Tag: books

The top 12 best wizards in fantasy books
If there’s one thing I love to find in fantasy books, it’s wizardry. And I’m not just talking about Merlin, Dumbledore, or other old guys with fancy robes (though that’s fine too). The best wizards in fantasy span a dozen different types of magic, to say nothing of their other variety.

For my list of the best wizards out there, I’m making no distinction in sex or in-world terminology. Yes, they’ll be called witches, drafters, channelers, or other terms in the books in which they appear. I’ll use a few terms (mages, in particular) interchangeably as well, but there’s no need for much distinction here. Magic is magic. Wizardry just happens to be my favorite term for it.

So without further caveat, here are my top picks for those wizards (in alphabetical order).
Mild spoiler warnings for all series listed above.

Dazen Guile brings style and substance to his magical feats

Dazen Guile goes by Gavin Guile in most instances throughout Brent Weeks’s Lighbtringer series. He’s not Gavin at all. He’s much better.

Dazen is perhaps the best showman of the wizards on this list. Not only is he described as being remarkably good looking, he’s charismatic, he has dramatic timing down to an art form, and his magical deeds embody the entire rainbow.

Dazen’s greatest magical accomplishment is probably the construction of Brightwater Wall. This is essentially an immense, city-spanning barrier made of ultra durable magical plastic. Dazen marshalls 200 other wizards to get it done, showing that he’s a team player, as much as loves to show off. And he does it within only a few days.

Even though the wall ends up being a bit of a failure (too many gaps left in the end), it’s just so cool all the same.

Egwene Al’Vere inspires other mages to flock behind her

Egwene isn’t the strongest channeler in Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time. She also has bad taste in Warders. But no one uses politics, guts, backbone, and rizz as much as she does to get the world’s wizards fighting on the same side.

Where other wizards shine alone, Egwene rallies everyone to her cause. Where her peers use magical objects and clever loopholes, Egwene leans into the might of aggregation. She ends up with hundreds if not thousands of channelers backing her willingly, and she personally turns the tides in multiple theaters of the Last Battle.

Even among the best wizards, few can match her in feats of strength or ultimate impact. And no one on this list is as good at making friends out of competing wizards.

FitzChivalry cares more about real life than about magical power

Fitz is the first person viewpoint character in Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy (also in other books). Readers spend a lot of time in his head. There’s no hiding his paradigm or his motivations. What really stands out—especially in a character who’s fully naked to the reader—is how Fitz cares so much more about his real world problems than about power.

It’s clear that he enjoys some of the benefits of being able to bond with animals. He also derives some obvious pleasure in defeating long-time rivals. But despite having immense magical potential, his mind is constantly concerned with real-world issues and relationships. There’s a sincere plainness and relatability to his story that makes him something of an everyman’s wizard.

Oh, and finding ways to come back from having his body killed is pretty cool too.

Gandalf is the world’s most iconic wizard—and he took down a Balrog of Morgoth

The image of wizards with pointy hats owes a lot to Gandalf. He owns the look more than anyone else. He could probably hang his famous hat on that and make it to this list already.

But he also holds the bridge of Khazad-dûm alone, ensures Frodo’s survival, and takes down an entire Balrog of Morgoth. So he’s got two unstoppably obvious reasons to make the list of best wizards in fantasy.

Ghisteslwchlohm is a villain, but he cares about wizardly education

Probably the least known wizard on this list will be Ghisteslwchlohm, a dastardly wizard in Patricia McKillip’s Riddle-Master Trilogy. He’s not ultimately the most important (he has almost no time on the page, in fact), but here’s a snippet from his resume:
- Founding Lungold’s school of wizards (one of the earliest magical schools in fantasy literature)
- Gathering all living knowledge of the Star-Bearer by siphoning it from the minds of the world’s other most powerful wizards
- Speaking the nine strictures of wizardry
- Having an amazing name
The best wizards aren’t always the most obvious. Ghisteslwchlohm paved the way for a lot of other interesting magical baddies, and he did it by defying the mold and being interesting decades before villains started getting much texture.

Gilbert Norrell fights classism with wizardry

Mr Gilbert Norrell brings action to an era of academic interest. Early on in Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Norrell breaks the mold among English magicians by actually using magic. He’s treated as something of a social pariah, since his peers only study magic as a theoretical practice. In essence, he’s undermining the bourgeoisie.

This was a huge step in England’s path to wizardry. Imagine if, a few centuries later, Harry Potter had to fight Voldemort with only theoretical magic because society said it was uncouth to actually cast a spell?

In at least moderate seriousness, Norrell is an almost stereotypical wizard but one of the first and greatest to inhabit Georgian England.

Hermione Granger goes full maximalist in an era of low magic

Most wizards on this list express some serious reticence (often masked in plot device) about using their magic for mundane means. Not Hermione.

From her first scenes in the Harry Potter series, Hermione makes it clear that she’s ready to solve problems and get the job done. And her muggle-raised smarts make it obvious to her how useful magic really is.

Need better hair? There’s a magical product for that—and for shrinking front teeth while you’re at it. Ron splinched himself again? There’s some magical stuff for that too. Need a Time Lord Mary Poppins bag? Here one is.

Hermione is the wizarding world’s clear MVP in more than half of the books featuring her. She’s not only one of the most powerful spellcasters in the Harry Potter universe, she’s one of the most resourceful of all wizards (and yes, I know she calls herself a witch).

Jasnah Kholin uses magic even when it’s not cool to do so

Of all the interesting mages in Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive, Jasnah stands out for being a) exceptionally smart and b) boldly iconoclastic. She’s refreshingly respectful toward people who think she’s a little crazy. She also defends her positions and her rights to use powers that scare others.

One of the most interesting things about Jasnah (so far) is how little of her journey into power readers actually see. There are many questions yet to be answered about how she started her radiant journey. But she uses a fairly unique set of abilities and she disguises them effectively for an extended time. Even those closest to her fail to understand her power (or her character).

The element of mystery, combined with her non-mysterious consistency in showing up, make her a great wizard in her own right. Add to it that she is one of the first of her era to swear the Third Ideal (probably the Fourth as well; some people think she has even sworn the Fifth, but that’s crazy talk). Like Mr Norrell, Ghisteslwchlohm, and Gandalf, Jasnah does more than just buck trends. She sets them.

Mamoru Matsuda is a stand-up kid who faces uncertainty with complete courage

M. L. Wang’s novel The Sword of Kaigen opens with Mamoru facing something of an existential crisis. Within the first few chapters, he realizes that his view of the world has been myopic at best and more than likely just wrong. His sincere engagement with this challenge makes him relatable right out of the gate.

Then he becomes an amazing ice wizard samurai. So he’s relatable AND a boss.

Mamoru’s journey is one of the most personal on this list. It’s a game of lower stakes than pretty much any other wizard’s journey. But while other wizards are being tortured and killed (both things happen for several on this list), Mamoru is dealing with issues every reader will likewise confront at some point.

And as much of a cool wizard as he is, he solves most of his problems without magic.

Quick Ben outplays the gods over and over again

There are so many mages to choose from in Steven Erikson’s Malazan series. But Quick Ben (Ben Adaephon Delat) stands out for his combination of audacity, cunning, and down-to-earth sensibility. Where others have to be the star, he’s a preeminent team player.

Just a few Quick Ben accomplishments:
- Outwitting gods (multiple times)
- Expansive skill across warrens few mages understand
- Surviving encounters with multiple Hounds of Shadow at once (he does this easily)
- Pulling strings to make a Barghast-Bridgeburner alliance possible
- Teaching others how to use truly insane powers
He’s endlessly competent while coming across as such a humble, friendly guy again and again. Not just any wizard can be amazing without hubris ruining him.

Sparrowhawk is the the wizard who thrives when wizardry is done

Speaking of hubris, meet Sparrowhawk. Like Quick Ben, Sparrowhawk is staggeringly capable. From the very beginning of Ursua K. Le Guin’s Earthsea Cycle, it’s stated outright that Sparrowhawk will go far. But the narrative makes it sound like his greatest deeds would be feats of wizardry.

Sure enough, Sparrowhawk brings peace, tames dragons, fights some too, faces powers unknown to any wizard, travels farther than any before, and basically cures worldwide depression.

Despite his many amazing moments of magical might, however, Sparrowhawk’s greatest moments actually come through the power of insight. Like Mamoru Matsuda, his journey is personal and down to earth in ways that few wizards’ can be.

Case in point: Sparrowhawk eventually loses all magic and becomes an old goatherd. But even then, he has amazing presence, poise, and wizardly wisdom to exceed even Gandalf’s (no joke).

Sunny Nwazue is the wizard America (and Nigeria) have waited for

Sunny is a soccer-loving free agent among the Leopard People—a vibrant magical community in Nnedi Okorafor’s Akata Witch and subsequent books. She’s also a powerful mage who helps take down a serial killer and stops some truly horrific monsters.

She embodies elements of almost all the other magic users listed above:
- Like Mamoru, she’s sincere and relatable
- Like Gandalf, she stands up to powers seemingly greater than her own
- When social norms and family pressures try to stop her from doing good things, Sunny does good things anyway, much like Mr Norrell, Jasnah, and Hermione
- In a similar vein to Egwene, Dazen, and Quick Ben, she’s also part of a strong team dynamic so often missing among wizardkind
Last but not least, Sunny’s the only Nigerian American to make this list. Or Nigerian. Or American. The point is, England isn’t the only country with amazing magic.

Some runners up
- Pug | Magician by Raymond E. Feist
- John Ross | Word & Void trilogy by Terry Brooks
- Thara Celehar | The Goblin Emperor by Terry Brooks
- Galadriel | The Scholomance Trilogy by Naomi Novik
- Will Stanton | The Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper
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About the Author

Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogy as well as short fiction appearing in The Future Fire, MYTHIC Magazine, The Centropic Oracle, and other publications. His short story “Only an Ocean” won a Silver Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. When he’s not writing, he’s often playing his violin or wandering in the woods.
May 1, 2025
The Earthsea Cycle: On Par with Any Fantasy Series
Regulars on this blog will know that I hold Ursula K. Le Guin in the highest literary regard. She wrote numerous unforgettable books, but all of my favorites in her portfolio are part of her fantasy opus The Earthsea Cycle. Which I happen to believe is as every bit as good as any fantasy series out there.

