I re-read the first two Farseer books earlier this year and could not push myself to read the third. Fitz just makes so many bad choices that I was continually irritated. They're exceptionally well-plotted and the worldbuilding is top notch but ugh.
That Time Fantasy list is hot, flaming garbage. The last quarter especially. I've read probably 75 of those books and while I didn't dislike any of them, WOW did most of the recent ones not belong on there.
One of my pandemic self-care tactics has been to buy books I truly love in hardcover editions, and shed paperbacks that I bought years ago and am kinda meh on. I just picked up a full series set of 8 books at Bear Pond. Extremely happy with that choice.
I'm a little reluctant to throw the fantasy list out completely: there are some good explanations for why they've selected the various ones, and there's an emphasis on making sure that newer creators and authors are included. Any list has its quibbles, and there are some weird omissions, but yeah, there are some that I had to go "huh?" at.
Well, no, there are some interesting and worthy choices on there. It's just intensely frustrating that 1/4 of them were published in the last couple of years - and two of them were published this year. Between that and the haphazard selection of books from longer series, the last 1/3 of the list felt slapdash and full of recency bias. I fully support adding more diversity to the list but even reading through the short essays it felt like they didn't have good arguments. Take Anne McCaffrey's Dragonflight, a book I fully support being on there - the essay basically says it belongs on the list bc it made Game of Thrones possible. Which, way to minimize an actually groundbreaking book.
(yeah, I realize that quibbling with a best of list is very much an Internet Pastime, but this one has me especially grumpy)
I re-read the first two Farseer books earlier this year and could not push myself to read the third. Fitz just makes so many bad choices that I was continually irritated. They're exceptionally well-plotted and the worldbuilding is top notch but ugh.
That Time Fantasy list is hot, flaming garbage. The last quarter especially. I've read probably 75 of those books and while I didn't dislike any of them, WOW did most of the recent ones not belong on there.
One of my pandemic self-care tactics has been to buy books I truly love in hardcover editions, and shed paperbacks that I bought years ago and am kinda meh on. I just picked up a full series set of 8 books at Bear Pond. Extremely happy with that choice.
I'm a little reluctant to throw the fantasy list out completely: there are some good explanations for why they've selected the various ones, and there's an emphasis on making sure that newer creators and authors are included. Any list has its quibbles, and there are some weird omissions, but yeah, there are some that I had to go "huh?" at.
Well, no, there are some interesting and worthy choices on there. It's just intensely frustrating that 1/4 of them were published in the last couple of years - and two of them were published this year. Between that and the haphazard selection of books from longer series, the last 1/3 of the list felt slapdash and full of recency bias. I fully support adding more diversity to the list but even reading through the short essays it felt like they didn't have good arguments. Take Anne McCaffrey's Dragonflight, a book I fully support being on there - the essay basically says it belongs on the list bc it made Game of Thrones possible. Which, way to minimize an actually groundbreaking book.
(yeah, I realize that quibbling with a best of list is very much an Internet Pastime, but this one has me especially grumpy)