The Malazan Fallen discussion

Is anyone reading this or do you know a group that is? Just starting it. Hope it has a summary for Way of Kings!

It's awesome so far and the not a book club book club is doing a group read in a way I think I tried to look at it but didn't have time really

Thanks Eddie! It's getting such high ratings, so excited!

Mine is still shipping! The anticipation is killing me.

I'm only like 100 pages in so far but it's started at a pretty fast pace already one development is In the mix that I didn't see coming but can see a lot of good from and where possible future books can spring off at

Wiki has a good summary for the first. Phew! Didn't want to reread.

Shit... I didn't think of that lol I been listening to the audio version all over again

I can't see getting in on a ten book series this early, even if Sanderson writes quickly and is young. Do these books well on a stand-alone basis? If so, I might start in on them. But after Jordan and Martin, I'm very wary of starting series before the author has neared completion.

But Duffy, if you read the first book now it'll give u great reading material that will make you look forward to every couple of years cause Sanderson is a pretty fast writer and even if he does slow down a little bit it just makes the books that much sweeter when/if they're excellent instead of gorging an entire 10 book series in one year year it makes you not truly appreciate the material but your plowing through extremely fast wanting to get to the next one cause it's already released and you can finish it to see what everyone is talking about

Yes your right about tedious wait times but just cause George RR Martin is a lazy ass writer that doesn't appreciate his reading fans the past 20 years and is more concerned in the television show(which is fan-fucking-tactic by the way) doesn't mean all authors will sell out and in the process of selling out while torturing his original fans that supported him the beginning

Yeah, a bunch of us are reading it in the Not a Book Club Club. There are a couple of links to different summaries for book one there along with discussion threads.

I just finished part 1 tonight and I'm really enjoying it so far.

@Duffy I can't speak for Words of Radiance, but Way of Kings ends in a good place as far as I'm concerned.

Eddie, on this, let's just say that you are an optimist, and me, not so much. What I really admire is a writer who is capable of developing a series while still having books, or small groups of books, stand on their own.

This is what Hobb has done with her Liveship world. It's the way Carey has been approaching Terre D'Ange. Brust has several books and series that work on their own and as pieces of a larger whole. And I think Erikson has done a pretty good job of having at least some of the Malazan books work on a stand-alone basis. And Abercrombie has been doing a magnificent job with the same process.

I'm less happy about series that seem to go on forever, and where the individual books don't stand up. That's what's happened to Stirling's Change series. That's where Martin is and Jordan was.

Then of course there's someone like Goodkind. His books all fail on their own merits.

Alright Duffy, you kinda got me cause I agree with every word you've said particularly Robin Hobb but wouldn't you agree that Brandon Sanderson has accomplished everything your sat against his mistborn series can be considered 3 stand alone books but a trilogy and his Stand alone work Elantris is a stand alone and he continues in his other series that he's writing keeping them continuously appearing like his recent mistborn novella of sorts and his war breaker series(or one book I'm not really sure about this particular one)

Also I'm not a Sanderson superfan I've only read 2 of his book and I quit mistborn about halfway thru I'm just going by what I've read in different reviews I could be entirely wrong
#tipsy

But I do believe his stormlight archive is a series to watch and possibly home in on now before all the spoilers get out and ruin some of the experiences that could damper your opinion of a book

I'm gonna check out the group read.

Duffy I know what you mean and i was hesitant. But I have no willpower! :)

Btw Robin Hobb has a new Fitz and fool book coming out this year!!!!!!!!! I can't begin to tell you how many exclamation points I'm feeling!

The first Mistborn book works really well on its own. And he's keeping the world going with The Alloy of Law. So, yeah, that's a good example too. And Warbreaker and Elantris are also decent standalone books. I've also heard that, in some way, all these different books are going to fit together as part of a much, much bigger picture.

So, yeah, if these Stormlight books work at all on their own, then I will probably dive in. But I still hate waiting for the next installment. (Oh, and by the way, I think the anticipation often works against the author. When it came out, I was convinced that Crossroads of Twilight was maybe the worst series book ever written. When I reread the series before the first Sanderson book came out, I revised that opinion. It's really terrible, but not that much worse than the books just before it. It just seemed that way after the wait. And now, I would be tempted to say that A Dance with Dragons is the worst series book ever written, but I can't, because I read the Sword of Truth series up to Faith of the Fallen, and there really is no competition with Goodkind.)

On a more positive note, that's the first I've heard about a new Fitz/Fool book, and it's great news. What would you do if Hobb somehow worked it out so that the Liveship world is the same as the Soldier Son world, and that the Fool was actually some minor character there as well?

