Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion

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The Perfect Run
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Vagabond Treehouse ~ [Fall 2025: World of Chains #1-3 (Wayward Bard) | The Perfect Run 1-3 (alternating)]

Woohoo, you can do it, I believe in you!
(also, I'll be able to stalk your profile and add even more stuff to my TBR)"
You'll add to your TBR just following this thread lol
That would never happen... ;)
It's a shame most of the stuff Soo & Virginie mention don't have audio formats... or English audio formats...
I feel like most of my randomest TBR additions that I later force upon you guys come from the Audible suggestions and app suggestions being in my face every day...
It's a shame most of the stuff Soo & Virginie mention don't have audio formats... or English audio formats...
I feel like most of my randomest TBR additions that I later force upon you guys come from the Audible suggestions and app suggestions being in my face every day...
I think I want to give the Bobiverse series another try at some point... I tried book 1 forever ago, and don't think I was in the mood for an audiobook where so many characters basically have the same name... but the series keeps getting longer and seems to have alot of fans, so maybe I should give it a second chance...


Need to read 25 books before 12/30. So, I'm sorting my downloads on Audible app and found 22 Audible Plus audiobooks that are expiring on 12/31.
Some of them are the first of a series and the whole series will expire on 12/31. 🧐
Not counting the few that I removed from library cause I doubt I'll try to read them before end of the year.
Sad to see that a few books I had wanted to listen to have already expired. Needed to remove them from library.
I've got like 6-7 library books, 2 BRs (that I can remember), and these 22+ Audible Plus books to juggle and read before end of year.
Weeee~~~
Next year, some of my loose plans are to restart reading Wandering Inn Vol8 online, pick an epic fantasy that I grew up reading & can finish now that all books are released (will read from start to finish) and knock out at least 250 of my Audible books. Stats show that I've read half of my Audible library. Need to sort my huge library & mark off books in series I have bought to collect audio. That should lower the unread #s down by a good bit.

It's a fun series, but you need to pay attention to the first book to get the characters and plot clear in your head. After, stuff happens where there are overlaps of Bobs. Need to keep them straight. Easy to do once you're in story flow.
Soo wrote: "🤣
Need to read 25 books before 12/30. So, I'm sorting my downloads on Audible app and found 22 Audible Plus audiobooks that are expiring on 12/31.
Some of them are the first of a series and the ..."
So many books have been expiring, lately...
Need to read 25 books before 12/30. So, I'm sorting my downloads on Audible app and found 22 Audible Plus audiobooks that are expiring on 12/31.
Some of them are the first of a series and the ..."
So many books have been expiring, lately...

I read so many books that GR isn't enough to help keep track and I can't completely rely on Audible app showing book status as Read/etc.
New (need to stick with it this time) book record will be made before end of year. I'm not going to kill myself by making myself check my Read Books on GR for incomplete series, but I'm going to comb through Audible and add series as I come across them.
UGH, I may need to look up ways to make my excel sheet more functional with menus and stuff. Things I avoid learning. 😅🤣
I had to start marking certain books as finished from the Unfinished tab of my Audible library on the website, to accurately get it to start tracking every book I've read before but erroneously says unfinished... that cleaned up my library a bit of a bout 50-100 books, when I'm trying to shrink my booklist in the app by looking at unstarted/unfinished books... without the issues involved in scrolling on app and loading all the book covers and slowly draining battery...
The first 3 Bobiverse books are $10 with KU pricing... $2/$6/$2... #4 doesn't have KU pricing, and #5 doesn't come out until next month...

We are being trolled by the author.
🤔🧐😆
Blurb said this was set to go in 2019. Meanwhile, on Audible, I saw a short story collection was added to series in 2022.
He's probably making better money with his mystery series.

