5 – Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

This Douglas Adams work is just fun and while I love to get transported into big worlds, sometimes it’s nice to just get thrown into a small and silly world, which is kind of what Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is. Sure, it’s the whole galaxy, but we don’t need to know everything about it, so we don’t. This book is very absurd and silly with a lot of great British humor in it. Douglas Adams does a wonderful job of making all the humor work in my opinion and keep the story moving along as well, which isn’t something that can be said for a lot of comedy where it’ll stop and pause on a joke or an absurd moment.

4 – The Reckoners

Not the only Brandon Sanderson that you’ll see on the list, The Reckoners is a super power story, but everyone with super powers is bad. The main character wants to join a group known as The Reckoners in order to take down one of the villains in particular who had killed his father. Can he find the Reckoners, convince them to let him join and become part of their group? This is a young adult series, but really well written. I’m not always a big fan of bad super powered people, something like The Watchmen and The Boys don’t interest me that much as their current shows, but Brandon Sanderson weaves a really good story with that as a backdrop to it. I think that this story works well for both kids and adults as well, as I didn’t read it until I was out of college and I still really enjoyed it.

3 – IT

I like Stephen Kings work a lot. And IT is probably about the most iconic thing that he’s done. There are others, Carrie and Misery are two that come to mind that would be up there as well. But in terms of the one that I like the best, it is IT. One thing I love about Stephen King is that he does a wonderful job creating two types of characters. The first is the protagonists who have their flaws, they are good, but not perfect people by any mean, and sometimes have some very big flaws. And then he also creates amazing bad guys as well, obviously in IT there is Pennywise, but Henry as well is a great bad guy who doesn’t have redeeming qualities, while King’s good guys might be shades of grey, his bad guys are all bad. I also like that IT lands the ending pretty well. Sometimes Stephen King’s books just kind of fizzle out, but IT is strong through the whole of the book. Including the ending.

2 – Stormlight Archive

I have the newest book in this series just waiting for me to read it. Stormlight Archive is an epic fantasy series by Brandon Sanderson that just tells and weaves together such an interesting story. There are a lot of moving parts, but they come together really well. And like you’ve probably notices already, I like flawed characters, but I also like how this series has some characters that are paragons of good or honor. It doesn’t mean that they are perfect, but they hold themselves to such a standard that they strive to be. I also like that this book doesn’t shy away from being what it is, a truly massive and epic story. The audio books are 50 hours, and it feels like there’s no wasted space, unlike some epic fantasy series (cough cough Wheel of Time cough cough).

1 – Dresden Files

Such a great series, I talk about it all the time, but with the new books, it’s still the same. I do have a slight knock on the new books, it really feels like it should have been a single book, but it was getting too long for what would be considered a normal Dresden book length so it was split into two. The first of the two books is still great, but it feels almost like the first act for the second book. That said, I love Harry Dresden and the series and how Jim Butcher manages to create such an engaging world and characters with depth. I think he does a great job creating flawed characters who grow and change, and get new flaws over time, or sometimes who know they have a flaw and will still refuse to work on it it. Yes, these are pulpy summer reading books, but there is so much more going on than that as well.

Those are my Top 5, and writing about them really makes me want to dive into all of them again. Thankfully I have done Dresden Files book that I need to read still and the next book in the Stormlight Archive. And as always, I do have some honorable mentions.

Daughter of Smoke and Bones
Stardust
Harry Potter
Wheel of Time

What are some of your favorite books or series? What epic fantasy should I checkout next, I do need to get back to the Runelords series.

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10 – Good Omens

I like some humor in by books and this one has a good amount of it. Good Omens is the story of an Angel and a Demon who are working together because they don’t really want to see the apocalypse come around. Unfortunately, nothing is really working like they think it will and can you actually avoid the apocalypse? Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman do a great job with this story and it’s a fast and really enjoyable read.

9 – Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

More humor, this time even more absurd as Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy asks you the big questions in life as you fly around on a crazy space ship that just doesn’t quite do what you think it will. And you’d think that the universe would have some normal parts, but that’s very questionable. Douglas Adams is an author who’s writings I generally enjoy. The other Hitchhikers books are fun, though not as good. And Dirk Gentley’s Holistic Detective Agency is a new side of crazy. If you’re up for something completely absurd, anything by Adams is worth checking out.

8 – Daughter of Smoke and Bones

You’ll also see a fair amount of fantasy on the list, and Daughter of Smoke and Bones is the first one to kick it off. And it’s very different in terms of fantasy. It’s not your normal knights on horses riding off with the wizard to slay the dragon. No, this takes place partially in a modern world. The story is interestingly woven together, and while there are some stumbles in writing where it dumps backstory for too long, it’s very enjoyable. It also feels so different from standard fantasy. Laini Taylor does a good job on the story and a good job creating a world that feels unique.

7 – Swallows and Amazons

This is a series that I grew up on. We read through it multiple times growing up and it’s just a ton of fun. It’s a kids style adventure story, almost kids on bikes, but because that was really the common term for the genre. It follows three families of kids as they go exploring the lake country of England, camping under the stars, and having crazy adventures. Good wholesome fun for the whole family. Arthur Ransome really can tell a tale of adventure. Now, I will say that there is some from the times that shows up in the writing, considering they were published in the 1930’s and 1940’s, mainly in Missee Lee, and while that one is a fun romp, it is skippable in terms of the story as a whole.