I agree crossroads was crap, dragons was crap, but I never made it to faith of the fallen I actually realized I was wasting in one book sooner temple of the Winds, I hate leaving series open tho cause I have a crazy mind I might wanna push my self threw another book or 2 not sure and to think of forgotten series I need to start back on Kate Elliot crown of stars series which is pretty good if you haven't heard about it and it's finished 7 books I think

Vow a Words of radiance discussion in malazan chatter, looks like many people were waiting for this book.I agree with duffy that unless at least the series is halfway i too also do not like to start the series, i got burned in case of martin and now asoiaf is completely ruined for me and i don't think grrm will complete his series in 7 books.

I have heard lot of good things regarding sanderson and started Wheel of time because i know it is going to end good.Also mistborn is in my reading queue and many people have suggested that i should start reading sanderson from mistborn.

Duffy, you may be interested in reading this recent blog post from him on the series/Words of Radiance:

http://torforgeblog.com/2014/03/03/wo...

He talks about how he's going to have different arcs etc and how Words of Radiance is really a self-contained trilogy.

There is also his State of the Sanderson post from last summer where he talks about his writing priorities for the next year or so. In particular he lists Skybreaker as his third priority (behind two much shorter works that will be out later this year/early next year most likely) and says:

Book Three of Stormlight. I don’t want to let this series languish with three year gaps between books, as I was forced to do between books one and two. Because of this, I’ll try to be doing them at 18 month or 24 month intervals at the most. Do note that the books, at around a thousand pages each, are HUGE undertakings. The way I write, I have to space out projects like this. They’ll be regular, I promise, but part of the reason I’m so productive is because I allow myself freedom to work on different projects, instead of being beholden to one series.

Pretty much most of his books tie together into a Cosmere. He hasn't exactly gotten into how, but there is this character Hoid that has showed up in all of his Cosmere books.

And for what it's worth, I enjoyed Dance with Dragons. Crossroads, not so much.

And for what it's worth, I enjoyed Dance with Dragons

My personal opinion is from this book onward martin basically lost the plot, made a likeable characters like tyrion lannister utter same words again and again and introduced dwayne which i found very boring to read.

Books 1-3 were great. Book 4 was pretty average for me until the end. Book 5 I thought was better than book 4, but not as good as 1-3.

He's got way too many POV characters and subplots now. He really needs to tighten things up with book 6 (assuming he ever finishes it). If he doesn't, I may be done with the series at that point.

I know many people who agree with you guys about book 5 though.

Ugh don't get me started on Martin. And I completely agree with Rob and Duffy about how it spun out of control. It's all a muddle.

As for Cosmere, holy shit I just googled and had no idea! I haven't read Warbreaker or anything other than the Mistborn books, but love that explanation of setting all his books in many worlds of one universe where Shards etc are a common theme.

While he was selling his initial works to publishers, Brandon was encouraged to write books set in different worlds as opposed to huge epic fantasy series. That way if a publisher didn't like one book he could pitch them a different one, which you can't do with a huge fantasy series. But as a way of still having a huge fantasy series, Brandon made all of these independent stories a "hidden epic." That is, he seeded continuing characters and elements into all of these different worlds, now dubbed the "cosmere".

Fascinating!

I read that Hoid appears or is named in all the books. I don't remember him at all....

Lori (Hellian) wrote: "I read that Hoid appears or is named in all the books. I don't remember him at all.... "

He doesn't always go by the name Hoid, and often times he has a very small cameo. In The Way of Kings he has been going by the name "Wit" and has had a much more noticeable role including a POV chapter.

You can view the wiki for details on his appearances, but there are likely spoilers for any book he's in that you haven't read:

http://stormlightarchive.wikia.com/wi...

Let me ask you guys I'm kinda torn between 2 books to read next Toll the Hounds or Mad Ship... What do ye suggest is the one to read next I'm almost finished with ship of magic now I have like 50 pages left in it and don't know what to get next

Rob - once again, that link you provided is great. Can't remember him at all from the Mistborn books. Interesting that he has a bead from Shadesmar. That link also really helped me with necessary information from WoK. So far you are ahead of me in the Not A Book Club, I'm thrilled to do the group read there!

Eddie can't help you, they are both great series.

Rob, thanks for the blog link. Sanderson's approach to the Stormlight books is ambitious and interesting. It does raise an interesting question. Is he being generous, or a fool, by putting so much into each single book? I've always thought that the reason fantasy books are so fat is because that's what this market niche is looking for, and for the most part, a thin fantasy book will pretty much go unnoticed. (Neal Gaiman has probably proved me a liar here, but its still what I think of as the conventional wisdom.) If the books came in smaller slices, it might mean that people would fade from readership more quickly. But I'm not at all sure of this, and it almost certainly would vary from writer to writer and from book to book.

So, for the Stormlight fans. Would you have liked it better if Sanderson had published three books in the series over the last two years? Or do you think its a better idea having all three books in his "trilogy" published at the same time?

