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A friend told me about it somewhere around 2006. I got halfway through Gardens, then for some reason or another never picked it up again until last year, when I read the whole series.
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Mar 17, 2016 20:41
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Fuzzy Mammal posted:Mega same 100% agree with this. I started around Midnight Tides was new, I forget why I picked up the series or where I found out about it, though.
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Mar 17, 2016 20:59
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My older cousin told me I should read it when I was about 12. I failed miserably. Then I bought a copy of Gardens a few years ago, and finally read the whole thing in December. Now I'm about halfway through Midnight Tides and I think all other fantasy has been spoiled for me.
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Mar 17, 2016 21:45
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Clinton1011 posted:This series and Joe Abercrombie's work has set an unfair expectation for all other fantasy series. I haven't found anything I felt was really great since. Same for me. I cant find anything that really grabs me anymore. Abercrombies first 3 were great, after that I felt they took a really big step down. Erikson kept pumping out 11 great books in a row.
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Mar 17, 2016 21:48
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The closest thing to Malazan I've found is Bakker, which is not surprising considering Erikson was a direct influence on Bakker. It'll be a great year with the next Aspect Emperor book coming out along with Fall of Light.
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Mar 17, 2016 21:50
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I'd finished whatever book I was reading at the time and didn't have anything else on me, so cptn_dr handed me their copy of GotM literally as soon as they finished. Now I'm partway through HoC and aiming to finish the series as soon as humanly possible.
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Mar 17, 2016 22:27
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Fuzzy Mammal posted:Mega same If it wasn't for that fat, glacial gently caress I may have never stumbled onto this series. I was introduced to SoIaF shortly after the third book was published, was stunned, blew threw them all, and in the interminable waiting for book 4 went looking for something similar. Over a decade later, I owe that jerk for getting me into the best fantasy series I've ever read. Joke's on him that it's not his.
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Mar 18, 2016 03:56
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Huh, seems like quite a few people really did bounce off of GOTM. Personally, I relished how lost I was.
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Mar 18, 2016 16:39
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I saw it mentioned in a few other threads so I wound up picking it up.
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Mar 18, 2016 16:44
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The Ninth Layer posted:The closest thing to Malazan I've found is Bakker, which is not surprising considering Erikson was a direct influence on Bakker. It'll be a great year with the next Aspect Emperor book coming out along with Fall of Light. I grabbed DG at random in a bookstore and that was that. Three rereads sofar. Also, the unholy consult will be out this year? Thought it was stuck in editor limbo? Finally gently caress Grrm. Try having a book prebooked for five years only to have it end in literal poo poo.
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Mar 19, 2016 06:03
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I finished Dancer's Lament. It wasn't brilliant and but it wasn't terrible. Keeping the story focused on Li Heng made the story pretty straight forward and it ties into Return of the Crimson Guard quite a bit. I would say it's once of ICE's best yet, whatever that means to you. Passable fantasy set in the Malazan world.
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Mar 19, 2016 13:40
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Reason why I found out about Erikson is that because from teen Shannara and Elric and Dragonlance days I stopped entirely reading fantasy. Until a few years ago, bought in a shop a copy of The Eye of the World and remembered someone on the forum mentioned it was one of the "great" modern fantasy. I was remembering two names, one good one not as good, but I didn't remember who exactly. The other name was Martin. But instead of reading the book I actually spent months on the internet finding out about stuff. I collected a list of comments about Erikson that pointed at my favorite stuff before I even read a single word. Expectations perfectly marched: http://cesspit.net/drupal/node/date/2007/09/
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Mar 20, 2016 14:30
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 holy fuuuuuuuuuck at FoD's ending. I mean, I knew that was where the whole thing was probably leading since the whole book is mostly setup for the next two but still. I loved actually reading my first Malazan book (and compared to the audiobooks the whole thing seemed slightly less overwhelming), so glad I accidentally timed it so the next one is only a month away.