6 – Stardust

Back to another story by Neil Gaiman, this one again leans into the comedy, but also a lot of fun world building. What happens when the normal world and a world of magic collide. Stardust is an absurd story of that. It has high stakes adventure, romance, and so much going on in the story. If you’re looking for something that is just a fun romp, Stardust is that, and you can blow through it quickly. Again, one that leans into that British absurdity in it’s humor like Good Omens and like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

5 – Harry Potter

I wish JK Rowling would just go away at this point in terms of her world. She’s ruining the world that she created by continually trying to fill in holes in her world and just in general, but I won’t get into that further, because the series itself is still enjoyable. Yes, there are massive plot holes, but for a series, it builds over time and they are almost always enjoyable. I like how the stories grow up with the characters, the first one is a pretty light and simple romp and story, but in the last one, they are dealing with much weightier things. I still recommend the series for kids who need something to read, and since I’ve read them a few times now, it’s something that I can breeze through quickly.

4 – The Reckoners

Brandon Sanderson is one of my favorite authors. The man is a machine when it comes to turning about books, and while I like some of his epic fantasy stuff better, you’ll have to find out what it is, I love the Reckoners series. It’s a good young adult superhero book where it isn’t just your normal superheroes out there saving the world, the powers affect the heroes negatively so that if you have powers, you are a villain, and the Reckoners are a group of people who are taking down the worst of the worst, but you have to find out the weakness of those with super powers. Really well written, some heavier things to think about, and a ton of fun.

3 – It

Only Stephen King book on the list, though, I do enjoy a lot of his stuff, and I really need to read some of them again like Dreamcatcher. But It is a book that I can just read over and over again. He does a great job of creating the horror and the tension in the book while also having a kids on bikes adventure feel to it, almost like you get in Stranger Things. Pennywise is a great villain, and there’s a lot of depth to the story. It’s a big book, but it tells such a good tale that if you’re thinking about reading some horror or want to see what Stephen King is all about, I think that this one is a great starting point.

2 – Stormlight Archive

Second Brandon Sanderson series on the list, this is a massively epic fantasy series, I mean massive. The third book in the series, the audiobook for that is over fifty hours, it’s insane. But the story in it is amazing. Sanderson weaves together several different characters into a story about the end of the world, but also about how it could be saved. There are spren, creatures that embody everything, there are wind spren that you can see when it’s windy outside, light spren, dark spren, death spren(?), and more that people research, and it’s just a unique twist to the world. I feel like there are a lot of fantasy tropes, but also so many amazingly different things that make the series worth spending the time on.

1 – The Dresden Files

I really enjoy urban fantasy which Daughter of Smoke and Bones is in some ways, and Neverwhere, which just misses the list by Neil Gaiman, is as well. But the best urban fantasy that I’ve found has been The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. He weaves a masterfully grand tale and always world ending events that keep the stakes high, but without feeling silly like so many massive series can. Harry Dresden is just a well created character, you know he’s going to win, but it’s going to be hard along the way. Nothing ever comes to him easily, and that’s fine, and he’s never going to be a perfect character, he’s written well with flaws and that makes him seem such more real, as do all of the characters in the series. Definitely a big series, definitely an easier series to read, one to checkout if you’re having trouble finding good urban fantasy.

Now, I’ve mentioned a few other books that I like as well that almost made the list, Dirk Gentley’s Holistic Detective Agency is just out there and weird but really enjoyable. I have liked Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan is massive and enjoyable. Classics like Dune, Lord of the Rings, and Chronicles of Narnia all just miss the list as well. How about what, what are some of your favorite books? Have I sold you on checking out any of my favorites?

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GenCon 2020 – I don’t know for sure that I can go yet, because it’s not that cheap, but it’s one of those things, that after being there once, I want to make it a priority for myself. I had so much fun in 2019, and it’s something where I can stay on the pulse of board games. There are other conventions like Essen Spiel that would be awesome to go as well, but that would be even trickier to make it, so GenCon, I hope to come back next year.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes – It’s Panem, and I’m interested in going back there to see what it’s like 64 years before. Now, it’s not high on my reading list, that’ll be the next book that shows up, but I’m curious. I enjoyed the book series, and I saw one of the movies, but I enjoyed it and thought it was quite interesting, so how has it gone to hell again?

Peace Talks – Here’s by far my most anticipated book, probably ever. There was one of the Stormlight Arhives books was up there, but a new Dresden Files book, I am ready. I’m so ready for this story, the epic story that Jim Butcher has crafted thus far has been great and I really want more of it. It’s just so interesting and well crafted at this point.

Psyonics – This one is D&D related, I don’t know what form it will take, but I think that we’ll get some sort of book that gives us some more class options and one of those things will be psionics. What I don’t know, since there have been two different ways of handling it in the D&D playtest material, will it be its own class or will it be options for other classes? Either way, since I’ve only played fifth edition, I haven’t played with psionics before, so I’m curious.

