Malazan

[Warrik]

Good? Bad? Ive been thinking of picking this up for a while now...but havnt heard a whole lot about it. how many here have actually read any of the series and would you reccomend it?

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Half way into book 4 and yes, its completely awesome. So much so that I ordered book 5 and 6 from Canada instead of waiting for the American releases. When all is said and done and the American market finally catchs on, I wouldn't be surprised if Malazan is looked at as better than A Song of Ice and Fire.

Those two are compared, but not really accurately. They will both kill any character, that's about it. Where Ice and Fire is realistic with little magic, Malazan is hyper fantasy, Gods getting killed, humans ascending, and so many bad ass, could-decimate-an-army characters that its pretty unreal.

[Tred]

I'll second that. Bottom line, if you're a fan of awesome series then you need to read this. D'ivers and those other guys (forgot the name) are the coolest take on shape shifters I've ever read. And I'll never look at a Muppet the same ever again.

[Tabris]

Excellent series but extremely, extremely dense text.

No matter what you're thinking, make it through to the end of the first book. Halfway through you'll have absolutely no idea what's going on but you'll figure it out.

The only real complaint I have about the series is about its release order. You see, the Malazan Book of the Fallen was a shared world created by Stephen Erikson and Ian Cameron Esslemont. The total Malazan Book of the Fallen will be 15 odd books, 10 written by Erikson and 5 written by Esslemont. Esslemont even wrote a 'prequel' called Night of Knives that has been released in the UK (and will be re-released here at some point as well). My problem is that Erikson is a very fast writer, he writes a little more than a novel a year, Book 7 will be out in the UK in about 5 months. Esslemont, however, writes slow as fuck, and his first book in the series is not set to release until 2008, when Erikson will likely have been done with Book 8 as well. We're looking at Esselmont only being 2 books into his third of the story when Erikson is completely done in 2010.

[Kildace]

Fantastic series. Erikson outdid Martin in my eyes, and I read through Ice and Fire 4 times. Book 3 especially is probably the best fantasy book I've ever read. I'm up to 5 now, which I liked less at first because it was apparently not about the Bridgeburners at all, but after the first 100 pages I really got into it and it's a testament to Erikson's skill that he managed to make this book as captivating as the others while telling a story in a near-vacuum, almost completely separated from the main intrigue, in the middle of a 10 book saga.

It's a difficult read, it's a very complex world and you won't start to truly understand the magic and ascendants and deck systems before book 3, thats 1k5 pages in, but it's so worth it it's not even funny.

[Khorum]

I enjoyed it, I'm currently on the 3rd book and I'm still pretty fond of it, which is something I can't say about Eddings' or Jordan's books.

I usually stay away from fantasy (actually I kinda fucking hate high-fantasy stuff) but Malazan is still enjoyable despite being Erikson indulging in the worst sort of high-fantasy cliche you can imagine. It's very well written and is certainly better CRAFTED than most of its contemporaries. He's got this living breathing world with a complex skein of conflicts and agendas and the reader is thrust in there feeling like an unwelcome visitor. It starts pretty slow though, because Erikson begrudges you as little development as possible. But when it hits, about 3/4ths through the first book, it comes together very well. By the end of the first book you're hooked.

I wouldn't go as far as saying that Malazan is as good as A Song of Ice and Fire, though. Malazan is certainly good and the depth is there, but Martin is a master of character and is a meticulous plot technician and ASoIAF is driven by lush, vivid people--which IMO is more compelling than the fantastical creatures, tired caricatures and concepts that motivate Malazan.

Then again, I've confessed to a bias against fantasy already (though I read a ton of it), and Martin's historical-fiction pacing and approach to ASoIAF is what I'm most fond of--it doesn't READ like fantasy at all.

[Brand]

Easily one of the best series out there right now.

WARNING: This series is DENSE. The first book is slow to start...But the payoff is worth it.

[Kildace]

Originally Posted by Khorum

I wouldn't go as far as saying that Malazan is as good as A Song of Ice and Fire, though. Malazan is certainly good and the depth is there, but Martin is a master of character and is a meticulous plot technician and ASoIAF is driven by lush, vivid people--which IMO is more compelling than the fantastical creatures, tired caricatures and concepts that motivate Malazan.

I agreed with that up until the end of the third book. The payoff is massive, the last 300 pages are a masterpiece.

I still love Martin, and as you said both styles are very different, but I enjoyed reading book 3 of Malazan more than I enjoyed anything in ASoIaF (and I enjoyed the hell out of these books).

