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coyo7e posted:Mortal life unenending ... in the pain of wounds. Seems more like he is essentially immortal, but fated to turn into a cricket in extreme antiquity or some poo poo, like that old fable where the guy was doomed to live but not be immune to the ravages of age. Duncan MacLeod knows mortal life unending and the pain of wounds that comes as a result. But if his head pops off, he's dead.
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Mar 30, 2013 07:19
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Midnight Tides has started off kind of slow. I'm about a quarter in and something real cool just happened with Brys and some Elder Gods. Pretty much anything involving Elder Gods rules. I was also surprised at how god drat good the characters have been so far. Erikson is definitely masterful at coming up with and characterizing all his fictional folk. Tehol and Shurq are the definite standouts. I'd even go so far as to say they're already up there with the characters I've spent 4 books with. I want to always be reading a Malazan book. 
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Apr 2, 2013 23:30
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apophenium posted:Midnight Tides has started off kind of slow. I'm about a quarter in and something real cool just happened with Brys and some Elder Gods. Pretty much anything involving Elder Gods rules. I was also surprised at how god drat good the characters have been so far. Erikson is definitely masterful at coming up with and characterizing all his fictional folk. Tehol and Shurq are the definite standouts. I'd even go so far as to say they're already up there with the characters I've spent 4 books with. I just got stuck in from about seven months ago. I just started Memories of Ice aka book 3 on my re-read straight after my first read. Please just post your thoughts about the books as you have them - that is always gold. The first book reads ridiculous better when you go through and understand the world in the first place. Also, you didn't mention Bugg.  Not liking Bugg is like being some sort of weirdo Canute.
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Apr 3, 2013 00:19
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Bugg is really great, though his sheep fat tea didn't sound too tasty.
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Apr 3, 2013 00:57
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apophenium posted:Bugg is really great, though his sheep fat tea didn't sound too tasty. Few of his recipes do.
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Apr 3, 2013 03:43
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Kalas posted:Book 1 is considered by many the toughest one to get through. I put it down and restarted three times before slogging through it to the end. It got better near the end, but it set the scene for what was to come next. Once I hit the second book, I wound up burning through the entire series as the quality in my opinion improved a great deal. GOTM honestly feels better to me as a prequel. If I'd recommend anyone to the series I'd tell them to start with Book 2. GOTM is SO MUCH better after you've read the series already.
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Apr 4, 2013 04:43
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I on the other hand found Deadhouse Gates boring and uninteresting compared to Gardens of the Moon; only the dust jacket of Memories of Ice got me to keep going. Maybe it's because I enjoy deducing how a world works and how characters fit together rather than finding it intimidating? Well, that and subverting Dune tropes just didn't appeal to me as much as an appearance by the Eternal Champion. Edit: Gardens of the Moon is a great reread though, but it seems to me being a great reread requires having been read first. User fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Apr 4, 2013 |
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Apr 4, 2013 18:39
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User posted:I on the other hand found Deadhouse Gates boring and uninteresting compared to Gardens of the Moon; only the dust jacket of Memories of Ice got me to keep going. Maybe it's because I enjoy deducing how a world works and how characters fit together rather than finding it intimidating? Well, that and subverting Dune tropes just didn't appeal to me as much as an appearance by the Eternal Champion. Deadhouse Gates was really slow for me until the last quarter or so. There were some okay things along the way, but I wasn't sold on it until pretty late in the book. It was a little tough to get into maybe because I really enjoyed Gardens of the Moon, which felt a lot more pulpy, I guess. When I read that first big magic battle in Gardens of the Moon I was hooked and couldn't put the book down. So it was a bit jarring going in to Deadhouse Gates which ended up being a lot more ponderous with how things unfurled. The payoff was well worth it. I think Gardens of the Moon is best read first so you have more interest in the returning characters and seeing what happens to them.
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Apr 4, 2013 22:54
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I just finished rereading Deadhouse Gates and I enjoyed everything except the Chain of Dogs. The most interesting parts to me were the Silanda and the Kalam/Pearl story. Gardens of the Moon interested me right from the start. It's weird how this series divides people, even those who love the series seem to have completely opposing favourites. I liked House of Chains the best, it seems to be the least favoured of most of you.
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Apr 5, 2013 00:57
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Some people are enticed by a mystery to piece together, and others are frustrated?
