I freaking died laughing when you “rated” Hail Mary!! I love Gene Wolfe. Not sure I am smart enough to comprehend it all, but I find joy in his work. I plan on reading the rest of the solar cycle, peace, fifth head, etc. I am sure I will gain 1 IQ point by the end.
So many books here that intrigue me, particularly Moderan and the Comptons. I have a very similar video coming up and there are a few overlaps in what I've read this year, including Inverted World and a completely different Abominable Snowmen book. Cheers!
Not sure if you are going to see this comment, not related to this video but I just saw an interview by Grzegorz Braun (when he was still a movie maker, not a weirdo) with Stanislaw Lem. In it Stanislaw Lem mentioned that he was invited once to Moscow by the Strugatsky brothers and they tried to outdrink him. They failed. Interview is in polish. Just something I wanted to share with you since I know you loved Roadside Picnic. His son finished Theoretical Physics at Princeton and had transtaled PKD books. Lem was a great fan of him, even though he mentioned that PKD was a drug addict. Incredible interview and view in to the past. Greatest quote from Lem that just resonates with me is: "People do not read anymore, and even if they do, they do not understand what they read, and even if they do understand they quickly forget." Lem was trully a great man. If you can find someone who can correctly translate his interviews you will be amazed what kind of a man, scholar, author he was.
Le Guin praised Eddison for writing Elizabethan English in the 20th century, but admitted that, to quote a character in the book, can be 'cramped and most damnably long'. She praised it for being written in language that really felt like fantasy, as opposed to fairies speaking in modern vernacular.
A super underrated sci-fi war book I really enjoyed is Brigador by Brad Buckmaster, a book based on the universe of a game with the same name that follows three characters having to deal with their planet and way of life changing after the world leader has died and every person in a mech has gotten a contract. One character struggle's with maintaining order and trying to lead in this time, another character is conflicted and would rather leave the platoon but if he does he'll be hunted, and another that has a new lease on life and is using the chaos to settle a personal challenge. I'd highly recommend if you like sci-fi war or mech/tank war books as Buckmaster was a tanker and uses his experience expertly.
S Tier - The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe by D.G. Compton - He Died With His Eyes Open by Derek Raymond - The Reefs of Earth by R.A. Lafferty - Inverted World by Christopher Priest - Change the Sky and Other Stories by Margaret St. Clair - The Female Man by Joanna Russ - Super-Cannes by J.G. Ballard - Moderan by David R. Bunch - Chronicules / Chronocules by D.G. Compton A Tier - Gypsy by Carter Scholz - Mama Black Widow by Iceberg Slim - The Snail On the Slope by Boris & Arkady Strugatsky - Eden by Stanislaw Lem - The Prone Gunman by Jean-Patrick Manchette - Eric John Stark: Outlaw of Mars by Leigh Brackett - Hard to Be a God by Boris & Arkady Strugatsky - Salt by Adam Roberts - Amerika by Franz Kafka - Fury by Henry Kuttner - Concrete Island by J.G. Ballard - Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo - In Quest of Candlelighters by Kenneth Patchen - The Two of Them by Joanna Russ B Tier - A Reader's Guide to Science Fiction - The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson - The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester - The Color of Distance by Amy Thomson - The Forever War by Joe Haldeman - The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts - A Wreath of Stars by Bob Shaw - The Space Merchants by Frederick Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth - The Puppies of Terra by Thomas M. Disch - The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe - The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison - Mistress of Mistresses by E.R. Eddison - The Garments of Caen by Barrington J. Bayley - Lilith by George MacDonald - Every Man for Himself and God Against All by Werner Herzog - Echo Round His Bones by Thomas M. Disch - The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien - Surprisingly Down to Earth, and Very Funny by Limmy - Red as Blood by Tanith Lee C Tier - ..And All the Stars a Stage by James Blish - A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge - Space Prison by Tom Godwin - We Can Build You by Philip K. Dick - The Compleat Traveller in Black by John Brunner - A Feast Unknown by Philip José Farmer - The Game Players of Titan by Philip K. Dick - The Complete Chronicles of Conan by Robert E. Howard - Soviet Science Fiction by Isaac Asimov - The Eye of the Lens by Langdon Jones - Strange Relations by Philip José Farmer D Tier - The Abominable Snowmen by Eric Norman - The Philosopher's Stone by Colin Wilson - Midworld by Alan Dean Foster - The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde by Norman Spinrad F Tier - Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - The Third Eye by T. Lobsang Rampa
@@MirrorReaper1 yep, we can only encourage people to jump in snd read it. its a quick read and i could not put it down. fresh, sharp, flinty and interesting as it gets. 🎉
Love the content! A suggestion for other tier lists: put the finished tier list in the video description, or show a link to it toward the end of the video! I find myself wanting to remember what you had on your S and A tiers but don't want to click through the video to see what they were (the thumbnails are too small to just pause the video and read the covers)
Just finished “The Inverted World” this morning at 4:30am. I very much enjoyed it, but only gave it an 8.5 out of ten. I fight recency bias very diligently. I was ok with the end, because it left you exploring yourself and how you would react. Thought provoking read on perspective and shackling oneself to that perspective.