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Mar 22, 2016 16:02
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How are books 6-10? I just finished Midnight Tides after taking a 3 year long break from the series, which was brought about by the awful House of Chains. MT was excellent but I'm still a little hesitant about buying the next book in the series.
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Mar 22, 2016 20:13
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In a vacuum I wouldn't say they're as good as MoI or DG. That being said, the latter books naturally contain the payoffs to a ton of plot lines and in retrospect I enjoyed them more. Reaper's Gale is probably my favourite of the series, Toll the Hounds' conclusion is pretty stand-out, and the sheer scope of The Crippled God's convergence is amazing.
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Mar 22, 2016 20:45
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i find it bizarre you've managed to read 5 books into the series and don't know if you like it or not even if you took a break. Karsa is a rough character at first for sure but his change over the book is fairly huge and i can't see any other reason you'd dislike it but he appears frequently over the next few after midnight tides
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Mar 22, 2016 22:40
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Scent of Worf posted:How are books 6-10? I just finished Midnight Tides after taking a 3 year long break from the series, which was brought about by the awful House of Chains. MT was excellent but I'm still a little hesitant about buying the next book in the series. The Bonehunters is a follow on from Deadhouse Gates in that it's mainly centred in Seven Cities, Reapers Gale is a sequel to Midnight Tides with the plots of the first half of the series converging in Letheras. Toll the Hounds goes back to Darujhistan mostly. The last two books are a two part where all plots converge. There's more elder races duking it out and lots of badass "gently caress yeah!" moments. The last book has a little too much philosophical waffling. There's more Iskaral Pust, Tehol and Bugg, sardonic soldiers, quipping gods, more technomagic genetically enhanced space velociraptors. It's the same as the previous 5 except everything is kicked up a notch.
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Mar 23, 2016 00:21
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I'm in the same boat as some of you guys, after reading Abercrombie and Erikson not much else compares. Although I did finish the Lies of Locke Lamorra today, which was loving amazing. Not really even the same genre, but the only book that's grabbed me since finishing off the Malazan sequence.
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Mar 24, 2016 21:14
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Yeah and unfortunately that series gets worse with every book.
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Mar 24, 2016 22:46
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To be fair people occassionally argue over which half of the third book is the godawful one.
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Mar 24, 2016 23:16
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Finishing up The Crippled God, did an audiobook listen for most of the second half of the series as my copy of the books are in storage. I'm glad I did the reread because I forgot just how much awesome stuff happens in The Crippled God. Tulas Shorn is one of my favorite side characters, and in listening I caught a little detail I didn't notice the first time around. Anomander Rake made Tulas swear on his life not to reveal something, and while talking to Silchas Ruin, Tulas realizes that Rake really didn't tell anybody about his secret plan. Silchas Ruin presses him on what it might have been about but Tulas says if Anomander didn't want anyone to know then he won't betray that trust either. Something I'll be keeping an eye out for in the Kharkanas trilogy. My review of the audiobooks (at least the Michael Paige ones) is very positive. He does a great job with all the characters and his narration adds a lot of weight to the dialogue and writing. He's also really good at picking the right voices for characters in scenes even when the characters aren't explicitly named. I used my next Audible credit on Forge of Darkness so here's hoping the narrator of that one can match the quality of the main series.
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Mar 24, 2016 23:22
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Tulas shorn has one of the funnier bits of the books in late toll the hounds when orfantal dies like a moron trying to eat Kallor, Tulas Shorn later on just does the sensible thing and picks up the hounds of light with his claws and drops them from up high
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Mar 25, 2016 00:01
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HampHamp posted:I'm in the same boat as some of you guys, after reading Abercrombie and Erikson not much else compares. Although I did finish the Lies of Locke Lamorra today, which was loving amazing. Not really even the same genre, but the only book that's grabbed me since finishing off the Malazan sequence.
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Mar 25, 2016 00:19
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:It's odd, I hear a lot of praise for Locke Lamora and I just don't get it. I'm a huge Malazan fan and I was extremely not impressed. Your last paragraph is hilarious. "A for effort. Good try!"
