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OMG that's right, NGHI VO! WHERE IS MY NGHI VO?!? Ugh, Goodreads seems to be so allergic to true GENRE reads in SFF.

I had no idea there was a new Peter S. Beagle book. How in the hell did I not know that????

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I enjoy the I Robot movie with Will Smith, so you're not alone. 😊 I felt like there were suggestions missing and you reminded me of books that did release this year and didn't make, so I'm like "Aww nooo, why?" I hope we get better lists in 2025, but ehhh, I don't know how GR will be.

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I was discussing 2025 releases with Abby last night and there are some big fantasy hitters publishing next year (or after the cut off this year) so hopefully the list will be much more epic!

Urban fantasy Time-Marked Warlock seems fun judging by the ebook sample. The audiobook seems to be full cast too. I saw Jonathan Koan's interview with the author.

🎒🥾 I've recently learned the term backpack fantasy and those are definitely up in my favorites

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Not me constantly voting for Somewhere Beyond the Sea in all rounds. How very dare you not love the queer adorableness that is The House in the Cerulean Sea. And Mirrored Heavens is ok, but I don't think it's a snub not being here because book 2, Fevered Star, was widely disliked and while book 3 improves I think a lot of people that I follow DNF'ed the series after book 2 xD And you have only seen good reviews for the City in Glass because you didn't watch me talk about it ☠😜🤣

😂😂 They really do have one job and didn’t understand the assignment

I haven't looked at the Goodreads Choice awards, all I know I've learned from my favorite BookTubers. I am very surprised that Fury of the Gods isn't on there though. I mean, it is EPIC high fantasy. I honestly wonder if it appeals more to a male audience, and that's why it's not getting votes. There are a lot of battle scenes. Well done and gripping, but a lot. But strong female characters, DRAGONS (well, one dragon), all kinds of creatures, high stakes...it's pretty darn old-school epic. Some drag in the pacing of the last book, a lot of all the parties travelling to get to the final battle scenes, but now everyone is in place so it's picked up. Can you tell I'm in the middle of it as we speak? I also think the series doesn't suffer from middle book syndrome. I really liked the middle book a lot. Anyway, thanks for the video, as always. I'll look for that other epic series you mention for when I finish the GODS. ⚔🛡🐺🐉🐀

The best justification I've heard is that Bride is paranormal romance instead of fantasy romance BUT given that GR puts any book with even a SNEEZE of fantasy/magic in fantasy and that the put a contemporary lit fic book in Sci-fi simply because it's set on the ISS i think the bigger answer is that GR does what they want and it doesn't make sense.

The one thing having an outsized effect on what I'm seeing is Book of the Month, lol. I think a lot of their selections can blur genres, but they don't do EPIC fantasy because 3 books on the fantasy shortlist were BOTM picks and none of them would fall into a classic epic category (The Fox Wife is historical, The Lost Story is kind of a portal fantasy, and Five Broken Blades is more romance). And while I haven't gathered all the data, it kinda feels like it's the same with their other genre picks, which is like padding the categories with books that toe the lines because they get added by so many people who simply don't see anything beyond that. But my impression of the fantasy trend is that if BOTM is more mainstream/literary leaning, and then the popular boxes online are more romance heavy, and then Goodreads is a popularity contest, then who's driving the bus??

between the goodreads sff finalists, there's not a single book i have read nor a book i'm all that invested in reading in the future. which yes, partially speaks to my own tastes, but these lists really could be so much more varied and exciting while still representing popular books. your picks reminded me of several i'm still looking forward to getting to!

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i loved the wings upon her back so much! very heavy on the sci-fantasy though for sure

My theory is that the pandemic and booktok and AI all really started taking off in 2020 and we're starting to feel those effects in new releases now (since publishing takes a while to get through the full process). I know Orbit lost at least 2 of their senior editors during lockdown, so I imagine the books they worked on or helped mentor junior editors with already came out by the end of 2022/early 2023 at the latest. Books from your list that I've read-- Sunbringer is very much a middle book syndrome type of book, so I'm not surprised that it didn't get a lot of fanfare and didn't make it on the list. I think this is the only one I've read in your snubs where I would agree to categorize it as Epic Fantasy. (I think Gwynne and Lawrence would also belong, but I haven't read them. I soft DNFd the first in that Gwynne series when it came out though, and it was very solidly epic fantasy) I do think Mirrored Heavens ended up in more of a romance direction than a Fantasy direction, so I'm not sad it wasn't on the list and I have a hard time considering it epic fantasy (I loved the first book and would recommend it as a standalone, but the sequels are a lot of talking and romances I don't care about, with maybe a single action sequence at the end of each). I loved The Last Unicorn and it was a huge part of my childhood (mostly the cartoon), but I think that dragon book is on my worst of 2024 list. It's also basically a middle-grade? So very much doesn't belong on the Adult Fantasy list, imo, even if it was Saga Press publishing it. Without having a kids category anymore, I'm not surprised it didn't end up anywhere in the awards because it definitely didn't read like Adult. _Maybe_ YA at best. And for me, City in Glass read very literary and poetic? Not epic fantasy. I could only imagine it making the list on merit of author name, since even my friends who liked it kept saying "I don't know who this is for???" lol. It seems much more primed to be a Hugo darling than a Goodreads Choice Awards pick; It's like a somewhat less flowery and less speculative version of This Is How You Lose the Time War.