Those articles always make me want to add (almost) everything to my TBR lol. Which ones are you interested in?"
Contemporary & Historical Fiction:
- The Stolen Queen
- Wild Dark Shore
- The Original Daughter
- The Listeners
Mysteries & Thrillers
- Famous Last Words
- The Man Made of Smoke
Fantasy
- Water Moon
- Black Woods, Blue Sky
- A Drop of Corruption
- The Devils
Sci-Fi
- When the Moon Hits Your Eye
- Dissolution
Horror
- The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
YA
- I Am Not Jessica Chen
- Our Infinite Fates

Welp, that's gotta get cleaned up for 2025. XD
*adds to To Do List*

Half of the audiobooks I listened to this year were direct recommendations from Iain from this thread and the cozy November one. Then half of the remaining audiobooks are indirect recommendations from Iain (he mentioned the book at some point, but didn't tell me directly "you should read this").
As for my eyereads.... It's almost only danmei 'cause my former colleague got me into it, a random BR I joined on a whim (The Malevolent Seven) and a Light Novel 'cause talking about LNs on this thread made me want to read one.
And now I'm realizing that I have no agency, I mostly read the things people are telling me to read xD
That's kinda what this thread has become... not much time for thread BRs anymore... everyone just schedules so much stuff elsewhere (and I try to make official threads for most things that used to happen in this thread, for inclusivity)...
I seem to be the person most likely to break away from my BR commitments and read some random cozy/LitRPG book, and then people decide to read it or turn it into a BR 3 months later...
That's how Dungeon Crawler Carl happened... that's how Beware of Chicken happened... that's how Cinnamon Bun happened... and people keep getting interested in Daily Grind when I mention it (altho the writing style didn't work for Soo, who tried book 1)...
Sadly, most of the things other people mention around here don't work for me, because no audio... I still keep holding out hope that Reunion gets audio someday...
Speaking of, you should read Reunion, Virginie ;)
It's Buffy the Vampire Slayer + Cthulhu, if something bad happened and the gang split up for 10-20 years and reunited for a school reunion and shit started all over again...
Brian & Graeme & Emily loved it...
I seem to be the person most likely to break away from my BR commitments and read some random cozy/LitRPG book, and then people decide to read it or turn it into a BR 3 months later...
That's how Dungeon Crawler Carl happened... that's how Beware of Chicken happened... that's how Cinnamon Bun happened... and people keep getting interested in Daily Grind when I mention it (altho the writing style didn't work for Soo, who tried book 1)...
Sadly, most of the things other people mention around here don't work for me, because no audio... I still keep holding out hope that Reunion gets audio someday...
Speaking of, you should read Reunion, Virginie ;)
It's Buffy the Vampire Slayer + Cthulhu, if something bad happened and the gang split up for 10-20 years and reunited for a school reunion and shit started all over again...
Brian & Graeme & Emily loved it...
Time to sleep... I was ready to sleep 1hr ago... but had to drop car off for oil change/checkup... 5 minutes standing in cold for bus, 3 minute bus ride, and 5-10 minute walk home due to traffic, and I'm kinda awake again... trip home took long enough to get the followup call from mechanic to approve extra work they wanted to do, and I can probably sleep a couple hours and pick my car up later today... (just some new break pads that have been needing replaced soon for like 2 years, but I drive so little that they didn't make a big deal about it until now)... I put like 3000 miles on my car per year... put 26,000 miles on my car in 9 years...

LOL Teach me to look up. It's a failing I have being short.
Virginie wrote: "And now I'm realizing that I have no agency, I mostly read the things people are telling me to read xD"
I feel that. 100% of my books this year have been BRs with this group or external book clubs. It's been great for my post-book depression though.
Couldn't remember if Beware of Chicken was a Whispersync series or not (doesn't seem to be, now that I'm home to check)...
Got my audio copy, tho, and 3 other recent releases that WERE Whispersync priced:
Beware of Chicken 4
Heart of the Machine: A Humorous Isekai LitRPG (Terminator LitRPG series)
Never Send Roses (Craig Schaefer / Harmony Black series)
The Sundered Realms (Tea Princess author)
Got my audio copy, tho, and 3 other recent releases that WERE Whispersync priced:
Beware of Chicken 4
Heart of the Machine: A Humorous Isekai LitRPG (Terminator LitRPG series)
Never Send Roses (Craig Schaefer / Harmony Black series)
The Sundered Realms (Tea Princess author)

Totally forgot about Reunion. I put it on my ebook Wishlist on Amazon. Basically been getting my new ebooks in Kindle format. Not my fav format at all but more convenient to keep an eye out for sales or get double points for discounts.