I've read slightly less of this year's list than previously (about 80%). Of the S tier, I'm missing Moderan and about half the St Clair book. I'll have to give Bunch a run. Thanks. Great list - you had a good year.
Thank you for your patience in holding off your ascension to a being of pure energy so you could finish this list. Go. Go now, join the galactic choir. And let us know if you see any asteroids heading towards us, thank kew.
As a spanish speaking person, very happy to see Pedro Paramo in your list, A tier is fair, although for me it's one of my top books, perhaps because I read it in my youth. I don't know if you've read it already, but I tyhink you'd really enjoy A hundred years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, which was very much inspired by Pedro Paramo.
absolutely - pedro is great and solitude is on my top ten of all books ever. i like the argentine great borges a lot too and chilean neruda. i visited all three of neruda’s famous casas in chile - they are very cool. 🎉
We got ourselves a reader. Love what you do. Very pleasant manner of communicating. I'm curious to see what would happen if you wrote some short stories or summaries of the genres. The integration of your consumptive habits could produce some multi-dimensional gems.
I don't think you're stupid. I think he generally leans towards dispair, and doesn't like optimistic sci-fi. He also generally dislikes Clarke if I remember correctly.
I loved A Feast Unknown and was waiting for your take. For me, I loved the ultra violence and the other outrageous stuff in it, and didn’t try to look for any subtext. I’m not so sure it’s really there, other than goofing on the superhuman absurdity of Tarzan and Doc Savage. What got me was the fact that something so over-the-top was published in the 60s. It’s closer to 80s action/horror in the way it was written; no holds barred stuff.
Insightful summarizing of Eddison. In the best sections (not a lot of them, but ...) I found the writing so beautiful I'm unsure whether to classify it as prose or poetry. Is "poetic prose" an oxymoron? It was lovely.
Before you mentioned Wolfe, your description of The Reefs of Earth was already reminding me fo The Fifth Head of Cerberus. I know Wolfe was a fan of his. I haven't read Reefs or any other Lafferty though, so maybe I'm off with the Fifth Head thing. Might try it soon, thanks to you. ❤
My recollection of the Freeze Frame Revolution is not that the chimp goes bad rather it wont let the crew abrogate their mission due to its inflexibilty, the mission having gone on for billions of years objective time
Would be really interested in hearing your thoughts on Neal Stephenson, he's my favorite author and Anathem is my favorite book of all time. Have you ever read any of his work?
I do not understand the love for Anathem. It's often dull, too long and makes little sense. ("Hello, we're from the government and want you to join a secret project. Good luck getting there as we're not going to pay your ticket. See ya!") Why were ninjas attacking a train at the north pole again? I dunno. And the ending had bits left in that should have been removed, or something. I remember one guy died but then was still alive later. Just a mess.
I'm not insane! Well I might still be, but at least I'm not alone in thinking Hail Mary is severely overrated. That pause was spot on. That pretty much summarizes my views on it.
I was watching this in fear you were gonna shit on Worm Ouroboros lol. It's my favorite book ever. It's unhinged, the story is childishly dumb in a way (because he made up everything when he was 10) and yeah it's dull in parts, but it's such a singular and strangely beautiful book that I can't help but have respect for it. The Bantam version has an awesome cover but for reasons you stated, I think an annotated version is a better rec. Salute as always, thanks for having such great taste
@Bookpilled oh yeah, there's a couple versions with a whole glossary in the back. I don't know if the book would've hit for me like it did without it. Idk wtf a grickle is, man.
