. However, when it's revealed *why* the 2nd person is used, it makes it all so much better.

It's f****** excellent

Also most of their followers only copy the tropes on the surface. Like how elves in modern fantasy are done (especialy the elves and dwarves hate each other trope).

@@petrsevcik5044 Yeah exactly. It's like when we copy tropes we're relying on the lore and deep thought the original author put into it to support new books, but without putting any of the deep thought into the new books.

This is true not only for fiction but for texts in non-fiction. Past classics explored ideas and new texts will improve on that, but if you read the old stuff you can see them discuss ideas that didn't pan out, exploring tributaries of thinking, and it gives a greater depth. And sometimes you come across ideas that shouldn't have been forgotten. Same with fiction.

I'm so sorry I panicked in the moment when I realised I didn't know 😅 and then that came out ~ Tim

Yeahhhh, came here to point this out. It's okay but FYI it's pronounced closer to HOR-hay Louise BOR-hays

@@HelloFutureMe I recommend the Stuff that Onision and Norman B. wrote. Not the Books themselves, DUH, but the Book-Reviews RU-vidrs made of them. They are hilarious. One is a Famous Unhealthy Atheist, the other is a Famous Unhealthy Theist. They are literally 2 Sides of the same Coin. I never saw an Reaction- or Coverage-Video about those Books that isnt hilarious. Its always a Blast; though if i had to choose one Reviewer, I'd go with Krimson Rogue. But again: MANY reviewed those hilariously-bad and hyper-cringey books! Whetever you like cringe (like Neckbeard-Stories on Reddit) or not: I warmly recommend it still.

@@HelloFutureMe To be fair, it was a hilarious, entertainingly bad mispronunciation.

Personally, I look at the Prometheus Awards, Nebula and sometimes Hugo winners

I often say that not enough people talk about The Culture then Tim sat there with a copy of Consider Phlebas right in front of him for an entire video and didn't even mention it 😑

I wasn't a huge fan of Consider Phlebas BUT I've loved his other books - I'm reading Use of Weapons now. It's so damn good! Such a profound world. Well deserved praise he receives. Lucky I have a friend who is a massive fan of his who pushed me and pushed me. ~ Tim

YES! Someone else gets it! It's my favorite piece of fiction of all-time at this point. It's that enjoyable to read. I can't recommend it enough. More people need to read it!

I cannot agree less! You probably read all the books by now and love them, but the first 600 pages are such a boring slog with uninteresting characters and a world that is bland and unexplored. Yes, I know all the fans say eventually the world is one of the best (and I am willing to believe that), but for most readers it will definitely be too much of a hassle to reach that point.

I followed for a long time avidly, and then just stopped. I think I got tired of the innkeeper's blinkered view of the world? I didn't care about her after a while, and read for the many other interesting characters (like the courier). But these webnovel serials are often so bloated and I tend to quite them after several hundred pages. And I say that as a reader who loves long-ass books.

Definitely not the way I took it, bit of a gut punch when I heard that bit.