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Yeah it's fortunate that I love things that are introduced but not explained.
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Jan 12, 2023 16:48
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Are there other books and/or book series out there that do the same thing Malazan does? Big cast / historical vibe, where you have to figure out what's going on, piece together the worldbuilding, etc? If you know of any that are worth it, tell me!
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Jan 12, 2023 16:56
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I read 7 books of Malazan as a teen and thought they were good (although a couple individual ones I found kind of tedious). Then I ran out of books. And even though Erikson is a much faster penner of prose than most authors I've read, I've never really felt like going back and finishing the series since. Part of it is just knowing I'll need to start again from book 1 if I want to remember what happened due to how dense it is.
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Jan 12, 2023 17:26
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StrixNebulosa posted:Are there other books and/or book series out there that do the same thing Malazan does? Big cast / historical vibe, where you have to figure out what's going on, piece together the worldbuilding, etc? If you know of any that are worth it, tell me! Join the Graydons in the Commonweal thread. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4006013&perpage=40&noseen=1
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Jan 12, 2023 17:37
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BlindSite posted:I never found the malazan series that hard to follow. I did cheat a little downloading the fictionary dictionaries for my kindle that were spoiler free but would remind you who a character was if you got a little confused Wait this is a thing? How do you do this? Does it exist for other book series?
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Jan 12, 2023 18:13
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I use X-Ray on Kindle for that kind of stuff a lot and it's always disappointing when books don't have it
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Jan 12, 2023 18:14
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StrixNebulosa posted:Are there other books and/or book series out there that do the same thing Malazan does? Big cast / historical vibe, where you have to figure out what's going on, piece together the worldbuilding, etc? If you know of any that are worth it, tell me! Peter H. Wilson's The Thirty Years War
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Jan 12, 2023 18:17
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StrixNebulosa posted:Are there other books and/or book series out there that do the same thing Malazan does? Big cast / historical vibe, where you have to figure out what's going on, piece together the worldbuilding, etc? If you know of any that are worth it, tell me! Dune
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Jan 12, 2023 19:32
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StrixNebulosa posted:Are there other books and/or book series out there that do the same thing Malazan does? Big cast / historical vibe, where you have to figure out what's going on, piece together the worldbuilding, etc? If you know of any that are worth it, tell me! Michael Moorcock's "Second Ether" trilogy (Blood, Fabulous Harbours, The War Amongst the Angels) doesn't have as huge a cast as Malazan, but it's got the no-exposition, just-hang-on-and-it'll-start-making-sense-eventually style in spades.
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Jan 12, 2023 19:40
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Gaius Marius posted:Peter H. Wilson's The Thirty Years War non-ironic thanks and will read I've been replaying Darklands so this is perfect Oh poo poo they sacked Magdeburg?
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Jan 12, 2023 19:41
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lol yeah Europe's Tragedy is really, really well written.
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Jan 12, 2023 19:45
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I never got into mazalan because everyone kept telling me I'd understand it after my first or second reread, and if I don't even reread the bible to make sure I go to heaven, I'm not rereading a confusing as gently caress book series to see if something clicks this time. If you dig it, awesome. Just not my kinda thing. Yeah, I think "this will make sense in 10 book's time/on a re-read" is not actually much of a defense. LIke the bit Battuta alluded to earlier, with a guy maybe killing his pig-god. The events that sets in motion, the whole arc of that journey and the fallout from it, is fantastic. Absolutely top-notch Epic Fantasy, with some real good emotion behind it. But that's 6 books down the line! And it won't suddenly make that scene in book 2 retroactively engaging or compelling I don't think the books even need to be as obtuse and vague as they are. One of Erikson's strength is slowly unpeeling the mysteries behind a characters beliefs and motivations - there are gods and emperors and immortal dark elf kings, people who change the fate of continents, who's motivations are a mystery to the reader and the PoV characters, and it's wonderful seeing them slowly unfold and develop. But occasionaly there are moments of "what just happened?" that get in the way of the fun mystery of why they happened. But also there are some great moments of "what the gently caress is going on?" where everything descends into sheer chaos and pandemonium and it's great fun watching the characters trying to react to stuff they barely understand. So really I've just said that some confusing bits are good, some confusing bits are bad, and I like it when the confusing bits are good.
