Welp, I knew this time would come! After running a bunch of head to head matchups of books I’ve read, to get some nerdy stats/personalized rec, I’ve got a Weir showdown 🧑🚀
I think gotta go Project Hail Mary personally, but curious why you guys think it seems to have gotten so much more love than the Martian? Or if there’s any strong Martian advocates that prefer it over PHM?
Love both, but curious your takes!
This morning I was recommended Shards of Earth based on a bunch of head to head matchups of my reading history. As it says I love Children of Time, Ruin, and even Memory. But, I thought Alien Clay, Service Model, and even Shroud were tough to get through - and far from my favorite reads sadly. So I’m a little unsure on Tchaikovsky :/ I’ve heard The Final Architecture series mentioned before, but also wary of starting a big series.
The recommendation mentions my love of: Children of Time, Hyperion, Foundation, The Dark Forest / Death’s End, A Desolation Called Peace, and Leviathan Wakes. All big hitters. And would be incredible if even close to those.
What do you guys think? Cheers!
Woke up this morning with an impossible decision to make! Been doing head to head matchups of books I’ve read to get some fun stats/personalized recs, and alas after 5,000 matchups i feared this day would come… Fellowship 🧙 vs Return of the King. 👑
The choice is yours, what say you??
Help me make the impossible choice! (Or at least “pretend” to) 😬 I’m churning through head to head comparisons of all the books I’ve read (to get some fun stats/recommendations), and I knew this day would come - 5,000 matchups later. Two of my top ten favorite books of all time, and my top Murakami (I love the magical fantastical elements). What say you??
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY! I'm churning through head to head comparisons of all the books I’ve read (to get some fun stats/recommendations), and to mark the occasion ... serendipitously ... today I got a matchup that pits two great scifi dad stories against each other. The Road (a deeply moving father and son dystopian survival story) vs. Hyperion (and the equally soul crushing Sol Weintraub's story of his love for his daughter).
Who you picking? And any other great speculative fiction novels to honor the fellow dads on Father's day you can think of? Cheers and happy dads day all!
Help me make the impossible choice! 😬 I’m churning through head to head comparisons of all the books I’ve read (to get some fun stats/recommendations), and I knew this day would come - 5,000 matchups later. What say you?? 🪲
Hey all, after doing a bunch of head to head matchups of my library, I was recommended two PKD novels: Man in the High Castle and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.
Like it says, I love Ubik, Scanner Darkly, .. Vonnegut and Murakami’s weirdest novels. I’ve been on the fence about picking up Man in the High Castle as I’ve heard really mixed reviews. Don’t know much about Three Stigmata though.
Curious what you all think. Do the rationales make sense for why someone might like either? One seem more like a better fit? You have a preference , or lean one way when recommending to a friend?
Cheers, excited to learn more!
Hey all, after doing a bunch of head to head matchups of my library, I was recommended “The Word for World is Forest” by Le Guin. Like it says, I love The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed; but actually wasn’t super captivated by Earthsea (although the vibe and atmosphere has stuck with me).
Never heard of this one though. Curious what you all think, have you read it? Does it look like the rationale makes sense for why someone might like it? Cheers, excited to learn more! And hear about this novel(la?)
After 5,000 head to head matchups of all the books in my library, Hyperion is king 👑 The shrike would have it no other way.
Assuming Hyperion is in your top 3, what else you got up there?
What say you?? I’m churning through head to head battles of all the books I’ve read (to get some fun stats/rankings), and I knew this day would come - 5,000 matchups later. Help me make the impossible choice! ⚔️
After more than 4000 head to head matchups of all the books I've read (to get Elo-like rankings), Asimov reigns supreme. No surprise for me; I've read 11 of his books, Foundation series being one of my favorites of all time (with the Robot detective novels not too far behind).
I acknowledge he's far from a perfect writer (and dated of course) -- but something about the way he tells stories holds a soft spot for me. I've joked that each of his novels is almost like a long drawn-out "court room scene"; as if he just extrapolated on the dialogue of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (for an entire novel, ha).
A few of my other favorites pictured (Murakami for magical realism, Abercrombie for fantasy, and of course Le Guin and Vonnegut for more classic literary scifi).
Who is at the top of your list? Which author(s) do you have a strong affinity for? Find yourself reading everything they publish (the good and the bad)
Hey all I hope this is okay! My wife and I are big readers (me mostly sci-fi fantasy), we always have a yearly challenge, and we enjoy talking about our books, which was our favorite, what did we read that year, etc…
So in my spare time I built us a simple app that lets you import your reading history/library and then does these quick fire head-to-head matchups of your past reads. It then uses those preferences to build you a comprehensive ranking of your books (for the fellow nerds it’s Elo scores, like in Chess). I figured it would be a helpful reading challenge motivator.
I’ve been surprised though at how much me and my wife share and talk about our matchups — she’ll often send me a “Dune vs The Return of the King!?!” Screenshot and we’ll agonize over the choice together. Or we’ll compare rankings (“Speaker for the Dead is your number 1!?”), see how a new book we both read stacks up, etc. it’s been surprisingly fun and a way to revisit all the amazing books we’ve read and great content for debate/discussion amongst each other and friends! It even shows you your favorite authors in the end, which has helped me hone in on who to further explore.
Anyways, we’ve had so much that I put some more energy into making it usable by others and wanted to share, see what people think, and make it better. It’s completely free of course, just a side project by a lover of books and scifi nerd. Would love for this community to give it a try - I could see the matchups being fun booktok content (“help me pick 😬 Circe vs Fourth Wing”)
Anyways hope you enjoy and let me know what you think, thanks for checking it out!
And for those interested, my current rankings: https://www.booksorted.app/?snap=3df3373eee (you can share yours too! Might be good content for your booktok accounts too??)
