My ultimate goal this year was to read all The realm of the Elderlings books and I did it 🎉 For now I'm reading The wall of Storms and it's amazing All was considered after watching your videos 🔥
I am in love with Osten Ard and the culture as you said, probably my favourite fantasy world ever cause it feels so genuine and so well developed, esp the multiple complicated relationships between different races and cultures! Empire of Grass was so epic!
Welcome to The Culture. I had one issue with Player of Games in that the Game, the big Game, was not detailed at all. It was done in some vague way. Excession was my first, I bought it on a whim and had no idea what I was getting in to. I think the last 3 books are my favs, Matter, Hydrogen Sonata, and Surface Detail. I barely recall Use Of Weapons. It may have just been over my head at the time I read it.
Use of Weapons was my first Culture novel. That ending really shocked me! (And, of course, I then had to seek out all of the other Culture novels. :)) I'm so glad that you're enjoying the series! I wish it got more love on BookTube.
Use of Weapons gutpunched me. Going to go hug my favorite chair. I've never read Kazuo Ishiguro before but I'm definitely giving him a chance after this. Now you need to read The Player of Games.
@@thefantasynuttwork Yup, that's the one most people talk about. I considered starting the series with Player of Games but decided to go chronologically.
Whoa love hearing you gush about Banks so much, and the liveliness and cleverness of these books sounds right up my alley - I can’t wait to try the Culture books soon!
Thanks for the videos as always Sir Jimmy!!! So glad you’re getting to Heroes Die! This is one of my favorite fantasy books in many ways. It is such a good combination of tough guy fiction, post modern/Orwellian ideas and portal sword and sorcery!! I think you’ll have a good time with it!!
Iain Banks is probably my favorite author. I was actually anxiious to hear your opinion about Use of Weapons. Maybe one day you could try one of his non-SF novels.
As a *Cult* member I am duty bound to pass on the received wisdom, which is read Banks in order - so suggest go back and read Phlebas(it's good) then the book after Weapons, State of the Art.
That's a really good reading month Jimmy! Been in a scifi mood lately so I'm thinking Banks is gonna move up my tbr. Best books I read in August were Crypt of the Moon Spider by Nathan Ballingrud( fun, pulpy gothic horror novella set in 1920's about a woman who is interred into an insane asylum on the moon by her husband), and The Inverted World by Christopher Priest. Plan on reading more by both
Hell yeah m'dude, keep going with The Culture!!! Excession is awesome though I personally prefer Inversions and Look to Windward. I'd love for someone to read Inversions with 0 context of what the culture series is and see what they'd make of it. I mostly stuck to comics in August (mostly Marvel stuff) but i did read the 2nd book of Wurts Wars of Light & Shadow and started Rain Wild Chronicles. More importantly, I've achieved my weight loss goal for the year.
Id say before Excessiom, read his essay A Few Notes on the Culture, which you can find online. He wrote this just before that biok came out. It lays out his ideas and it provides a lot of nice worldbuilding.
@@Paul_van_Doleweerd Ooooh I would love to see that book too. I watched a RU-vid video about Masaq Orbital. The illustrations were amazing and really helped me to visualise the Orbital. I wonder if they came from that book 🤔
I also read The Last Murder at the End of the World. Took only two sittings during Labor Day weekend. It reminded me a lot of Severance meets Westworld. I’ve read Turton’s other books and bro is all about the crazy premise. I think the other two books are actually more creative, but had a fun time with this one regardless.
I think you would really enjoy "The world of yesterday" by the Austrian author Stefan Zweig. He poignantly describes the world of stability, artistic flourishing and intellectual freedom of Vienna and Paris during the beginning of the 20th century and eventually the lost era of peace and humanism, deeply affected by the rise of fascism and national socialism, including the Nazi persecution that forced Zweig into exile.
Thanks for the update Jimmy, always a blast. I re-read The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance in august, so the whole month was those two. If I have the time, I might join you with Heroes Die in september, I mean the book has to be better than that book cover haha. When it comes to goals for the rest of the year, I would like to be caught up with stormlight for the new release in december. Other than that, I have read many book ones or series I should get back to e.g. Revelation Space series by Alistair Reynolds or Remembrance of Earths past by Liu Cixin
Very happy for you that you had such an excellent month! Between you, Johanna and Merphy all gushing about Klara, I am now desperate to start it!! My standouts for August were Asunder by Kerstin Hall (fave of the year ?), Between Dragons and Their Wrath by Devin Madson (hope you like it!), Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle and Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors 🤩
@@thefantasynuttwork I think it helps if you are expecting some strong (steamy) romantic subplots in each of the 3 POVs. Like, it's not a romantasy at all, but it takes some tropes from there. Also, the worldbuilding is so cool!!