In this article I’ll explore six main reasons fantasy readers should try The Earthsea Cycle for themselves:
Mile-High Background on The Earthsea Cycle

Art by
mattforsyth

Before diving into the details, let me share a little background and summary.

The Earthsea Cycle is a six-book series following three main characters. There’s Arren, a princeling who learns quickly that wizardry is greater than the sword. There’s Tenar, a girl who was raised as a priestess to a malicious power. And there’s Sparrowhawk, the greatest voyager wizard (pretty much the greatest wizard in all ways) in the archipelago. Each character features prominently in two or three volumes—one coming of age novel and one book that is completely different.

The macro story is about making peace between people from different lands and intelligent species who’ve made diverging choices in their pasts. It’s a lot less overtly epic than most multi-volume high fantasy. It’s a lot smarter and more unique as well.

Here’s what I mean.

Each volume delivers a whole story and takes readers to a new place

When Le Guin began publishing The Earthsea Cycle, there were no cliffhanger-ending doorstop fantasy series to be found. Before the series hit its halfway mark, however, Tad Williams, Anne McCaffrey, R. A. Salvatore, and others had made such series the norm for high fantasy. Le Guin stayed the course, giving a full story in each book.

One of the greatest virtues to this approach is that it allowed Le Guin to take readers to new places (thematically and in terms of worldbuilding) with each story. Several overarching themes recur, but each book is incredibly distinct. The pacing, style, cast, setpieces, and ultimate resolutions are their own—not just continuations of something from before.

The distinctive wholeness of each volume was even more unique by the time Le Guin finished the series in 2002. Imagine, in contrast, if every novel of The Wheel of Time, The Sword of Truth, Deverry, Shannara, or Dragonlance brought a fresh thematic cycle (and simultaneously managed to deliver a beginning, middle, and end within less than 300 pages). Of course, Le Guin was writing a different kind of book than her peers. But that’s the real point to begin with.

The macro Earthsea story is cohesive and complete

On a similar note, Le Guin still instilled a single through story into The Earthsea Cycle. Continuous character arcs, expanding scopes, and connection points both subtle and overt in nature give the series both a red thread and momentum to the end.

The interesting thing is that Le Guin actually intended to end it multiple times. She published the first three volumes close together, but she planned for A Wizard of Earthsea (the first book) to be a true standalone novel. Only after writing The Tombs of Atuan (which she first called a sequel) did she move onto the idea of The Earthsea Trilogy. A whopping 17 years later, she realized she had more to write in this world, eventually expanding it to six books.

If you read them back to back, you might never realize so much time had passed in the telling. The consistency of style and the harmonious paradigm in each book makes it feel as if Le Guin never paused to work on anything else.

Oh, and when she added a final short story 17 years after the last book hit shelves, she really did make it clear that the series was done. Le Guin passed away that same year, marking a full 50 year gap between the beginning and end of the series.

But she finished it. If only more fantasy authors could claim the same.

Any book in the series could be a reader’s favorite

Art by
ajinak

Another witness to Le Guin’s skill is the variety of responses fans share when asked to name a favorite Earthsea novel. The first three are almost equally popular. Book four in the series has a smaller base of diehard fans but tends to elicit an extra strong (and positive) response for those who buy into it. And if you scan all the Le Guin subreddits, you’ll find plenty of people naming book six as their all-time favorite as well. It’s only the very different fifth volume (a short story collection) that I haven’t heard fans vote for.

Still. To have five out of six in the running (83%) for fan favorite is all but unheard of. Harry Potter is the only similar example I could find—contrasting with numerous high fantasy series where the fans’ pick is clear and overwhelming.

The long and short is that Le Guin didn’t write many novels. But she only wrote good ones.

Earthsea offers rich lore without a bloated page count

Speaking of the long and short. The entire Earthsea Cycle spans just 320,000 words or so. That’s about one volume of long epic fantasy (Wheel of Time or Malazan, for instance). Even MG and YA novels routinely net longer word counts than her books have.

Le Guin began writing in a time when shorter novels were more of the norm, even for SFF, but there’s still something amazing happening here. Her worldbuilding outshines dozens of longer works. There’s a strong sense of place in each book. History springs up everywhere. There’s cultural variety. And the magic at work in Earthsea is much more developed than many other works with hard magic systems.

I’m continually mind-boggled at how much story and lore Le Guin managed to pack into just six short books. And I’m in awe at how conclusively she tells so many stories with so few words. The recent graphic novel adaptation of A Wizard of Earthsea even managed to cut a chapter or two (close to 20%) of plot events without losing a clear storyline.

Earthsea’s worldbuilding has been incredibly influential

Short and sweet can be just as sticky as anything from a longer series. Look at the magic system in Earthsea as an example.

Within this system, mages derive much of their power from their ability to find and speak the true names of a given thing or being. While Le Guin isn’t the first person to come up with the idea of names having power, her systemized use of it made for one of the most robust and comprehensible magic systems in fantasy for decades to come. And this alone has been adapted (or copied wholesale) by numerous SFF authors.

A few examples:
- “True Names” by Vernor Vinge
- The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini
- Numerous works by Tanya Huff
- The Books of Pellinor by Alison Croggon
- The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher
- The Iron Dragon’s Daughter by Michael Swanwick
- The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud
- Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Even more importantly, Le Guin did a great deal to normalize the departure from purely European-inspired fantasy settings and white casts of characters. One of Le Guin’s most vocal criticisms about her own series (there are many) is about how her publishers consistently avoided depicting a person of color in cover art and illustrations. She wrote a non-white hero and wanted him to appear on the cover. I’m hard-pressed to find many fantasy authors doing that before the turn of the century, let alone having the courage to criticize publishers for hiding it.

There’s a true sense of magic and wonder in every book

At the end of the day, Earthsea inspires wonder. It’s a unashamed example of high magic—higher than almost any peer works I can name—with Le Guin proving she was worth her Gandalf Grand Master Award at every turn. From my first few minutes with the first book, I found storytelling wizardry at every turn, and the following five books maintained the magic effortlessly.

If you want to magic on the page, you can’t do much better than picking up The Earthsea Cycle.

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About the Author

Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogy as well as short fiction appearing in The Future Fire, MYTHIC Magazine, The Centropic Oracle, and other publications. His short story “Only an Ocean” won a Silver Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. When he’s not writing, he’s often playing his violin or wandering in the woods.
April 10, 2025
The top 5 reasons readers love Brandon Sanderson’s Wind and Truth
If you follow epic fantasy book news, you’ve probably heard a thing or two about Brandon Sanderson’s Wind and Truth. This is the partial finale, a rest stop halfway through his longest and most epic series yet, so the pressure has been high for him to deliver something monumental and amazing. I have yet to finish the book (which I am enjoying), but here are five things other readers love about Wind and Truth, along with my perspective.

My analysis comes from 200 voluntary, positive reader reviews, which I regard as primary data on what they really think. There’s plenty that fans are liking. Numerous reviews (I didn’t count on this front) mention losing sleep to finish this volume, for instance. Others bemoaned having to wait several more years before The Stormlight Archive continues. All in all, it’s an earnest, grateful response.

Here’s the data, broken down.

1. Readers love the world-building in Wind and Truth

Out of 200 reviews, 181 eagerly mentioned Sanderson’s world-building. This will surprise…no one.

Fans have noted Sanderson’s interesting world-building since his debut, 20 years ago. He gives readers plenty of world-building detail. He shows interesting settings and set pieces. He draws from a well-thought out lore. His larger works also delve into multiple distinctive cultures and humanoid/intelligent races. Wind and Truth, for instance, features prominent characters of at least three (and possibly more) unique biological origins. And none of them are elves, goblins, or dwarves.

Most notably, Sanderson has a) created settings that don’t fully parallel earth (which is rare in mainstream fantasy), and b) has come up with numerous complex magic systems that readers love. And to cap it off, Sanderson has built and interconnected series of worlds, joining multiple settings, multiple stories (of multiple volumes), with easter eggs and rewards for the readers who pick up on these connections.

This is a different flavor of world-building than fans find with Robert Jordan or N. K. Jemisin, but it works for so many epic fantasy readers. While my analysis doesn’t make it possible to truly weight this against the other top reasons, this is clearly the most common cause that readers tip their hats to Sanderson’s storytelling skill.

My thoughts: I particularly appreciate Sanderson’s willingness to depart from earth-analog settings. There’s so much space to do this in fantasy (as he has often commented), but not many writers try it seriously. I rarely get excited over world-building, but Sanderson is one writer who has really made it work for me.

2. Sanderson fans rave about his characters

From the 200 analyzed reviews, 170 praise Sanderson’s characters. Readers have a lot to say on this front.

They enjoy the sense of character growth. Or they get angry and excited alike about messy relationships. Fans also comment on the top moments for their favorite characters (Kaladin, Dalinar, Syl, and Lift are some of the ones mentioned most often in these reviews). They share a sense of catharsis for the internal struggles these characters endure. And readers generally applaud the journeys characters take to reach the end of this story.

Characterization, particularly where growth arcs are concerned, clearly carries more weight with most readers than worldbuilding does. Readers have long shared unique appreciation for Sanderson’s inclusion of neurodivergent characters, as one example. His characters confronting their own mental health are also recurring favorites. And reviewers also tend to love the relatability of Sanderson’s characters, particularly the ones who get point of view (POV) attention.

My thoughts: Sanderson stays close to his characters. He gets in their heads, dwells on their concerns, lets the reader see how they perceive the world. Their internal dialogue is an active participant in the story. This adds to total word count, no doubt. But it’s a sure fire way to engage readers, and I’m always here for that side of his writing.

