Welcome to the Empty Shelf!

 Hi there! And welcome to The Empty Shelf. My name is Mike, and I’ll be your reader, and reviewer. Why is the shelf Empty? Well, Two reasons. First, because I read almost everything on my kindle, or my ipad. So despite reading quite a bit, I don’t really have much tangible evidence to show for it. You’ll just have to trust me. Second, a great deal of the fantasy I have read, and a great deal of what’s on my TBR is not readily available at libraries or bookstores. It’s too old. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love a lot of modern fantasy too, and I do read it, but there’s plenty of blogs, youtube videos, and podcasts out there to tell you about that stuff. I’d like to tell you about some older things that you may not have heard of, or that you may have kept putting off in favor of newer stuff. That’s perfectly fine, but hopefully this will compel you to read some of those older works. 

I’ve been an avid reader since my early 20s, so about 20 years now, and my preferred genre is Fantasy. I’ve always liked swords, magic, and dragons. I’ll dabble in Sci-Fi and space opera from time to time, and I also enjoy Memoirs. But on this channel, we’ll focus on the fantasy stuff.

The whole Covid shutdown of 2020 affected us all in different ways. For me, I got a bit depressed and lost the desire to read as much as I had. Oh, I’d still go through a couple books a year, especially from my favorite authors, like Brandon Sanderson and Joe Abercrombie. I’d also revisit books I’d read previously that I considered old friends. I like the physical act of reading, so that was a comfort, but my ability to consume anything new was severely hindered. It stayed that way until late 2023. So in 2024, I resolved to get back into reading, because I really do enjoy it. I’m doing pretty well so far. Though I have a TBR that’s best measured in miles.

I’m going to be ranking these books and series as objectively as possible, but I want to stress that all of the opinions here are just that. Opinions. My opinions. I’m not an English major or critic - in point of fact, I’m a musician. So these views are based on what I like, what I don’t like, and what I feel. 

By the way, there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to the order in which I do these things. I have a spreadsheet (because mine is a life lived on the edge) of series I’ve read, and want to read, separated into length, and by author and chronology…it’s really something. Anyway, when I finish one book, the method for selecting my next one is…I just feel like reading it. Some of what I do in the early episodes of this podcast will be things I’ve read previously. I don’t want to have a massive gap in content because I’m a little slow on whatever book I’m reading, so I’d like to backlog things I’ve already read to get started.

I’m going to be tackling a lot of series here, since most Fantasy and sci-fi are series-based - oftentimes trilogies, sometimes considerably more. I’ll be reviewing some series that I’ve already read in their entirety, and each of those series will each get its own episode. They will probably be few and far between, though, because I’ll be going back to re-read most of them, since it’s probably been a long time. So for those series I’ve not yet read, or the ones I’m going back to re-read, I’ll do an episode for each book. Then, once I’m done reading the series (or as much is currently written) I’ll go back and do a series overview episode. 

In the instance that the series is 15 or 20 or even 30 books long (something like The Riftwar Saga or Discworld) I’ll try to break it up a bit. Reading 25 books in the same world in one fell swoop is a MASSIVE undertaking; one which my ADD riddled brain may not be able to stand. Fortunately for all involved, those series are typically broken down into several sub-series. 

As I said, I’m not an English major or a writer (at least not a serious one,) but I can discern good writing from bad, or at least, I think I can. There are several things I’ve read that I can recognize are excellently WRITTEN, but don’t resonate with me. And that’s fine. Not every work is for everybody. Just because I do or don’t like something doesn’t mean you have to feel the same way. My goal here is to share my joy of reading with you, and to express my feelings and thoughts on the works I choose to rate. If you take from this something that makes you want to read or to avoid a particular novel or series, so much the better. But I highly recommend you try reading things that I rate lowly or that I avoid entirely. You may get something out of them that I didn’t. 

So, how am I going to do it? I’m going to use 6 categories. Each category will be given a grade; A+, B-, and so forth. Each of those grades is assigned a number, 1-15, for a total of 90 points. I suppose I COULD just use the number ranking and call it a day, but a scale of 15 is confusing. Once I’ve assigned a grade to each category, I’ll take an average and that will be the grade of the book. The categories are Story and Conflict, Pacing, Character, World Building, Magic System, and Writing Style. 

In Story and Conflict, I’ll be discussing the overall narrative and its effectiveness in context. Do the stakes feel large enough? Were the internal and external conflicts effectively executed? Did the story progress and conclude in an even manner? Was it even a compelling narrative?

For Pacing, I’ll ask does the story move in an even way? Does it move fast, slow, or somewhere in between? Believe it or not, I’ve read some books where almost nothing actually happens. 

