Let the games begin

There are too many books in the world. Books have been around for much longer than movies, video games, and recorded music, only adding to the pile of books one can choose from in their lifetime. I'm interested in a wide range of books, old and new, fiction and non-fiction, literary and speculative, you name it. I've always been a slow reader. I can't put aside the books I'm not truly invested in.

These are some facts and some statements about me. For a long time, I recognized that these statements didn't add up and felt frustrated that I didn't discover enough all-time favorites representing my taste.

I tried different ways to read more, such as joining online book clubs, practicing "did-not-finish," reading before bed, binge reading, etc. None of them worked that well for me. I was still left with slow reads that barely grabbed my interest.

Recently, I started a new initiative to read more and spot new faves: A book tournament.

Yes, a book tournament. I accepted that I couldn't conquer them all, so I'd make them compete for my attention.

The List

I needed a list of books to start the tournament. One option was to curate the list myself. I didn't want to spend time on that at this stage. A certain list of fantasy books came to my mind, and I'm desperately trying to get out of my fantasy bubble and find interesting new readings. The list I'm talking about is the r/Fantasy Top Novels 2023. More than 200 books are listed, many on my to-read list. For the sake of simplicity, I decided to organize a single-elimination tournament and bracket as many books as possible to be occupied for a while. I reviewed the list and eliminated the ones I'd already read or started until I ended up with 256 books.

The next step I had in mind was to randomize the "players." However, I thought the original bottom 128 probably wouldn't be able to compete with the top 128. As a result, I decided to start with the top 128 and evaluate the system. These 128 books will be my list of contenders.

The Bracket

The next step was to generate the bracket. I used this tool to create a single-elimination bracket. It can also shuffle the seeds. My bracket is ready to start. On this website, I can give scores to the books as I read them and determine which ones go to the next round. Additionally, I'm using Google Sheets to note my thoughts on the books and the scores I gave them.

The Game

I'll check out the book's Goodreads page for the first round. Then, I'll read the free Kindle sample of each book that advances to the next round. These samples often provide the few first chapters of the book. They're a great free tool for deciding the next steps. After this step, I'll borrow or purchase the winning books of round two to continue reading. For round three, I'll read till I hit the quarter mark and fill the bracket for the next round. Each round, I'll choose the book that I'm more invested in its story and characters. I'll let go of the book if I feel dragged by it. By round six, the semi-finals, I should finish at least 4 books I'm highly interested in. Most fantasy books are series; I'll only read the first book for this tournament. Each round, I'll score 1-5, indicating interest level.

Conclusion

That's it, that's the plan. With this gamification method, I'm trying to achieve the following goals:

• Read more books
• Get a playful reward for reading by scoring and eliminating books
• Find out what I'm fascinated by and avoid hype-reading
• Did-not-finish books that I don't enjoy with the prospect of continuing ones that I like

The Progress

I've already played with 4 pairs in the first round:

Osten Ard Saga vs. The Library at Mount Char

Osten Ard Saga sounds like a classic epic I might get into in later stages, but the premise wasn't intriguing enough.

On the other hand, The Library at Mount Char seems so original and weird. It might not be an all-time favorite, but I'll choose it for this round.

Foundation vs. World of the Five Gods

Foundation is a strong contender, but I never enjoyed reading Sci-fi much. The reviews mention that some parts can be boring. I'm sure one day I'll give it a chance, not today I'm afraid.

World of the Five Gods gives similar vibes to the Osten Ard Saga. It's going to be the winner of this round, however I'm not hopeful it'll climb much higher being a standard epic fantasy.

The Green Bone Saga vs. Sprawl

Green Bone Saga caught might attention with its high ranking in the original list despite its recent publication date. The premise and the reviews seem hopeful. I'm also interested in the magic system. My only concern might be "urban fantasy" genre.

"Sprawl" was a series that I've never heard of and I was so surprised to see that it's considered among the best in the genre and an inspiration for many famous sci-fi movies and books. Yet it's another bigger than life sci-fi that might not be right choice for me.

The Stand vs. Nevermoor

Now this was an odd pairing and a difficult choice. On one side we have a heavy, gory Stephen King horror and on the other a sweet, whimsical middle-grade fantasy. This was the first pairing that didn't have an obvious, easy win.

It's been a long while that I want to read a Stephen King book. I don't read horror and besides, this book is dystopian, a hit and miss genre for me similar to other sci-fi sub-genres. Still, the reviews excite me to choose it.

Nevermoor almost lost me with the "middle-grade" label until I read some of the reviews and saw how many adults loved the book. Comparisons to "Harry Potter" world definitely caught my attention. Yet I'm not looking for a cosy read just now. This was a difficult choice but I eliminated this book from the current tournament.