3. Sanderson’s plotting continues to impress

As with most of his fans’ favorites, Sanderson has delivered a plot that readers really buy into. 152 of 200 Wind and Truth reviews commented on this.

Most report enjoying the pacing—regardless of the book’s length—and being surprised (if not SHOCKED), relieved, and hooked by the trajectory the story takes. There’s also something to be said for the clarity of the plot. Readers report understanding the impact of big twists, remembering key information they needed to follow, and generally feeling fairly well anchored as the plot progresses.

And yes, for any readers wondering, it sounds as if there’s plenty of Sanderlanche to go around in Wind and Truth.

My thoughts: Sanderson consistently builds in reminders of details previously shared. This adds to the length but lowers the learning curve for his books, particular where plot is concerned. It also makes his plots less labyrinthine, letting readers tease out key events beforehand and enjoy the rewards of figuring things out in advance. I don’t always love this, personally, but I might just be in the minority based on these reviews.

4. Readers love Sanderson’s magic systems

Interesting uses of and rules for magic were some of the first things readers noted about Sanderson’s early writing. And he has leaned into it more and more through the years. 144 reviews shared their appreciation for Sanderson’s unique and graspable magic systems.

One of the interesting threads here is the influence of magic on plot and character. Many reviews make the case that Sanderson has connected his character journeys, settings, and plot threads to his magic systems, ensuring that magic is an integral part of the story (and not just ornamentation for it).

My thoughts: This is one of the areas Sanderson most shines and most merits his hype. I think about it like Broadway shows where the music is just there for fun and has no bearing on the story. Plenty of fantasy authors bake magic in this way. But then there are musicals where the songs are the story. If Sanderson ever wrote a musical (and no one should be startled if he someday does), I’m betting he’ll write this second kind. He has been consistently good at tying magical events and rules into the actual heart of his stories, and fantasy needs more of this.

5. Readers find a lot to love in the book’s core themes

Sanderson has always been a hopeful writer, especially when compared to peer authors (think Scott Lynch, Joe Abercrombie, Richard Morgan, and Brian Ruckley, all who debuted around the same time as Sanderson). 20 years later, readers continue to appreciate his increasingly introspective approach to core themes. 130 of 200 reviews mentioned depth, thematic complexity, or Sanderson’s internal philosophizing as a winning point for them.

My thoughts: With perhaps the exception of his first Mistborn novel, I see Stormlight as Sanderson’s most philosophical work. But I’ve found Wind and Truth to be less subtle than the past four books (and there are plenty of fantasy authors with more subtlety to begin with). So I was encouraged to see how many readers praised this side of Sanderson’s finale. My worry was that it would be more like Memory of Light ***potential Wheel of Time spoilers ahead *** in which the scope of the conflict handily drowns out some of the series’ most interesting introspection. *** end of spoilers ***

Fingers crossed that reviewers are not just baiting me here.

My perspective overall

Well, I’m only halfway through Wind and Truth. The Way of Kings has long been my favorite book in the series, and I don’t see that changing here. But perhaps in another few weeks I’ll have more to say.

So for reference to a book I have finished reading, here’s a quick contrast with a light analysis I did on The Way of Kings last year. The following are the top five items (found in 100 reviews) that other readers loved about The Way of Kings.
1. Epic scope and world-building: 85/100
2. Interesting and well-drawn characters: 78/100
3. Digestible writing style: 70/100
4. Engaging plotting: 65/100
5. Thematic depth: 53/100
My methods of analysis

As with a few other reader data articles I’ve written, my approach is based on a coded verbal analysis of voluntary reviews. I spell my process out in some depth here. In this case, however, I used ChatGPT to code the data and manually went through a sample of 50 reviews to check the coding schema for accuracy. I’m also showing just the top 5 reasons here, as opposed to the 10 I shared for The Lord of the Rings.

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About the Author

Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogy as well as short fiction appearing in The Future Fire, MYTHIC Magazine, The Centropic Oracle, and other publications. His short story “Only an Ocean” won a Silver Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. When he’s not writing, he’s often playing his violin or wandering in the woods.
January 23, 2025
Interview: Author Joe Bouchelle IV Talks about The Shineden
I was glad for a chance to sit down this month with Joe Bouchelle IV, author of The Shineden. Joe and I grew up in the same stretch of rural Virginia, jumping over creeks, pretending to duel each other with stick swords, and swapping book recommendations.

I vividly recall borrowing Joe’s copy of Eldest (by Christopher Paolini) and sitting down in my family’s 90+ degree van to start reading it while I waited for my father to drive me home. This was the same summer I got serious about writing my own stories. 20 years later, Joe and I are both still writing stories like we had in our heads then.

This interview will dig into Joe’s path to getting The Shineden from idea to finished manuscript, along with a hint or two at what he’s writing now. Here’s a summary of our conversation with some jump links to each section.
What Joe is Writing Now

Stephen
Welcome, Joe. To start us off, how would you introduce yourself?

Joe
My name’s Joe Bouchelle IV. I’m the lead author at JB IV Writing.

Stephen
I know I’m already interrupting, but what’s JB IV Writing?

Joe
It came about because I was going through KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing), and I wanted to do a dust jacket on the hard cover. My formatting was all wrong, so I went through B&N Press, but they require you to have your publisher’s name on the spine. So I just put JB IV Writing. And that’s how that came about.

For now, I’m a part of a bookshop that’s for independent authors. I could see maybe in the future operating JB IV Writing more as a business.

Stephen
So obviously The Shineden is a big project for JB IV Writing in recent months. Anything else on your shelf right now?

Joe
Yeah. I just published book one of The Shineden series a few months ago. Book two, Panalsi, is scheduled for release on March 1st, 2025. I’m still working on finishing that one, but here’s hoping. I’m also working on a kind of dystopian fantasy series, and then a low fantasy series.

Stephen
So you’ve got plenty to write. Do you plan to intersperse the publication dates for these series?

Joe
The goal right now is to get books one and two of The Shineden out, and then the first book of the dystopian fantasy. I’m planning to do that exclusively through Salient Books.

I don’t have a timeline set right now, but if things go how I want them to, I’d like to be able to release a new book every year to perhaps a year-and-a-half. I’ll probably do the first dystopian novel, books three and four of Shineden, and then finish the dystopian series.

The pace is always crazy, though. I published The Shineden on the 5th of June. When it came out, I wanted to start working on book two immediately, but my wife Marisa told me I needed to take a week and relax. So I wrote chapters one through five in like a week, but since then it has tapered.

Origins of The Shineden

Stephen
I hear you on the ebb and flow of projects. With life happening al the time, can you tell me more about your writing motivation, both for The Shineden and other projects? You’ve mentioned in social and other places that this story idea has been in your head a long time. So why now? How did you get to the point of writing it?

Joe
So for your readers who don’t know, you and I pretty much grew up together near the Blue Ridge Mountains. That was where my story ideas started to come. It was being outside, growing up reading Tolkien, and immersing myself in both things. I’ve had the idea for Falduen in my head since I was fifteen—this kid who wants to grow up, wants to be special, wants to help his mom. That’s really his driving force, to protect his mother. So I’ve had that idea since I was fifteen, but never really finished creating it until this year.

Most of my readers have said that the early chapters drag on a little bit (although others have said, “Oh, you’re just world-building. It’s fantasy.”). Well, I wrote those chapters like fifteen years ago. The idea for Falduen came in, and I started creating this world when I was about seventeen. I wrote the first four chapters and then it sort of died out.

Later on, I took a creative writing class in college and started writing again a lot. I noticed as I was writing short stories that I was putting elements of Falduen in these stories, so the idea was always there.

Marisa knew I had started Falduen. She and I would leave sometimes to visit her family in Illinois for the weekend. When we would drive, I would always look at road signs, and if I saw words that were weird, I’d write them down. Pax, for instance, is the name of a little community off of highway 64 in Kentucky, and I saw a sign for it while I was driving and I said, “Write that down. I’m going to make a character called Pax.” That was 2014.

I started gathering info. Started getting more ideas. But it still took a long time to get there. After several years, I got a job teaching English at American Leadership Academy, and I was teaching 8th graders and 9th graders a segment about fantasy. We had a curriculum and set stories we were supposed to read, but I also told my students I had a book in the works, and they kind of lost their minds. I think I had seven chapters done at that point, so far less than half—unpolished writing I hadn’t updated since I was seventeen. We just started reading through it. I was the teacher who said everyone had to read out loud. So we would just read around the room. As we did that, it started to really develop the story more for me. By the end of that school year I had ten chapters.

Bt then life happened again. I was a stay at home dad for a while. I tried podcasting, streaming, working from home, everything except going back to writing. Then we moved to Illinois for me to coach soccer, and the head coach had to go home to Chile, so the coaching staff fell apart, and Marisa and I decided it would be best for me to leave the program. The day after I left, Marisa came up and said, “Why don’t you finish your book?” So I said, “Okay.”

We made a little home office, and I just started cranking it out. Everything just kind of came together and started to make sense. And so that’s really how it came to be. It felt like a rush job. With this first book, I had no publication date. I had nothing set in stone. In fact, I didn’t even advertise beforehand. I just wrote, until I was finishing the last seven chapters in a couple months, which for me was really fast since those are probably the chapters with the most depth, where the most happens.

Stephen
Light spoiler warning for blog readers. I’m somewhere in that chunk as we’re talking now, at the part where he gets his companion.

Joe
That’s a scene I really loved writing. By the way, on my website I have two quizzes for readers to find out what your companion would be and what color orb you’d have.

Influences on Joe’s writing

Stephen
Link here, for the blog readers. So, I’d love to get into the books, movies, stories and other influences on your writing? This could be anything you’ve read recently, or any hidden gems among books you love? Obviously Tolkien.

Joe
The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are probably the two biggest ones. Just the way Tolkien writes, the styles of his writing, the world-building. I talk frequently about how he describes Treebeard and just goes on and on about this tree, but I loved that. I loved how in depth and intense he would get with the descriptions of things. So Tolkien is a big one, probably the biggest.

