Okay, so today i'm going to be talking about my top five favorite series of all time. I recently
did a top 10 fantasy series i think. Um and most of my favorite non-fantasy stories are standalones
so i probably should have planned this a little bit better because at the end of every year i
redo, i update my favorite author's, favorite series, favorite standalones and a lot of these
are going to be fantasy. I forgot to put my Rhythm of War book back after my review. Well, while i
was up there i went ahead and grabbed my number one top series of all time because i'm starting
at the top. The Gentleman Bastard series. Starting with the Lies of Locke Lamora, Red Seas Under Red
Skies, Republic of Thieves. We have three of these. We're supposed to have seven. Will we
get to seven someday? I don't really know. So this follows a band... the first book. I'm gonna tell
you what the first book follows. The first book follows a band of thieves. They are orphans who um
all have come together under this wonderful, wonderful fatherly figure; father chains,
who treats them with kindness and love... i'm just kidding. It's a pretty brutal setting. Uh,
these kids they learn to swindle and lie and thieve and uh do what they're gonna do. It's a
dark world. The government kind of works with them because they're cool with it and uh... i love it.
This is a fantasy series where fantasy isn't at the forefront. That could potentially probably
change in later books, but as of the first three fantasy is not at the forefront. These are your
average people living in a world with fantastical elements and fantasy elements come into the story,
but those fantasy elements are not the story. The characters are the story. This is a very character
focused story, but if you give it time the plot is fantastic. It's also kind of a hard story to
get into because we deal with a lot of flashbacks and they can be very jarring and abrupt at first,
but once you fall into a rhythm with them and you realize why he's placing them where he's placing
them and how beneficial, how much they work together in the way he does them, it's actually
a really cool structure and the characters are some of my favorite characters of all time. I'm
big on friendships... some of some of the best friendships of all time. I love the brutal world.
I love the raw and fantastic characters. I love the relationships. I love the high stakes.
I love a lot about this series. Book two uh is... oh. I've been holding these in the wrong
order the whole time. You won't judge me. Book two is similar, but we're pirates for hire now.
I loved it just as much as book one. Book three is more of a political plot. Also there's a play.
I think most of us agree that it's the weakest of the three, but i still really enjoyed it. And i am
excitedly waiting for book four whenever that happens. My second favorite series is going to be
The Lord of The Rings. Now, i know. I do. Trust me. You've told me already. This was originally
published or this was originally written as one book, published as three, but should be seen as
one. But when i pair it with The Hobbit and the Silmarillion, it becomes... i'm gonna call it a
series just so that we can all be on the same page. Now i didn't love The Hobbit. I didn't
dislike The Hobbit. I kind of felt kind of neutral about it um so then i went into The Lord of
The Rings for the first time expecting to have a little bit similar opinions, but i wanted i wanted
to experience a story. And it did take me a while to get into Fellowship the first time i read it
and then i went into uh not book two, part two. I went into The Two Towers expecting to have similar
feelings, but Two Towers blew me away. Return of The King... meant a lot to me and then when i went
back for my reread, oh my goodness. I appreciated Fellowship so much as well. I just... gosh. I love
this series. I love this world, i love the magic of this world. Not... i don't mean the magic of...
i i love the romance of this world. I love the whimsy of this world. I love how simply magical it
is and how expansive and huge it is. I love that Tolkien used a soft magic system. I tend to really
love hard magic systems um, but i loved... it's funny. Actually both of my main favorite series
are soft magic systems. Anyway, i love that he used a soft magic system for this world because it
fits this world so well and because some fantasy series the magic is just as important as the plot
and in this world and in the stories that are being told, a hard magic system simply wouldn't
have fit and i love it. I love it. I love the magic of this world, but not meaning the magic.
Meaning i love how this world is so magical. This world is so whimsical and i didn't grow
up reading it. I didn't grow up on on on The Lord of The Rings. It won me over as an adult. I love
the characters. I love their sacrifices. I love the dynamics between them. Again,
friendships. Hello! Sam and Frodo, but also Mary and Pippin and there's, oh my golly. There's so
many great friendships in this story and man i love the ending! So many people complain about the
ending, but i love falling action and there was a whole lot of falling action and seeing what the
world looked like after the end was incredible. I love the shire. I love all the different places
that we got to visit. Man i love this story! I'm going to be doing a re-read really soon. Actually
on my public server they're doing a re-read of this... they're doing a read of this. They're
buddy reading this in the month of December and i'm casually joining, but i'm going to be reading
it slowly. I also happen to love the Silmarillion. Yeah, there are some parts that are quite dense,
but there are also parts that are beautiful and tragic and heartwarming and heartbreaking
and oh my goodness! Amazing stories in here! So my top two favorite series are the "top two."
