Favorite Works of Fiction Media

Ben Yang, November 4, 2022

Here's an evolving list of my favorite pieces of media. I like to think about media in three categories, each on a scale from 1 to 5.

The categories below are lifted from J.G. Keely's Goodreads Profile.

• The writing, from one star: awkward, badly punctuated, words used incorrectly, cliche, redundant--to five stars: precise, meaningful, artful, utilizes consistent tone, demonstrates a unique authorial voice.
• The structure and verisimilitude, from one star: characters behave erratically, sometimes stupidly, sometimes brilliantly--as the plot requires--and have little personality or psychology, the world is not internally consistent, the plot is full of holes--to five stars: characters and world make sense, operate off of consistent, internal logic, characters act according to their personality and psychology, plot is well-paced, leading from scene to scene smoothly, and with purpose.
• The ideas explored, from one star: sounds like every other author in the genre, ideas are poorly-explained, contradict one another, are not fully explored, don't make sense, and rely on author filibustering--to five stars: author combines various inspirations and philosophies, creating a new vision; ideas are explored fully, illustrated by carefully-chosen scenes and characters, and seem to be well-thought-out and consistent.

With these in mind, here are the pieces of fiction I think score a 5 in all of these categories:

Here are some honorable mentions:

This work is licensed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.