I GASPED when I saw this video title. As a child, I read constantly. School killed my desire to read. I didn't read a book for fun/leisure for nearly 15 years. I moved countries & had time to kill because I was sitting on trains a LOT. I had a friend who happened to have some books they offered to loan me. They gave me...frickin' John Scalzi. I've never looked back. I read 50+ books a year. I watch Booktube in my spare time. I have a book club & subscribe to book magazines. I'm back to my first love: reading. And I always say the singular reason is Scalzi. One of my favorite books of all time is "Little Fuzzy", the first book I read for fun after 15 years (and one of the few books I've re-read). To this day, I've never given any book by him less than 4 stars. Seeing one of my favorite Booktubers make a video highlighting why he's so great made my Friday! Thanks Willow!! ♥
@WillowTalksBooks
6 ай бұрын
Wow, what a story!! That’s so wonderful! I’m so happy for you and I can see how Scalzi could have this effect on someone!
@Calcprof
6 ай бұрын
Many years back (the 90s?) LeGuin visited Georgia Tech for about a week. She is not only a great writer, but she was fantastic as an academic guest. I particularly remember one small group lunch with her, and conversations about the state of the world.
@WillowTalksBooks
6 ай бұрын
Wow, that’s amazing! You lucky thing
@aidab263
6 ай бұрын
i recently picked up the kaiju preservatiom society after you recommended it and i’m having a blast! i was getting into a reading slump and this book changed everything. thank you for your recommendations!
@WillowTalksBooks
6 ай бұрын
Oh yes, it is the perfect book to get someone out of a slump! I’m so glad :)
@jennyking1773
6 ай бұрын
I love Scalzi - I think I have read 11 of his books now, and am grateful I still have loads to go. Of his standalones I think I was to do Fuzzy Nation next, and as I have read all of old mans war and interdependency so going to head to the Lock In series next. Will also pick up some of his shorter stories - have heard good things about the dispatcher series. Also LOVE Wil Wheaton as his audio narrator - he absolutely gets the tone of his books!
@WillowTalksBooks
6 ай бұрын
Wow, that’s amazing! What are your favourites?
@minkrose1143
6 ай бұрын
He's such a delightful human, too! His blog has some excellent insight into white male privilege, and he's required conventions he attends to improve their codes of conduct. He really does the work (I got to meet him when he guested at my local con several years ago). I hope he finds this video, it would bring him joy!
@minkrose1143
6 ай бұрын
Oh also Wil Wheaton does most of the audiobooks - worth listening to a sample!
@WillowTalksBooks
6 ай бұрын
Oh that is so wonderful to hear! I had no idea what he’s like as a person, but his writing speaks to a good person. I’m thrilled to hear that 💜
@rowdyyates4630
6 ай бұрын
Ahhh thank you for this great video Willow! Starting off with Ursula K. Le Guin -> immediately hooked Never heard about John Scalzi but the books sound great! Paused the video midway and ordered The Kaiju Preservation Society as a gift for a friend who will love it for sure!
@Tristan-L-Space-Books
6 ай бұрын
He sounds a lot like Terry Pratchett, whom I adore. I have Starter Villain on my shelf, so I'll have to pick it up sooner rather than later!
@badger-1984
6 ай бұрын
Apparently I've got almost all the Old Man's War books, apart from one or two of the short stories. I thought I only had a couple. I guess I better crack on with them since I can just get through them all
@jimsbooksreadingandstuff
6 ай бұрын
Sounds intriguing, I'd never heard of John Scalzi before.
@m.c.3541
6 ай бұрын
Redshirts is ready by Wil Weaton on Audible - that will be fun.
@LaughingStockfarm1
6 ай бұрын
I love Weaton’s reading of Scalzi’s work…his comic timing is brilliant. Enjoy!
@straycat4427
6 ай бұрын
Love Scalzi! Just finished Android's Dream. What a hoot! I'm hooked and am looking forward to reading more from him.
@fishguy1057
3 ай бұрын
Scalzi is amazing!
@callmebibliophile
6 ай бұрын
I moderated a fans meet&greet with him in 2029 at the Celsius Festival (a pretty big SFFH festival in the north of Spain that takes place every summer, I'm part of the volunteers crew). At that point I have never heard of him, but listening to him talk was absolutely fascinating. I adored that man!
@rowdyyates4630
6 ай бұрын
I've been thinking for a while now if there's a way i can support you Willow besides joining your Patreon I'm a bit hesitant to sign up to that for some reason Do you also do channel memberships here on KZitem? Or is there anything else i can do to support you?
@WillowTalksBooks
6 ай бұрын
You’re very sweet! I do have a “Thanks” button you can use under my video. It allows you to donate a one-time payment of your choosing as a thank-you for my content :)
@kalleendo7577
6 ай бұрын
I utterly enjoy your reviews I believe you have a unique and special voice Cheers
@danielaweberdani
6 ай бұрын
anticapitalist factor sold it 😍 I might try this autor, thank you indeed, I find it difficult in sci-fi when an excessive emphasis in creating new realities makes the plot too heavy/long and characters too paper thin and emotionally poor.
