Malazan Book of the Fallen Series

Evac101

Just finished Orb, Sceptre, Throne. Spoiler free review is: Very good but.

keane2097

Makes any books by any other authors I've read look like babytown frolics.

Reading Game of Thrones at the moment and it's like it was written for kids by comparison.

I recommend waiting till you're pretty sure you've only got time to read one more fantasy series before you die, because you're ruining all the rest if you read these early.

Temptamperu

I got the first book there and read... tried to read some on the tram, its heavy from the get go i like that. might just curl me self up and have a lash of it.

Trojan

Steven Erikson wrote:

When I first started up, I was left slack-jawed by a certain trilogy called The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, but rather than giving up in the face of that, I took it as inspiration.

I think this explains why I'm not so crazy about Malazan...

ixoy

I see "Forge of Darkness", the first book in the Kharkanas trilogy, is due for release on the Kindle on July 31st.

Now for the rant: I also see it's for the rip-off price of $19.20. Erikson's publishers (and ICE's) seem to charge far in excess of the average eBook price for their works. "Orb Sceptre Throne" is still $19.47 - the paper back was cheaper on release in Irish stores. Why can't it be closer to Peter F. Hamilton's new book which I pre-ordered for $12.50 which is far more reasonable (and of a similar size)? Greedy publishers will only hurt themselves.

Zapp Brannigan

I don't get it until Sept over here

PADRAGON

Fantastic read one of the best series out there.
Horribly confusing at times but well worth all
the headwreckery.
Unforgettable.
Highly recommended.

Xaniaj

I'm about half way through the second book currently and really enjoying it.

It took me two attempts to start the first book (I don't think I was mentally prepared first time around) and I'm still telling my girlfriend that "I'm not sure what's going on but I'm loving it!" :pac:

fitz

Imo, despite it being a little slow to start, if you get to the end of Deadhouse Gates and aren't floored, then Erikson isn't for you. The Chain of Dogs arc completely knocked me sidewise. I think from the second half of Deadhouse on, you start to get settled in to his writing and things start to make a degree of sense.
I found everything from the second half of Deadhouse to really fly along, until Toll the Hounds and Dust of Dreams which were heavy going for the first half, with incredible endings.

My favourite series of books, bar none.

titan18

Aye, anyone new really needs to get to the Chain of Dogs before deciding whether to continue. The first book really just drops you into it, and it takes that long to actually get into it imo.

Achillles

Am I the only one who found the first book amongst my favourite of the series? Probably my favourite series ever and found the first book ridiculously original. I remember my girlfriend at the time asking me what it was about, all I could say was your guess is as good as mine!

fitz

Achillles wrote: »

Am I the only one who found the first book amongst my favourite of the series? Probably my favourite series ever and found the first book ridiculously original. I remember my girlfriend at the time asking me what it was about, all I could say was your guess is as good as mine!

The first book has a big impact because it's so refreshingly different.
It's your first foray into his style of writing and storytelling, and how totally uncompromising he is in terms of what information he conveys to the reader.
The complete lack of patronising exposition is something no-one else I've read does to the same extent.
You're just left to keep up and figure it out as you go.

After the first book though, you know that's what you're getting, so you aren't struck by it in the same way.

keane2097

First book is utterly brilliant but can understand how people might not appreciate it as it's confusing initially, hence the "Carry on till the Chain of Dogs" advice is pretty sound.

titan18

It took me a while to get into the first book tbh. The first 100-200 pages were a real chore for me.

Once you get to the Chain of Dogs, a lot starts coming together. Love the 3rd book, and then when you get to meet Karsa properly in the 4th, it starts getting even better imo

ixoy

The Malazan e-book prices are generally too high, but the first two books - "Gardens of the Moon" and "Deadhouse Gates" are currently going for a bargain at $3.68 on Amazon.

AnCapaillMor

ixoy wrote: »

The Malazan e-book prices are generally too high, but the first two books - "Gardens of the Moon" and "Deadhouse Gates" are currently going for a bargain at $3.68 on Amazon.

You can get them on kindle as bundles, did that with 3&4, 5&6 worked out cheap enough.

Son0vagun

Started reading the first book! Give up after 70pages. Just too hard for me to read. Kinda gutted cos I was looking forward to reading it. Hopefully I'll return to it at some stage!

AnCapaillMor

Son0vagun wrote: »

Started reading the first book! Give up after 70pages. Just too hard for me to read. Kinda gutted cos I was looking forward to reading it. Hopefully I'll return to it at some stage!

Seriously took me 3 attempts to get past page 200, keep at it. It's heavy duty stuff but well worth hanging on.

Son0vagun

AnCapaillMor wrote: »

Seriously took me 3 attempts to get past page 200, keep at it. It's heavy duty stuff but well worth hanging on.

I'm not a great reader at the best of times. But after reading all the Song of Ice and Fire books I wanted to get into another series! But I think this series is beyond me!

fitz

Son0vagun wrote: »

I'm not a great reader at the best of times. But after reading all the Song of Ice and Fire books I wanted to get into another series! But I think this series is beyond me!