Idk if you read all the comments, but I just finished Alien Clay by Tchaikovsky and I think it's the best thing he's written. I haven't read his entire oeuvre, but it's far superior to the couple series I've read. Much tighter focus first person perspective with body horror and revolution. Definitely your taste, politically.
Love this. Love hearing your thoughts. Can I make a request for future such vids that you always vocalise which tier a book is going into (unless not saying it is for reasons of humour) because I like listening to these as podcasts and I always want to know where you're ranking something. I think there were a few times where you don't say where things have ended up, maybe due to editing, and I had to stop and bring up the video and rewind.
Nice to see that someone besides me has finally read Manchette- 'Fatale' is my favourite and it has surprising synergies with Muriel Spark's 'The Driver's Seat'. I enjoyed 'The Prone Gunman' too, but then I am a French Noir nut. NYRB hve been pumping out reissues regularly for some years now and I've even managed to get some of my co-workers reading him, even though my big 'European Noir Redux' phase was a decade ago. Nice to see D G Compton riding high. Take care of yourself, Matt.
Aw, I wanted to hear the reasons why you put say Project Hail Mary in the F tier. I can think of many reasons why you would. But I’d only be guessing. Personally I would have placed it C/D tier. Better written than The Da Vinci Code which definitely would be F tier.
i read super cannes right when it came out in 1997 i think it was. i was on a second wave for me big ballard kick. around 1990 i went on the first ballard kick when the outstanding re/search atrocity exhibition came out. 🎉
iceberg slim & chester himes had a revival and were very popular in the 1980s, along with jim thompson and others like chandler for the ‘hard boiled’ crime fiction revival craze. mostly i think thx to james ellroy getting so much notice and the vintage series authors like haruki murakami and cormac mcarthy and the like back then. since the 80s slim, himes and thompson have all but disappeared again. tastes change & cancel culture won’t allow them i guess. 🎉
I appreciate your honest opinion on Project Hail Mary. It is baffling how many booktubers love it. I can't take seriously any reviewer that gushes over that book.
It seems like this is the only safe space on the internet for those of us who see that book as it really is. I honestly don't understand the praise it gets.
Do the other Kids in the Hall share your taste in books, Kevin McDonald? Are you the better version of Kevin McDonald a la The Substance? Is that why we see you only every 7 days or so, Other Kevin?
Also, sorry for the double comment, but the adjective "pre-Tolkien" is very dumb to me. I'm not trying to come at you over it, but Tolkien is post-Eddison fantasy, and all epic fantasy is. Popularity and commercial success are meaningless.
Not to worry, when he writes a book half as good as any of Andy Weirs, then I’ll start taking his opinions seriously…critics are a dime a dozen. Let him be happy selling used books. 😂
The Hail Mary placement/non-mention has me still rolling. 💀
that book was grate IMO
a terrible book 😂🎉
is it a troll from him, or does he honestly think it's as bad as the Abominable Snowman et al?
I laughed so hard
He absolutely hates it.
I will forever cherish the 28:10 Andy Weir moment 🤣
That was absolutely hilarious 🤣🤣
I was a bit disappointed about that :D. Wanted him to take shred it :D.
Wow it was so great:))) this is the right place for Weir
@@Phoenixzs1012he has shredded it enough - all its worth shredding. 😂
Book might've gone in F, but that was S-tier wry.
I'm about to get violently stoned while listening to Bookpilled rants.
It's gonna be a good night
I freaking died laughing when you “rated” Hail Mary!! I love Gene Wolfe. Not sure I am smart enough to comprehend it all, but I find joy in his work. I plan on reading the rest of the solar cycle, peace, fifth head, etc. I am sure I will gain 1 IQ point by the end.
So many books here that intrigue me, particularly Moderan and the Comptons. I have a very similar video coming up and there are a few overlaps in what I've read this year, including Inverted World and a completely different Abominable Snowmen book. Cheers!