@WillowTalksBooks
6 ай бұрын
I just finished The Three-Body Problem and you just summed it up perfectly. Scalzi’s books are the opposite of this :)
@cas06x
5 ай бұрын
I always recommend Scalzi to anyone in earshot
@micaelagonzalez71
6 ай бұрын
Already on my TBR. Would you make a video about George R. R. Martin?
@vickiekpopmom3984
6 ай бұрын
How do you find so much time to read?!?!? I read so slowly. Ugh!!
@WillowTalksBooks
6 ай бұрын
Yup, you got there first. My job is to write articles and make videos about the books I read, so reading is part of my job :)
@scal2025
6 ай бұрын
It's so funny to me when non-Americans shit on Ohio. Like, you're right, but making fun of Ohio is our job 😡
@zachreads
6 ай бұрын
As a lifelong Godzilla fan I found KPS to be a disrespectful uninformed dumpsterfire it got one of my two 0☆ last year. Square³ by Mira Grant is a 1000× better. One of the worst examples is naming the airship Shobijin which literally means "small beauties", there is one airship and it's big and ugly naming it after Mothra's fairies is terrinle and wrong.
@WillowTalksBooks
6 ай бұрын
Still a good book tho innit
@zachreads
6 ай бұрын
@@WillowTalksBooksrespectfully disagree My alternative recs would be Becky Chambers for fun sci-fi with rep -Below Us by Nathan Hystad for evil billionaire monster mayhem -Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao for monster fights (and much more) -Square³ by Mira Grant has Kaiju rep and really cool science (particularly bc you like Annihilation) ... and a whole bunch more if anyone asks
@WillowTalksBooks
6 ай бұрын
Guess you’re new :)
@zachreads
6 ай бұрын
@@WillowTalksBooks na been here since you reviewed The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave in 2020ish (5☆ btw), I am curious why you guessed that, is it bc I didn't clarify that I knew you love Becky Chambers or something else? (Havn't watched them all but I have seen quite a few of your vids and found authors like Laura Purcell here)
@zachreads
6 ай бұрын
Also lots of ppl don't like Iron Widow if that's it and I'm happy it worked for me and that's all I need
@disconnected22
6 ай бұрын
Ohio ain’t so bad 😘
@impastomusic
6 ай бұрын
Love this vid! One of my Scalzi favourites is Lock In, which started because John wanted to see if he could write a novel without gendering its protagonist, but is actually much more about disability politics, and is a remarkable exploration (especially considering it’s written by an able-bodied dude). One of the things I appreciate about Scalzi is his awareness of his own privileges and ability to empathize with and portray diverse characters without being preachy or asking for cookies. His humour goes a long way towards delivering pretty strong political ideas without overtly moralizing.
@skeletonkeybooks
6 ай бұрын
My husband and I are longtime Scalzi fans. He's an auto-buy author for us and pretty much the reason I keep an Audible account. Zachary Quinto's narration of the Dispatcher series is a phenomenal pairing.
@marcredskin7660
6 ай бұрын
Hi Willow!! looking forward to hear your thoughts on Stuart Turton's newest book ; The Last Murder at the End of the World, which I think will come out on 28th March (According to Goodreads, at least). It's your video on Devil and the Dark Water that I found you and been watching you ever since!
@ReadBecca
6 ай бұрын
I so much love his humor and heart, and that he takes the right things seriously, and doesn't hold any SF norms as holy. KPS and Lock In have characters that are never gendered, I love how seamlessly Scalzi wrote it that most people don't even notice. Lock in has two different narrators you might get on audio, so it was intriguing how people inferred the characters gender differently off that and the discussion around it at the time it came out. I think my favorite is Fuzzy Nation, His rewrite of Little Fuzzy. Its wonderfully anti-capitalist, with looks at what makes a person and the evils of corporatism/colonialism.
@SashaGobbels
6 ай бұрын
If you're interested in satire in science fiction, you might enjoy the short stories Robert Sheckley. I remember a story titled "The Pleasure Principle", where an intelligent replication machine find out that replicating itself is more fun than doing so with other things 😅
@GentleReader01
6 ай бұрын
Scalzi’s novella “Slow Time Between Stars” is amazing. It offers an epic deep time view of the galaxy and our place in it, narrated by the AI commanding humanity’s first interstellar spacecraft. It’s in the tradition of people like Olaf Stapledon and Arthur C. Clarke, but tempered with Scalzi’s humaneness.
@WillowTalksBooks
6 ай бұрын
It sounds wonderful!
@sw3dge
6 ай бұрын
The only one I've read is Redshirts, which was fun. I need to read more by him.
@vickiekpopmom3984
6 ай бұрын
Her novel The Wizard of Earthsea was so amazing to me as a child. I love her. Great video!!
@orsonankers4127
6 ай бұрын
John Scalzi sounds a lot like Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams, both of which I love, so I shall have to read some of these books.
@saraoliver4999
2 ай бұрын
Kaiju Preservation Society. Jamie (the protagonist) is not necessarily a man. Jamie is never specifically referred to as he/him/his. It's always just Jamie. And Jamie is just as easily a female name. Truth is, we never know Jamie's gender.
@WillowTalksBooks
2 ай бұрын
Seriously?? I never caught that detail! Wow! Thanks :)
@rachel1021
6 ай бұрын
I'm currently reading Kaiju Preservation Society and so far I'm really, really enjoying it :)
Пікірлер: 51