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Mar 25, 2016 15:03
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Hahaha, I was about to write the book off entirely based on that review but I actually laughed out loud when I read "triple fuckdamn." I might need to check out that train wreck.
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Mar 25, 2016 15:29
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Gravity Cant Apple posted:Hahaha, I was about to write the book off entirely based on that review but I actually laughed out loud when I read "triple fuckdamn." I might need to check out that train wreck. Eh, it's a fun little series. It's not high art, for sure, but if you can lose yourself in the world and the slightly emo protagonist then it's basically Ocean's 11, 12, and 13 in steampunk drag.
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Mar 25, 2016 16:30
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Ynglaur posted:Your last paragraph is hilarious. "A for effort. Good try!"  Eh, I seem to be in a pretty small minority in disliking it, to be fair, I just really don't get what people see in it. Don't want to put anyone off but. Lunchmeat Larry fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Mar 25, 2016 |
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Mar 25, 2016 17:33
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:It's odd, I hear a lot of praise for Locke Lamora and I just don't get it. I'm a huge Malazan fan and I was extremely not impressed. I read that review and I think it's pretty obvious that you either deliberately disengaged from it throughout or you went in predisposed to hate it.
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Mar 27, 2016 01:46
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There's Donaldson here that while talking generally about Epic Fantasy also analyzes quite a bit Malazan:quote:I’m a student of Joseph Conrad, Henry James, William Faulkner, and Fyodor Dostoevsky, and I say this: Erikson is as serious as any of them. http://www.nyrsf.com/2015/03/fantasy-is-the-most-intelligent-precise-and-accurate-means-of-arriving-at-the-truth-s-p.html
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Mar 28, 2016 00:42
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Now Donaldson, I could never get into. I know Erikson cites him as influence but he's just so goddamn generic and boring.
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Mar 28, 2016 09:29
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Isn't that the guy who finished Wheel of Time after Jordan died? e: wait, no that's Sanderson. I guess I've never read Donaldson.
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Mar 28, 2016 10:48
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anilEhilated posted:Now Donaldson, I could never get into. I know Erikson cites him as influence but he's just so goddamn generic and boring. Point is that Donaldson predates Erikson, so when Donaldson started he wasn't generic but rather genreforming. I can easily understand why it is hard to read him after Erikson. I find it interesting how much old fantasy is judged based on modern authors that are heavily influenced by older authors. In Eriksons case you have influences like Moorcock (Elric = Anomander Rake, Silchas Ruin), Cook (Mocker, Black Company) and apparently Donaldson. I guess it is also a perspective of time, since when I started reading fantasy Donaldson was one of few original authors as well as Moorcock,
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Mar 28, 2016 11:07
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The difference is that I still enjoy Moorcock and Cook now but Donaldson just feels like he's got nothing to offer. Granted, part of the reason is that I strongly dislike Capitalizing Things Instead Of Naming Them and he does that... a lot.
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Mar 28, 2016 11:24
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Jedit posted:I read that review and I think it's pretty obvious that you either deliberately disengaged from it throughout or you went in predisposed to hate it.