The 7 1/2 deaths of Evelyn hardcastle is an awesome book by Turton. It’s like a time travel/groundhog day murder mystery in a clue like setting. It’s great!
Last Murder At the End of the World sounds pretty interesting. For some reason I always really like mist or fog in worldbuilding; I'm not totally sure why.
If finished Never Let Me Go last week and immediately picked up Klara and the Sun. The writing is seamless and this dude is a master of subtlety. Within 25 pages of KatS I ordered another of his books. (The Buried Giant) Gonna be an all Ishiguro Sept. lol.
I also read The Last Murder in August and agree it felt a little long but loved some of the reveals. Definitely read Evelyn Hardcastle. It's brilliant!
I’m glad that you had a banger reading month, and I hope it’s the same goes for you in September! Finishing up the Black Company and Gormenghast series and, then, continuing the City Watch subseries kept my August reading at a high enjoyment level throughout. I *still* need to read Toad after Ben’s recommendation. 😭
I’m so glad you enjoyed Use of Weapons, it is a top 10 book for me. And Banks is a top 10 author. I’d encourage you to check out his non sci if works as well, I’m working my way through them and have enjoyed almost everything I’ve read so far. Excession is quite different to the previous books and quite dense, but also amazing.
Hi jimmy after hearing your love for r Scott bakkers writing I gave his series a shot. Almost done with the warrior prophet and it is RIDICULOUSLY good. Can’t write a whole essay here on what I appreciate about everything he does in that book but thanks for directing me to this author ❤
Hope you have a good September ✨my goal for the rest of the year is just to get back into a reading habit while still doing everything else I need to 💀 😭 Hoping to start memory, sorrow, and thorn at some point between next month and the beginning of next year as well!
Use of Weapons and Player of Games are the best of the Culture series by a significant amount. (To be fair, lots of people love all of them.) If I was going to recommend another Banks book, it would be Complicity (listed as by Iain Banks not Iain M. Banks as the sci fi novels are.)
I'm about to finish Green Bone Saga, but I'll probably read the novellas in September. Other than that, I will be doing a reread of Hunger of the Gods by John Gwynne and starting GGK's Sarantine Mosaic.
I will be getting to the Dragon Bone Chair in November when the e book should become available I swear! Libby has the books through Empror of Grass so hopefully I will be reporting on this later. I wish I could read on planes. I always get really tired, but then again I usally take night flight. Abberant month what with this move abroad but August was still relatively positive. I relistened to the audiobook of Dune, which is stilll a great book and probably one of my favorite reads of all time. Not much to report on that one except Scott Brick is a severely underrated voice actor and narrator. He plays Duke Leto the Just in the audiobook as well as God Emperor Leto the Second in the God Emperor epitaghs. Such an interesting voice! Also finished reading, finally, the Art and Soul of Dune part 1 which talks about the making of the 2021 film. This supplies further, undeniable evidence that practical effects are the way to go. :D Some short fiction I read was Kawabata's Master of Go and the fifth installment of Legend of the Galactic Heroes series, both of which I had a great time with. LOGH is my go to cheesy sci fi series when I need a break from other things. I do think it is funny though how much Tanaka, the author, loves to talk about exactly how good looking one of his main characters is. I mean, he described his laugh in one book as sounding like gemstones clattering together or something. Maybe it's the translation. Still amuses me to know end so I can't really complain about it. Kawabata continues to impress me with his books about post war Japan. Master of Go is literally about one game of Go that takes place over a six month period between an elderly Master and a rising Go genius. Fans of the Queen's Gambit may be interested. I am planning on reading Snow Country in November, which heavily contributed to his Nobel Prize. A five star book for me this month was actually an art book. The Art of the Ghost of Tushima. Absolutely stunning content here. The love these developers had for their game is palpable. This is in the running for my top ten of the year. I was inspired to find some reading material on the history of Japan during this tumultuous period because of this game so I read The Mongol Invasion of Japan by Stephen Turnbull this month. This is apart of a large series of books called Osprey Campaigns which are usually between ninety and 100 pages long and include large illustrations. Each book focuses on a historical battle and are great for people who are interested in learning more about military history but don't have a good background in the subject. I read their book on Sekigahara last month and it was quite informative. Had a few mild dissapointments this month. Beasts of a little land by Juhea Kim was a read I have been looking forward to for a bit. It takes place in Korea between the World Wars when Korea was under Japanese occupation. I thought this was going to focus more on history but it ended up being more of a romance so unless you were really interested in these characters there wasn't a ton to see. Ah well. For a premier book it wasn't bad it just wasn't exactly what I was looking for. Bigger dissapointment was, sadly, Tigana by GGK. This book.....it just wasn't my thing. I think the book could have been improved, in my humble opinion, if one of the factions (the one that has nothing to do with Tigana) had been cut or if that faction had been kept and it had been written as a dark comedy about two dictators trying to sabatage each other and the local people being passively uncooperative. There was a section of the book that was written just like this that had me actually cracking up when I was driving and I remember wishing that the entire book had been like this part. The way this book is, Kay never really develops the unique culture or history of Tigana, except for the importance of the name, and I never quite came to care about it. I think it is clear this is an early book of his when he was still trying to write truly high fantasy. Kay is still one of my favorite authors though and I have three books of his planned for the rest of the year while I am abroad. Happy reading guys! Can't wait to watch Chating with Nuts later! 📖
Jimmy, I really think you will like Banks's Consider Phlebas. It's a slammer too and introduces us to the Culture universe. I didn't agree with those people who say to skip it. I liked it better than Player of Games, but it has some wild stuff. The main character is a changeling.