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Jan 12, 2023 20:23
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StrixNebulosa posted:Are there other books and/or book series out there that do the same thing Malazan does? Big cast / historical vibe, where you have to figure out what's going on, piece together the worldbuilding, etc? If you know of any that are worth it, tell me! Presuming you've read gideon, bc if not gosh (it's not finished yet but it's amazing)
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Jan 12, 2023 20:27
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I never got into mazalan because everyone kept telling me I'd understand it after my first or second reread, and if I don't even reread the bible to make sure I go to heaven, I'm not rereading a confusing as gently caress book series to see if something clicks this time. If you dig it, awesome. Just not my kinda thing. On the other hand, the Old Testament does a pretty good job at world building and it is always a good idea to reread some parts to really get the background and see how the dinosaurs fit in. Too bad it is so logically inconsistent and the ending is just pure deus ex machina. The sequel is a letdown, since it is just the same story told from four different viewpoints, followed by random ramblings by people who wasn’t even in the main storyline.
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Jan 12, 2023 20:30
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Strom Cuzewon posted:But also there are some great moments of "what the gently caress is going on?" where everything descends into sheer chaos and pandemonium and it's great fun watching the characters trying to react to stuff they barely understand. So really I've just said that some confusing bits are good, some confusing bits are bad, and I like it when the confusing bits are good. I'm at the part in Deadhouse Gates where Kulp and the boar marines hooked up with No-Hands and his crew and they just found the headless galley drifiting and blew the whistle. I was like, oh this is really cool and creepy, then I was like, wait how the gently caress did they end up in here again. I still have no idea what an azath is despite one being created in the previous book, no idea what this gate they're looking for is, or why all these shapeshifters are fighting in a perpetual and stationary dust storm. There's a lot going on and this book only has one main and two side characters from the previous ones. Still, I'm enjoying it all.
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Jan 12, 2023 20:44
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Two books from Nnedi Okorafor Akata Witch (Nsibidi Scripts #1) - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004IYJEG0/ Akata Warrior (Nsibidi Scripts #2) - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06W2J891T/ The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PI181JI/
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Jan 12, 2023 23:22
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Cardiac posted:The sequel is a letdown, since it is just the same story told from four different viewpoints, followed by random ramblings by people who wasn’t even in the main storyline.
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Jan 12, 2023 23:24
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Gaius Marius posted:Peter H. Wilson's The Thirty Years War Well played, very Richelieu
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Jan 12, 2023 23:44
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Danhenge posted:Has anyone else read stuff by Paul McAuley? I just finished The Burn Line which was not very action packed but still kept my attention in a way I didn't expect. I really like Paul McAuley but most is more situational than action sci-fi, cowboy angels being the biggest outlier. His quiet war books about a Brazil dominated earth fighting against outer planets and Kuiper belt colonies is great but slower than you'd think given the subject matter. I think I prefer his single book efforts, cowboy angels, red dust, war of the maps. Two of his books were on the SF masterworks releases, I think fairyland was the best of the two. Pasquale's angel was interesting, sort of alternative history renaissance Italy.
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Jan 12, 2023 23:46
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zoux posted:I'm at the part in Deadhouse Gates where Kulp and the boar marines hooked up with No-Hands and his crew and they just found the headless galley drifiting and blew the whistle. I was like, oh this is really cool and creepy, then I was like, wait how the gently caress did they end up in here again. I still have no idea what an azath is despite one being created in the previous book, no idea what this gate they're looking for is, or why all these shapeshifters are fighting in a perpetual and stationary dust storm. There's a lot going on and this book only has one main and two side characters from the previous ones. Still, I'm enjoying it all.
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Jan 13, 2023 00:02
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Hell Bent, the sequel to Ninth House, is out and a decent read. If you liked the original you’ll probably like this one too. Not ground breaking and felt like all the diligently researched architectural details were completely wasted on me, but would happily read a third volume.
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Jan 13, 2023 00:22
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Cardiac posted:The sequel is a letdown, since it is just the same story told from four different viewpoints, followed by random ramblings by people who wasn’t even in the main storyline. I loved Rashomon!
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Jan 13, 2023 00:27
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I never read anything quite like Malazan, so that was fun. The Chain of Dogs sequence is one of the best fiction I ever read. The one thing that put me off was the increasingly verbose, introspective pseudo-philosophical pages long treatises the characters would launch randomly in the late books. This tendency got worse and worse, the latest books in Malazan series really needed a merciless editor. I still finished the series, still like the overall confusion of things (Magic was mysterious! WTF is a warren? How do you ascend actually?) but you really need a wiki to keep track of everything. edit: The first book in Commonweal is actually pretty close and is a great read.