The Royal Rumble – Yes, I am a wrestling fan. It’s soap opera and I don’t care. And the premiere pay-per-view, for me is the Royal Rumble and it’s not even close. I think the WWE might see Wrestlemania as the biggest thing, but the rumble is the most entertaining. There are generally surprise entrants or returns for the rumble and there are a few I could see happening this year. So I can put this on my general list for every year, but I’m always excited for it.

Xbox/Playstation New Consoles – So, I just got a Playstation 4. And soon that’ll be an old system, but I can play two games that I’ve really wanted to play now, so that’s all good by me. With that, there are new consoles coming out and they don’t go under the video game category. I’m excited for them, because I want to know how much better they are, and then with that, I’ll get them in 2022 most likely.

The NFL Draft – Another not so normal thing, but I geek out over the NFL draft, I’ve been on a forum for 12-13 years now about the NFL draft. I moderate the section about mock drafts. It’s something that I like every year, because it’s something where every team gets better, so people feel pretty good coming out of it, but it’s also interesting to see who might make an impact. Not the normal thing that I write about, but it’s 100% something that I nerd out about every year.

I’m sure I’m missing something from this list. I don’t know enough about the animes that are coming out to make an informed comment on them, especially with my self imposed rule of it having to be new. But there are a lot of second seasons that I want to check out.

Are there some things, cons, books, anime or otherwise that you are already looking forward to?

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5 – The Reckoners
The only YA (young adult) series on the list, and one of the two series by Brandon Sanderson. The Reckoners is a super power series, but done in an interesting way. Super powers became a thing, but they weren’t heroes, in fact, they were all villains. There is a team, called The Reckoners who are out there figuring out the weakness of bad guys and trying to take them down to basically free the normal people from being under the super powers thumbs. David, isn’t a Reckoner, but he desperately ones to become one. Is he going to be able to help them in a way to get into the group? It’s a well done series and while it’s a bit darker in how it handles super powers as compared to Marvel or DC, it doesn’t beat you down with bring dark.

4 – Stardust
The lightest book on the list in terms of tone, Stardust is just a fun romp through a wild and crazy fantasy world. I generally like Neil Gaiman’s works, but they can be pretty big and heavy, Stardust is a much smaller work, but tells an interesting and light story. The blend of the real world and this amazing fantasy and how they interact is interesting. There are a few lines that just crack me up when I read them in the book, and you really do feel the sense of adventure that is being created in the book. The movie, while different, is also not bad and keeps a similar tone to the book. If you want a lighter fantasy read, Stardust is a lot of fun.

3 – The Stormlight Archive
Another series, I kind of feel like I’m cheating by putting them on the list, but I feel like sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts, and if I were to talk about it separately, it wouldn’t fully tell the story. The Stormlight Archive is an epic fantasy story by Brandon Sanderson. You get prophecy, you get visions, intrigue, and so much more, but it’s all put together well. Sanderson is probably better known for Mistborn, but I like Stormlight Archive considerably better. The scale is just so big, but the story is well done, and the characters are flawed. You’re going to see this as a theme, characters who are flawed who feel more real, and in Stormlight Archive, you have heroes who do great things, but they are still flawed characters.

2 – IT
I love Stephen King. And IT is my favorite out of the books that he’s written. The structure of interweaving the kids and adults stories together works well. It’s an interesting horror story but also has an epic story as well. Pennywise is a great antagonist. I sometimes, also, have an issue with Stephen King’s work because he doesn’t always land the story as well as he could in the end, and I think in IT, you get a good complete story. Again, with complex characters who have flaws and because of those flaws you care about them more. Now, IT is a beast of a book to read and is definitely weird and disturbing, so it isn’t going to be for everyone, but if you are interested in trying horror, I highly recommend it

1 – The Dresden Files
I’ve talked about this series before, and I’m completely caught up series finally this year. Thus far, there are 15 books in the series, and it’s a ton of fun to see the series come together. The start of the series is a bit more of a stand alone, but when Jim Butcher hits his stride, the story is quite complex and well written. It’s a massive fantasy world with interesting characters and flawed characters, which I think really makes the series work. Harry Dresden is a good guy in general, but he has his flaws and you get to see the character grow in realization without fixing all of his problems. To me, that’s what I want in good story telling, good depth of character and characters who feel real. The series, since it is so long, does have a hiccup or two in the storytelling, but as a whole, it is telling a very interesting story.

Nothing new to this year, besides finishing off The Dresden Files this year, but let’s see in the honorable mentions?

The Wheel of Time
Harry Potter
Ascend Online
Lord of the Rings
Daughter of Smoke and Bones

Any books from my top reads that you love? Any that you’ve been wanting to check out? Let me know in the comments below.

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Join me as I take on the Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game. I take a crack at the first scenario, Storm Front, based off of the Dresden Files book by Jim Butcher of the same name. This game is a cooperative game that plays well solo and plays quickly. It’s a challenging game that often can come down to some luck, but if you are smart about it, you can set yourself up to succeed in the end.

If you are enjoying these videos please consider subscribing to the Youtube Channel and following me on Twitch. I plan on getting back to streaming soon after some business of family visiting, so I thank you for your patience waiting between episodes.

Bottoms up.

The first is by duplicating description in the same sentence. or using too much description.

The second is by using large words for the sake of large words.