As I said previously, it's not for everyone, but it is worth sticking with, for his characters alone. There are a few books in the series that have slow-ish first halves. If you're having trouble with it try revisiting when you have the chance to read at least the first third of Gardens of the Moon in a relatively short space of time. They're not really books to dip in and out of, particularly at the start, as a lot of them tend to build up converging character arcs and plot strands. The net can be so wide at the start that you don't know how everything is going to get drawn together, and I guess with so much going on, occasional readers could get a bit lost, having forgotten what's happening. I love that it's uncompromising in this regard though.

Personally, I ate up Gardens of the Moon, found Deadhouse a little slow to start, but I didn't find anything heavy going until the first halves of Toll the Hounds and Dust of Dreams. It's a different beast to ASOIAF, but better written, imo, and if you think Martin is ruthless with is characters....ha!

ixoy

Tor have put up the prelude and first chapter of "Forge of Darkness" on their site here for those interested. Personally never like these teasers but some might.

Raging_Ninja

ixoy wrote: »

Tor have put up the prelude and first chapter of "Forge of Darkness" on their site here for those interested. Personally never like these teasers but some might.

I can beat that - bought the book 20 minutes ago.

I thought it wasn't due out until September...

edit: US release date is September, that makes sense.

ixoy

Raging_Ninja wrote: »

I can beat that - bought the book 20 minutes ago.

Yep, although the Kindle price is outrageously high. Where did you buy your copy? It's due on the 31st. US Kindle price (default for Irish customers) works out at €15.58 whereas the UK Kindle price is €11.98. It's ridiculous that we've to pay a 30% premium as the VAT difference is negligible.

Tristram

Read Gardens of the Moon last week. The writing style doesn't make it easy on the reader but I managed to stick it out to the end. When I finished I wasn't entirely sure it was worth the effort but I decided to give the second book a chance and am currently flying through Deadhouse Gates and enjoying it much more.

Raging_Ninja

ixoy wrote: »

Yep, although the Kindle price is outrageously high. Where did you buy your copy? It's due on the 31st. US Kindle price (default for Irish customers) works out at €15.58 whereas the UK Kindle price is €11.98. It's ridiculous that we've to pay a 30% premium as the VAT difference is negligible.

I got it in Dubray Books in Galway for €15.99, the big paperback version.

jathclare

Just started Gotm, find it very hard going as many posters before have said. Will persevere as I always finish a book once started but unless it ends better doubt I'll progress further into the series. It doesnt help that the paperback I got in HF is really small and the text goes right into the spine, I have to peel eage page back and hold it there while reading. Its not an ideal book either to read on a bus full of excited Italian students!

astonaidan

Got GOTM a few weeks ago, just cant get into it have read about 50 pages in the amount of time ive usually double read most books, but ill keep going till i finish it as I had the same problem as Wheel Of Time

Trojan

It's certainly an interesting world he's creating, and it's good to see people push the boundaries of the genres...

... but should reading fiction really be that much hard work?

MayoForSam

Trojan wrote: »

... but should reading fiction really be that much hard work?

Probably not, I finished reading the The Crippled God about a month ago (an enjoyable slog), since then I've read a few sci-fi books (Forever War and Childhood's End), and I flew through them. Reading Erikson is like pumping weights at the gym before a conker fight.

Tar.Aldarion

I'm not sure what is hard going about them? It could do without the poetry and replace it with something actually interesting, like in the price of nothing series, and some characters waffle on a bit in their head at the start of each time they are seen but generally I felt it was pretty easy going for something that is over 3,300,000 words. I was tired of simple short books, but I do agree it needs editing.

ixoy

Trojan wrote: »

It's certainly an interesting world he's creating, and it's good to see people push the boundaries of the genres...

... but should reading fiction really be that much hard work?

It's an effort vs reward scenario. I mean if all fantasy novels were like that.. then no. But this is unique and I got a lot of it for what I put in. Yes it is tiring - much the same way as not all classic literature is Ulysses either. Now and then though the investment pays off and this is such a case.

By comparison I'm reading Raymond E. Feist right now which is a hell of a lot more straight forward. Sometimes you want a snack too.

Trojan

I like to think of it as "bubblegum fantasy"

Perhaps it's my day job, dealing with multiple complex projects and lots of minutia, I don't particularly want my leisure reading to be multiple complex projects and lots of minutia

AnCapaillMor

ixoy wrote: »

It's an effort vs reward scenario. I mean if all fantasy novels were like that.. then no. But this is unique and I got a lot of it for what I put in. Yes it is tiring - much the same way as not all classic literature is Ulysses either. Now and then though the investment pays off and this is such a case.

By comparison I'm reading Raymond E. Feist right now which is a hell of a lot more straight forward. Sometimes you want a snack too.

Definately a reward, Tehol and bugg are worth the slog by themselves. The first book itself just throws plots, history, characters at you, but once you get your head around it, its utterly fantastic. Took me 2 years and 3 attempts to get past page 300. Look along this thread and you'll find my despairing posts. I've actually given the books to 2 guys in work and they were the same, one stuck with it and eventually badgered the other guy into going back to it.