Christopher Paolini, The Inheritance Cycle, is probably a big one. The Shineden book one is certainly similar to The Inheritance Cycle. Back in the day, you might have recommended The Bartimaeus Trilogy to me. I loved those books.

Suggested reading: Murtagh Brings Inheritance Sequel Energy in the Best Way

Stephen
I did indeed recommend those to several friends, so I’ll be glad to take credit for it.

Joe
They’re great, and almost no one knows about them. Those are probably the biggest influences in terms of books. But then just being outside all the time. Being out in the woods, adventuring, you know, putting myself in the kinds of environments the stories are in.

Stephen
Growing up in Rockbridge County, Virginia, you would love trees.

Joe
Yep. I think often about when you lived out in the county, and there was that giant field with the rope swing and the creek. The mountains will play a big role in my later books. Mountains will be very important.

Stephen
Did you read Redwall as well? I was very into those books when we were kids.

Joe
Yes! I read Redwall too. I think I read all of the books that were out at the time. Brian Jacques started writing so many. The Long Patrol will forever be one of my favorite books. I would go back and re-read that one.

Stephen
So when talking about The Shineden, I’d love to give any blog readers a comparison, at least in terms of “If you’ve read this than you’ll like The Shineden.”

Joe
Although I haven’t really specified it, the first book definitely leans more toward YA, more like Eragon than The Return of the King. It’s about a kid, like Eragon. The second book gets pretty heavy really fast. The end of The Shineden introduces a storyline that leads right into book two. But if you’re a big reader, I kind of feel like The Shineden could be 11 years and up, or at least 13 and up.

Stephen
You mentioned that Falduen was one of the first elements that came to being. Where else did the story go from there? Was it more characters, the world, a scene, or the wider plot?

Joe
Something that drives a lot of people crazy is that I’m a huge pantser. I don’t plan. I have some little notebooks that are supposed to be the book in the book—every chapter, character descriptions, language notes, everything. But when it comes to actually writing the story, I am horrendous at planning out.

I’ll go back and take notes about chapters, and then jump around and change stuff in the manuscript. Growing up, my dad always taught us to begin with the end in mind. So again, it’s irritating to a lot of people, but when I come up with a story, I have the beginning and how it’s going to end, and then I just fill everything in as I go. Book one topped off at 57,000 words, which is of course pretty short for a fantasy novel. Book two will be 85,000 – 90,000 words. And that’s just because I keep getting more and more story, but I also know how book two has to end, so as the story keeps developing, the story keeps getting longer.

Little easter egg. The first paragraph each of the first and the last chapter mirror each other. I don’t know why I did that, but for book two it will be exciting. I’m really excited for book two in general. I feel like my writing has improved significantly for book two. Since the story has already established itself, the first chapter of book two takes you right back into it. It comes out with a bang, to say the least. I think the flow is better, and I won’t have four chapters from when I was seventeen and four from being 25 and 10 from 32…it’s all from right now, when I’m just more experienced.

Big moments in the The Shineden

Stephen
Well as we tease book two, can you tell us about moments that matter in book one. Are there any key scenes you really wanted the reader to feel? Any moments you especially wanted to hit hard in a particular way? More light spoilers ahead.

Joe
Obviously Falduen finding the orb is one scene in which I tried to be almost overly detailed, to really create a vivid image in the reader’s mind. I just wanted to make it real enough to where people can start connecting with the character. Another one I love is when Stephen rolls over and sees this figure standing in the woods (Pax), but just this figure is standing in the woods with their arms out and just taking out this group of Trite-Karshüre. I love to write Pax.

I also really like the scene with Falduen, when he and Thomas are up in the trees at night and see the Krooga in the woods and the fire explodes. Thomas has to explain that Falduen did that, that it came from him. I really wanted this scene to have a subliminal message, subtle idea that Falduen did this thing he didn’t even know he was capable of doing, to help understand that he is capable of doing so much more than he has been in the past.

And I always loved writing Maldis.

Stephen
Yeah, I think most people love writing villains.

Joe
I wanted to portray the intensity of some of the emotions Anduen is going through, though, for that scene with Maldis in Ren. But any of his stuff is fun to write.

Last two: I would say is one you’re about to read. Falduen and his companion have bonded, and I won’t spoil it too much, but they’ve bonded and his companion tells him to say something to everyone else. When I wrote it I got goosebumps, and I had Marisa read it, and I heard her from the living room say “Why do I have goosebumps right now?” and I knew where she was.

My absolute favorite scene, to visualize, was the introduction to Yewlsfaera. The process of this table separating and this forge rising up in this beautiful cavern where so many races—elves and dwarves and dragons and Mellavian—would be…I just loved it.

Yewslfaera is actually an anagram, by the way, for always free. I do this a lot in my writing. I don’t necessarily always do it in English. In book two, and actually Ävsial, the world where it takes place, is Lithuanian for freedom (backwards).

One of my favorite parts of doing all this has been the Elvish alphabet. I have notebook on notebook of the grammar rules and language for all the world I’m creating. A special edition of The Shineden is coming out November 1st with map, languages, alphabets, pronunciation guide and other supplemental items as well as concept art that is mind-blowing. This will be exclusively through B&N and the Salient bookshop.

Stephen
Thanks for digging into books, influences, and writing. Any other things you want to share today?

Joe
Just that I’m so excited for book two. Of course when you release a book you’re supposed to market the book you have out, not the book you don’t have out, but it has been so fun to write. There are new characters, and I’ve tried to bring in more female characters as well so it’s not just male-dominated fantasy series. But I have some really funny characters in book two, and we’ll get really in depth with Pax’s past, so that’s interesting.

Book two will deal a lot with a prophecy that was made way back when. There are aspects of it that are applicable specifically to Falduen and his companion, and other aspects that kind of leave things open-ended, so that will be really fun. There will be several new locations, one really big one introduced a little later from where I am in the writing right now. You’ll meet more Krooga—a lot of Krooga in book two. Readers will also be introduced to their language which has been really difficult but enjoyable to work on.

One spoiler I can share: I don’t know how many will read this, but the lucky few: Pax is actually going to get a dragon in book two. But not as a companion. They won’t bond like a Shineden does. But Pax will have a dragon.

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About the Author

Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogy as well as short fiction appearing in The Future Fire, MYTHIC Magazine, The Centropic Oracle, and other publications. His short story “Only an Ocean” won a Silver Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. When he’s not writing, he’s often playing his violin or wandering in the woods.
October 23, 2024
6 SFF Trilogies Where the Middle Book Shines Brightest
The fantasy genre has plenty of trilogies—and more than a few trilogies come with a weak middle book. In earlier years, particularly, the second volume was often more about setting the scene for the finale than actually delivering a full story. Plenty of trilogies just end book two with cliffhangers, almost as if to say that’s the only way to get readers into the next story. All’s to say that it’s probably more difficult to find trilogies where the middle book shines brightest than the ones where either other volume is the star.

I’ve been reflecting on this as I finished writing a middle book for the first time, and I continue to be impressed with trilogies where book two truly sticks the landing.

Here are a few favorites of mine:
The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu | Remembrance of Earth’s Past

Most people know Cixin Liu for The Three-Body Problem, which is a wholly fantastic book by itself. But the subsequent story is the one that truly amazed me.

The Three-Body Problem unfolds sort of like a hard sci-fi murder mystery, with a group of scientists, academics, and government officials searching for an explanation as leading scientists around the world continue to commit suicide. The quest for answers reveals that an alien civilization is just a few centuries from arriving to claim Earth as their own.

The Dark Forest picks up as earth grapples with the reality of this impending invasion. It features a similarly global (and even interstellar) plot, along with a similar group of scientists and world leaders. Where The Dark Forest really excels, however, is in the brilliant marriage of established science, theory, and plot. Its exploration of “cosmic sociology,” as the novel terms it, leads to a powerfully plausible finale and an unforgettable character journey for protagonist Luo Ji.

The following book, Death’s End, is yet another book I will never forget, but The Dark Forest is so strong by itself that you could almost end the trilogy here. I truly rank it #1 among #2 volumes in trilogies.

Book two epicness summary:
- Amazing plot
- Truly visionary science fiction theorizing
- Deeply satisfying character journeys
- Honing the ending in a way that feels like book two is its own book—not just a vehicle for the next one
- Reading recommendation: It’s like Ender’s Game meets Foundation, so if you’re into hard science fiction with a sociological spin, you’ll probably like Cixin Liu’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy.
Mistborn: The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson | Mistborn Trilogy

Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn Trilogy continues to be among his most popular works (possibly the top). But the first and third volumes of the trilogy get the most discussion.

The first is very strong all around. The third is more divisive in that it’s a bold new direction for an epic trilogy like this. And so the middle volume is often overlooked. Here’s why I think it merits more attention.

Volume one delivers on plot, character growth, and Sanderson’s telltale magic system wonder. In The Well of Ascension, however, we really start to see Sanderson’s character writing skills go somewhere new. Not that I love all the characters on the page (I’m not a big Elend fan, personally). But Vin and Zane—a new character in this book—move the story forward in a much more interesting and thought provoking way than what we see in book one, and the plot gains a lot of strength from the new depth of these characters.

Last but not least, The Well of Ascension shoulder the question of what happens when the good guys ‘win.’ It shows the story doesn’t really end there—or at least doesn’t have to.

Book two epicness summary
- Great new characters
- Upping the ante for returning characters
- Super Sanderson-esque storytelling around fantasy tropes
- Reading recommendation: Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy is a great mix of trope subversion, hard magic, and characteristically high octane action. If you like Brent Weeks’s Lightbringer series, you’ll probably love this trilogy.
Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb | The Farseer Trilogy

The last thing you want book two to be is forgettable. Well, Robin Hobb’s Royal Assassin is one book I’m confident I will never forget.

Royal Assassin builds directly on key events from Assassin’s Apprentice (the previous book in the trilogy), following the training and secret assignments of FitzChivalry while the Six Duchies contends with a brutal invasion from the Red-ship Raiders.

