Malazan Book of the Fallen Series

Thargor

The first book was written as a standalone years before the rest, you haven't really tried the series until you've read the 2nd and 3rd books, they are 100X better than GotM.

hadoken13

hidinginthebush wrote: »

Hi all, I'm currently reading gardens of the moon (about a third in) to keep me going until grrm or Brandon sanderson release something new, and it just feels like a bit of a chore. Is it worth my while to keep at it? I know it's a ten book series, so probably still only setting the scene, but I'm finding it hard to really get involved in it.

I never got the "it's hard to read bit" but it certainly doesn't follow the tried and trusted method of laying out the story and characters slowly to build up the story. But stick to it - it's well worth it, by far the best series I've ever read.

Fate Amenable To Change

hidinginthebush wrote: »

Hi all, I'm currently reading gardens of the moon (about a third in) to keep me going until grrm or Brandon sanderson release something new, and it just feels like a bit of a chore. Is it worth my while to keep at it? I know it's a ten book series, so probably still only setting the scene, but I'm finding it hard to really get involved in it.

It will probably hook you by the end of the book tbh. I wasn't blown away by it at the start but I found the series to be head and shoulders above a lot of other fantasy series and Iv'e read quite a bit.

I found the story fairly enthralling after getting hooked but its the characters that make the books. Rather than having one mythic figure that is clearly meant to be "the saviour". You have a lot of characters some heroic, some ruthless, some both, some neither all scrabbling their way around in the dark. I think its a lot more intelligent in its construction than say Game of Thrones.

hidinginthebush

Thanks for all the replies guys, I suppose my problem was, as a lot of people seem to say, that you really jump straight in to it without a lot of buildup. I'm definitely going to see out the first book at least, probably the second one from what you all say.

My main gripe is you start to get to grips with who is who, then bam, new chapter, new city, new characters. Of course it'll all start to make sense as time goes on. I suppose I just wanted to make sure if was worth the effort. From what I've seen it definitely is.

Fate Amenable To Change

hidinginthebush wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies guys, I suppose my problem was, as a lot of people seem to say, that you really jump straight in to it without a lot of buildup. I'm definitely going to see out the first book at least, probably the second one from what you all say.

My main gripe is you start to get to grips with who is who, then bam, new chapter, new city, new characters. Of course it'll all start to make sense as time goes on. I suppose I just wanted to make sure if was worth the effort. From what I've seen it definitely is.

I always thought it was a bit like Lord of the Rings in the way you get attached to a character and then it changes, when it goes back to them you have become more interested in the new characters.

ancapailldorcha

nesf wrote: »

It improves though it was a very divisive book when it was published so you're not alone in how you feel. If by the second book it hasn't hooked you it probably never will I think.

Thargor wrote: »

The first book was written as a standalone years before the rest, you haven't really tried the series until you've read the 2nd and 3rd books, they are 100X better than GotM.

I didn't get hooked until I started House of Chains. I'm 30% in and it took me nearly 6 months to get through Memories of Ice.

keane2097

Surprised you didn't like Memories of Ice, I thought that was excellent. Just finished House of Chains (not for the first time!) and blown away by it again, particularly the first chunk of it.

I've decided to skip a couple of the books this time around to make a bit of progress so I did GOTM, Memories of Ice, House of Chains and now on to the Bonehunters, while using the re-read on Tor to refresh my memory on the other two books, particularly Midnight Tides.

Determined to finish the whole lot this time!

nesf

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I didn't get hooked until I started House of Chains. I'm 30% in and it took me nearly 6 months to get through Memories of Ice.

Heh, House of Chains made me put down the series for a while, I did not enjoy the first section on my first reading of it. Then, I've had a very love/hate relationship with this series.

ancapailldorcha

keane2097 wrote: »

Surprised you didn't like Memories of Ice, I thought that was excellent. Just finished House of Chains (not for the first time!) and blown away by it again, particularly the first chunk of it.

I've decided to skip a couple of the books this time around to make a bit of progress so I did GOTM, Memories of Ice, House of Chains and now on to the Bonehunters, while using the re-read on Tor to refresh my memory on the other two books, particularly Midnight Tides.