A couple of examples form books that I started reading and then quit, and one that I am actually continuing.

“The trials are our exegesis…” – A Warriors Path by Davis Ashura

“While thinking internally to myself…” – Ascend Online by Luke Chmilenko

Let’s talk about why these are poor. First, using “exegesis” in a sentence, and I shared this with a co-worker who reads a lot, is not a common word that people know. Learning new words isn’t bad, but there weren’t context clues to provide the answer to what it means. So someone would have to stop reading your book to look it up if they don’t know the meaning. And why weren’t there context clues, because this was sentence number one in the book.

I know what “exegesis” means, and because it was the first sentence, I immediately stopped listening to the book. What the first sentence tells me about the book is that it’s going to be using a lot of big words for the sake of using big words. And it’s supposed to be an epic fantasy book, premise seemed interesting, but if, in one sentence, it feels like the writer is shooting for showing off their knowledge of the English language, it isn’t ideal.

The second example is really about that first one, giving too much description. “Thinking internally” is a redundant statement. Besides that, the Ascend Online book, which isn’t bad thus far, spends too much time going through the fine details of the RPG aspect of a LitRPG. That can be done at the start, but then needs to fade to the background and that’s another way it is overwritten. It doesn’t just imply some things that the writer knows are happening in the background, but instead spells them out in great detail. This is something that happened in the Arcane Ascension series, where the writer would spend too much time explaining something that the characters already know for the sake of the reader.

So how can you avoid overwriting a story?

I think the biggest thing you can do is be a harsh critic of your own work. Not of yourself, but taking a step back from the work, look at it and ask yourself, is this part needed, or is this from a different story that I just haven’t written yet. Just because you’re cutting something, doesn’t mean that it wasn’t good, it just might not be for this story.

Along with that, ask yourself if you need to spell that out for the reader or how easily the reader can understand it. If you feel like a reader can infer what is being written about, for example, when leveling up in a LitRPG, if you’re in a video game, like Ascend Online is, have there be a noise, like a ding, when a skill levels up. As a reader, I’ll know that whatever skill was used immediately prior to the “ding” leveled up, the author doesn’t need to tell me that metal working leveled up when you were just working with metal, that should be obvious to any reader, and if the reader missed if, they know from the “ding” to look back at the previous action to see what it was. Doing something as simple as that will make the story flow better.

Ask yourself, is all this backstory/world building needed at the beginning? That’s another piece of overwriting that I see very often. It falls into the camp of too much description, but ask yourself where and when you need the backstory and world building. Too much of it is front loaded, instead, put it in when it is needed. I suspect what you’ll find, even if you had it front loaded before, is that when you reach the end of the story, there will be world details that still haven’t been put into the story, and that’s awesome. That means you’ve found the parts that were overwritten and don’t matter to your story. Also, by interweaving the backstory and world building into the main body of the story, I, as a reader, am more apt to remember them as if they are all at the beginning, I might just skim over them to get to the action.

The other thing that is often forgotten in LitRPG or with self published writing, is use an editor and copy-editor. The copy-editor is going to cut down on grammar and spelling issues, so not as important for overwriting, but the editor is the person who is going to track down those overwritten bits, question why there is so much detail or why you are using a word. They are going to be harsher on your writing than you will be able to ever be. With that, it’s important that, even if you have a friend who likes to read and is good with English, don’t use them as your editor. They aren’t going to be able to be as harsh on the work as it might need to be, because they know you. I feel like I’ve read several books where they had some editing work done, but the author either refused to trust their editor, or the editor was a friend. So there’s another thing, the editor wants you book to succeed, even if you don’t know them, because they want more work from you. When they suggest cutting something that you really liked, it isn’t because they hate you or what you wrote, it’s because they genuinely should care about helping you make the best book. So find an editor that you can trust who isn’t your friend.

Obviously, there is more that you can do, but let’s spend a little bit of time looking at some books that I really do like.

The Dresden Files – I don’t think these are overwritten. My reasoning for that is because Jim Butcher gives you enough detail but not too much and he doesn’t spend any time at the start of any books explaining something about his world that is going to show up later. There are points where as a reader, I feel like between books he’s repeating himself, but if someone was reading them once and as they came out, they probably would need that reminder. Since I’m reading them after the fact and in a row, I wish it wasn’t there, but it is smart that it is there.

Lord of the Rings – Tom Bombadil. That’s all that I need to say, JRR Tolkien had some stuff that he wanted to get into the book and added to the book that is most certainly not needed. Tom Bombadil was cut from the movies for a reason, and probably should have been cut from the book. I’ll give him some slack for the time frame, but Tolkien does overwrite, and when you think about The Silmarillion, you can see how much he cut and had in backstory that he decided to publish separately, thankfully.

Chronicles of Narnia – I think that this is another example of something that isn’t overwritten. CS Lewis does a good job keeping his series short and to the point in each book. There are a few bits that haven’t always aged the best, but that isn’t an overwriting problem, so not an issue for here. From The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, through The Last Battle, you get the information you need when you need it and the stories are on point. You could argue that The Magician’s Nephew is simply a book of backstory, but it is fairly important backstory for the world, and the book reads as a novel onto itself with plenty of action and interesting moments versus just an explanation of how the world works.