Much of the novel is about Fitz’s personal growth following a near-death experience in the first volume. What makes this book incredible is how willing Hobb is to up the stakes. She just keeps pushing Fitz into even more challenging circumstances than he has faced before. There’s no plot armor. There’s no magic bullet. Consequently, there’s no escaping the story unscathed.

The ending, in particular, is equal parts devastating and relieving. While the entire trilogy is well worth reading—because Robin Hobb always delivers powerful books—this volume packs more of a punch than any other Hobb book I’ve read.

Book two epicness summary
- Aggressive upping of the story’s stakes
- Continuity with the themes of the previous story while going new places all the same
- Gripping character work
- An ending readers won’t forget
- Reading recommendation: If you like Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy, you’ll probably also enjoy Lois McMaster Bujold’s World of the Five Gods or Tad Williams’s Osten Ard books.
Eldest by Christopher Paolini | The Inheritance Cycle

Looking at it today, Eldest is not the middle book in a trilogy. It’s book two of four. But I’m including it since it was the middle book of a planned trilogy when it first came out.

Eldest begins immediately after Eragon ends, following Eragon’s journey to develop his unique powers as the only dragon rider opposing an evil emperor. Its plot is fairly straightforward. Eragon trains and matures while his allies wage war against the empire. Where it really excels is in the small scale execution of the plot, taking key characters to new places (physically and emotionally) and exploring new themes. In essence, Eldest stands out for how it takes basic storytelling elements (conflict, character relationships, plot progress) and handles them really well.

Stakes are higher. The world is bigger. And there’s something of a new story in this volume itself, bringing key characters from a start to a middle and to an end. But most of all, it serves the longer storyline well by elevating the chapter by chapter experience over what the previous book offered.

Book two epicness summary
- Growing the scope of the narrative
- Containing a story within a story
- Winning at the basics while playing the long game
- Reading recommendation: A great place to go next, if you enjoy Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle, is Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern books.
The Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brooks | The Sword of Shannara Trilogy

Terry Brooks’s Sword of Shannara Trilogy is unique, among epic fantasy trilogies, in how well each book stands alone. The first book has a beginning, a middle, and an end. So do the next two volumes—and like a great concerto, it delivers in each stretch of the journey.

The Elftsones of Shannara stands out, however, in how well it both opens and closes. It starts with a no-nonsense, major problem (a throng of very angry demons is about to break out of magic jail). The key conflict is obvious within just a few pages. Using an unconventional structure for the narrative, Brooks cleverly paces out the needed immersion into the wider story and large cast of the book, which is something that second books so often fail to do in fantasy.

It’s impressive enough to me that this book’s ending is as strong as the opening. Add to it that Brooks gives us an ending that demands a complex solution—not just a battle to beat the big bad—and the book propels itself much higher into the ranks of outstanding fantasy novels (and outstanding middle books among them). It’s a book that ends as if this is the end. Few writers have the bravery to close like that nowadays, or the skill to do it like Brooks does here.

Book two epicness summary
- Moving on to tell a new story
- Opening with power
- Demanding complex solution
- Closing the book as if it’s the end
- Reading recommendation: If you enjoy Terry Brooks’s The Sword of Shannara Trilogy, you’ll probably also enjoy The Icewind Dale trilogy (or most Drizzt Do’Urden books) by R. A. Salvatore and The Riftwar Saga by Raymond E. Feist.
Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey | The Harper Hall Trilogy

Anne McCaffrey penned a particularly gentle story in her Harper Hall Trilogy. This trilogy follows a young girl named Menolly who befriends fire-lizards and writes songs. Dragonsinger picks her story up as she enters the famous Harper Hall to begin a more formal study of music.

There’s no time travel, so fans of MaCaffrey’s earlier Pern books might be disappointed. And there’s no epic conflict with a threat from space, so fans of her later books might be chagrined too. But anyone who has gone to school, been a teenager, or met a bully will find a lot that’s relatable and compelling in Dragonsinger. It’s a quick read, but it’s full of highs and lows that are true to real reader experiences.

I read this middle volume by mistake (thinking it was the first book in the trilogy) when I was a teenager, and the story swept me away even without the context of book one.

Book two epicness summary
- Not waiting too long for the victories to come
- Bringing early cozy vibes to fantasy
- Gentle wish fulfillment fantasy for music lovers (like me)
- Reading recommendation: If Anne McCaffrey’s Harper Hall Trilogy works for you, you’ll probably also enjoy just about anything by Patricia McKillip.
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Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogy as well as short fiction appearing in The Future Fire, MYTHIC Magazine, The Centropic Oracle, and other publications. His short story “Only an Ocean” won a Silver Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. When he’s not writing, he’s often playing his violin or wandering in the woods.
August 31, 2024
Influential Epics: The Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brooks

Terry Brooks was perhaps the first “epic fantasy” author I ever read. Since I was a teenager, his books have maintained a distinctly positive place in my mind for that alone. As I recently picked up The Elfstones of Shannara (which I first read at age 16), I wondered how it would hold up for me personally, given all that I’ve read and the life I seem to have lived since then.

I sort of expected Elftsones to disappoint me here or there. Books I loved as a teenager often do nowadays. I also wasn’t sure how well my own tastes would take to it now, after more than five years since I’ve read any of Brooks’s work. Not to mention that I really didn’t like the MTV adaptation of the book, further upping my reservations about a reread (once the elf DJ put on Coldplay during the magical Ellcrys ball, I sort of stopped believing).

Caveats and concerns aside, my Elfstones reread reminded me just how powerful Brooks can be as a storyteller. I loved the book the first time around, and I loved it much more this time.

Here are a few reasons why.

The Elfstones of Shannara has an amazing opening

Brooks has written several striking starter chapters through the years, but Elfstones stands at the top for me. The very first scenes accomplish a great deal of worldbuilding, set up the key plot challenges (a magical seal that has held demons in check for millennia is now fading), and get fairly deep into the mind of one of the book’s most interesting characters.

This opening hooked today-years-old me and pulled me right back into the Four Lands, even after my many years away.

So many recent epic fantasy novels err on the side of not taking time to properly ground the reader—and so many back in the day took too much time setting the table before any story starts happening. Yet Brooks manages a wonderful, readable balance right from page one. Not every chapter does it quite so well, but it goes a long way to get such a compelling, craft-smart chapter right out of the gate.

Elfstones has a unique and compelling structure

The first chunk of the book follows Ander Elessedil and then Allanon the druid, giving plenty of plot and high stakes without ever meeting Wil or Amberle—whom I recalled being the real heroes. The Elftsones of Shannara is somewhat like The Lord of the Rings in how it alternates mostly in large batches of chapters, leaving similarly large breaks before you get to continue with another storyline.

Tolkien’s structure doesn’t work for every reader. But by establishing a more regular cadence of story juggling, Brooks gets the benefits—longer stretches to really get to know the characters and appreciate each sub group’s challenges—along with the big book feeling of having multiple plotlines unfolding in parallel.

One of the most interesting aspects about Elfstones is how little the viewpoint characters in one storyline know about the ones in another. It really helps up the stakes, since they’re all in the dark at the same time the reader is, which is not the case in The Lord of the Rings or many other books that alternate between characters at a more conventional pace.

There’s a lot of sequel power in The Elfstones of Shannara

Brooks’s first book (The Sword of Shannara) is somewhat famously similar to The Lord of the Rings, and not in terms of structure as referenced above. The plots and character groupings are remarkably alike. In fact, these similarities are the number one source of criticisms for Brooks’s debut.

That said, The Sword of Shannara made a huge impact on fantasy as a viable ‘genre.’ The pressure was on when Brooks wrote Elfstones. Add to that pressure: a) Brooks writing half of a totally different novel and having to scrap it; b) Brooks having to rewrite half of Elfstones for his editor after finishing the first draft; and c) general challenges making the middle book of a trilogy as strong as the first or third, and you have quite the recipe for a boring old book two of yesteryear.

Instead, Brooks brings true sequel power—taking what was good and making it better while offering a truly new story. Very little about Elfstones feels like a repeat of Sword’s initial success. Brooks truly pushed himself into new territory with this one, and it pays off big time for readers because the story, character, and setting all stand on their own.

And that might be one of the core strengths in The Elfstones of Shannara: A reader can pick it up without having read the former book. That reader can get a whole story in this single volume. There are clear rewards for reading book one first (and book three after), but this is one of those rare trilogies that doesn’t require 100% followthrough to get a complete story.

Killing the villain isn’t the solution in Elfstones

Most epic fantasy ends with a violent solution. Defeat the baddie and the problem is resolved. This was one of Ursula Le Guin’s biggest complaints with the genre (and for something wholly different, look at her Earthsea Cycle).

Elfstones is about as martial as most epic fantasy, with several large-scale battles and numerous smaller ones. But we find out early on that the plot needs a resolution other than being the best warrior. Furthermore, Brooks fulfills that promise both through the development of the plot and via key characters like Ander, Amberle, Wil, and even Allanon.

Spoiler alert: Allanon does kill the baddie. And the fight keeps going.

Brooks’s offers a much more interesting solution in the end. Instead of killing something, the heroes solve the problem by growing something. I wish I had a few dozen more epic fantasies that use creation as the solution to destruction (again, read Earthsea if you want this too; Sean Russell’s Initiate Brother Duology is another great example).

The Eflstones of Shannara has a hard-hitting ending

Last but least is the last. Elfstones brings it home with a fantastic ending. This is shockingly rare.

Epic fantasy, as a genre, tends to lack strong endings. You’d think people would copy Tolkien more and give the ending time to breathe. Yet so many epic series rush to the finale and fail to deliver much beyond a big battle. This might not be such an egregious sin except that some of these series have pulled readers along for thousands of pages, all for a lackluster moment that doesn’t deliver on what readers really want.

Elfstones isn’t most epic fantasy. It wraps up several carefully introduced themes. The story sees every major character through to a critical arrival point. It ties loose ends briefly but powerfully. There’s even a hint or two at more story to come without requiring the reader to press on through another volume.