Not sure if you are going to see this comment, not related to this video but I just saw an interview by Grzegorz Braun (when he was still a movie maker, not a weirdo) with Stanislaw Lem. In it Stanislaw Lem mentioned that he was invited once to Moscow by the Strugatsky brothers and they tried to outdrink him. They failed. Interview is in polish. Just something I wanted to share with you since I know you loved Roadside Picnic. His son finished Theoretical Physics at Princeton and had transtaled PKD books. Lem was a great fan of him, even though he mentioned that PKD was a drug addict. Incredible interview and view in to the past. Greatest quote from Lem that just resonates with me is: "People do not read anymore, and even if they do, they do not understand what they read, and even if they do understand they quickly forget." Lem was trully a great man. If you can find someone who can correctly translate his interviews you will be amazed what kind of a man, scholar, author he was.
limmy's face just stares into your soul for most of this vid
Le Guin praised Eddison for writing Elizabethan English in the 20th century, but admitted that, to quote a character in the book, can be 'cramped and most damnably long'. She praised it for being written in language that really felt like fantasy, as opposed to fairies speaking in modern vernacular.
A super underrated sci-fi war book I really enjoyed is Brigador by Brad Buckmaster, a book based on the universe of a game with the same name that follows three characters having to deal with their planet and way of life changing after the world leader has died and every person in a mech has gotten a contract. One character struggle's with maintaining order and trying to lead in this time, another character is conflicted and would rather leave the platoon but if he does he'll be hunted, and another that has a new lease on life and is using the chaos to settle a personal challenge. I'd highly recommend if you like sci-fi war or mech/tank war books as Buckmaster was a tanker and uses his experience expertly.
I love that you seem like such a reddit atheist at times but Sasquatch being real is a hill that you die on
Reddit atheist is just another way of saying normal person :)
@@arekkrolak6320 no i promise you its really not
of all the genre interests dying on squatch hill isn’t a bad one 😂🎉
@@arekkrolak6320Touch grass.
@@arekkrolak6320 No one that regularly uses Reddit is a normal person.
Really gratifying to see how high you place Joanna Russ, both in this specific case and in general. As a writer she is just unbeatably good.
can someone explain to me how fire upon the deep ended up on C tier? I thought it was one of his favorites in previous videos?
He reread it and disliked the prose and the characters and still liked the novel ideas but since he already knew about them, they're not as exciting
There's a recent vid (one of the last four maybe?) rerating things and he goes into it on some depth.
he discovered he hates dogs, so … 😂🎉
S Tier
- The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe by D.G. Compton
- He Died With His Eyes Open by Derek Raymond
- The Reefs of Earth by R.A. Lafferty
- Inverted World by Christopher Priest
- Change the Sky and Other Stories by Margaret St. Clair
- The Female Man by Joanna Russ
- Super-Cannes by J.G. Ballard
- Moderan by David R. Bunch
- Chronicules / Chronocules by D.G. Compton
A Tier
- Gypsy by Carter Scholz
- Mama Black Widow by Iceberg Slim
- The Snail On the Slope by Boris & Arkady Strugatsky
- Eden by Stanislaw Lem
- The Prone Gunman by Jean-Patrick Manchette
- Eric John Stark: Outlaw of Mars by Leigh Brackett
- Hard to Be a God by Boris & Arkady Strugatsky
- Salt by Adam Roberts
- Amerika by Franz Kafka
- Fury by Henry Kuttner
- Concrete Island by J.G. Ballard
- Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo
- In Quest of Candlelighters by Kenneth Patchen
- The Two of Them by Joanna Russ
B Tier
- A Reader's Guide to Science Fiction
- The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson
- The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
- The Color of Distance by Amy Thomson
- The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
- The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts
- A Wreath of Stars by Bob Shaw
- The Space Merchants by Frederick Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth
- The Puppies of Terra by Thomas M. Disch
- The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
- The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison
- Mistress of Mistresses by E.R. Eddison
- The Garments of Caen by Barrington J. Bayley
- Lilith by George MacDonald
- Every Man for Himself and God Against All by Werner Herzog
- Echo Round His Bones by Thomas M. Disch
- The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien
- Surprisingly Down to Earth, and Very Funny by Limmy
- Red as Blood by Tanith Lee
C Tier
- ..And All the Stars a Stage by James Blish
- A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
- Space Prison by Tom Godwin
- We Can Build You by Philip K. Dick
- The Compleat Traveller in Black by John Brunner
- A Feast Unknown by Philip José Farmer
- The Game Players of Titan by Philip K. Dick
- The Complete Chronicles of Conan by Robert E. Howard
- Soviet Science Fiction by Isaac Asimov
- The Eye of the Lens by Langdon Jones
- Strange Relations by Philip José Farmer
D Tier
- The Abominable Snowmen by Eric Norman
- The Philosopher's Stone by Colin Wilson
- Midworld by Alan Dean Foster
- The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde by Norman Spinrad
F Tier
- Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
- The Third Eye by T. Lobsang Rampa
THANK YOU
Can't wait for Blindsight to slip to C-tier in a year.