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This is a solid list. A couple I haven't heard of and will be putting on my TBR. So many good POC fantasy came out this year but no push for them. AND PLEASE DON'T LET ME GET STARTED ON MIRRORED HEAVENS!

shockingly i DNF'd the city in glass which truly pains me to say but i still think it deserves to be on the list hahah

The Goodreads list is essentially useless for me. There's nothing there that I've read and nothing that I even particularly want to read. I assume it's useful for somebody else. That said, I find it interesting that there is no progression fantasy or LitRPG on their list. I get that those subgenres are despised as much as Romantasy by some large part of the audience, but they're huge sellers and should have some representation. But then, I find most art awards to be useless for guidance. The people who seek out positions on those kinds of panels really don't like anything that I like. And I'm sure the relationship is reciprocal.

Peter Beagle basically had a decades long nightmare where a guy fraudulently got the rights to his books. He kind of stalled his writing until he won a legal battle to get them back. Anyway, writer of The Last Unicorn, which became a very popular animated film in the 80s. I thought Mirrored Heavens was really disappointing. The Godkiller series is a trilogy, and it's a good, fast-paced, fun time.

Sunbringer is the second in a trillogy. It has a bit of a middle book feel. 🍂🍃🧞‍♀️🧞‍♂️

Glad to hear the new Nghi Vo is getting good reviews. I've got a hold on it and am hoping I'll enjoy it.

Loved the Emily Wilde book. The Book That Broke the World is not great. If you didn’t like the last one, this one drops off. Just started the new Discovery of Witches book and enjoying it.

Oooh good calls on Mirrored Heavens and The Sky on Fire, they definitely deserve to be on there. I am personally rooting for Empire of the Damned for now, if only because that is ACTUALLY fantasy lol

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The Emperor and the Endless Palace didn't read like romance to me either

I also think they do this disproportionately more with fantasy than with, say, skew towards literary mystery or literary horror. It's annoying.

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Maybe not the best idea to change covers for a sequel, especially if a long time has passed. I get trying to stay on top of cover trends, but I wouldn’t have guessed those were part of the same series. I wonder if the trend will re-emerge after Stormlight 5. Maybe if that’s super successful, the market will start responding again. This video made me curious! 🧝🏼‍♀️

🫖 tea for a cozy fantasy (sub genre more than trope admittedly) 😅 I don’t read a lot of fantasy otherwise haha

👹 The final round is out. I want to read Mirrored Heavens by Rebecca Roanhorse, having read the first two books in the series. I don't know why epic fantasy is snubbed. I have just started reading Six of Crows....so I'm way behind the current selection.

I think there could be a few heavy hitters up against each other next year! VE Schwab is getting ready to release a new novel in 2025, the sequel to the Will of the Many finally has a release date, and the next book in the Tainted Cup is releasing next year as well. Not sure what Leigh Bardugo has cooking, but I'm sure she, TJ Klune, and T Kingfisher will have something since they're all pretty good at pumping out a book a year or so. Faithbreaker is also releasing next year, but apparently GR Choice hates Hannah Kaner, so idk if that will be on the list next year. I also wonder if the Fantasy section hasn't been effected by the massive marketing push toward romantasy recently. Even though none of my algorithm suggests I want this, I see constant ads for the next romantasy read with fancy sprayed edges and typically less fancy insides.

The short list is out and the 3 literary picks all made it, I enjoyed book of doors and I’m currently reading the fox wife and it’s good, but they aren’t what I picture when someone says fantasy.

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I tried to read Lovelight Farms, recommended by Bookish Bethany. I DNFed it maybe a quarter of the way in; the author has done something strange with the tenses, over-using the present tense, which I found quite uncomfortable. I don't have any romance books to suggest at the moment, but you could just go with Bujold's KOMARR; Miles meets his lady. Happy reading, Kay

I was looking forward to hearing your thoughts of Warm Hands of Ghosts. I'll be watching out for the review! 👻

🤶 🎄🎅Maybe try Catherine Walsh „Holiday Romance“ and „Snowed in“. I enjoyed them last year and might reread this year. just some fun and doesn’t blindside you with dark themes but is still not complete fluff. And it’s vastly underhyped imho especially since the writing quality is so much better than some of the hyped seasonal romances.

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