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Jan 13, 2023 00:33
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StrixNebulosa posted:Are there other books and/or book series out there that do the same thing Malazan does? Big cast / historical vibe, where you have to figure out what's going on, piece together the worldbuilding, etc? If you know of any that are worth it, tell me! The Dragon Waiting by John M Ford Avram Davidson's Vergil Magus and Peregrine books and his Doctor Eszterhazy stories
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Jan 13, 2023 00:56
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zoux posted:I'm at the part in Deadhouse Gates where Kulp and the boar marines hooked up with No-Hands and his crew and they just found the headless galley drifiting and blew the whistle. I was like, oh this is really cool and creepy, then I was like, wait how the gently caress did they end up in here again. I still have no idea what an azath is despite one being created in the previous book, no idea what this gate they're looking for is, or why all these shapeshifters are fighting in a perpetual and stationary dust storm. There's a lot going on and this book only has one main and two side characters from the previous ones. Still, I'm enjoying it all. The thing about Malazan is that it flings you into the middle of the story and expects you to just roll with it. Doesn't tell you what anything is, how anything works, or why any of these things are important. It almost all gets explained eventually, but it takes "show, don't tell" almost to a fault and you've really just got to piece poo poo together from various things to find out what some things are. You can definitely tell it was written by an archaeologist.
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Jan 13, 2023 01:01
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pradmer posted:Two books from Nnedi Okorafor Sadly not in Canada, but apparently the Binti trilogy are all on sale here (on both Amazon and Kobo).
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Jan 13, 2023 01:01
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I read Mazalan and felt that the first half of the series was good but the last half just went way up its own rear end and started both explaining things that didn't need to be and spending way too much time on rape.
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Jan 13, 2023 01:10
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Benagain posted:I read Mazalan and felt that the first half of the series was good but the last half just went way up its own rear end and started both explaining things that didn't need to be and spending way too much time on rape. Nympho zombie anemone vagina is a character I remember with zero fondness
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Jan 13, 2023 01:15
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Everyone posted:And... no, I can't imagine enjoying this thing enough to invest the amount of time (and money) I'd need to invest to really get into it. Yeah, I want to read the series, but it's at least a hundred dollars to read them, and I can only lay out that kind of scratch over the course of, like, a year. WarpDogs posted:and at its worst, it's like reading a fan wiki for a JRPG series you've never played Well, now I want to read them more.
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Jan 13, 2023 01:21
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Phew, finished up book 2 of Thomas Covenant, The Illearth War. I devoured the book. If Lord Foul's Bane was a pleasant surprise, then The Illearth War was like a revelation. Nearly all of Donaldson's quirks remains, but it feels tighter, more masterful, better edited. The structure of the book was much more exciting, with the palpable sense of dread and anticipation leading up to war, the actual war itself with strategies and cool action scenes and a doomed march that was evocative (coincidentally, given the latest discussion) of Coltaine's Chain of Dogs. It was wonderful Even the worldbuilding felt stronger, with things hinted at in the background having tangible contributions to the story. Major things happen every single chapter, which is no small feat, and nothing was arbitrary - every plot beat was setup either directly or via inference, and paid off. Even the one deus ex machina was staged in the previous book I'm surprised to see it was published the same year (? or close to it, book databases seem to disagree) as the first book, because it seemed to me that it was iterated on only after seeing how people received Lord Foul's Bane. The two biggest new characters, Elena and Troy, feel like a direct response to people's reactions toward Covenant. They are both excellent and contrast nicely with Covenant, even better than Mhoram or Foamfollower Unfortunately, there is once again an elephant in the room preventing an unqualified recommendation. "Barely avoided incest" is not a bullet point you want listed under a book you're recommending. It's better than rape, but it's between Covenant and his own daughter, the product of the aforementioned rape... and is initiated by her... and she never quite gets over his rejection... and that makes it nearly as bad! I'm not sure what the intention was there, other than (end spoilers) the first hints of Elena's insanity and destructive naivety but that's a generous read at best. It was unnecessary I also disliked the ending. The last 200 pages were like a loud neon sign that read "THIS WAY TO CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT -->" and I couldn't wait to reach it. But Covenant took precisely 3 steps in that direction before the book decided "well, that's probably enough for now" and ended. It's hardly the first middle book of a trilogy with that problem, but Covenant needs a *lot* of development, and the lack of anything more substantial makes it feel like a retread of how book 1 ended. Onto book 3
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Jan 13, 2023 01:34
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I think Malazan would have been better off written as a Fire & Blood-esque in-universe history book by some scholar trying to piece all the events together and figure out what the gently caress happened. The world and its long history and various cultures and nations was super interesting, but the story and characters and those godawful fictional songs and poems fronting each chapter were not. Edit: Also the velocirapters with sword arms who live in floating castles were pretty awesome, too. Problematic Pigeon fucked around with this message at 01:40 on Jan 13, 2023 |
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Jan 13, 2023 01:37
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John Lee posted:Yeah, I want to read the series, but it's at least a hundred dollars to read them, and I can only lay out that kind of scratch over the course of, like, a year. Are libraries not an option? I'm in the middle of a 10-book series myself and I won't be paying a dime! the way I buy books these days, at least physically, is to get it from the library first and then only buy it for later reading / collecting if I actually liked it
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Jan 13, 2023 01:42
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WarpDogs posted:Are libraries not an option? I'm in the middle of a 10-book series myself and I won't be paying a dime! I live in Florida, and library funding is Not Good - we don't HAVE all the Malazan books in my network. The local library is the biggest one around, and it has, like, books 2 and 4 or something. ...Plus, my mother has a habit of borrowing audiobooks on my account and then losing them, and I owe the library eighty bucks right now anyways.