Their placement matters. My bottom three. My bottom three. The next three are kind of,
you know. They're all fantastic and they can be swapped out. But i chose to
land in the number three spot, the Bear Town series. A trilogy. It's gonna be a trilogy.
We have Beartown and Us Against You. This is about a small hockey town in Sweden. Fredrik Backman,
my favorite author of all time lives in Sweden. Publishes his books... i read the translated
versions of them. Anyway, a small hockey town where all of their focus relies around
hockey and this terrible event happens, um one of our characters gets raped and
it's the fallout. I mean, Backman writes literary fiction so the real focus of his stories is in
character studies, is in breaking down really difficult concepts in very raw ways and and he he
showed a lot of people reacting to this situation. Some of them terribly, some of them well and there
were a lot of really hard discussions had in this book. They're not easy to read, but man are they
good. And he said that it'll be a while before he push publishes book three because these books
take a lot out of him to write and can't blame him! But as of right now these books, they mean
a lot to me. I appreciate them a lot. Next we have The First Law trilogy. The Blade Itself,
Before They Were Hanged and The Last Argument of Kings. Oh my goodness, i love these. Again,
characters. oof! Characters... they really drive me as a reader. This is another grim dark series,
but i think that if you're relatively new to grim dark or if you're unsure if you're gonna like grim
dark, this is a really good place to start because Joe Abercrombie has this amazing ability to go to
really dark places and really take things there with very real stakes and stuff that it's just,
"holy cow" to read about without slapping you in the face with it, burying your nose in it,
he... he writes grimdark in a way that i love to read it where he goes there without needing to
over go there. Does that make sense? I mean obviously that's subjective. You could think
differently, but i'm talking about what i like, so there you go. There you have it. But also
his characters, never once do i feel like his characters make a decision because plot dictates.
His characters are so authentic and real and you always know why they're doing what they're doing
even if you really don't agree with it and all of his characters are morally gray where they don't,
you don't want to be them and you don't necessarily want to know them either,
but you always understand them and you may not agree with the decisions that they make,
but you still kind of root for them because you want what's best for them because they're just
living in a dark world and doing the best they can and they're making bad choices sometimes,
but you get why. It's a weird position to be rooting for uh people who are horrible, but
there's so much humanity to them that... i don't know. It's so hard to explain spoiler free because
there's really not a lot of plot in the first book so uh it's difficult for me to say much
about the story without spoiling, without giving too much. But these characters... oh my goodness.
Oh my goodness! So well written. And of course we must talk about the Stormlight Archive. Again,
kind of difficult to talk about because the first book is not very plot heavy. So...
hmm. The Stormlight Archive. Four books all about 1200 pages each
and wow. Attempting to summarize the Stormlight Archive. That's that's maybe my biggest feat
yet. I guess i'll say this. Sanderson is one of the most incredible world builders out there.
If you loved The Wheel of Time and you didn't continue on with Sanderson's work,
you're really... i think, i think Stormlight will get you there. I mean, if you don't know,
Sanderson finished The Wheel of Time series and he did a great job with the ending,
with writing out Jordan's ending and this world is massive and the magic is intricate
and uh Sanderson is the type of writer that the magic and the world are just as relevant as the
plot. They seep into the story. They are part of the story, but not only that, Sanderson writes
characters in a way that i connect to them so hard emotionally and obviously that's a big deal
for me. He also makes it his mission to really dig deep into mental health in his characters and to
do a ton of research and consult professionals and write them really authentically and well and not
in stereotypical ways, which just builds on how complex his characters are. Am i describing the
plot? No. And i might not attempt to do that in this video because we have several main
characters, four, arguably five now and um a lot is going on in their individual plot lines. But
it's really really cool to read! If you want a really epic series and you haven't picked this
one up i think i think you might like it. I love the series so much for the characters,
but also because i think that this world and this magic and the story itself are also
so fantastically done. Also book four set up book 5 so well that i generally am fine with
waiting for new releases because there's a lot of books to read, but i'm actually kind of not fine
with waiting on this one. Anyway, there you go. Those are my top five favorite series of all time.
Anyway, thank you for watching this video with me. I would love to chat with you more
about in the comments. Have you read any of these series? What did you think of them? Do you plan to
read any of them and what are your top five? I want to hear your top five list. I post videos
every Tuesday through Friday. I'll see you guys again soon. Bye. Oh my goodness! Oh, i hate it!