NOPE! 🎉
@@meesalikeu You know it's gonna happen, lol.
@@meesalikeuI don’t want to reread Blindsight, I have a suspicion the prose does not hold up. Also the Dawkins references
@@mcs5869 The prose holds up and then some. Just finished reading it a few months ago, with mind blown in many places.
@@MirrorReaper1 yep, we can only encourage people to jump in snd read it. its a quick read and i could not put it down. fresh, sharp, flinty and interesting as it gets. 🎉
Thank you for doing these, this is highlight of many of my days.
Love the content! A suggestion for other tier lists: put the finished tier list in the video description, or show a link to it toward the end of the video! I find myself wanting to remember what you had on your S and A tiers but don't want to click through the video to see what they were (the thumbnails are too small to just pause the video and read the covers)
Just finished “The Inverted World” this morning at 4:30am. I very much enjoyed it, but only gave it an 8.5 out of ten. I fight recency bias very diligently. I was ok with the end, because it left you exploring yourself and how you would react. Thought provoking read on perspective and shackling oneself to that perspective.
There was not even a Hail Mary for that Project! 🤓
I AM PILLED UP!
It is true that Inverted World is a flawless book. I think I need to read it again soon, just to remember how much i love it.
I've read slightly less of this year's list than previously (about 80%). Of the S tier, I'm missing Moderan and about half the St Clair book. I'll have to give Bunch a run. Thanks. Great list - you had a good year.
Thank you for your patience in holding off your ascension to a being of pure energy so you could finish this list. Go. Go now, join the galactic choir. And let us know if you see any asteroids heading towards us, thank kew.
Keep my name alive in the hearts of the people
As a spanish speaking person, very happy to see Pedro Paramo in your list, A tier is fair, although for me it's one of my top books, perhaps because I read it in my youth. I don't know if you've read it already, but I tyhink you'd really enjoy A hundred years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, which was very much inspired by Pedro Paramo.
absolutely - pedro is great and solitude is on my top ten of all books ever. i like the argentine great borges a lot too and chilean neruda. i visited all three of neruda’s famous casas in chile - they are very cool. 🎉
We got ourselves a reader. Love what you do. Very pleasant manner of communicating. I'm curious to see what would happen if you wrote some short stories or summaries of the genres.
The integration of your consumptive habits could produce some multi-dimensional gems.
Am I stupid? Why is the general agreement that Hail Mary was terrible? I thought it was alright.
I don't think you're stupid. I think he generally leans towards dispair, and doesn't like optimistic sci-fi. He also generally dislikes Clarke if I remember correctly.
@ how does Clarke fit into Hail Mary?
@@CODENAMEDERPY both are dry hard SF?
I thought it was quite good.
I loved A Feast Unknown and was waiting for your take. For me, I loved the ultra violence and the other outrageous stuff in it, and didn’t try to look for any subtext. I’m not so sure it’s really there, other than goofing on the superhuman absurdity of Tarzan and Doc Savage.
What got me was the fact that something so over-the-top was published in the 60s. It’s closer to 80s action/horror in the way it was written; no holds barred stuff.
this sounds right up by alley plus i loved the tarzan books and doc savage marvel comic books when i was a kid. 🎉
Oh Yes.
Psionic powers and whole plot points based on Freudian theory is the meat in the Jell-O mold of old school SF. . .
But sometimes it’s really good meat! Sometimes not, of course.
Hahaha
Have you read Hard to be a God by Strugatsky?
Finished ‘Katherine Mortenhoe’ last month, one of my favorite reads this year as well
Insightful summarizing of Eddison. In the best sections (not a lot of them, but ...) I found the writing so beautiful I'm unsure whether to classify it as prose or poetry. Is "poetic prose" an oxymoron? It was lovely.
I loved the no-comment Project Hail Mary goes to the F tier. Completely agree.