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Jan 13, 2023 01:48
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D-Pad posted:Malazan is an excellent series and don't let anybody tell you any different.
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Jan 13, 2023 01:49
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A fundamental challenge Malazan faces is that if I’m going to read a long strange book where I’m not quite sure what’s happening then I should really just buckle down and finish 2666
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Jan 13, 2023 01:54
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John Lee posted:Yeah, I want to read the series, but it's at least a hundred dollars to read them, and I can only lay out that kind of scratch over the course of, like, a year. eBay! You can get books for a few bucks a pop on eBay, especially if you buy a whole series at once. I hear Goodwill’s site can be useful for this as well.
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Jan 13, 2023 02:10
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You can get books from the library for free. edit: although there's a good chance your libraries mass market paperbacks have all fallen apart since they acquired them and you'll have to settle for ebooks pseudorandom name fucked around with this message at 02:21 on Jan 13, 2023 |
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Jan 13, 2023 02:17
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I've said it before, but Malazan is one of the series I wished I had quit instead of finishing it. There was way too much time spent on threads that end up going literally nowhere relevant to the main story, the end of Karsas story is the biggest wet fart in any book series I've read, and the hobbling was just disgusting. I don't want to read some dudes torture porn and rape fantasies. I can see the appeal, but there's so much wasted time and the characters have zero agency. Plot just gets thrown at them.
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Jan 13, 2023 02:24
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Xenix posted:I've said it before, but Malazan is one of the series I wished I had quit instead of finishing it. There was way too much time spent on threads that end up going literally nowhere relevant to the main story, the end of Karsas story is the biggest wet fart in any book series I've read. Man, I couldn't possibly disagree with you more. The end of Karsa's story is the thematic core of the whole drat series and I couldn't imagine a more perfect way of wrapping it up. Which isn't to say you're wrong to feel that way, just that Malazan contains multitudes and to echo the "It's absolutely not for everyone" chorus again.
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Jan 13, 2023 02:31
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John Lee posted:Yeah, I want to read the series, but it's at least a hundred dollars to read them, and I can only lay out that kind of scratch over the course of, like, a year. For me it's not so much the money as the time/interest/attention. I'm still the dumb bastard who's dropped $200+ getting TORG: Eternity box sets despite the fact that I have no gaming group nor good prospects of getting one in the near future. If I did it, I'd probably want to start with the prequels and read the series in something like chronological order, but again, it's 20+ books and the novellas, and there's just other stuff I'd rather read. Cases in point, Son of the Poison Rose and Hell Bent just arrived today. I'll probably read Rose first and save Hell Bent for "dessert." Mostly I'm hoping Maberry's gotten his rape and dead children evil establishment out of his system and the book goes more toward Dark Fantasy Joe Ledger. Hell Bent I'm looking forward to with unabashed glee. I just kind of want Galaxy Sterns to fall through some dimensional portal into the universe of Gideon/Harrow/Nona)The Ninth because I want to see Ianthe get stuffed into a locker while Gideon falls in love/lust with Galaxy before realizing that Galaxy is supposed to be John's grandma or something.
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Jan 13, 2023 02:36
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