And heh at feist I was like you i started feist after finishing the the malazan stuff, it was wonderfully simplistic but something was lacking after reading the malazan books.

jathclare

Feist took me a while to get into too, mainly because the first book is quite "stock" fantasy not that I didnt enjoy it overall, but it didn't grip me at first. Gotm on the other hand is more original but 100 pages in I'm still not sure who the protaganists are, if there is a plot or whether I care whats on the next page....Hats off to those who've finished the series.

In contrast, I picked up The Terror by Dan Simmons in a friends house last weekend and got through about 50 pages in no time, remined me of how you can get lost in a novel.

Tristram

Tristram wrote: »

Read Gardens of the Moon last week. The writing style doesn't make it easy on the reader but I managed to stick it out to the end. When I finished I wasn't entirely sure it was worth the effort but I decided to give the second book a chance and am currently flying through Deadhouse Gates and enjoying it much more.

And so begins the tenth and final book!

Tar.Aldarion

Do you think if you went back and read the first one now you would enjoy it more, or is it that the first one wasn't as good as the rest/harder to read?

ancapailldorcha

I was thinking of picking these up. I know they're heavy reading but would it be best to read one author's work before moving on to the other?

keane2097

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Do you think if you went back and read the first one now you would enjoy it more, or is it that the first one wasn't as good as the rest/harder to read?

GotM comes into its own upon repeated reading IMO.

keane2097

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I was thinking of picking these up. I know they're heavy reading but would it be best to read one author's work before moving on to the other?

I think this is the consensus reading order:

Gardens of the Moon
Deadhouse Gates
Memories of Ice
House of Chains
Midnight Tides
Night of Knives
The Bonehunters
Return of the Crimson Guard
Reaper's Gale
Toll the Hounds
Stonewielder
Orb Sceptre Throne
Dust of Dreams
The Crippled God

ancapailldorcha

keane2097 wrote: »

I think this is the consensus reading order:

Gardens of the Moon
Deadhouse Gates
Memories of Ice
House of Chains
Midnight Tides
Night of Knives
The Bonehunters
Return of the Crimson Guard
Reaper's Gale
Toll the Hounds
Stonewielder
Orb Sceptre Throne
Dust of Dreams
The Crippled God

Thanks! That's really helpful!

keane2097

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Thanks! That's really helpful!

Just took a quick look at Erikson's AMA on Reddit (careful, may contain the odd spoiler) and he advises reading the books in the order they were published.

Not sure if the list above conforms 100% to that but you can double check anyway.

Bought the audible version of GotM last week and am working through it again at the moment with the intention of making some more progress in the series. I've read as far as Book 6 but have read them all a couple of times in order to miss as little as possible as I go through them.

ancapailldorcha

Re-reading a couple of times? They must be quite heavy. I'm looking for something to replace A Song of Ice and Fire as it's not likely we'll see the next installment for a few years at least.

keane2097

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Re-reading a couple of times? They must be quite heavy. I'm looking for something to replace A Song of Ice and Fire as it's not likely we'll see the next installment for a few years at least.

Heavy is certainly an apt description!

Tristram

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Do you think if you went back and read the first one now you would enjoy it more, or is it that the first one wasn't as good as the rest/harder to read?

Hmmm... that's a good question. I'm not sure to be honest. Reading anything a second time round is a very different experience. I'm sure I would get more out of it in the sense of appreciating where things are leading or marveling at how dramatically certain characters change over the course of the series. I think I might still find it a hard slog in parts. I have to say that the author's writing style absolutely wrecks my head in places and there are many large sections in all the books where I simply skim to find details relevant to narrative progression. If what I considered to be the useless filler drivel was edited out of the books I imagine they would come in at about three quarters of the length!

Raging_Ninja

Esslemont's new Malazan book is out, got it there yesterday.

Comic Book Guy

Finished The Crippled God on saturday night, 2 years after starting the series. Took me a while but built and moved into a new house, girlfriend had a baby and we got married in that period hence the time taken!!

Loved the series, amazingly complex and so layered (where do ya begin to have the imagination to create and write about such a world?!).

Loved the way all 10 books really picked up the pace in the last 200 pages or so.

First book really throws ya in at the deep end but is well worth the early perseverence. Toll the Hounds is my personal favourite but only edges it because 2 of my favourite characters are heavily featured.

sea_monkey

the new ICE book is supposed to be one of the best yet.

kindle decided to die on me so cant read it!

Grassey

sea_monkey wrote: »

the new ICE book is supposed to be one of the best yet.

kindle decided to die on me so cant read it!

About 80% through it now. Need to finish... Then reread to pick up on bits i missed. Really looking forward to the last 200 pages to tie up the story arcs and (hopefully) answer a few queations i have!

Zapp Brannigan

god damn American Kindle store not having the ICE novel released!

cbsam74

well its nearly a year since i started this thread and thanks for all the insight and opinons regarding it. Still on the first book (Gardens of the Moon) and had to leave it for a while...new arrival at home so loads of sleepless nights... and its amazing how the bug of reading it has caught hold of me. getting back into after the long break and I feel like i never it but I also feel a better understanding and appreciation for it...at the rate i reading it it will be 10 years before i get to the Crippled God..