Banks is fantastic but I have only read his science fiction although I have The Wasp Factory on the shelf. I don't recall if Feersum Endjinn is a culture novel, but I'd love to see the expression on your face when you try it 😅
Hi Jimmy, it’s taken me far too long get here after coming from DudesTalkingManga. I really loved your one piece takes and enjoyment, you might get asked this all the time so I’m sorry, do you still read it? I hope so. Glad to have found your other channel! I hope you’re well!
Sounds like you had a productive reading month Jimmy, I myself have had a slow reading month, and year for that matter. I did complete some books though such as Return of The Griffin, which is the second of the Hybrid Helix books, Bluebird Bluebird, which is a solid noir novel, and the first compilation of the 100 Bullets comic book series. I am hoping to have the first compilation of Astro City, which is a superhero comic, done before the end of the month as well. So better than I thought. Keep up the good work Jimmy.
@@thatsci-firogue I know right? It's really good. One of the great 'reconstruction' superhero comics in the vein of The New Frontier, All Star Superman, and Invincible.
You should read 7 1/2 deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton, you see the same events from seven different points of views to figure out what's really going on
as you dive further into Banks' works, I implore you to also consider his non-genre fiction(which is often much weirder than his scifi).. The Bridge is a personal favourite among favourites
I agree, it’s definitely worth exploring Banks’ other works, some of them are pretty weird. Apparently Banks couldn’t get his science fiction published so he turned to literary fiction. His first novel The Wasp Factory is very dark and was quite controversial at the time. It put Banks on the map and launched his career. His novel the Bridge is also a favourite of mine. Apparently once some of culture novels had finally been published, The Bridge was called by some, his secret culture novel.
Oh man, you already got most of it but those final 20 pages that end Empire of Grass just seal how good it is. The epilogue is very heart breaking and emotional but the very last scene of the last chapter SPOILERS SPOILERS I had no clue Morgan and Nezeru would cross stories and meet up and it seemed like a huge game changer. I knew they were in the same pretty large location but I expected them to just sort of quickly pass from a distance and continue their separate stories.
After a very ambitious (but very rewarding) Summer TBR (both the «Memory, Sorrow & Thorn» & the «Prince of Nothing» trilogies ++), this Autumn I am gonna be a bit more mood reading with no «big chonkers». I know I am definitely gonna read «Leviathan Wakes» (The Expanse #9, Space Opera, only book I didn’t get to from my Summer TBR) & «Lustrum» (US: «Conspirata», Cicero Trilogy #2, Historical Fiction about the eponymous Roman Statesman) by Robert Harris (book #1 «Imperium» is contending for my book of the year so far, together with GGK’s «A Brightness Long Ago»). I am most likely also gonna get to Michael Moorcock’s «(The Tale of)The Eternal Champion» Trilogy (Epic Fantasy/S&S). Might also get to some Rosemary Sutcliff (YA Historical Fiction) & David Gemmell (Epic Fantasy). Cheers!
I love The 7 half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Turton. It's set in more Victorian times which may not appeal but you get to see the same day a few times while being sort of a murder mystery. You might like The Devil and the Dark Water better tho. I finished Dagger & Coin in August (FINALLY!)🎉🎉 Sept will be reread of Crime &Punishment, Death of Ivan Illych The Kreutzer Sonata by Tolstoy, The Invisible Man by HG Wells and maybe A Song for Arbonne. It's time for you to finish Anna Karenina...just saying.😅
I only read like 3 books this month and one was an audio reread, but both were reasonably long and dense. Perhaps The Stars which was fucking genius, and about 330k words, and The Darkness That Comes Before which was not as long, and was also very good. Someone should have told me I'd like Prince of Nothing earlier, to bad nobody ever personally recommended it to me via DM's oops