Determined to finish the whole lot this time!

I was never that pushed about Memories of Ice. There are just too many characters and arcs; Barghast, the march, Capustan, Lady Envy and so on.

Itkovian's death

seemed like a really powerful moment but I couldn't care less to be honest.

House of Chains in contrast focuses on Karsa for the first quarter or so and is all the better for it. There's exposition and background but it feels like the minimum this time instead of less. This is my third series after the Kingkiller Chronicle and A Song of Ice and Fire so I could be missing something. I'm definitely finishing House of Chains though.

nesf wrote: »

Heh, House of Chains made me put down the series for a while, I did not enjoy the first section on my first reading of it. Then, I've had a very love/hate relationship with this series.

Really? It's the first one I've properly gotten into. Different tastes perhaps.

nesf

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Really? It's the first one I've properly gotten into. Different tastes perhaps.

Almost certainly. Even people who hate this series can't agree on why. :P

EGriff

It's definitely worth it, one of the best series of books I've ever read. There is a lot going on though so if you're just picking up one or two of them as a stop gap you might be better off finding something a bit lighter.

Edit: Oops I didn't see the last page of replies.

Scruff

i put the final book The Crippled God down about 3 months ago with about 100 pages to go. I havent picked it up again yet, think one of the main reasons is i dont want to be finished the series!
Its had its ups and downs as any series as epic in scale would have but definitely a great read. I must grow a pair and finish it.

keane2097

I'm actually using the Tor re-read a lot on this read through and am finding it very good in terms of crystallizing/re-enforcing what I just read.

It's the tiniest bit spoilery in places so not sure if I'll continue to look at it when I break new ground though.

hidinginthebush

EGriff wrote: »

It's definitely worth it, one of the best series of books I've ever read. There is a lot going on though so if you're just picking up one or two of them as a stop gap you might be better off finding something a bit lighter.

Edit: Oops I didn't see the last page of replies.

After reading all the replies I've started giving it more dedicated time and now I'm flying through it. Absolutely fantastic, think I'll be sticking with this series for a while to come.

hadoken13

keane2097 wrote: »

I'm actually using the Tor re-read a lot on this read through and am finding it very good in terms of crystallizing/re-enforcing what I just read.

It's the tiniest bit spoilery in places so not sure if I'll continue to look at it when I break new ground though.

What's the premise behind the Tor re-read? I'm considering my second read-through and heard about this on the Malazan Empire forum too.

Zapp Brannigan

It's a chapter by chapter summary by 2 people. One who's previously read the series and then one person who's first time it is. Also I think at the end of the book, Erikson himself talks about the book.

Thargor

keane2097 wrote: »

I'm actually using the Tor re-read a lot on this read through and am finding it very good in terms of crystallizing/re-enforcing what I just read.

It's the tiniest bit spoilery in places so not sure if I'll continue to look at it when I break new ground though.

I think I missed about 50% of what the whole series was about until I read the Tor re-read.

doubter

well, I'm going to download the first 3 from Tuebl.was looking for something decent to read, quite curious now.Hope there is a bit of humor in it too, i'm not keen on series where there's no laughter to be had. Love tolkien, Eddings, Rothfuss and of course W+H,and Brent. A discovery of witches is also a great series..oh and the alchemist series from Micheal Scott...ack< so many good books out there.

keane2097

Finished the Bonehunters there a couple of days ago. Without a doubt my favourite book of the series to date. Takes all the best aspects of previous books and just amps them up to a new level.

The scene/section

crawling through the bowels of Y'Ghatan

is outrageously good. The closing few chapters are superb as well.

Onto Reaper's Gale now, about a quarter of the way through. Can't say I'm enjoying it as much but it's not bad.

There's something about the stuff set in

Letheras

that I just don't enjoy quite as much as the other settings. The characters aren't quite as strong I think, although there are a few notable exceptions.

