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Malazan: High House Shadow edition


AncalagonTheBlack

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4 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Ah, I guess I missed it.

Look, Forge of Darkness had me majorly confused about a lot of stuff. It was so different to the origin stories we had from the main series.

 

Give Dancer's Lament a try. Its a start to a new prequel series and is the first Esslemont book I have liked (full disclosure I have only read Night of Knives, Return of the Crimson Guard and the beginning of Stonewielder). It reminds me a bit of Joe Abercrombie's writing style in the Shattered Seas trilogy. Young protagonists, fast, fun, arguably Young Adult. Its like a breath of fresh air after the Karkhanus works.

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3 hours ago, Lord Barger said:

Give Dancer's Lament a try. Its a start to a new prequel series and is the first Esslemont book I have liked (full disclosure I have only read Night of Knives, Return of the Crimson Guard and the beginning of Stonewielder). It reminds me a bit of Joe Abercrombie's writing style in the Shattered Seas trilogy. Young protagonists, fast, fun, arguably Young Adult. Its like a breath of fresh air after the Karkhanus works.

I'm just interested in Anomander Rake. If he is not in it, the rest of the Malazan Tomes do not interest me much. It is rather dry reading for my taste.

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  • 2 months later...

Blurb for Deadhouse Landing:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Deadhouse-Landing-Path-Ascendancy-Book/dp/0593074734/

Returning readers to the turbulent early history of what would become the Malazan Empire, the second chapter in Ian C. Esslemont's thrilling new epic fantasy sequence...

After the disappointments of Li Heng, Dancer and Kellanved wash up on a small insignificant island named Malaz. Immediately, of course, Kellanved plans to take it over. To do so they join forces with a small band of Napans who have fled a civil war on their own home island. The plan, however, soon goes awry as Kellanved develops a strange and dangerous fascination for a mysterious ancient structure found on the island.

The chaos in the region extends to the metaphysical planes also as a young priest of D'rek starts to question the rot at the heart of the worship of the god of decay. And back in Li Heng, Dassem, now the proclaimed Sword of Hood, finds himself being blamed for a plague which leads him to a crisis of faith - and searching for answers.

During all this, war with the neighbouring island of Nap threatens, recruited allies wonder at Kellanved’s sanity, and powerful entities take more of an interest in the little mage from Dal Hon. Dancer faces a hard choice: should he give up on his partnership? Especially when the fellow’s obsession with shadows and ancient artefacts brings the both of them alarmingly close to death and destruction.

After all, who in his right mind would actually wish to enter an Elder mystery known to everyone as the 'Deadhouse'?

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The blurb for Deadhouse Landing sounds really good. I've been holding off on this trilogy (although apparently it might be more than a trilogy, especially given how well the first book was received) but this will tempt me to try it out.

Quote

Fall of Light came out early this year and was a disappointment imo. It was a 900 pg philosophy textbook.

So, standard for Malazan then? :)

Walk in Shadow I believe is expected a lot more quickly than Fall of Light, but likely still a 2018 release.

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Just now, Darth Richard II said:

Oh I enjoyed it, but I had the same expectations going in as you did I think. After FoD you knew this was going to be nothing but a philosophy jerk off session. The thing that moldy irks me is Erikson said it was going to have LESS philosophy  wank.

And be shorter. That didn't last very long.

I may have to pick up Dancer's Lament, but I'll hold fire on Fall of Light for a while.

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I still haven't read more than about fifty pages of FoL, and I've read every single other Malazan book within two days of getting it maximum (usually same day), except one I think which took a bit longer because I was really swamped with work. Really need to crack on with that.

Dancer's Lament is cracking, though.

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I'm determined to finally finish this great damned series after more than a decade of intermittent re-starts. My last re-read got me further than ever, up through somewhere around Toll the Hounds. As I honestly can't remember which book I ended that last binge, I'm not going to re-start the entire series.

Instead, I've been moving through the Tor re-read, and enjoying the commentary from the newbie and re-reader. I may have to stop reading the commentary as the books advance, as I have managed over the years to avoid major spoilers for the final novel. For now, though, it's a different experience than the actual novels, to be sure. But it'll save me time and I'll probably notice a bunch of things I'd have otherwise gotten confused about.

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4 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

I'm determined to finally finish this great damned series after more than a decade of intermittent re-starts. My last re-read got me further than ever, up through somewhere around Toll the Hounds. As I honestly can't remember which book I ended that last binge, I'm not going to re-start the entire series.

Instead, I've been moving through the Tor re-read, and enjoying the commentary from the newbie and re-reader. I may have to stop reading the commentary as the books advance, as I have managed over the years to avoid major spoilers for the final novel. For now, though, it's a different experience than the actual novels, to be sure. But it'll save me time and I'll probably notice a bunch of things I'd have otherwise gotten confused about.

The comments from the forum participants were also great in the Tor re-read, as well as the Q&A from ICE and SE.  The whole re-read forum helped me improve my reading experience by 94.1%.

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  • 3 months later...
1 hour ago, Maelys I Blackfyre said:

I keep trying to read Erikson, I really do. I read most of Forge of Darkness, but it just feels so pretentious. So I put it down and just tried the Book of the Fallen proper, but it seems just the same. Am I just crazy, or something? 

No. Many people are alienated by SE, including myself (I managed to get through the first four). Even many of his hardcore fans are quick to point out the issues of the series.

For me, SE is trying to do what Bakker manages, but because everything is so over the top, it often comes off melodramatic and cartoonish. I've contemplated resuming the series, but as the things I did not like about the series apparently become magnified to an incredibly degree in the later volumes, I've never mustered the endurance.

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