What are some book series that you think are overwritten? Are there some sentences that are really poorly written, if so, share them below, please, I love weird stuff like that.

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I’ve mentioned Urban Fantasy before in some articles, but I wanted to delve deeper into it and provide some more examples beyond my normal one.

Urban fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy in which the narrative has an urban setting.^[1][2] Works of urban fantasy are set primarily in the real world and contain aspects of fantasy, such as the discovery of earthbound mythological creatures, coexistence or conflict between humans and paranormal beings, and other changes to city life.^[3][4] A contemporary setting is not strictly necessary for a work of urban fantasy: works of the genre may also take place in futuristic and historical settings, actual or imagined.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_fantasy

I figure I can just drop in some Wikapedia knowledge to get the conversation going since they are going to define it basically the same way that I’m going to describe it. I would say that urban fantasy basically does always show up in a contemporary setting at least from what I’ve seen. But as they say it isn’t required, but it is extremely normal for it to show up in that contemporary setting.

The best way that I would describe it is that it takes a realistic setting, generally earth and our world, and then puts a twist on it. Whether it’s Fae creatures as in Grimm and The Dresden Files, to the weird London Below in Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, there are large chunks of the normal world still there for the story. These twists on the world can be highly hidden such as in Neverwhere or sometimes very obvious as in The Dresden Files, though magic and monsters are still generally kept under wraps there as well.

What generally makes strong urban fantasy is the balance of normalcy with the absurd. You see the normal world happening around the characters and you often see the characters pining for or rushing headlong into the more magical aspect of the world. While I wouldn’t quality Harry Potter as Urban Fantasy since most of it takes place at Hogwarts, it does have some elements of urban fantasy, and Harry is someone who rushes headlong into the magical world because anything seems better than living in the space beneath the stairs. That compares to Grimm where Detective Nick Burkhardt is not all that excited to find out what else is going on in the world. It makes his job much harder and makes his life much crazier in ways that he doesn’t want. I think this really helps drive the home the humanity of the main character as you see the struggle. There is some Urban Fantasy, and Lost Girl is an example, where the main character, Bo, loses touch with her humanity seemingly as the series goes along. Now, a lot of that is just writing, but it hurts the show when the focus on that has been lost and it was stronger at the start of the show. They made some poor decisions in the show by trying to be edgy, but unfortunately the writing dropped off too much and the acting talent wasn’t up to snuff to pull it off.

When I think about it, I don’t think that there are many particular things that make urban fantasy strong that doesn’t make most other books, movies, and TV shows strong. It has to focus in on an interesting character with flaws and have an interesting plot to go along with it. Within that a good focus on the tension between the two worlds is generally one of the driving forces. Shows like Grimm and Supernatural, which isn’t pure urban fantasy, but is closely aligned to Urban fantasy, and book series like The Dresden Files, all the main characters are the gate keepers keeping the world of monsters and other scary things back and allowing humanity to live in blissful ignorance of what is actually going on. That tension, whether or not the main character is the gate keeper, is probably the thing that is most unique to urban fantasy as it’s the most consistent theme to it. However, it is certainly not a required part of urban fantasy or something that is only limited to urban fantasy.

So I’ve mentioned some of the examples of Urban Fantasy that I’m familiar with. There are certainly a whole lot more out there, and I’m always interested in finding more to read. So I’m going to ask for some suggestions and then give some suggestions of my own. If you have some that you’ve enjoyed, let me know.

The Dresden Files
My #1 recommendation. The books are very well done and Jim Butcher does a really good job of developing an interesting world with interesting monsters. The series starts off a bit rough as it was some of if not Jim Butcher’s first major writing experience. But besides that, it’s about Harry Dresden, a wizard PI in Chicago who is basically one of the only forces holding back hordes of darkness from not just consuming the city, but at times the world.

Grimm
I believe this show was met with mixed reviews, and I will say that there is some camp factor to the show and special effects. However, I liked the show. It is a bit monster of the week throughout a lot of it, but it does that well. The main character is interesting, and the creatures and building up of the world is quite interesting as well.

Neverwhere
Probably my first introduction to Urban Fantasy, though I might have read the first Dresden Files book before. Neverwhere is an interesting and crazy crafted world of the London Below. A normal human runs across a girl named Door whose life is in danger. After helping her, Richard Mayhew starts having changes in life, and he starts to disappear from the world. He finds out that he’s now moved from his normal life in London to being part of London Below.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
One that people might not think about as it’s moved on from being part of the collective view, but like Supernatural, it’s a modern show with monsters. The reason that I would say this is more urban fantasy, at least as how I would qualify it, is that Buffy takes place in a single town of Sunnydale that just happens to be sitting on a hellmouth. It’s a classic show and one that does have a bad season or two in there, but is mostly very strong.

Just to do some more quick hits based off of what other places are calling Urban Fantasy that I’ve enjoyed:
Warehouse 13
Supernatural
Reaper
Stranger Things
The Librarians
All fun TV shows

Big Trouble in Little China
From Dusk Til Dawn
The Last Witch Hunter
The Librarian
Underworld
All solid movie choices, though a lot of them B-movies.