Character should be relatively self explanatory. Do the characters feel real? Do they change and grow? Do the relationships between the characters feel natural? Do we understand these people?

World Building is very similar to Character. Some would argue that the world is a character in itself. So, does the landscape feel real, and do the characters interact with it in a realistic way? Does it function as a character? Is there a history or lore, and is it believable and well thought out? 

Next, is there a Magic System? Does it make sense? If it’s a hard system, are there rules and consequences? Do the characters who use magic do so in a logical and reasonable way, or is it just throwing stuff at a wall in order to magic your way out of a problem?

Writing Style is probably the hardest thing here to quantify. Basically, I’m looking for something worth reading. I’m not a fan of overly flowery so-called “purple” prose. Some people are, and that’s wonderful. I’m not judging, but it doesn’t work for me. So what I want to do in this category is try to establish the effectiveness of the actual writing. Does it make me want to turn the page, or is it just a block of text that’s a slog to get through? Is there variation in sentence structure? Writing is obviously a visual medium, but there is an element of what you see on the page. If I look at a page and there is conversation and a number of short paragraphs and things like that, it tells me that the story is moving forward. If I look at a page and see that there’s just a big old block of text with nothing interesting to look at, I’ll get turned off and not be excited to read that page. There are always exceptions, but there it is.

After I go through each of those categories and scores, I will give my overall impressions on the story - the good, and the bad, and generally what I think about it. That will not be scored. 

I look forward to reading more, and getting some feedback from you. Let me know if you agree or disagree. If I gave a recommendation and you enjoyed the book or series, I’d love to know about it. You’ll likely hear about some Star Wars books, some Historical Fiction (I love a good King Arthur story), and some old Greek/Roman mythological stuff as well as the standard Fantasy fare, not to mention some hard Sci-Fi, which is pretty new for me. I’m not quite sold on it yet.

I mentioned earlier that there’s a lot of talk on the YouTube and the Tik Tok about the latest books by the hottest authors, like Sarah J Maas and Patrick Rothfuss (just to name a couple.) And probably an equal amount about the super-popular series, like A Song of Ice and Fire, and Wheel of Time - again just to name a couple. Now you may be thinking, “well, duh, Mike, no one is surprised there.” And yeah, I knew about that beforehand. I’m not that much of an idiot. Most of the time.

But it got me thinking - I don’t NEED to look at all that “new” stuff because other people are doing it better than I can. And many of them can dedicate themselves to their channels and have little else to do but read. I can’t do that, unfortunately. What I CAN do is go back in time and pick up some of the things that were around before the advent of YouTube, and indeed, the internet; some of the things that don’t get much attention online because they’re “old,” or “obsolete,” or however you want to put it.

I find that a lot of the stuff I’d like to read comes from that era anyway. I’m a musician, as I’ve mentioned, and I’ve spent a lot of time on my musical journey finding out who inspired my favorite artists, and going back through the “ancestry” to discover new music. Sometimes it’s successful and I find really good stuff, and sometimes it’s not. But the point is that’s what I do with authors too. Maybe it’s habit, I don’t know. But I want to know what makes the writers I love tick, and what turns them on, so to speak. In so doing, I’ve found some things that I’ve really enjoyed. And some things that I really haven’t liked. 

So, why am I telling you all this? There’s a nearly 100% chance you’ll not hear me talk about those “modern authors”. Not because I don’t read them or don’t like them, but because I don’t think I can add anything to the conversation that hasn’t already been said. I absolutely ADORE Wheel of Time, and I really like A Song of Ice and Fire. (I’d like it more if it were ever finished. But that’s beside the point.)

You also won’t hear anything about Lord of the Rings. That series and all its supplemental material is ubiquitous, and so much has been said about it online and off that I DEFINITELY can’t add anything to the conversation. I love Lord of the Rings. There. Consider it reviewed. There may be some other things that I decide to avoid for similar reasons, but I haven’t decided yet. 

Instead, I’ll be focusing on some “Classic” fantasy stuff from the late 1900s. The 80s and 90s. The stuff that inspired the authors of today. I’ll be tracing the ancestry, so to speak, of the writers I love and seeing what turned them on and reading that. Just like people find out what music their favorite bands liked, and giving that a shot. I’m sure I’ll like some of it. I’m sure I’ll hate some of it. 

I’ll also discuss some modern things that I don’t feel get enough attention. Stuff like John Gwynne’s The Faithful and the Fallen series, and Anthony Ryan’s work. And yes, you’ll still hear about Brandon Sanderson from me because he is, without a doubt, my favorite author, and I wouldn’t be able to stop myself if I tried.

So we’ll get started next episode with David Eddings’ The Belgariad. I hope you’ll tune in, and maybe read along with me. Until next time, Keep reading.