Yea... there's no real easy way to check which books can/should be returned after reading, if you forget what you borrowed from Audible Plus (until a timer appears saying it's gonna expire soon because it's leaving the Plus collection, and only if you happen to scroll past it)...
Started Beware of Chicken 4, 10% in... great to be back...
Wonder if they shuffled the chapter order from web serial... the plot jumps to some Fa Ram time, then flashbacks 1-2 months to fill in the highlights from the gap from the end of the tournament...
Author knows what we want to see :D
Wonder if they shuffled the chapter order from web serial... the plot jumps to some Fa Ram time, then flashbacks 1-2 months to fill in the highlights from the gap from the end of the tournament...
Author knows what we want to see :D
6 days to do another 126 reviews and I'll be caught up by Christmas as I said I would... 95 reviews and I'll be caught up through December 1st, at least...
Still vaguely on track, despite a few hectic days putting me behind... and then GR hitting me hard with CAPTCHAs today, for some reason...
Still vaguely on track, despite a few hectic days putting me behind... and then GR hitting me hard with CAPTCHAs today, for some reason...
Peter Clines next book should be coming out in mid-2025:
We’ve officially signed everything for GJD which I guess I can now tell you stands for God’s Junk Drawer. What’s it about? Well…
Forty years ago, the Gather family—James, his daughter Beau, and her little brother Billy—vanished on a whitewater rafting trip. No sign of them was ever found.
…until five years later, when Billy Gather appeared on the far side of the world, telling a ridiculous, impossible story of his family plunging down through time to a primordial valley populated by dinosaurs, a clan of cavemen, an alien, and an android butler from the far future. Little Billy became the punchline of so many jokes, until he finally faded away.
Now years of research and calculations have told adult Billy Gather exactly where and when he needs to be standing in order to get back to his prehistoric valley.
But the valley isn’t the place he remembered. Maybe it never was. He’ll need to navigate more danger, more violence, and even more mysteries if he has any hope of finding his way back to the present-day world again.
And so will the handful of grad students he accidentally brought with him.
We’ve officially signed everything for GJD which I guess I can now tell you stands for God’s Junk Drawer. What’s it about? Well…
Forty years ago, the Gather family—James, his daughter Beau, and her little brother Billy—vanished on a whitewater rafting trip. No sign of them was ever found.
…until five years later, when Billy Gather appeared on the far side of the world, telling a ridiculous, impossible story of his family plunging down through time to a primordial valley populated by dinosaurs, a clan of cavemen, an alien, and an android butler from the far future. Little Billy became the punchline of so many jokes, until he finally faded away.
Now years of research and calculations have told adult Billy Gather exactly where and when he needs to be standing in order to get back to his prehistoric valley.
But the valley isn’t the place he remembered. Maybe it never was. He’ll need to navigate more danger, more violence, and even more mysteries if he has any hope of finding his way back to the present-day world again.
And so will the handful of grad students he accidentally brought with him.
Google's AI overview on the search results page is really starting to give me decent answers to things... at least when it comes to new books from authors, collecting info from facebook posts, author blogs, etc...
Once I have a book title, I can try a second search and read detailed answers like this newsletter post from Clines' website...
Once I have a book title, I can try a second search and read detailed answers like this newsletter post from Clines' website...