Little Witch Academia
Blood Blockade Battlefront
Ghost Hunt
Those are some anime options.

American Gods
Harry Potter
IT
Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Last two I would say are urban fantasy adjacent books. But I recommend all of these books.

So you can see that I’ve watched a lot, but what are some other recommendations especially in books and anime?

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1. Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon -This board game I kickstarted in December but should have the first wave being shipped in August, happy birthday to me. The game takes Arthurian legend and puts a dark twist on it as you are the B-team that is trying to stop the fall of Avalon. The game has some really cool mechanics, and the Rolling Solo Youtube channel did an amazing preview for it that explains it and shows some great game play for it.
2. Avengers: Endgame – The list isn’t in any order, but this is one of the things I’m looking forward to most this year. The trailer looked great, and I want to know how they are going to undo what Thanos has done. Or maybe they just filmed a whole Spider-Man movie that they are never going to release to keep us off the track that Spider-Man is going to stay dead. No spoiler tag, the movie has been out for a while now, so if you haven’t seen Infinity War, that’s your own fault.
3. Gloomhaven: Forgotten Circles – Another board game, but this time an expansion for my favorite game of all time. I don’t know that it really needs an expansion because the game is huge, but I’m not going to complain about more content for a game that I love. I am curious to see what locations and what story it will add to the game as well as finishing off the content that we have before we get into that game.
4. Captain Marvel & Spider-Man: Far From Home – Marvel Superhero movies, of course I’m excited for them. I really am excited to see how they’ll set-up Captain Marvel for Avengers: End Game, and while I joked about Spider-Man staying dead, I’m still waiting impatiently on the trailer for Spider-Man: Far From Home. I’ll always been looking forward to Marvel movies, and seeing new heroes on the big screen is cool.
5. Godzilla: King of the Monsters – The trailers look amazing. And I really like the most recent Godzilla movie as well. There’s just something about watching a ton of giant monsters on the big screen battle it out that is so amazing. The cast seems interesting for the film, and there appears to be a bit of a plot there, but really I’m in it for Godzilla fighting all the other monsters, and that’s all the plot I really need.
6. Stranger Things Season 3 – The 4th of July, so if you can’t get out and watch the fireworks in the real world, I’m sure there will be plenty of fireworks as our favorite people from Hawkins, Indiana take on whatever new monsters seeks to come through from the Upside Down. I’ll always been waiting for this show to come out, and even though I know it’s going to stay on Netflix, I am still tempted to get the physical copy of the show, because the show boxes look cool.
7. Dark Season 2 – This time travel show is just amazing and I can’t wait to see what happens in season 2. I feel like the show is going to change a lot, so I’m not sure how well it will work because of that, but the first season was a masterpiece. I also want to say Rain Season 2, but I need to finish off season 1 first, but thus far season 1 of that has been great as well. Dark is just more moody and captivating in a lot of ways.
8. Jump Force – Fighter game with all the Jump Magazine characters duking it out. It’s going to be a silly game, but it just looks like a lot of fun. Face off with Goku vs Naruto or Ichigo vs Vegeta. A silly game like that is always good and fighting games are fun because you can sit down and play them for a few minutes without feeling like you get sucked into the story and must play for hours on end.
9. My Hero Academia 4 – This show just keeps on meeting my expectations, though there is a ton of crying in it, and it’s one of a few animes that I’m watching that is still coming out. The characters are good, the story is good, I just want more of it.

I’m sure there a number of things I’ve missed. I’m certainly hoping for something from Brandon Sanderson or Jim Butcher book wise, but nothing is announced. And I know there are some board games that I’ll be likely to pick up as well, but these are they heavy hitters of what I’m looking forward to.

What are some nerdy things, shows, books, movies, etc. that you’re looking forward to in 2019? Is there anything huge that I missed? I’m sure that there is something that I’m going to be kicking myself about, but I can’t come up with it right now.

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1 The Dresden Files
I don’t think that this will be a surprise for anyone, but I really love this series. Jim Butcher does a really good job creating an interesting urban fantasy world that has some of that classic pulp feel to it while having very interesting villains and characters. The series starts a little slow, but as there is more focus to it, Harry Dresden’s world really takes off.

2 IT
I really like Stephen King and by far his standout work for me is It. I think that I’ve probably read the book a handful of times or more now. The story is just compelling and the interweaving of the past with the present to fill in the readers knowledge of what is going on works very well. I also like the fact that this book doesn’t fall flat at the end like some of his other books can do. The horror aspect is strong with this book, and Pennywise is a great villain and a valid reason for people to hate clowns.

3 The Reckoners
A series that I’ve talked about some and a game that I’m really excited to play, the Reckoners is a nice different twist on those with super powers. The Epics as the super powered are known in this series are all evil. And the Reckoners are a group of normal people who are trying to to bring some normalcy back to the world and take down the Epics who rule it. It’s a YA series and there’s a bit of it that’s not amazing at a few points in time, but overall, the series is really well done, and it’s just a good super power twist series by Brandon Sanderson.

4 Harry Potter
I’m done with JK Rowling in a lot of ways, she just needs to take her hands off  the stranglehold she has on this world, but I really like the series still. There’s something nostalgic about them for me, though I am older than the average who has those feelings about them, seeing as I read them in college. There is just something so magical about the world that allows you to overlook some pretty obvious flaws with it. The story just stands up well, and while the movies might not, the first movie is rough, I will always enjoy going back to the books.

