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I've been in a slump when it comes to reading for fun the past few years. In grad school I had so much reading for class that I didn't even try to find a good book to read. I used to pretty much always have a book or two I was working my way through. I'd say my all time favorite fantasy series are the Malazan books. What's something else I can read that has a very believable and lived in setting but also pretty loving weird? Anything that's even remotely a medieval European setting repulses me unless it's approaching the quality of something like Lord of the Rings or A Song of Ice and Fire. I liked most of R Scott Bakker's stuff but sometimes it's a little too dark and hosed up, and I stopped reading it partway through The Great Ordeal. I'm a few chapters in to The Blade Itself, not really too sure how I'd describe the setting but the stuff with torturer and that army captain haven't really hooked me at all. This Logen Ninefingers fella seems alright, I guess? I've never read anything by Joe Abercrombie, does his First Law series start picking up more?
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Nov 2, 2023 18:59
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 09:59 |
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Mostly just how deep the history of the world in Malazan is, how strange it is compared to a lot of other fantasy settings, and having no idea what's actually going on and having to figure it out as you go. His "convergences" were also always extremely satisfying to get to. I've actually read all of the Black Company books about 12 years ago, they then lead me directly into the Malazan series. Very easy to see the influence of The Black Company on Malazan characters in particular.
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Nov 2, 2023 19:05
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Couldn't find any of those authors at the bookstore, ended up grabbing Gene Wolfe's first half of the Book of the New Sun series though. Something about the cover art really sold it to me, not that the covers ever have that much to do with the quality of a book. But it also sounded interesting from descriptions and reviews I've read of the series.
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Nov 2, 2023 21:11
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Depending on how impenetrable it is, I'll probably like it. I don't like books where every little detail of the world is explained to the reader, leaving no mystery at all to the setting.
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Nov 2, 2023 21:38
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GhastlyBizness posted:Try M. John Harrison’s Viriconium books, they’re 100% this. This sounds just like what I'm looking for! Definitely adding it to the list. fez_machine posted:My brother have you read Jack Vance? The Dying Earth and Lynonese series are as influential as they get on the authors you have mentioned. (Every month or so in this thread, someone comes in and goes wow you said Vance was good but I didn't expect this good) Another one I'm definitely going to read through. Can't believe I've never heard of "dying earth" as a subgenre. I was thinking about interesting concepts/settings I'd like to see in a book and turns out these two dudes have written whole series about most of them!
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Nov 3, 2023 04:55
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Finished Gene Wolfe's Shadow of the Torturer and loved it. First time I've finished a book in a few days in years probably. Was really badass when it clicked who the dude on the cover of the book is and really adds to why people in the book find him intimidating if not downright terrifying. For the curious it's the book cover from on of my recent posts.
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Nov 6, 2023 04:23
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I was talking to my dad about Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun and he expressed interest in reading some fantasy/sci fi for the first time. He likes Sci fi and fantasy shows, he's just never read any those types of books. He's an avid reader but almost exclusively history/military history or some of my mom's mystery novels. He's had at least one book he's reading at all times for as long as I've been alive. Thinking about buying him Garden's of the Moon and getting him started on the Malazan series, my all time favorite. He's a retired Army officer so I think he'd particularly like the parts following the Malazan soldiers around, and being a huge history nerd he'd appreciate the really detailed world building. Also thought about having him read The Black Company first.
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Nov 16, 2023 23:43
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buffalo all day posted:Also, he’s sort of an ideal Game of Thrones reader, no? He watched and loved the show, I'm just not sure he'd get as much from the books since he knows roughly how things turn out even if show is either missing or has things different from the books. The show's ending definitely killed my interest in the books. Think I'll start him with The Black Company, hesitate to recommend him read The Heroes considering I've never read it or any of Joe Abercrombie's stuff and I recently didn't get far into The Blade Itself before switching to reading Gene Wolfe's books instead. I'm rereading Gardens of the Moon for the first time and it's insane how much more sense it makes to me after reading all of the Malazan books and being very familiar with the setting.
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Nov 17, 2023 21:18
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Are there authors out there that are similar to Gene Wolfe? Book of the New Sun kind of makes me think of Dark Souls, where you can't expect to have a 100% concrete understanding of everything going on in the book and the best you can do is to to piece all the parts of the puzzle together as best you can. I'm finding myself irritated when I read/watch/play something and every single thing is explicitly explained in detail. Destroys any sense of mystery or wonder. Though I do understand you can't leave things completely opaque either. Like to me there's nothing magical about a magic system with all sorts rules and systems as to how it works. It's just fantasy science.
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Jan 13, 2024 21:46
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 09:59 |
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Finally got around to finishing the second half of Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. Definitely up there as one of my favorite sci-fi/fantasy series. Do the other series he's written with this setting hold up compared to Book of the New Sun? Otherwise, I think I'm gonna go back to rereading Lord of the Rings for the first time since high school.
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Mar 28, 2024 17:50
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