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Apr 5, 2013 01:12
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02-6611-0142-1 posted:I just finished rereading Deadhouse Gates and I enjoyed everything except the Chain of Dogs. The most interesting parts to me were the Silanda and the Kalam/Pearl story. Gardens of the Moon interested me right from the start. It's weird how this series divides people, even those who love the series seem to have completely opposing favourites. I liked House of Chains the best, it seems to be the least favoured of most of you. It was the Chain of Dogs that got me hooked into the series. Like many here the first novel was a struggle, did enjoy it in the end, but book 2 did it for me. I thought the Chain of Dogs was a great, harrowing plotline that never let up the danger and struggle they were in, from the beginning to the end.
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Apr 5, 2013 01:54
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02-6611-0142-1 posted:I just finished rereading Deadhouse Gates and I enjoyed everything except the Chain of Dogs. The most interesting parts to me were the Silanda and the Kalam/Pearl story. Gardens of the Moon interested me right from the start. It's weird how this series divides people, even those who love the series seem to have completely opposing favourites. I liked House of Chains the best, it seems to be the least favoured of most of you. I think you're the only Malazan fan I've ever heard from who didn't like the Chain of Dogs. I've introduced the series to people and warned them "if the end of DHG doesn't tear your heart out, stop reading." One of the BOTF's greatest strengths is probably also its greatest weakness. It's so broad and so filled with interesting ideas that there's something for almost anyone who can get used to Erikson's style. You could almost say it suffers from "White Album Sydrome". Everyone agrees that the series is roughly half interesting and half boring. Getting any group of fans to agree on which half is which is almost impossible.
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Apr 5, 2013 06:33
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Guy I acquired acid from yesterday saw all my Malazan books on my shelf and got excited; "Hey it's those Garden of the Moon books!" Turns out he had loved book one and was loving book two. It was great happening upon another IRL who had even heard of the books, much less liked them. I told him that if he enjoyed the first two, then he is in for a loving treat come book three.
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Apr 5, 2013 11:50
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What was the offer Hood was referring to Anomander Rake right before he caused Hood to have an unfortunate accident with Draginpur?
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Apr 5, 2013 13:44
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Kinetica posted:What was the offer Hood was referring to Anomander Rake right before he caused Hood to have an unfortunate accident with Draginpur? I think it's that everyone dies with regrets, Jaghut humor 
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Apr 5, 2013 14:53
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Kinetica posted:What was the offer Hood was referring to Anomander Rake right before he caused Hood to have an unfortunate accident with Draginpur? I am pretty sure it's the whole lending a hand with the army of the dead thing but I'm not entirely sure, so you may want to post a quote.
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Apr 5, 2013 15:55
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Lord Jigger posted:Guy I acquired acid from yesterday saw all my Malazan books on my shelf and got excited; "Hey it's those Garden of the Moon books!" I met someone who had read them, but apparently read 100+ books a year, all fantasy stuff. He didn't seem to remember anything from it. You know, maybe he was just bragging. I don't know.
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Apr 5, 2013 16:34
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Kinetica posted:What was the offer Hood was referring to Anomander Rake right before he caused Hood to have an unfortunate accident with Draginpur? IIRC, Hood wanted out of being the god of death. Rake needed reinforcements in the realm of Dragnipur to hold off Chaos in the final push while Rake attempted to summon or whatever Mother Dark. The wag I interpreted it, being killed by Dragnipur and having his soul there be released when Brood shattered the sword allowed him to step out of the role without actually dying. The bit about reconsidering was, yeah, Jaghut humor. I'm not sure if it's the whole regrets thing mentioned above. I just kind of took it as...Hood (and Jaghut in general) are hardly fickle. He has a history of being very committed to his choices. So here's him walking out of a Warren almost literally into Anomander's path and saying, 'Wait, I've had hundreds of thousands of years to think about this, but something new occurred to me last night...'
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Apr 5, 2013 17:43
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apophenium posted:I met someone who had read them, but apparently read 100+ books a year, all fantasy stuff. He didn't seem to remember anything from it. You know, maybe he was just bragging. I don't know. Imagine how much poo poo, literal written excrement, he has to wade through is he reads a hundred books a year of nothing but fantasy. You wouldn't remember anything either.
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Apr 5, 2013 17:44
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Habibi posted:Imagine how much poo poo, literal written excrement, he has to wade through is he reads a hundred books a year of nothing but fantasy. You wouldn't remember anything either. I'd have to search pretty drat hard, and probably read books in other languages, to find 100 books of fantasy that meet my standards. Hell, after Malazan, I was so overwhelmed that I didn't read fantasy again for about half a year. Partially because I'd spent so much time reading Malazan that I had built up a long list of other things I wanted to read.
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Apr 5, 2013 18:00
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Caveatimperator posted:I'd have to search pretty drat hard, and probably read books in other languages, to find 100 books of fantasy that meet my standards.