5 Stormlight Archive
More Brandon Sanderson for the list. This series is epic fantasy at it’s best. The leader who didn’t want to be the leader now has to save the people. The slave rising up to save the day, and so many more classic tropes put together, but it feels new and unique and so huge. I mean, the books literally are massive, and the audio books are great because they are 45+ hours long, so you have a good amount of listening time to them. This is the epic fantasy that I’m always hoping to find.

Of course, I’m going to do some honorable mentions as well. My goal will be to the finish off a top 10 with them, like I did with the board games. In no particular order, my honorable mentions:

Lord of the Rings
The Hunger Games
Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Good Omens
Swallows and Amazons

What are your favorite book series?

For the Dresden Files series, the world of the stories might seem easier than some to describe. After all, as an urban fantasy, it’s set in modern times, in a real place. Then again, I’ve never been to some of the places in Chicago that are mentioned in the books — in fact, besides driving around it once, the longest I’ve been in Chicago was a long weekend, over a decade ago. So, in describing these new-to-me places, what does Jim Butcher do that I appreciate? In an example from the book Small Favors, the characters go to an aquarium to hold a meeting with some monsters. Instead of spending much of any time describing what the aquarium looks like, Butcher lays out the reasons why it is a good spot for the character’s meet-up (despite all appearances to the contrary). With how these details are described, you get an idea for why the aquarium was picked, not what the aquarium looks like. And there isn’t a reason to describe what it looks like — most readers will have a solid idea of this already, so there’s no need to describe the outside as you drive up, because it doesn’t matter for what’s happening in the scene. Even though Butcher used an aquarium that actually exists in Chicago, it doesn’t matter if my mind’s picture of it isn’t exactly right. In fact, this covers for him in case he ends up not having every detail right in his description, because someone would likely complain if he got something wrong. And if someone knows the location well enough to catch that, they don’t need a picture of it painted for them anyway.

So, what was done differently overall in this series that sets it apart from a lot of others? In short, it doesn’t infodump — I’ve read most of the books in the series, and I still haven’t run into any long scenes of world-building; nor have there been any grand, overarching segments describing every piece of magic, lore, and landscape that’s going to be important later. There are a number of reasons why it’s good to avoid this as a writer. An example of infodump occurs in Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One — the author spends most of the first three chapters world-building. He goes through a ton of 80s references and nuggets of information about the characters, their society, and their world that go on and on forever. There are a couple of issues with this; one is that it ends up telegraphing a ton of things. For most of these instances in Ready Player One, it wasn’t so much a Chekhov’s gun as it was a Chekhov’s machine gun, with the way everything was jammed into those first few chapters. It’s also frustrating because it ends up meaning that not much happens in a story full of infodump. Ready Player One is one of the few non-fantasy examples of this — authors of epic fantasy are often the worst offenders of using infodump or overly detailed description. George R.R. Martin is a bad one for this, tending to include too many details that don’t advance the plot. It also happens in Lord of the Rings (yes, I went there), in which things are described to a level well beyond what the reader wants or needs.

The question is, then, how do you balance it so that you aren’t pulling a fast one, but not putting in so much detail that it stops your story in its tracks and gets people to put down the book? I enjoy Dune quite well, for example, but I have trouble getting through it, especially early on, as Frank Herbert spends so much time developing his world, all the politics, and all the other different facets of the series. For that reason, I don’t read it in book form; I listen to it on audiobook, because that’s how I can make it through those opening chapters. But instead of just talking about how some books get it wrong, how about some ways you can do better than the big names I’ve mentioned who don’t always do it right?

(If you aren’t a writer, just think about who might do these things from the stories you’ve read or watched.)

First, I think it’s good to ask yourself as a writer/creator, does the reader/viewer need to know this? You put time and effort into coming up with all the details for your world. That is awesome, but some of those details are only meant for you. When you crest a hill and look down on the plains of Fargath, you don’t need to tell everyone about the river in it, unless the river is really important and unique. I already know what a plain looks like, so I don’t need to know the basics. The example below about the plains of Fargath is what you want to avoid:

As your band of weary travelers crested the final hill, they looked down on the plains of Fargath. Before them stretched miles of open grasslands that were turning golden in the autumn sun. Off in the distance, you could see a stream with a couple of trees standing next to it, but beyond that and a few small rolling hills, there was nothing for the eye to see. You turned to look at your traveling companions. They turned to look at you, sweat beading on their brows after a long days’ work. The horses looked tired, and didn’t appear to want to continue.

Let’s break that down. First, what I’ve described is a pretty standard plain. It’s actually a pretty boring plain. We probably already know I’ve been traveling all day, so it’s obvious that everyone is going to be pretty tired. The only useful pieces of information in the paragraph above might be that it’s autumn and that the area is called the plains of Fargath. It could be cut down to something like the following:

As your band of weary travelers crested the final hill, they look down into the plains of Fargath. The autumn air did nothing to stop the heat, but had already begun to turn the grass a golden color.

Two sentences — that’s all you need to describe what took way longer before. Now imagine traveling all the way to Mordor describing everything like the first example.