At the moment, the book needs more

Rhulad, Redmask, Clip & Karsa

, although knowing Erikson I will get plenty of each before it's finished. He's great at delivering the payoff at the end of the book.

hadoken13

keane2097 wrote: »

Finished the Bonehunters there a couple of days ago. Without a doubt my favourite book of the series to date. Takes all the best aspects of previous books and just amps them up to a new level.

The scene/section

crawling through the bowels of Y'Ghatan

is outrageously good. The closing few chapters are superb as well.

Onto Reaper's Gale now, about a quarter of the way through. Can't say I'm enjoying it as much but it's not bad.

There's something about the stuff set in

Letheras

that I just don't enjoy quite as much as the other settings. The characters aren't quite as strong I think, although there are a few notable exceptions.

At the moment, the book needs more

Rhulad, Redmask, Clip & Karsa

, although knowing Erikson I will get plenty of each before it's finished. He's great at delivering the payoff at the end of the book.

I thought it was great. Have you gotten to

Tehol Beddict

yet? He is an amazing character.

keane2097

hadoken13 wrote: »

I thought it was great. Have you gotten to

Tehol Beddict

yet? He is an amazing character.

Yeah but he just spends most of his scenes talking **** until the end he reveals the masterplan. That's what it was like in midnight tides anyway and this time around seems the same.

Fate Amenable To Change

keane2097 wrote: »

Yeah but he just spends most of his scenes talking **** until the end he reveals the masterplan. That's what it was like in midnight tides anyway and this time around seems the same.

I found his conversations fairly entertaining. Its like a Don Quixote double act. He reveals a lot of his plans if you read carefully enough. Many of the characters are actually like that tbf. Sometimes for ambiguity and sometimes because the Shakespeare approach of blurting out everything for the sake of the audience wouldn't work. We don't know who to trust and the characters are in the same boat. It works much better than Game of Thrones I fell where the characters have very short - Im smarter than everyone else plans that get wrapped up fairly quickly. Shadowthrone remains ambiguous for a long time for example. Yeah I like these books way too much.

keane2097

Reaper's Gale picks up a fair bit about 40% of the way in with the arrival of some familiar faces.

It was far from bad bad before that as well obviously, just that the plot threads were all pretty dour outside of the Tehol stuff which is almost exclusively comic relief for its own sake early on.

ancapailldorcha

Has anyone else noticed that a lot of the characters seem to really enjoy shrugging?

keane2097

At least they're not tugging their ****ing braids

ancapailldorcha

keane2097 wrote: »

At least they're not tugging their ****ing braids

??

wyrn

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

??

Nynaeve in Wheel of Time. I googled her name to make sure I was spelling it right and found the WoT drinking game

ancapailldorcha

wyrn wrote: »

Nynaeve in Wheel of Time. I googled her name to make sure I was spelling it right and found the WoT drinking game

Not read WoT. Probably won't ever as Jordan's writing seems somewhat laden with exposition from what I've read.

Thanks for that though.

keane2097

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

??

Did you ever read Wheel of Time? One of the characters used to "tug her braid" every three paragraphs or so. I think it was one of the main plot points or something in that travesty of a series!

Compared to that, I can deal ok with people shrugging their shoulders, considering it's something I've actually seen humans occasionally do, while I remain open to the possibility that braid tugging is a real thing I've yet to witness it :pac:

I didn't actually notice an over-abundance of shoulder shrugging generally to answer your question though, was there anywhere in particular it stuck out?

ancapailldorcha

keane2097 wrote: »

Did you ever read Wheel of Time? One of the characters used to "tug her braid" every three paragraphs or so. I think it was one of the main plot points or something in that travesty of a series!

Compared to that, I can deal ok with people shrugging their shoulders, considering it's something I've actually seen humans occasionally do, while I remain open to the possibility that braid tugging is a real thing I've yet to witness it :pac:

I didn't actually notice an over-abundance of shoulder shrugging generally to answer your question though, was there anywhere in particular it stuck out?

I'm noticing an abundance alright, hence the comment. Perhaps Erikson is taking the p*ss out of WoT?

I never read WoT as I said above. Could have been your posts that put me off it. I think I'd rather finish Malazan and then try some Sanderson or Cook.