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Apr 5, 2013 18:45
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Habibi posted:Imagine how much poo poo, literal written excrement, he has to wade through is he reads a hundred books a year of nothing but fantasy. You wouldn't remember anything either. Eh, at least 100 were fantasy from here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3459058&userid=167660#post399295591 I remember most of them, but admittedly not all.
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Apr 5, 2013 19:15
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ulmont posted:Eh, at least 100 were fantasy from here: Per. Year. How many good or even non-poo poo fantasy books come out each year?
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Apr 5, 2013 19:24
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I'd like to think it isn't too hard? David Gemmell had 31 fantasy books. Pratchett clocks in with 39 Discworld books alone, but lets not work out which other books of his are fantasy, scifi or whatever. 11 Malazan/forge of darkness from Erikson. 5 song of ice and fire books so far from GRRM. 14 wheel of time books. 10 Sanderson books ignoring his Wheel of Time ones. And we have 109 without even stretching too far into the bad. I think the middle Wheel of Time books are about the worst here, and even they are pretty good fantasy. Stretching further you have 5 ICE malazan books. You have the 12 belgarion/mallorean/standalone Eddings books, plus his 6 Sparhawk ones for a total of 18. Anything post-that stuff is too bad to count even at a stretch. We have classics like the hobbit and the 3 lord of the rings books for another 4 solid fantasy books. And while on that note, the simarilion was worked on by Guy Gavriel Kay, but that aside he has written 3 definitely fantasy and 10 maybe fantasy books. Add in the Gentlemen Bastards (Locke Lamora) for two books so far. Abercrombie brings 6 other top notch fantasy novels that should be in everyone's must read list. We have Dresden Files for 14 paranormal / urban fantasy. That's 171, and we have gone as low as David Eddings, but not his newer stuff. There are the Night Watch books, translated from Russian but widely available. That's another 4 for 175. I'd throw in Tom Lloyd's series for another 5, bringing us to 180. There's the ten Chronicles of Amber books, from Zelazny, for 190. Robin Hobb is okay. So there's another 11 books for 201. I've only read three though. China Mieville has 7 books I'd probably call fantasy. That's 208. At this point you can almost hit 200 without Eddings! I guess there's the Name of the Wind and it's sequel for 210 too. 8 Dark Tower books arguably bring us to 218. King started the series strong, but it lost it's magic for me half way through. How can we forget the 7 Harry Potter books, to bring us to 225? 6 Earthsea books from Le Guin bring us to 231. Gene Wolfe adds another 9 fantasy books at the very least. So 240. Tad Williams's Memory, Sorrow and Thorne makes it 243. The Shannara series is now 24 books long, and Brooks also has his "MAgic Kingdom for Sale" series which is 6 books. So 273 here. I could go on, but I'm getting bored. There are at least 250+ decent fantasy books out there, in English. I missed tons of the classics, like the Conan books, Glen Cook's stuff, the classic arthurian cycles, the narnia books, etc. I could easily see 300+ fantasy books very much in the "readable" weight class being out there right now without looking too hard.
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Apr 5, 2013 19:30
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Habibi posted:Per. Year. That was 2012, which was not atypical when compared to previous years, and I expect 2013 to be roughly the same. Habibi posted:How many good or even non-poo poo fantasy books come out each year? Looking at tor.com's "fiction affliction" tag, and just the "fantasy" and "urban fantasy" releases, there were 525 books last year. If you take Sturgeon's law, around 53 of them were not crap. http://www.tor.com/tags/Fiction%20Affliction
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Apr 5, 2013 19:34
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ulmont posted:That was 2012, which was not atypical when compared to previous years, and I expect 2013 to be roughly the same. So as I was saying, he reads a lot of poo poo.  Masonity posted:Stuff But in all honesty, you lost me at Terry Brooks.
Habibi fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Apr 5, 2013 |
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Apr 5, 2013 19:39
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Habibi posted:So as I was saying, he reads a lot of poo poo. That's still two and a half years of good reading. Plus at least 50 will be worth re-reading at least once. Hell, given the time (trapped on a tropical beach with nothing but my kindle and cocktails served by scantily clad ladies perhaps?) I could read 100 books a year just with Erikson and the Dresden Files. Both series are better on re read, and I could do multiple re reads of each. I also forgot the roman Pokemon series Jim Butcher wrote in between his Dresden books. There's another six.