Next, unique is cool. In the example of the plains of Fargath, what sort of detail could be unique?

As your band of weary travelers crested the final hill, they looked down into the plains of Fargath. The autumn air did nothing to stop the heat, but had already begun to turn the grass a golden color. Off in the distance, you could see the head of the giant. The thirty-foot-tall stone head was clearly broken off from a giant statue, but none was to be seen.

Okay, that’s pretty cool. A thirty foot tall stone head, clearly broken off from a statue — how did that get there? It’s a detail that is probably going to be important, and that is definitely unique. Maybe they just camp by the stone head for the night and something happens there — even if it’s just an important conversation, now people are going to remember the plains of Fargath. But look at that compared to the first paragraph. It’s more interesting, because heads of statues lying on the ground are interesting. It’s still shorter, and the reader isn’t getting bored, because thirty-foot-tall stone head.

That’s one way to keep things more interesting — another would be to describe the function of the place or the reasoning for going to this place as you travel. This is what Harry Dresden did in Small Favors when going to the aquarium. He said it was off of peak season. So we now know to imagine the aquarium as being pretty empty. He talked about how unless people can see something, they don’t really know what happened or think that it happened the way it did, hence meeting indoors. We now have a clear purpose and functionality for picking the location of the aquarium. How would that work in an example that isn’t written by a prolific author?

No one went to the plains of Fargath for anything more than a novelty visit to the thirty-foot-tall head of a statue. It would be a quiet location for planning to be completed, and a place for plans to be set in motion for getting back the kingdom.

That’s really short, but again, without going into great detail about the plains of Fargath, we now have an idea of what the place is like. It’s quiet, it’s empty, there’s nothing there. We also know why we’re going there — probably something the reader would know already by that point, but a nice thing to clarify form time to time. We also know that this is going to be their base of operations. That tells us a lot about the place and why they are going there instead of just what the place looks like. Using this method also cuts down on a planning session ahead of time. It literally cut two scenes way down, potentially. It also has a sense of action to it that you lose in just a purely descriptive scene. Sure, there are plenty of ways to make description more active, but generally that adds to the length of the description. See the plains of Fargath example below:

As your band of weary travelers crested the final hill, they looked down on the plains of Fargath. Before them stretched miles of open grasslands that were turning golden in the autumn sun. The grass twitched in a breeze that barely cooled anyone. Off in the distance, you could see a stream babbling slowly across the plain with a couple of trees standing next to it, but beyond that and a few small rolling hills, there was nothing for the eye to see. You dropped out of your saddle and looked at your traveling companions. They turned to look at you, sweat beading on their brows after a long days work. The horses hung their heads and didn’t appear to want to continue.

It’s a little bit longer, and while we now have sense of motion with the grass twitching in the breeze, cresting the hill, the stream babbling, and the sweat beading, it’s still pretty much a long descriptive paragraph. If you felt like my two sentences above about reasoning weren’t enough, we can even add a little of the detail back in while keeping it very short:

No one went to the plains of Fargath for anything more than a novelty visit to the thirty-foot-tall head of a statue. Even fewer people came to see the statue as the autumn days grew shorter. It would be a quiet location for planning to be completed and plans to be set in motion for getting back the kingdom.

Now we know the season and also sets up more why the plains of Fargath will be empty. It’s probably not needed to add that, but maybe the shortening days will matter to the plot later, or that will be a trial they have to overcome. It only adds in a sentence, and not a long sentence at that.

The final way to make interesting world-building is on-demand world building. This basically means that you only add a detail to the world when you need it. Patrick Rothfuss does this in The Kingkiller Chronicle series. His narrator, Kvothe, only tells the parts of the world that are interesting to him, and only when they are relevant to the story. That does mean that information is sometimes sprung on you, but not often, and as a writer, that would be something to try to avoid if the piece of information is important for a later plot twist. What Kvothe does is about the opposite from what Wade Watts does in Ready Player One. In both cases, you’re dealing with a narrator who is the star of their own story, but Wade Watts gives you all the information to start, whereas Kvothe sprinkles in what is important where it’s needed. In Ready Player One, however, I don’t know that it could have been information dumped a ton better. As I said above, it was a Chekhov’s machine gun in that information dumping, so how do you avoid springing a surprise on the reader with that? It could have been cut down some, as there was a plethora of information and details given that weren’t needed, and that likely would have been the best solution.

With on-demand world building, it’s something that you just don’t have to use in writing or in shows or movies. I’m actually doing that with season two of Dungeons and Flagons (Found Here) where the players are helping me create the town of Bresson on the fly as well as NPCs. As a Dungeon Master, this can be a little bit scary to do, but it’s also a lot of fun, they are giving me the cast and location for this adventure, and I get to see the places that are interesting to the players and really get to be along for the ride with them. All of the suggestions above are great ideas for pulling into your RPG as well. Giving information on demand, or keeping descriptions short for a theater-of-the-mind game, or even just describing why a place is a good spot for the characters to go can all make for an interesting story.

What are some of the best and worst books that you’ve read or movies or shows you’ve watched in terms of world-building and information dumping? Is there someone who really stands out to you as being a great world-builder?

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