Just as I wish for more epic fantasy with journeys like the ones in Elfstones, I’d love to read a few more that pull the ending of the journey off so well.

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Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogy as well as short fiction appearing in The Future Fire, MYTHIC Magazine, The Centropic Oracle, and other publications. His short story “Only an Ocean” won a Silver Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. When he’s not writing, he’s often playing his violin or wandering in the woods.

February 29, 2024
Malazan Isn’t as Difficult as People Say: A Mid-Read Perspective on the Series’ Learning Curve

Almost from the first time I heard of them, I was told to tread with caution where Steven Erikson’s Malazan books are concerned. Even his diehard fans say this series is hard to read. Some even intimate that The Malazan Book of the Fallen (the series’ official name) is the most difficult epic fantasy series to read of any written by a living author.

I was about sixteen when I picked up the first volume. I backed off after just a page or two. This was mostly thanks to accounts of the Malazan learning curve—and not actually due to anything I was reading. Now, four books into the series, I seriously wish I’d pressed on instead of moving on in search of simpler series.

Malazan isn’t really so hard to read. It’s complex, to be sure, and Erikson doesn’t hold readers’ hands like some other authors do. But I’m convinced that thousands of epic fantasy readers are missing out because of exaggerated reports about the challenges of reading this series. Many readers also steer away, unfortunately, because of the vigor of Erikson’s valiant fans, who can, in their zeal for the books, often attack and insult potential readers.

I believe there’s a lot of happy middle ground, so here’s my take and TLDR pitch for the series: If you love unique epic fantasy, you should seriously consider reading Malazan. It truly isn’t that hard to digest—and there’s assuredly as much to admire as Erikson’s fervent fans proclaim.

First, some background and a few notes on the Malazan learning curve.

What is the Malazan series about?

Malazan is a story about: godlike beings breaking free from their imprisonment; an empire crumbling, rallying, and redefining itself; a squad of veterans fighting to survive; individual people struggling to stay individuals (not just pawns in ascendants’ hands).

Readers often have a hard time describing the plot because there are, in fact, many plots. In fact, the interweaving of so many is one of the sources of difficulty for most readers, although most Malazan storylines by themselves will feel plenty familiar to fantasy readers.

Is Malazan really that difficult to read?

This is a legitimate question. Here are some of the things real world readers say about Gardens of the Moon (the first book in the series) in Amazon reviews:

“Erikson seriously erred beginning this story in medias res.”

“What I found… was a turgid, impenetrable mess.”

“Everything stops reading like nonsense about halfway through.”

“Things seemingly come out of no where [sic]. No explanation. No rules.”

“The book is too difficult.”

And here are a few comments from experienced reviewers:

Library of a Viking: “I barely understand a single thing.” (commented in the middle of book two.)

Daniel Greene: “This is for epic fantasy fans only.”

Bookborn: “I thought I was too stupid for the series.”

While I tend to disagree with the tenor of the comments above, coming to grips with Malazan is obviously a challenge for many smart readers.

Malazan does indeed come with a learning curve

Some authors tell you three or four times how everything works in their fantasy settings. Erikson respects reader intelligence a lot and spreads his telling more thinly. Sometimes he lets you figure things out all on your own, which can make it difficult to read Malazan.

Easy example: Characters in Malazan refer often to the unfortunate dead crossing Hood’s Gate. Erikson doesn’t sit down and go into expository detail about Hood being the god of death or his worship being one of a few sanctioned religions before the Malaz conquest of Kartool Island. He generally just lets characters say things like, “He’s already at Hood’s Gate.” There’s enough context to figure out quickly what these characters really mean.

Not so simple example: Erikson famously assumed that hordes of readers would deduce the identities of several new ascendants (gods, more or less) based simply on the timing of their ascent. In book two or three he says outright, “Those new ascendants are in fact such and such characters.” I read book one and most of two without ever putting the pieces together—as have almost all Malazan readers out there. (Sidenote: it doesn’t actually matter whether readers picked up the hint or not, because the plot still makes plenty of sense up to the point that Erikson does share the information more forthrightly.)

Malazan readers do still need to come to grips with a lot. There’s a vast high fantasy setting, a big cast, unique races, a large pantheon of important players, and an incredibly important magic system, all without much overt guidance from the author. The thing is, Erikson anchors the reading experience so expertly that you don’t need to know everything. Not by a long shot. His effective use of prose, characterization, and plot go a long way to proofing his books against gaps in reader memory or notice.

You get some whole stories without reading to the end

Another chief way Erikson offsets the learning curve is by giving a solid ending with just about every book in the series. Malazan stands head and shoulders above many other truly great works of epic fantasy by delivering substantive stories without requiring quite so much of the reader’s blood to access each one.

Gardens of the Moon, for instance, has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It doesn’t have all the endings it could have. But it provides a satisfying stopping point for readers who decide they’ve had enough. Deadhouse Gates (book two) does this even more profoundly, finishing a few amazing stories while continuing and beginning others. It strikes a balance sort of halfway between Terry Brooks’s original Sword of Shannara trilogy—in which each book ended its own tale more or less completely—and Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive—in which each book has a strong conclusion without closing many doors.

So. If the idea of a 10-book series scares you, rest assured that Malazan is a much safer, less difficult investment than The Wheel of Time, A Song of Ice and Fire, The Sword of Truth and many other peer series, because you can bail out at the end of almost any book and you’ll still get some solid, whole stories.

Malazan’s greatest strengths are tied to its moderate difficulty level

One of the things that amazes me most, having read just a quarter of the series so far, is how much story Erikson has already packed in. The pace is unyieldingly quick, with major events advancing in every chapter. Part of the genius of the books is how much Erikson elects to skip—where other authors might fall into the trap of overexplaining or making sure it’s all crystal clear (e.g. where other authors often do overexplain or overemphasize).

It’s surprisingly like William Gibson’s Neuromancer in this way. So much happens so quickly, often with little contextual information shared in the moment. But the heart of the story is clear without much context anyway, so the author’s choice to skip the boring parts doesn’t hurt. It just keeps things interesting.

Difficulty level or no, Malazan sets an unfathomably high bar for epic fantasy

The biggest reasons to read Malazan are, of course, not about the level of difficulty or the time commitment required to read it. You should read the series because the books are amazing.

It’s not great because of the 700 character-cast. It’s great because of the depth of human insight they bring to the story or the riveting relationships those characters form.

The series doesn’t need the careful stitching together of 30 different plotlines to be exciting. It’s exciting because of the quality of storytelling in each smaller story Erikson develops.

Malazan isn’t about Erikson’s obvious love for history, either, regardless of the hundreds of thousands of years of lore bleeding onto the page. Malazan is about being transported to an unforgettable setting.

It’s bigger than The Wheel of Time and richer than Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn—with a larger world, a stronger history, deeper cultures, and a more lively cast of characters. Its moments of breathtaking heroism rival anything in the genre, from The Lord of the Rings to Elfstones of Shannara to the Lightbringer series. The deep human insight pervading these books is particularly unique, measuring up with the best of Robin Hobb, J. V. Jones, Sean Russel and many other top tier fantasy authors. In short, there’s something outstanding here for just about any epic fantasy reader.

Conclusion: Epic fantasy readers should seriously consider Malazan

I first learned about Erikson thanks to a Terry Brooks fan forum. It was in this same forum that I—as a hungry young fantasy reader—first heard of R. A. Salvatore, Anne McCaffrey, Guy Gavriel Kay, Naomi Novik, and many other authors old and new alike.

Everywhere Erikson came up, his work was regarded on par with Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, often with no competing comparisons. It was this consistent attribution of quality that finally convinced me to try Malazan again after 15+ years since my first attempt.

From where I am, a mere 25% through the series, I genuinely believe those claims.

Reference information

The number of named characters in the Malazan series: Malazan has about 700 named characters. For comparison, A Song of Ice and Fire has about 1000 so far, and The Wheel of Time boasts a whopping 2700.

Word count of the Malazan series: All told, the ten books in this series total about 3,325,000 words. That’s about three times as long as the entire Harry Potter series and a million words shy of The Wheel of Time.

Publication history of the Malazan series: The entire 10-book series was published between 1999 and 2011, averaging close to 15 months between each book.

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Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogy as well as short fiction appearing in The Future Fire, MYTHIC Magazine, The Centropic Oracle, and other publications. His short story “Only an Ocean” won a Silver Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. When he’s not writing, he’s often playing his violin or wandering in the woods.

January 17, 2024
Craft of Writing: How Naomi Novik Uses Straightforward Exposition to Guide Readers

If you read much fantasy or science fiction, you’re probably used to sloppy exposition. SFF writers routinely err on the side of a) giving too much information and b) not giving enough. Most struggle particularly to find the right balance of doling out details at a manageable pace. After all, readers rarely agree on how much information is enough and how much is overkill.

Some writers still knock it out of the park, however. This article explores how Naomi Novik handles exposition in her 2020 novel A Deadly Education.

Alternate approaches to exposition and reader onboarding

Before getting into Novik’s approach, I want to talk through some alternate approaches to onboarding readers into the writer’s creation. There are all kinds of rules and tricks to try smoothing the playing field for a variety of readers. Some bank on reader taste and individual preference, while other types of exposition work more unilaterally.

Staggering character introductions to lighten the exposition load on the reader

If you’re writing something like The Lord of the Rings, your readers will need to learn a lot of people’s names. So, you could spread them out. Writers often introduce just one or two new faces per scene or per chapter, for instance. Tolkien isn’t known for playing by anyone’s storytelling rules, but even his approach to exposition paces character introductions fairly evenly across the sprawling story—and readers do in fact remember the ones that really matter.

Further reading: Actual Data on Why People Love The Lord of the Rings

Spreading out unique terms to keep things readable

Nnedi Okorafor’s Akata Witch introduces a lot of distinct terms, places, magical phenomena, etc. for how short a book it is. Okorafor keeps the reading experience very manageable, however, by putting forward new instances of magic, novel locations, never-before-seen demonic entities, fresh serial killers, all the stuff. This is very similar in concept to staggering character introductions, though clever writers (like Okorafor) overlap these techniques by giving enough familiar material to keep things recognizable as they move along.