Have not… it’s a finished/abandoned series I think, according to author FAQ… superheroes vs zombies in apocalypse like The Stand…
He says series have a lifespan… I think it’s the diminishing returns since more people quit with each book past the first… I think he kept adding books long enough to tie off the most important storylines but could always write more standalones… like the Dead Moon book in the threshold series…

We’ve officially signed everything for GJD which I guess I can now tell you stands for God’s Junk Drawer. What’s it about? Well…
Forty yea..."
Cool. Sounds like a good BR candidate :D
I'm having a good/decent time with my BRs, lately... just finished my 2 weeks working overnights, getting extra work reading done...
Dropped a couple random books from my Audiobooks.com freebies from my Cozy November plans that I was no longer feeling in the mood for, to make sure I finish everything by New Year...
Planning to catch up on He Who Fights With Monsters, since I never read book 1 in July and they're doing book 2 at the end of the month...
Only downer is Nirkatze is making me read the newer Black Jewels trilogy ;) (mostly because we're completionists)....
Dropped a couple random books from my Audiobooks.com freebies from my Cozy November plans that I was no longer feeling in the mood for, to make sure I finish everything by New Year...
Planning to catch up on He Who Fights With Monsters, since I never read book 1 in July and they're doing book 2 at the end of the month...
Only downer is Nirkatze is making me read the newer Black Jewels trilogy ;) (mostly because we're completionists)....
I'm the closest to 100% caught up on BRs I've been in a long while, I think...
He Who Fights with Monsters -- July 27th
The Last Echo of the Lord of Bells -- December 13th
Wind and Truth -- December 16th
The Queen's Bargain -- December 18th -- reading now, 50% done
Blood Over Bright Haven -- December 20th...
If you generously ignore all the page counts, anyway... that's still 3750 page, only counting half of Queen's Bargain...
The rest of the month mostly only has some shorter books left, tho, for another 3000 pages... so it's doable, for once... 11 days and 6750 pages and my monthly average is 650/day, so far...
He Who Fights with Monsters -- July 27th
The Last Echo of the Lord of Bells -- December 13th
Wind and Truth -- December 16th
The Queen's Bargain -- December 18th -- reading now, 50% done
Blood Over Bright Haven -- December 20th...
If you generously ignore all the page counts, anyway... that's still 3750 page, only counting half of Queen's Bargain...
The rest of the month mostly only has some shorter books left, tho, for another 3000 pages... so it's doable, for once... 11 days and 6750 pages and my monthly average is 650/day, so far...

I made do with checking the unread discussions thingy but it was a bit tedious. I want my little dopamine hit at seeing that red number :D
You basically need to go through and manually fix everything by either unchecking and rechecking notification settings in your account/profile, or going into the threads you care about and checking the notify me button...
It's annoying... luckily, whatever I did got 95% of my stuff working immediately, back in September, when the trouble started... occasionally something slips through the cracks, but in general I never had any issues...
It's annoying... luckily, whatever I did got 95% of my stuff working immediately, back in September, when the trouble started... occasionally something slips through the cracks, but in general I never had any issues...

It started working again without me doing anything at all, after more than a month.
Gotta love how Goodreads seems to work differently for different people... like when they roll out UI changes sporadically...

Victory lap! It took forever (several hours) to sort my Audible library: tagging collection for audio series/books as read, removing expired Plus and loosely figuring out which audiobooks to add to my revolving "current TBR".
Best Discovery!
On Audible app, you can REMOVE books from the wishlist!
- Search for book or series & easily Remove from Wishlist.
On website, you can only browse wishlist pages and remove once you find the book. My wishlist is huge and it was too much work to take books off before.
Started my spree to read & hit my reading goal. 2 BRs, a bunch of expiring on 12/31 Audible Plus, maybe some of my library books, Drops of God manga and a couple of cozy-chill series to fall back on if the Plus books suck.
Hopefully I will be able to get it done. It's been very busy settling into new home, work and end of year shenanigans.

Hahhahah! I'm off to try my next Plus book. XD
Books mentioned in this topic
The Perfect Run (other topics)Beware of Chicken 5: A Xianxia Cultivation Novel (other topics)
The Wayward Bard (other topics)
Beware of Chicken 5: A Xianxia Cultivation Novel (other topics)
The Wayward Bard (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Nathan Lowell (other topics)Nathan Lowell (other topics)
Nina Bangs (other topics)
Those articles always make me want to add (almost) everything to my TBR lol. Which ones are you interested in?