Currently reading We Can Build You. Finding it a slog. You're right about the writing. Will follow with The Demolished Man or Mortenhoe.
Thank you very much, plenty of ideas for future reading there :-)
Before you mentioned Wolfe, your description of The Reefs of Earth was already reminding me fo The Fifth Head of Cerberus. I know Wolfe was a fan of his. I haven't read Reefs or any other Lafferty though, so maybe I'm off with the Fifth Head thing. Might try it soon, thanks to you. ❤
ive only read lafferty’s short stories collection. they are very quirky but he is an excellent writer. 🎉
My recollection of the Freeze Frame Revolution is not that the chimp goes bad rather it wont let the crew abrogate their mission due to its inflexibilty, the mission having gone on for billions of years objective time
Poor Project Hail Mary. I read a lot of great sci-fi, though I still liked this one.
Would be really interested in hearing your thoughts on Neal Stephenson, he's my favorite author and Anathem is my favorite book of all time. Have you ever read any of his work?
I do not understand the love for Anathem. It's often dull, too long and makes little sense. ("Hello, we're from the government and want you to join a secret project. Good luck getting there as we're not going to pay your ticket. See ya!") Why were ninjas attacking a train at the north pole again? I dunno. And the ending had bits left in that should have been removed, or something. I remember one guy died but then was still alive later. Just a mess.
@@douglasdea637his books are always cluttering bookstore scifi shelves. 😂🎉
I'm not surprised you loved Limmy's book. After all, he does have an intelligence of a certain kind.
I'm not insane! Well I might still be, but at least I'm not alone in thinking Hail Mary is severely overrated. That pause was spot on. That pretty much summarizes my views on it.
any intention of reviewing A Voyage to Arcturus? I’m reading it and I don’t know whether it’s terrible or if it’s trippy good
Yeah it's on the TBR
the inverted world sounds similiar to Logan's Run
04:05 just curious, any other psychoanalytics alternative to jung/freud.. book? either fiction or non-fiction guys??? thanks for the time
Jungs Map of the Soul by Murray Stein is a good place to start as an introduction to Jung.
I agree with you on sasquatch -- that is, that it is a real something. Just what, I don't know.
I was watching this in fear you were gonna shit on Worm Ouroboros lol. It's my favorite book ever. It's unhinged, the story is childishly dumb in a way (because he made up everything when he was 10) and yeah it's dull in parts, but it's such a singular and strangely beautiful book that I can't help but have respect for it. The Bantam version has an awesome cover but for reasons you stated, I think an annotated version is a better rec. Salute as always, thanks for having such great taste
Didn't even know there was an annotated version.
@Bookpilled oh yeah, there's a couple versions with a whole glossary in the back. I don't know if the book would've hit for me like it did without it. Idk wtf a grickle is, man.
"'Tis writ somewhat crabbedly,"
Idk if you read all the comments, but I just finished Alien Clay by Tchaikovsky and I think it's the best thing he's written. I haven't read his entire oeuvre, but it's far superior to the couple series I've read. Much tighter focus first person perspective with body horror and revolution. Definitely your taste, politically.
You are a role model and a book shaman. Thank you.
Do you actually like any contemporary books? 🤣
@@TheLimitlessLegacy they are shit.
Do you like "Change the sky and other stories" more, or "The shadow people"?
Love this. Love hearing your thoughts. Can I make a request for future such vids that you always vocalise which tier a book is going into (unless not saying it is for reasons of humour) because I like listening to these as podcasts and I always want to know where you're ranking something. I think there were a few times where you don't say where things have ended up, maybe due to editing, and I had to stop and bring up the video and rewind.
Nice bell curve. Some content creators end up with inverse bell curves which is a sign of an insane mind.
I’m starting to dislike space opera, and it doesn’t make me enthusiastic about many books in my TBR stacks. Oh well.
The Stone Gods came out in 2007
Nice to see that someone besides me has finally read Manchette- 'Fatale' is my favourite and it has surprising synergies with Muriel Spark's 'The Driver's Seat'. I enjoyed 'The Prone Gunman' too, but then I am a French Noir nut. NYRB hve been pumping out reissues regularly for some years now and I've even managed to get some of my co-workers reading him, even though my big 'European Noir Redux' phase was a decade ago. Nice to see D G Compton riding high. Take care of yourself, Matt.