[Hateyou]

Can any one post some sort of a beginners explaination of things. I'm part way in to the first book and totally lost. It feels like I picked up in the middle of the series or something, the way he doesn't explain anything at all.

Ok, so Warrens are where the Gods live, and where Mages draw thier magic from? Also, mages can go inside them?

Bridgeburners are just soldiers left over from the Emperor? Is there something special about them? I can't really figure them out.

Also, that Magic fight near the begining, where Tattersails lover was killed...was that an actual moon or something? The way he was describing it, I couldn't tell.

Those are the main things I'm confused about, but there are also other things, minor explainations about other people/mechanics without spoilers would be appreciated. I like his writing style, and the way magic is extremely rampant and hardcore deadly is very neat, and I usually hate over powered magic.

I feel ASoIaF started the same way, just dropping you in to the middle of things, and it's my favorite fantasy series right now. So I will continue with Malazan, but man I wish these series started better. It makes it hard to recommend them to some one.

Say what you will about Jordan, but he did a very good job of explaining the way magic mechanics work by having his characters starting out as novices. I knew that a 'teacher' character was telling the reader how things worked, but he wrote it in well with his characters. I think he also did well in introducing new characters in to the story slowly, letting you get to know them first.


Anyways, this series is very neat, just hard to get in to right now. His world seems very badass though.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

I should make you suffer, but i won't.

Moon's Spawn = Big Ass Flying Castle, Rake's home.

Bridgeburners = Elite company that goes back to the beginnings of the Empire and the Seven Cities campaign.

Warrens...the best way to describe the Warrens is that they are like a different spectrum of the world that mages can slip into and travel through and also pull power from. Usually mages only use one Warren.

I personally really like the "I'm starting, you'll catch up" approach to fantasy. Erikson went balls to the wall on it, but like you said, Martin did it too, and I think it works better than page after page of exposition.

[Hateyou]

Originally Posted by Nebuchadnezzar

I personally really like the "I'm starting, you'll catch up" approach to fantasy. Erikson went balls to the wall on it, but like you said, Martin did it too, and I think it works better than page after page of exposition.

I don't mind it at all, it's just this series seems like very key things are happening right off that bat and I feel very lost. Martin did this as well, but it caught up very fast, so it didn't bother me. I'm around 200 pages in to this book and no clue what's going on.

Thanks for those explainations~

[Kildace]

Originally Posted by Hateyou

I don't mind it at all, it's just this series seems like very key things are happening right off that bat and I feel very lost. Martin did this as well, but it caught up very fast, so it didn't bother me. I'm around 200 pages in to this book and no clue what's going on.

Thanks for those explainations~

For reference, the first real explanation of warrens by a mage character comes at the end of book 5
And I'm still a bit blurry about Ascendants ..

[Brand]

Read Esslemont's "Night of Knives" to get some more insight into Ascendents. Although, I think all the knowledge to really understand Ascendency is there, but needs to be inferred from lots of little scraps.

[Khorum]

You can pick up enough to learn about the Ascendants contextually in the second book. The groundwork for the ascendants is pretty solid by the middle of the second book, hard to go into without a major spoiler concerning Shadowthrone though.

I'd REALLY recommend this series to anyone that's a fan of epic fantasy, though not ahead of ASoIaF :P I didn't find out about Malazan's origin as a shared world till after hunting down the newest volumes on Amazon, but that's where I was getting the crummy "high fantasy vibe". But at least Malazan wasn't just some machine-written AD&D campaign drivel, it has much loftier pedigree: it was supposed to be a GURPS world

[Ameraves Loyalheart]

Originally Posted by Tabris

The only real complaint I have about the series is about its release order. You see, the Malazan Book of the Fallen was a shared world created by Stephen Erikson and Ian Cameron Esslemont. The total Malazan Book of the Fallen will be 15 odd books, 10 written by Erikson and 5 written by Esslemont. Esslemont even wrote a 'prequel' called Night of Knives that has been released in the UK (and will be re-released here at some point as well). My problem is that Erikson is a very fast writer, he writes a little more than a novel a year, Book 7 will be out in the UK in about 5 months. Esslemont, however, writes slow as fuck, and his first book in the series is not set to release until 2008, when Erikson will likely have been done with Book 8 as well. We're looking at Esselmont only being 2 books into his third of the story when Erikson is completely done in 2010.

I just picked up the first book and haven't started it yet. However when I was doing some quick research I read about this, and I don't really understand it. Are you going to need to read all of the books to get the full story? Are they going to be two totally separate story lines, just shared in the same world?

I personally love Fantasy series. It gives me something to read for more than a week or two. So I wanted to give this one a go, but should I just start with book one, or the prequel or....