The “show, don’t tell” bit

In defense of that old and 50% useless adage, many current SFF writers try to avoid overt explanations of anything in their settings. “That’s telling, not showing,” many of them say.

It’s not, actually. All writing is telling. It’s just telling readers surface information instead of telling substantial stuff.

The “show, don’t tell” adage serves writers well when they find ways to show meaningful information. Even though show-don’t-tellers tend to write bulky books where little actually happens (because they’re so fixated on not narrating anything directly), this remains a popular approach to overall exposition.

A Chekov’s Gun angle into exposition and worldbuilding

The majority of science fiction and fantasy writers today seem to favor a sort of Chekov’s gun approach to worldbuilding. They accomplish this by introducing key information before it becomes truly relevant to the reader and then repeating relevant tidbits when the big moment of arrival comes. The argument is that this rewards readers who’ve been paying attention. In reality it’s probably more about simplifying the reading experience. After all, plenty of readers need that second or third iteration to get new information down.

Naomi Novik takes a simpler worldbuilding route

At risk of oversimplifying, here’s how Novik takes on most of the worldbuilding challenges in A Deadly Education.

When readers need to know something new, she gives them the information.

And that’s just about it.

Yes, it sounds uber basic. The straightforwardness of the technique belies how tough it is to do. It’s also hard to find examples that both make sense and show impact in context. Here’s one, however, to show how this works:

“I was sitting with my back to the queue. That’s the safer way to sit—if you’re friendless—since it puts you that much closer to the mass of moving students, with a better view of the doors.”
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

This brief passage gives new information (that is surprisingly relevant) about our narrator’s survival practices and social life. it does so in a moment that readers need the information. It shows—via our narrator’s actions—and offers exposition to make sense of the action.

Here’s another passage immediately after the author introduces monsters called maw-mouths.

“The one and only way to stop a maw-mouth is to give it indigestion. If you rush into the maw-mouth on your own, with a powerful enough shield, then you have a chance to get inside before it can start eating you. In theory, if you manage to reach the core, you can burst it apart from there. But mostly people don’t get that far.”
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

At risk of spoilers, let’s just say that it’s important for the reader to know about maw-mouths. But it wouldn’t really have been important 50 pages earlier.

Why more straightforward exposition works for Novik and others

There are some real benefits to this no nonsense approach to exposition. First, it limits the need for repetition. Ancillary to this, it makes for shorter books overall (something Novik has done well for nearly 20 years but which many SFF authors never achieve). Novik’s expository style is actually a very efficient way to support more plodding deliveries of information too, since she doesn’t have to do plot gymnastics to fabricate excuses for why readers can now get the needed information (another common failing in SFF writing).

The dangers are many, however. If you wait until the moment to give the needed information, you might interrupt the flow of something pivotal to the plot. The background lore might be boring in comparison. Your exposition might come across as the dreaded infodump that SFF authors employed so heavily in the 70s and 80s. These reasons are probably part of why authors have shifted to less obvious, direct methods of exposition.

The reality is that some readers have come to call this kind of linear exposition “bad writing.” I beg to differ.

Here’s a non-Novik example from Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings. I share this example as counterpoint since Sanderson makes consistent, strong, even vocal use of the Chekov’s Gun approach to giving information in advance. But he also finds mileage in a more step-by-step system of producing the right information at the right moment.

Here’s the example from the middle of a series-central assisination scene:

“[Szeth] slammed the door just as the guards arrived.

“The Stormlight held the door in the frame with the strength of a hundred arms. A Full Lashing bound objects together, holding them fast until the Stormlight ran out. It took longer to create—and drained Stormlight far more quickly—than a Basic Lashing.”
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

Small interruption, some useful information that informs many following scenes, and then the scene goes on. It’s that simple. This sort of exposition makes things so easy for readers. If only other writers would get over themselves and just give the information they want their readers to have.

My typical caveats: There are other ways to handle exposition

There are plenty of excellent writers who never dip a lone finger into such obvious exposition. That’s fine too. There are other ways to impart what readers need to know. I’m working on a blog post about Steven Erikson’s Malazan books, actually—and he leans far away from this approach to giving readers’ information.

My point is not that everyone should do it the same way. I’m not even saying to throw out the “show, don’t tell” saying (though I should write more about that sometime because it’s not great writing advice by itself).

Rather, I submit that there’s nothing wrong with just sharing what readers should understand in your world. No need to beat around the bush or mask your exposition—especially when, as Novik does in A Deadly Education, you can let the narrative voice freewheel at the same time you inform the reader.

If you want a short, punchy book, there’s a lot you can learn from Novik’s polished technique. And you’ll probably enjoy the book too.

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Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogy as well as short fiction appearing in The Future Fire, MYTHIC Magazine, The Centropic Oracle, and other publications. His short story “Only an Ocean” won a Silver Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. When he’s not writing, he’s often playing his violin or wandering in the woods.

October 24, 2023
Craft of Writing: How Brent Weeks Uses Third Person Limited Point of View (POV)

There are few techniques that I (as a fiction writer) think about more often than third person limited point of view (POV). And while not every reader cares about this sort of thing, most readers do care about the results when writers employ techniques like third person limited, which is the real focus of this article.

I spend plenty of space across my blog talking about fantasy and science fiction books I love, including some reasons why I love them. With this article, however, I’m kicking off a new series that explores the same topic from a writing craft perspective, digging deeper into some individual examples that really stand out. My hope is that readers and writers alike will better appreciate and enjoy what they’re reading (or writing) as they give it some craft thought.

First up: Brent Weeks, author of the Lightbringer Series, the Night Angel Trilogy and a new connected novel Night Angel Nemesis. Weeks is well known and regarded among epic fantasy readers, but some of his strongest skills (in my opinion) often go unsung. This article specifically explores how Weeks handles third person limited POV in his Lightbringer books.

Here goes.

Ground rules: What is third person limited point of view?

Third person limited POV takes the narration into the experience, thoughts, and knowledge of a character—or set of characters—without giving the reader access to everyone’s experience, thoughts, and knowledge. Where an omniscient POV could dip into anyone’s mind when convenient, third person limited comes with some restrictions on whose information is available when.

This most often means the narrative sticks with just one character at a time. While authors are typically strict about managing whose thoughts they follow, it’s much less common to find any set rules about how deeply in or out of those thoughts the narration might go. And that’s where things get really interesting.

Excerpt #1:

Wetting his lips, Kip got moving. He had the distinct sensation of being followed. Stalked. He looked over his shoulder. There was nothing there. Of course. His mother always said he had too much imagination. Just walk, Kip. Places to be. Animals are more scared of you and all that.
The Black Prism by Brent Weeks

When we get to this “Just walk, Kip” part, most fantasy authors (and most third person limited narratives) would use italics to demarcate character thought. Weeks foregoes the italics and just keeps the words coming. Is it Kip thinking this now, or his mother speaking in the past? Probably one and the same, with no need to distinguish between either voice in this instance.

I’ve heard several writers and a few editors criticize Weeks for the way he handles third person limited—specifically in this choice not to italicize character thoughts when they appear within the narrative. I first want to note that readers aren’t typically complaining about this. I also want to heap praise for how effective Weeks’s technique really is.

Here are three main strengths to consider, from a writing craft perspective, about Weeks’s approach to third person limited POV.

1. This direct approach to third person limited POV elides between character thought and overall narration

Use of italics for character thought creates a sort of POV false dichotomy. We’re either getting the narrator’s thoughts or the characters’.

As such, there’s an often artificial distinction in the source of whatever information we’re reading. Use of italics separates the parts of the narrative coming from a narrator (not the character) from the character’s own time-bound, in-story, limited point of view. There’s nothing wrong with having this distinction, in my opinion. The elimination of such a distinction, however, makes the narrative more interesting and immediate.

For a story like the Lightbringer Series, this take on third person limited POV plants a seed of bias and fallibility. To avoid spoilers for the series, let me just say that things are not always as they seem—including to the characters whose voices we probably trust. Part of each volume’s emotional power comes from Weeks’s candid exploration of the view point characters’ blind spots.

And, because there’s not much formal distinction between the narrator’s view of things and the characters’, the story organically works these character blind spots into the wider narrative.

Weeks could have told the same story using italics to stencil out his characters’ thoughts paragraph by paragraph. This would, however, hint at where the narrative gives us a partial truth or a misperception. As such, it would undermine many many compelling moments to come.

Recommended Reading: 9 Unmistakable Epic Fantasy Artists

2. Skipping italics in third person limited POV removes the false binary of being in/out of character thought

There’s another manufactured dichotomy at work when authors use italics to show character thought. The italics introduce a sort of on/off switch. Italics=character thought. No italics=no character thought. But what about when you want to be 50% in the character’s head, like free indirect voice? Or 100% in their head, like stream of consciousness? Or just 75% in their head, like italics usually convey?

Take a look at the passage below to see a few different ticks on this POV spectrum.

Excerpt #2:

Kip saw something in the mist. His heart leapt into his throat. The curve of a mail cowl. A glint of eyes searching in the darkness.

Then it was swallowed up in the roiling mists.

A ghost. Dear Orholam. Some spirit keeping watch at its grave.

Look on the bright side. Maybe wolves are scared of ghosts.
The Black Prism by Brent Weeks

The first two sentences are probably fully removed from Kip’s head. Then, with “the curve of a mail cowl” and beyond, the storytelling camera zooms closer. Before we know it, we’re getting direct expressions of thought from the character (“Look on the bright side” for instance).

Weeks doesn’t have to worry about how deep or how direct his POV is—or when to switch the italics on—which gives much greater flexibility to dip partially into the character’s perceptions, to move deeper still, or to withdraw. He seamlessly blends many distinct levels of connection to the characters’ thoughts. His approach to third person limited also avoids the thought/no thought binary that italics often implies.