Hey all I hope this is okay! My wife and I are big readers (me mostly sci-fi fantasy), we always have a yearly challenge, and we enjoy talking about our books, which was our favorite, what did we read that year, etc…
So in my spare time I built us a simple app that lets you import your reading history/library and then does these quick fire head-to-head matchups of your past reads. It then uses those preferences to build you a comprehensive ranking of your books (for the fellow nerds it’s Elo scores, like in Chess). I figured it would be a helpful reading challenge motivator.
I’ve been surprised though at how much me and my wife share and talk about our matchups — she’ll often send me a “Dune vs The Return of the King!?!” Screenshot and we’ll agonize over the choice together. Or we’ll compare rankings (“Speaker for the Dead is your number 1!?”), see how a new book we both read stacks up, etc. it’s been surprisingly fun and a way to revisit all the amazing books we’ve read and great content for debate/discussion amongst each other and friends! It even shows you your favorite authors in the end, which has helped me hone in on who to further explore.
Anyways, we’ve had so much that I put some more energy into making it usable by others and wanted to share, see what people think, and make it better. It’s completely free of course, just a side project by a lover of books and scifi nerd. Would love for this community to give it a try - I could see the matchups being fun bookstagram content (“help me pick 😬 Circe vs Fourth Wing”)
Anyways hope you enjoy and let me know what you think, thanks for checking it out!
And for those interested, my current rankings: https://www.booksorted.app/?snap=3df3373eee (you can share yours too! Might be good content for your bookstagram accounts too??)
I see tier lists on here all the time and I love them... So I did what any reasonable person would do and built a whole app to rank books lol
It's basically just head-to-head matchups — "which did you like better?" over and over — and it generates an Elo ranking (like in Chess). My wife and I have gotten a real kick out of it, not just the rankings but actually sending screenshots of touch matchups with each other, pulling our hair out choosing between The Blade Itself and Assassin’s Apprentice (!?). I think we enjoy revisiting our old books and thinking about them again, been surprisingly fun.
Here’s my top 50 after 4,000 matchups: https://www.booksorted.app/?snap=3df3373eee
You can probably tell I lean way heavier sci-fi than fantasy. So love any recs based on what I clearly already like. If Senlin Ascends and Tigana are in my top 25, what am I missing? What fantasy should I be adding to my library and running matchups on?
Some of my fantasy standouts/surprises:
- Senlin Ascends at #12, above Dune at #14 — I will die on this hill. Bancroft is criminally underrated. I’ve even enjoyed his Hexologist series so far a good bit
- Tigana at #23 — Kay's prose is unreal and this might be the best standalone fantasy novel out there
- The Blade Itself at #39 and Assassin's Apprentice at #46 — in case you were wondering how these shakes out, love both series, First Law prob a bit more
And of course I’ve got Fellowship (LOTR) and some Harry Potter peppered in my top (I grew up with HP).
I built the app because I genuinely wanted this for myself — you can import your own Goodreads or StoryGraph CSV and run matchups on your own library. Would love to see some of your rankings if anyone tries it! And see what you think of it compared to sharing a tiers (I sorta need a good image not just a link I’m guessing that you can share?? Let me know what you’d like).
and if you do, do share your top here, I’d love to know! And especially if you also have Senlin way higher than it has any right to be 😂
So I read way too much SFF and at some point I got obsessed with figuring out how I'd actually rank everything against each other. Built a little tool that just asks you "which book did you like better?" over and over and spits out an Elo ranking of your library (it’s what Chess does). Ran every book I’ve ever read through it.. 4000+ matchups, (this is what happens while waiting for Red God), and here's where each RR book landed for me:
🥇 Golden Son — #13 all time
🥈 Morning Star — #18
🥉 Light Bringer — #24
4. Red Rising — #40
5. Dark Age — #75
6. Iron Gold
Three of the six sitting in my top 25 books of all time of course, bloodydamn right.
Red Rising at 40 is probably getting some credit for starting it all.. I'm not sure it's genuinely my 4th favorite in the series but it earned its spot for starting it all. Dark Age sits around 75 and Iron Gold is my lowest... I think the multi-POV shift threw me off. Need to reread but honestly I don't think it is as fun/exciting as LB or hits as hard as DA.
My full ranked list if you're curious what that looks like: https://www.booksorted.app/?snap=3df3373eee
So where do you howlers land? I fee like it’s gotta be a debate between Golden Son and morning Star but excited to hear what ya think
Hey all I hope this is okay! My wife and I are big readers (me mostly scifi), we always have a yearly challenge (36 this year for me! 100 for her 😳), and we enjoy talking about our books, which was our favorite, what did we read that year, etc…
So in my spare time I built us a little app that lets you load your reading history/library and then does these quick fire head-to-head matchups of your past reads. It then uses those preferences to build you a comprehensive ranking of your books (for the fellow nerds it’s Elo scores, like in Chess). I figured it would be a helpful reading challenge motivator.
I’ve been surprised though at how much me and my wife talk about our matchups — she’ll often send me a “Dune vs The Hobbit!?!” Screenshot and we’ll agonize over the choice together. Or we’ll compare rankings (“Speaker for the Dead is your number 1!?”), see how a new book we both read stacks up, etc. it’s been surprisingly fun and a way to revisit all the amazing books we’ve read.
Anyways, we’ve had so much that I put some more energy into making it usable by others and wanted to share, see what people think, (see what breaks! Hopefully not much), and make it better. It’s completely free of course, just a side project by a lover of books and scifi nerd.
Anyways hope you enjoy and let me know what you think, thanks for checking it out!
And for those interested, my current rankings: https://www.booksorted.app/?snap=c97d3fe34a(you can share yours too!)
