Author Topic: Currently Reading (2018 Edition)  (Read 6380 times)

smirnoff

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Re: Currently Reading (2018 Edition)
« Reply #20 on: April 02, 2018, 05:25:20 PM »
I'm impressed you've made it to the end. I failed to make it to the end of the first book. Twice. :-\ There was so much I liked, but... I dunno. I lost my way. I may try again.

DarkeningHumour

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Re: Currently Reading (2018 Edition)
« Reply #21 on: April 02, 2018, 05:30:13 PM »
Do you want me to give you reasons to? The first book is the hardest one to get through.
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smirnoff

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Re: Currently Reading (2018 Edition)
« Reply #22 on: April 02, 2018, 05:45:12 PM »
That's what I've heard. It's alright, I'm a believer in the series. I think I just needed a better idea of what I was in for with that first book.

DarkeningHumour

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Re: Currently Reading (2018 Edition)
« Reply #23 on: April 03, 2018, 06:28:21 AM »
You have to power through Gardens of the Moon. Erikson gives you a tenth of the background any sane person would expect to understand what's going on because he's got ten books to do his worldbuilding. He never falls into the trap of expository scenes that feel fake and forced and ruin the pacing but the drawback is that you often have no idea what's going on. It gets better when you start to understand how magic works and when you get to know the characters but at first it's a struggle, especially since there are so many POVs you end up spending very little time with any one character. It's pomo writing on crack.

What I would have liked someone to have told me, going in, was which  characters to focus on. They're all going to come back in later books but the Bridgeburners are really the heart and focus of the first arcs, so they're the ones you should care about most. All of them. Pay attention to what happens to Tattersail too, and read all the lore about the Andi, the Jaghut and the T'lan Imass carefully, it's going to be important later. Most of the Darujhistan characters don't appear again for a few books, and I'd forgotten much about them when I met them again. Crokus and Kruppe are the most important.

Where gods are concerned, the House Shadow is a major player in all the books but Oponn all but disappears after book 1.
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smirnoff

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Re: Currently Reading (2018 Edition)
« Reply #24 on: April 03, 2018, 01:53:30 PM »
That'll be good to know, because yea, there is a lot of details. It's hard to know which is important, so you try to remember everything, but you can't really. Then you get to a point where where that information would be useful but you don't remember it. You try and push through but the further you go the more lost you get. And there's no chance of going back and finding that one sentence in the whole entire book that explain what's happening.

DarkeningHumour

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Re: Currently Reading (2018 Edition)
« Reply #25 on: April 05, 2018, 10:38:34 AM »
If you get too lost there is always the Malazan Wiki - but beware of spoilers! Or you can also try to find a online version of the book and cntrl+f the information you need. I have manage to find some and when a character pops up who I don't remember I will look for them that way.

Oh, and pay attention to descriptions! Erikson alternates between characters he'll describe again briefly once in a while (mention of the red beard, something about their skin colour) but most of them he rarely comes back to. So as I was reading the books some version of the phrase "wait, this dude is black?" was one that came to me many times. Many times. Just so you know, like 90% of the characters in the series aren't white. At least it feels like it. Erikson will often just refer to their race, like saying they're Dal Honese, which can lead to confusion later if you don't know that means black. I was surprised when I found out, after finishing book 1, that Sorry was supposed to look Japanese and that Laseen was blue. I am not even sure Erikson ever says anything about the former.
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smirnoff

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Re: Currently Reading (2018 Edition)
« Reply #26 on: April 05, 2018, 04:52:22 PM »
You should write an official preface to the book. :)

Thanks

BlueVoid

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Re: Currently Reading (2018 Edition)
« Reply #27 on: May 15, 2018, 10:53:06 PM »
The Name of the Wind - This series intimidates me and I know the final book isn't released yet-- but the mood strikes me to see what all the fuss is about.
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Dave the Necrobumper

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Re: Currently Reading (2018 Edition)
« Reply #28 on: May 16, 2018, 04:13:43 AM »
Excellent set of books so far.

DarkeningHumour

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Re: Currently Reading (2018 Edition)
« Reply #29 on: May 16, 2018, 06:21:01 AM »
The Name of the Wind - This series intimidates me and I know the final book isn't released yet-- but the mood strikes me to see what all the fuss is about.

This book is so great.
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