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Apr 5, 2013 19:50
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Caveatimperator posted:I think you're the only Malazan fan I've ever heard from who didn't like the Chain of Dogs. I've introduced the series to people and warned them "if the end of DHG doesn't tear your heart out, stop reading." It's not that I didn't like the Chain of Dogs, it's just that once you know where it's headed, it feels really long and drawn out. Also, putting up with Felisin's poo poo is a bit annoying. What I really liked though, (TCG spoilers) was the tiny bit of Blistig. I'd forgotten where both Blistig and Keneb came from, because, y'know, 8 books on you don't remember every single marine by name. Seeing him standing next to Pormqual at the fall of Coltaine, frustrated that his commanding officer was letting Coltaine die because of extreme ineptitude and cowardice, makes me feel more sympathy for his mutineering at the end of the series. Especially since his first mutiny (running back to the city when he was ordered not to and releasing the Red Blades from prison) saves the lives of every single citizen of Aren.
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Apr 6, 2013 00:19
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Masonity posted:That's still two and a half years of good reading. Plus at least 50 will be worth re-reading at least once. Okay. He's either rereading the same hundred books every year or he's reading a lot of really lovely fantasy books every year, whatever. 
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Apr 6, 2013 15:34
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Habibi posted:Okay. He's either rereading the same hundred books every year or he's reading a lot of really lovely fantasy books every year, whatever. Well seeing as I came up with around 300 passable books without even trying particularly hard, I'd say there's every chance that 400-500 non lovely fantasy books exist. That's 4-5 years right there. After that long re-reading isn't a huge stretch. Hell, how long could someone actually afford to read 2 books a week every week for? Life eventually catches up and moves you to a 30-50 book a year habit even if you are a big reader. The genre isn't as bad as some people make out.
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Apr 6, 2013 15:46
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Masonity posted:Well seeing as I came up with around 300 passable books without even trying particularly hard, I'd say there's every chance that 400-500 non lovely fantasy books exist. That's 4-5 years right there. After that long re-reading isn't a huge stretch. Hell, how long could someone actually afford to read 2 books a week every week for? Life eventually catches up and moves you to a 30-50 book a year habit even if you are a big reader. It isn't, but it's a lot worse than many habitual genre readers probably realize. Some of your list was legit good, but a lot of it was Drizzt-level stuff like the Dresden Files. There is good fantasy every year, fantasy that can hold up to real thought and offer something in return, but a lot of it is still very commercial and very thin.
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Apr 6, 2013 15:52
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Masonity posted:Well seeing as I came up with around 300 passable books without even trying particularly hard, I'd say there's every chance that 400-500 non lovely fantasy books exist. That's 4-5 years right there. After that long re-reading isn't a huge stretch. Hell, how long could someone actually afford to read 2 books a week every week for? Life eventually catches up and moves you to a 30-50 book a year habit even if you are a big reader. Yeah, I'm sorry, but your list of 300 includes such classics as the 20 some odd books of Shannara, and Eddings' derivative cycle of the same thing he did interestingly once just happening again with different characters. I remember enjoying Terry Brooks when I was 10 and didn't know the difference. Why not throw in some Goodkind while you're at it? If you can find 400-500 actually good fantasy books, that's a skill that should earn you a high paying job somewhere. And I say that as a big fan of the genre. My bookshelves contain 200-300+ fantasy books, easy. And while I love rereading good books, most of them are unlikely to get reread unless eg I forget just awful the 'Scions of Shannara' series was. Habibi fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Apr 6, 2013 |
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Apr 6, 2013 16:03
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I'm pretty confident the guy I talked to did in fact read a lot of lovely fantasy. But this is a strange digression for the thread, I think.
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Apr 6, 2013 19:16
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apophenium posted:I'm pretty confident the guy I talked to did in fact read a lot of lovely fantasy. But this is a strange digression for the thread, I think. Seriously.
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Apr 6, 2013 20:44
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Has anyone else tried the new audiobooks Brilliance Audio is putting out? Ralph Lister does an amazing job narrating. They only have the first 3 books out so far though.
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Apr 7, 2013 18:05
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I'm further into Toll the Hounds now and I've realised the main problem is that Iskaral Pust has had far too few passages
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Apr 7, 2013 21:13
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Masonity posted:That's still two and a half years of good reading. Plus at least 50 will be worth re-reading at least once. You would seriously re-read the Dresden Files? You have a high tolerance for horrible prose, my friend. I couldn't even make it through that poo poo once, and I used to read Piers Anthony.
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Apr 7, 2013 23:01
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It's almost like people have different tastes in books. Weird.
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Apr 8, 2013 17:00
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wallaka posted:It's almost like people have different tastes in books. Weird. Taste is important, but it's not the sole determinant of a book's worth or quality.
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Apr 8, 2013 17:10
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So I just finished the Cippled God, and uh I'm kind of confused. 1. Why did Cotillion shank the CG? 2. Was was Herboric doing? Are the other Malazan books by that other dude good by the way?
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Apr 9, 2013 19:03
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