Eddie, if you read Mad Ship, you will be going straight through to Ship of Destiny after that. That's fine, if you can bear to hold up on the Malazan books for that long.

I read Toll the Hounds and didn't get to Dust of Dreams for more than a year after. Of course, in that time, I reread the whole series again. And while that worked well for me, I'm not going to recommend it to anyone.

I think you are more likely to get lost/confused after a long break from Malazan. The liveship books are simple enough so that I would think its relatively easy to get the bearings after a break.

No recommendation here, but I hope these thoughts might help you decide.

Duffy wrote: "Is he being generous, or a fool, by putting so much into each single book?"

I guess he could split it up and make you buy more books, but in general I think those books are priced higher than his shorter works. Or at least the MSRP is higher.

I think Amazon charged me $16.xx for it, which is marked down from the $18.xx price I pre-ordered it due to their whole pre-order guarantee. So someone else must have been selling it for $16.xx and Amazon matched it even though Sanderson mentions a price point of $30.

I'd have been OK paying the quoted $30 for this book in hardcover. I'm obviously much happier paying $16, but I'd have been fine with anything up to about $35 maybe for the hardcover.

The book has a bunch of artwork and an emblem embedded into the front cover plus a 2 page color map and another 2 page color image of one of the characters in addition to the dust cover artwork. And it's 1070 pages long. And I while I haven't done a side by side comparison with The Way of Kings I suspect the font size is smaller because I'm pretty sure the word count is much higher.

I think the bottom line from a reader perspective is different from the bottom line for him though. The guy is averaging 1-3 books published a year. So it's not like he's hurting for new sources of income.

I'm fine if he simply charges more for the books in this series and I bet I'm not alone in my willingness to buy it at a higher price. However it might cause more people to wait for it to be in a cheaper format/on sale. I don't really have a book budget and can afford to buy what I want. Most people aren't that fortunate.

Duffy wrote: "Would you have liked it better if Sanderson had published three books in the series over the last two years? Or do you think its a better idea having all three books in his "trilogy" published at the same time? "

Regardless of how much it costs me, I prefer he put out the book the way he wants it. I'm always going to want "more" now, but I suspect I'll prefer 1 big book that ends well to 3 books with 2 cliffhanger endings. It's going to be hard to say for sure until I know how each of the 3 sections that make up the trilogy ends though.

To answer my own question: I like big, fat books. My favorite author is Anthony Trollope, and he was perfect for me because he wrote large books, many of them with continuing characters, and he wrote lots of them. I guess that's one reason I've been drawn to epic fantasy. So I personally would prefer fat books, to frequent publication of thinner ones.

I still prefer a series to be over before I start it. I totally agree that it would be awesome to wait with anticipation for a new book and then be amply rewarded. But I've experienced the opposite too many times. As a comparison, I watched much of Lost as it came out, and I was really looking forward to seeing how the writers would resolve everything. I didn't expect them to do it by giving everyone the finger, and I was really pissed off at the time. By contrast, I watched Prison Break, in one big gulp, on Netflix. The ending was probably just as bad as Lost, and maybe even worse, but I didn't have the same kind of crushed expectations, so I ended up with basically a fond feeling for the series, even though the ending sucked.

Don't even remind me of how lost ended... It was bullshit

I don't remember how Lost ended, which probably says something.

Heh I didn't mind it, even tho I recognize all the complaints. Same for Battlestar Galactica, altho even I couldn't quite swallow that Baltar was god.

Battlestar has a great ending in my opinion I liked it a lot better than the ending to lost... What show was great was Veronica Mars I can't wait for the movie to be released next week

After years of promising that the show was something more than a kind of purgatory, the writers settled on purgatory as the explanation. Bleech...

Yea it was shit I even remember reading in the newspaper that the writers said it wasn't gonna take place in purgatory 5 years later what do u know they were in purgatory

Did anyone else start this? On page 300 and i am just as addicted to this book as I was the Way of Kings. The interludes so far have been very intriguing.

Yeah, a bunch of us are reading/discussing it in another group: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

I am in the minority (please don't attack me!) that liked the ending to Lost. It didn't answer all of my questions but I was okay with. It was emotionally satisfying to me. *runs away scared, hides forever.*

BSG on the other hand... I can't even watch that show now. I tried the other night (season 1, "Flesh and Bone") and had to stop.

That bad, eh? That's a shame it ruined the whole series for you!

Wow this thread goes off on a tangent
Sanderson is my fave writer at the mo
His mistborn trilogy is superb with more twists than chubby checker (Google it kids)
All of Sanderson books (well 90%) are connected even though they take place on different worlds.
There are a few characters that turn up in all the worlds. His story's are very intricate
Yet they are easier to follow than SE