3. Weeks’s approach to POV moves readers closer to the characters

Ultimately, Weeks’s use of third person limited POV gives readers a closer, more personal look at the characters about whom he’s writing. It feels, after all, as if they are writing the story with him. He tends to be more generous with character thought than many of his peer authors (much more generous, actually), which empowers his view point characters to come to life in a way more often reserved to first person narratives.

Excerpt #3:

It was too much information to soak up at once—broken the halo?—but it was a straight answer. Kip walked over to the dead man. His skin was pallid in the rising light. Pull it together, Kip. Ask whatever you need to ask.
The Black Prism by Brent Weeks

The ability to get into the character’s head is the single most unique narrative benefit of fiction. Much as film, TV, theatre and other storytelling media try to do this, there’s no stronger way to transport the audience into the character’s psyche than through a strong use of written POV.

Recommended Reading: How Naomi Novik Uses Straightforward Exposition to Guide Readers

Conclusion: Italics are fine too

Weeks is by no means alone in his use of deep character immersion without italics. Writers have done this for decades if not centuries now. Ursula K. Le Guin, Patricia McKillip and Orson Scott Card have all employed similar POV techniques to great effect—just as many many skilled writers use third person limited with italics to delineate character thought.

It might be worth stating that I’m not at all against using italics. Some writers might do this just because they’ve seen it done (and not for any distinctly craft-oriented reasons), but there are cases in which it’s extremely helpful.

For instance, fantasy is full of characters who communicate telepathically or who have voices reach their minds through other magical means. Imagine if Christopher Paolini’s Eragon and Saphira were trying to have a conversation without the guidance of italics (it would be hard to follow). Or imagine if Robert Jordan’s Rand al’Thor and Lews Therin Telamon were trying to outshout each other without italics to help steer the reader along. It would most likely convince the readers that Rand was going mad. But it might not convince them to keep reading.

Italics can also be useful for omniscient third person narratives or narratives that, while not omniscient, head hop without clear patterns or distinctions to reveal when the head hopping happens. Even if you just want to use them for a single character’s thoughts, italics create a clean line of separation between the character’s perceptions and the rest of the narrative.

It just comes down to whether you want such separation or not—and I tend to favor something else.

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Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogy as well as short fiction appearing in The Future Fire, MYTHIC Magazine, The Centropic Oracle, and other publications. His short story “Only an Ocean” won a Silver Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. When he’s not writing, he’s often playing his violin or wandering in the woods.

September 26, 2023
The Reader Journey: How People Choose What Books to Buy and Read
I’ve long been fascinated with the reader journey. Specifically with how readers make their purchasing and reading decisions. A few key reasons:
1. I like to read, and I’m often puzzled by how I ended up choosing this book or that author.
2. I actually like marketing, so this whole decision-making process interests me.
3. There’s a dearth of data on the reader journey.
I’ve shared a few resources for finding the right books, specifically for epic fantasy readers, but in this article I’m going to dig deeper into the wider reader journey, based on what data I could actually get my hands on (most of which is helpful but woefully dated).

Here goes.

Who’s reading books, and who’s not?

The majority of Americans still read books—old fashioned, printed on paper books.

In 2022 the Pew Research Center reported that 75% of adults said they’d read at least one book in the previous year (though some people probably lie about reading because they want to sound cool). This was a significant increase from previous years, where numbers were closer to 64%. Furthermore, most readers favored print formats, with only 9% of U.S. adults restricting their book consumption to digital formats (and a large number consuming in both print and digital).

The 2022 US Book Reading Statistics survey squared with Pew’s findings that print books still dominate the market, showing a commanding 20% lead in print product share over ebooks. As you’d expect, age and other demographics can also tell us a lot more about who’s reading and which formats are getting traction. For instance, this survey indicated that adults aged 65 or higher were most likely to read overall and most likely to prefer print books over digital, and that consumers identifying as male were less likely to read than were those identifying as female.

A 2021 Gallup poll, however, indicates that readers are reading fewer books overall (regardless of how many Americans are reading). Likewise, WordsRated’s most recent look at daily reading habits indicates that readers are spending 16-17% less time reading daily than they were a decade ago (although per day reading time has been climbing up again since 2018).

Demographics included or aside, reader habits accounted for, there’s a clear demand for books, especially in print formats.

What’s the journey for readers to choose what books to buy—or read?

Most active readers have no shortage of titles on their to-be-read lists. Data from Kobo (old data, it’s worth noting) indicates that up to 50% of online fiction sales originate with book-specific searches—meaning that readers already knew which book they meant to look for and buy. On one hand this simplifies the reader journey, because readers don’t struggle to find something they want to read. On the other hand, it makes the reading journey incredibly complex, because the choice to read one book means choosing not to read another for the time being.

This stage of the journey is where market data falls shortest—and is most needed.

Author Gigi Griffis surveyed 355 avid readers in 2017 to try answering the big question of how readers choose what books to buy. Griffis’s data is very telling, though it’s worth noting that we need a lot more surveys like this one because:
- This study primarily focused on the very active, serial readers (which is just one segment of another segment of all readers).
- Survey participants are nearly all fiction readers primarily (and adult nonfiction drives more sales revenue in the U.S. than any type of fiction does), limiting applicability to the wider reading conversation.
- The data is nearly six years old now, with lots of changes in the book landscape since then.
- And last but not least, despite this being a terrific source of insights, it’s still working from a very small sample.
All reservations aside, here are some telling findings from Griffis’s survey:

The biggest reason readers buy books is because they know and love the author

There’s clear consensus on the forces influencing book purchases, and the top two survey responses support some old anecdotal assumptions about the reader journey:
- 82% of readers bought a book because they already knew they loved the author.
- 76% bought because of a friend’s recommendation.
- 48% went for a new book because of a giveaway or sale.
- 47% attributed their purchase to amazing cover art.
- 44% took author recommendations to get a new book.
- 39% made a purchase based on book blog recommendations.
- 39% also bought based on placement in a physical store.
- 36% picked up a book because of recommendation in some sort of non-blog publication.
- A number of readers purchased based on social media experiences as well:
  - 35% found new books to buy via Facebook.
  - 28% discovered and purchased new books thanks to Twitter (now X, I guess? Who even knows?).
  - 12% bought after Instagram exposure.
- 11% found and purchased new books thanks to library recommendations.
There’s a fairly even split across common forces in the buying process

Griffis also asked avid readers to identify the reasons that influence purchasing decisions most commonly—the repeated, persistent influences behind the buying process. Unsurprisingly, the top reason readers buy is because they already know they love an author’s work. Reason number two (barely below number one) is because of a friend’s recommendation. These two combined accounted for 46% of book purchasing decisions among Griffis’s respondents.

The buying process is similar across readers as well

The three most common steps Griffis’s avid readers took before purchasing were:
1. Reading the back cover (82%)
2. Reading book reviews (56%)
3. Reading sample pages from the book (41%)
It’s also worth noting that 13% of these readers said they purchased books without doing any of the above. This shouldn’t be terribly surprising based on how big a factor existing fandom is for readers, but it makes an interesting case for some other marketing elements like cover art, bookstore placement, overall author brand, etc.

Book reviews play a huge role in getting new readers to buy

Another really valuable element to Griffis’s survey is an exploration into where readers get their book reviews—and what they glean from them.

As noted above, 56% of avid readers check the reviews before they buy a new book. Here’s Griffis’s breakdown of where this happens:
- 76% of readers consume book reviews on Amazon.
- 64% of readers read Goodreads reviews.
- 25% of readers check reviews in newspapers, magazines, and other publications.
- 24% of readers read reviews on book blogs and similar resources.
- Just 6% of readers sample Barnes and Noble reviews.
Furthermore, Griffis’s survey unearthed some really interesting nuggets as to how reviews influence the purchasing journey for readers. While the survey doesn’t show what convinced readers, it explores a big batch of reasons avid readers would refuse to buy a book:
- 56% of readers would skip out on a purchase if reviews mentioned the book having typos or grammar fails.
- 25% of readers were put off by reviews mentioning a slow middle.
- 24% of readers would avoid purchasing a book if the reviews said the plot was unbelievable.
- 21% of readers would skip a book if reviews showed distaste for the book’s ending.
- 20% of readers would forgo a book purchase if reviews said the main character was unlikable.
Griffis has several other interesting findings as well, so her survey is well worth looking at, aged or not.

What makes readers read the books they purchase?

Selling the book is only half the battle. Actually, it might be even less than half, based on some of the clearest post-purchase reader data.

Jellybooks, a tool and reader service used to analyze book reading habits, has reported less than 40% completion rates for most books that readers purchase. They’re not the only entity looking closely at this. Kobo—which has even more robust and accurate ways to measure reader behaviors—has consistently found that the best-selling books are not the most read books, and certainly not the books readers are most likely to read to the end.

While it should in no way come as a surprise that many readers opt not to finish every book they buy, there’s very little clear data on which journeys led to incomplete readings, which reader personas are most likely to abandon a book, etc. The only truly clear insights come from Kobo’s decade-old findings that readers were more likely to complete books in the romance, thriller, and mystery genres—which will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with reader loyalty in these genres.

A clear implication, however, is that readers won’t become long-term, serial purchasers in cases where they don’t finish the books. Since Griffis found that author loyalty is the biggest influencer in avid readers’ purchasing habits, it stands to reason that readers need to build that loyalty by reading the books and not just by purchasing.

Where does all this leave readers? And writers? And publishers?

No matter what you make of these scattered findings, the publishing market is due for some more data. It is much easier now to track reading behaviors, given the omnipresence of digital formats, but Jellybooks customers, Kobo authors, and big New York publishing houses alike are often investing most heavily in books that make neither a commercial nor a literary impact.

There’s always guesswork where taste is concerned, but there should be data on the reader journey too.

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About the Author

Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogy as well as short fiction appearing in The Future Fire, MYTHIC Magazine, The Centropic Oracle, and other publications. His short story “Only an Ocean” won a Silver Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. When he’s not writing, he’s often playing his violin or wandering in the woods.
August 31, 2023