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Mar 28, 2016 14:57
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:No, that would be something an insane person does. Sorry I didn't really like a book you like, but that does in fact just happen sometimes. I know that happens. But your review is so skewed that I have to question it. If you don't like the prose or the characters then so be it, that's taste. If you remember the "triple fuckdamn" scene but forget that it's not the woman's bodyguard but her husband, you're only human and if you ended up not liking the book you'd let the details drift. However, when you read a revenge tragedy set in what is so explicitly a fantasy Renaissance Italian city that it's named after the Neapolitan Mafia and complain about the obsession with dispatching one's enemies in grotesque ways, that just suggests you haven't paid any attention to what you were reading. And when you talk about the lead characters torturing a "pleading contract worker" without thinking that the person in question had in the last few days tried to kill both of them and actually had killed literally every person that they cared about, you look like either a loving idiot or someone who wanted to hate the book so much that they would outright ignore the plot if it meant they could criticise it more. E: what I mean is that it feels like because you're in such a minority opinion about the book, merely disliking it isn't enough for you - you have to find reasons why it's a bad book so you can justify being contrarian. Jedit fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Mar 28, 2016 |
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Mar 28, 2016 15:56
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Jedit posted:I know that happens. But your review is so skewed that I have to question it. If you don't like the prose or the characters then so be it, that's taste. If you remember the "triple fuckdamn" scene but forget that it's not the woman's bodyguard but her husband, you're only human and if you ended up not liking the book you'd let the details drift. However, when you read a revenge tragedy set in what is so explicitly a fantasy Renaissance Italian city that it's named after the Neapolitan Mafia and complain about the obsession with dispatching one's enemies in grotesque ways, that just suggests you haven't paid any attention to what you were reading. And when you talk about the lead characters torturing a "pleading contract worker" without thinking that the person in question had in the last few days tried to kill both of them and actually had killed literally every person that they cared about, you look like either a loving idiot or someone who wanted to hate the book so much that they would outright ignore the plot if it meant they could criticise it more. I knew a bit about the revenge angle but I got the impression that it was of the "plucky band of rogues getting back at an ex-employer who done them wrong" flavour. It's possible that I might have enjoyed it more (or at least hated it less actively) had I gone into it with different expectations - can't really fault the book for not being what I thought it was going to be. Lunchmeat Larry fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Mar 28, 2016 |
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Mar 28, 2016 18:46
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:Well, part of that might be skewed expectations. I was told that it was a lighthearted heist adventure kind of deal - a fun antidote to the grimdark obsession plaguing fantasy of late - which I can only assume was a bad joke on the part of the person who recommended it, so as soon as it became... very much not that, it left a sour taste in my mouth that increased with a lot of minor irritations and a few standout scenes that I really didn't gel with (the pleading contract worker bit being one of those, though I described it that way for Comedy Reasons and apologise for muddling the tone of my otherwise 100% serious and critical literary review) until I ended up needing to vent. I was also kind of trying to work out just why I didn't like it, since the reasons were obviously pretty subjective and I came away from it with a weird nagging feeling that I should have. I can see that. The thing is, the other big influence on the book and the source of the humour is Dickens - Jean and Locke basically being Oliver Twist and the Artful Dodger grown to adulthood. There is quite a bit of humour in the book, but as in Dickens it's mixed in with squalor. It tapers off because the story is about a clever heist that goes horribly wrong, but there is still more of it than the norm.
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Mar 28, 2016 20:31
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anilEhilated posted:The difference is that I still enjoy Moorcock and Cook now but Donaldson just feels like he's got nothing to offer. Granted, part of the reason is that I strongly dislike Capitalizing Things Instead Of Naming Them and he does that... a lot. I remember thinking that Moorcock's "The Sailor On The Seas Of Fate" was a big influence on Erikson, particularly on the whole Silanda/Nascent plot.
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Mar 29, 2016 01:55
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Juaguocio posted:I remember thinking that Moorcock's "The Sailor On The Seas Of Fate" was a big influence on Erikson, particularly on the whole Silanda/Nascent plot. I should go Teresa Moorcock. I had forgotten about that, but I can see that influence now.
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Mar 29, 2016 03:15
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anilEhilated posted:The difference is that I still enjoy Moorcock and Cook now but Donaldson just feels like he's got nothing to offer. Granted, part of the reason is that I strongly dislike Capitalizing Things Instead Of Naming Them and he does that... a lot. Don't know if I could force myself to reread the 2 first series of Thomas Covenant a third time. My tolerance for characters suffering is pretty low after Donaldson, Williams and Hobb (Hobb is always good though). I skipped the third series since I have better things to read. That said, the first 2 series are pretty good and actually have more in common with Bakker than Erikson. Will probably give the Gap sequence a go, since it has a mixed reputation among goons.
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Mar 29, 2016 07:40
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