Worth your time, but not a Keeper. It scores 80 and a Keeper needs 85. What holds it back is the critics: a critic score of 89, 11th of the 16 books we scored. We'll score it again as the numbers settle.
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Where the 80 comes from
Critics27/40
Critic score 89. A 70 earns nothing and a 98 earns all 40 points.
Audience14/20
Audience score 87. A 60 earns nothing and a 98 earns all 20 points.
Track record14/15
A Brief History of Seven Killings won the 2015 Booker; the Dark Star trilogy followed.
Staying power25/25
Shortlisted for the Booker (winner Nov 9) and longlisted for the National Book Award, both within three weeks of coming out.
Scores used: Book Marks 16 rave, 4 positive, 3 mixed (23 reviews), read as 89. Goodreads 4.34 (1,953 ratings), read as 87. Numbers checked September 27, 2026. See the main source.
One short email when something new makes the list: an album to play, a game to buy, a film to watch, a book to read, tech worth buying, a thing that lasts. Nothing else.
How the score works
Albums, games, films, shows and books
Critics, 40. The published aggregate from Metacritic, OpenCritic, Album of the Year or Rotten Tomatoes. For books, Book Marks grades every major review rave, positive, mixed or pan; we read those as 100, 75, 50 and 25 and take the average. Almost everything reviewed lands between 70 and 98, so a 70 earns nothing and a 98 earns all 40.
Audience, 20. What people who paid for it say, from user scores, Steam reviews and, for books, the Goodreads average times 20. A 60 earns nothing and a 98 earns all 20.
Track record, 15. Whether the people who made it have made things that lasted before. Debuts start lower on purpose.
Staying power, 25. What happens after launch week: chart runs, players who stick around, renewals, sales that keep going, prize shortlists.
A Keeper is our bet on what lasts. Some releases show it right away: the reviews, the players and the people behind them all point the same way, the way they did for Elden Ring. For albums, games, films, shows and books, 85 or above is a Keeper and 75 to 84 is worth your time. Things and tech need 80. We score everything again as time goes by, and a Keeper that fades loses the label. Nobody pays to be here or pays for a score. Every score links to where its numbers came from. Each one has a link to find it on Amazon, and as an Amazon Associate, Keepers earns from qualifying purchases.