Good video, considering that I normally find the tier structure an annoyance. Still interested in your opinions, regardless.
Are you reading Lord of Light?
I humbly request Mistress of Mistresses to be moved to S tier. Fish Dinner in Memison is even better, the best of the Eddison books IMO.
E.R. Eddison was a civil servant with a.....big....imagination. I believe he worked for the Board of Trade and wrote at night.
Lmao what happened with project hail mary? 😂
Quit interrupting my reading with S-tier book content, Matt.
Clearly the Fire Upon the Deep reread is still painful lol
*Smash cut to Andy Wehr in F tier* 😂😂😂
Absolute power move
Bookpilled was a Necco Baby.
Aw, I wanted to hear the reasons why you put say Project Hail Mary in the F tier. I can think of many reasons why you would. But I’d only be guessing. Personally I would have placed it C/D tier. Better written than The Da Vinci Code which definitely would be F tier.
Hail Mary? Hell no! 😂. Also, you make me want to re-read Super Cannes, Ballard’s best later work.
i read super cannes right when it came out in 1997 i think it was. i was on a second wave for me big ballard kick. around 1990 i went on the first ballard kick when the outstanding re/search atrocity exhibition came out. 🎉
36:49 Failed No Nut November cuz Matt said “Dick cylinders”
😂
iceberg slim & chester himes had a revival and were very popular in the 1980s, along with jim thompson and others like chandler for the ‘hard boiled’ crime fiction revival craze. mostly i think thx to james ellroy getting so much notice and the vintage series authors like haruki murakami and cormac mcarthy and the like back then. since the 80s slim, himes and thompson have all but disappeared again. tastes change & cancel culture won’t allow them i guess. 🎉
Snowmen and Bigfoot are also folklore so the haters can kick rocks
I appreciate your honest opinion on Project Hail Mary. It is baffling how many booktubers love it. I can't take seriously any reviewer that gushes over that book.
thank you - me neither. the guy doesnt write books, he writes mid movie scripts. i can’t stand that. 😂
It seems like this is the only safe space on the internet for those of us who see that book as it really is. I honestly don't understand the praise it gets.
Guys try "alien clay"
You read Limmy's book!
Moderan S tier please! LOL not a live stream
Do the other Kids in the Hall share your taste in books, Kevin McDonald? Are you the better version of Kevin McDonald a la The Substance? Is that why we see you only every 7 days or so, Other Kevin?
Do you ever get burnt out on reading?
Every once in a while
That Hail Mary yeet 😂😂😂😂😂
Also, sorry for the double comment, but the adjective "pre-Tolkien" is very dumb to me. I'm not trying to come at you over it, but Tolkien is post-Eddison fantasy, and all epic fantasy is. Popularity and commercial success are meaningless.
dam , got a hate on for mary.
me over here waiting for the hail mary review 🙃
Andy Weir fans in shambles.
Not to worry, when he writes a book half as good as any of Andy Weirs, then I’ll start taking his opinions seriously…critics are a dime a dozen. Let him be happy selling used books. 😂
28:11 I love how you just took Project Hail Mary and without a word put it in E tier. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Benny Harvey RIP
The Hail Mary and BoTNS bits were hilarious. Great year of reading!
Inverted World was just a waste of time. Even though it was easy to read, it remains nonsense.
Surprise! Surprise!
BP your sense of humor is so dry and you have to really be a veteran of the channel to get it but once you do. It’s great.
Sasquatch being real is so funny to me. Of all things! Sasquatch!?
28:10 😂
You look like John Wick
❤❤
Matt, Media Death Cult's recent breakdown of Urth of the New Sun (& the others) is really eye-opening. Scintillating, in fact.
I don't get the praise that series gets. I read it with high hopes and gave it 2/5 stars. It's a mess.
@douglasdea637 see the breakdown, you may change your mind..
How could I possibly be a patreon to a person who does not consider "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" to be a high point in western literature?
Iceberg Slim ... name is familiar .... oh yeahhhhh, it's *that* guy (Pimp, Trick Baby, etc) ... had not heard of 'Mama' ... sounds devastating.
I know I can trust the S-tier recommendations because I placed Project Hail Mary in the same tier. 😅
Do you only like classic dystopia?
The best review of Project Hail Mary ever! ;)
Perfect Project Hail Mary review. I concur.
TANITH LEE !!!