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Best Books - The Broken Earth series by N.K. Jemisin

When I started doing Best Games posts, it was in an effort to advocate for good things. There so very many folks who like nothing more than to hate on stuff and, in the sphere of video games, the bad review has, and continues to be, a source of joy for that crowd. Don’t get me wrong. I have enjoyed some bad reviews. One of my favorite reviews ever compares FMV submarine adventure game Silent Steel unfavorably to the small pleasures of playing with a dry roasted peanut. It wasn’t the hate that made me like that bit of writing. It was the humour and the subtly implied acceptance that reviewing video games is, at heart, a silly profession. Being funny, playfully funny, isn’t simple. It takes work, practice, and a true love of the subject matter you are lampooning. Hating on a bad game isn’t funny. It isn’t fun. Regardless of the quality of the game, people put time and effort into it. Someone loved that concept enough to make it real. Just hating it is lazy. When faced with the product of someone else’s creative work, hate is insufficient. At least try to be clever.
I chose when I started Best Games to only champion things I thought that other people might love. I never intended to write reviews, or make value judgement. I only ever meant to describe things that I love and the reasons why I loved them, in the hope that you would find a way to love those things too.
I suppose I should say something about these books too.
So The Broken Earth series is the X-Men and The Road and maybe The Notebook. It’s comic books and video games and Sci-fi wrapped in the horrors and triumphs of all human history. The characters are all deeply, messily, human and constantly contradict themselves mid-thought. The writing is beautiful and terrifying and immediate.
Just go read it. Just go read all of it and share the love of good things.


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