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Fantasybros: How good is Malazan? HOw does it compare to SoIaF, Amber?

should i invest a couple weeks into reading Malazan books?
frozen filthpig
  12/23/16
i read like the 1st half of the 1st book. kind of sucks. rem...
Unholy cyan home
  12/23/16
...
frozen filthpig
  12/23/16
read the first amber, it was pretty original, don't know how...
vivacious flushed nowag depressive
  12/23/16
...
frozen filthpig
  12/23/16
It's literally an exceedingly elaborate dungeons and dragons...
Demanding embarrassed to the bone principal's office reading party
  12/23/16
but is it a good read
frozen filthpig
  12/23/16
If you're really into fantasy, yes.
Demanding embarrassed to the bone principal's office reading party
  12/23/16
the author went to iowa writers workshop. must have some cho...
frozen filthpig
  12/23/16
He does. The big problem with the series is the structure. I...
Demanding embarrassed to the bone principal's office reading party
  12/23/16
deeply misleading post lol. OP if you're now expecting Vanc...
Charcoal Jew Church Building
  12/24/16
thank you for this.
thriller generalized bond
  12/24/16
...
Henna indian lodge
  12/24/16
...
green stead windowlicker
  11/17/17
...
big trump supporter parlor
  05/28/18
I read the first five books in HS and stopped because I just...
pearly school love of her life
  12/23/16
charles xii do you have any fantasy/sci-fi recommendations? ...
frozen filthpig
  12/23/16
I like The Black Company, which has the additional advantage...
pearly school love of her life
  12/24/16
like others have said, too d&d for me. fantasy is a genr...
glittery digit ratio
  12/24/16
This contributed for me too. The whole "entire race mad...
pearly school love of her life
  12/24/16
"entire race made itself undead for the sake of pursuin...
Unholy cyan home
  12/24/16
On its own maybe, but it gets a bit much when stuff like thi...
pearly school love of her life
  12/24/16
Without having read it: stick to well-knowns like wheel of T...
Cracking nursing home quadroon
  12/24/16
You mean Book of the New Sun?
pearly school love of her life
  12/24/16
Yeah that's it
Cracking nursing home quadroon
  12/24/16
the book of the lost sun is great but is not "fun"...
Unholy cyan home
  12/24/16
how so
Cracking nursing home quadroon
  12/24/16
It has an unreliable narrator and the plot, such as it is, i...
pearly school love of her life
  12/24/16
how good can he be if no one is claiming him off waivers
bateful poppy crackhouse headpube
  12/24/16
tcr
Yellow Marvelous Half-breed
  12/24/16
...
crusty judgmental site
  12/24/16
name of the wind trilogy and red rising trilogy (sci fi + fa...
black insecure dysfunction
  12/24/16
Guy Gavriel Kay blends historical fiction (Byzantines, Medei...
Scarlet histrionic plaza
  12/24/16


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Reply Favorite

Date: December 23rd, 2016 9:49 PM
Author: frozen filthpig

should i invest a couple weeks into reading Malazan books?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32217096)



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Date: December 23rd, 2016 10:05 PM
Author: Unholy cyan home

i read like the 1st half of the 1st book. kind of sucks. reminds me of a very elaborate d&d-style book.

amber is classic fantasy. not as much world building, blah blah, more action and plot.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32217242)



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Date: December 23rd, 2016 10:05 PM
Author: frozen filthpig



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32217243)



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Date: December 23rd, 2016 10:11 PM
Author: vivacious flushed nowag depressive

read the first amber, it was pretty original, don't know how he spun it into another 9 books

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32217281)



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Date: December 23rd, 2016 10:46 PM
Author: frozen filthpig



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32217500)



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Date: December 23rd, 2016 10:46 PM
Author: Demanding embarrassed to the bone principal's office reading party

It's literally an exceedingly elaborate dungeons and dragons campaign.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32217504)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 23rd, 2016 10:47 PM
Author: frozen filthpig

but is it a good read

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32217505)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 23rd, 2016 10:48 PM
Author: Demanding embarrassed to the bone principal's office reading party

If you're really into fantasy, yes.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32217511)



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Date: December 23rd, 2016 10:50 PM
Author: frozen filthpig

the author went to iowa writers workshop. must have some chops

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32217522)



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Date: December 23rd, 2016 10:52 PM
Author: Demanding embarrassed to the bone principal's office reading party

He does. The big problem with the series is the structure. I don't want to say more, because it could be a spoiler.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32217531)



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Date: December 24th, 2016 12:07 AM
Author: Charcoal Jew Church Building

deeply misleading post lol. OP if you're now expecting Vancian magic and clerics battling kobolds etc PLEASE be advised that Malazan is in fact based on a long running *GURPS* campaign

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32217861)



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Date: December 24th, 2016 2:41 AM
Author: thriller generalized bond

thank you for this.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32218294)



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Date: December 24th, 2016 10:44 AM
Author: Henna indian lodge



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32219244)



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Date: November 17th, 2017 10:52 PM
Author: green stead windowlicker



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#34714517)



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Date: May 28th, 2018 11:10 PM
Author: big trump supporter parlor



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#36142649)



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Date: December 23rd, 2016 10:56 PM
Author: pearly school love of her life

I read the first five books in HS and stopped because I just didn't give a shit anymore. A few thoughts:

-It starts in media res in a big way. The first book, Gardens of the Moon, is particularly confusing as a result.

-Books 2 and 3 were pretty good. Definitely the best of the five I read.

-Characters are generally pretty weak. Erickson has a bad habit of having characters change names for some reason which is irritating.

-It's really really over-the-top. Malazan is all about super-wizards who can obliterate armies, battles where 100,000 people die, wars lasting thousands of years, tons of fantasy races, etc.

-Sadly while there's a ton of world-building it's often a shoddy structure. The appendices are even inconsistent between books which really bothered to me. Sometimes there are timeline screw-ups, like a character who suddenly has a 3-year-old daughter in a book that starts a year after the last one.

-Erickson tries to give his books more weight by having his gritty soldiers spout philosophy and I mostly don't think this works.

-There are a shitload of books so it's a huge investment. Counting the spinoffs by Erickson's friend, it may be longer than Wheel of Time by now.

-The plot is sprawling, with basically three major theaters (at least of the books I read). Books 1, 3, and 8 are on their own continent. Books 2, 4, and 6 are on another. Books 5 and 7 on yet another. I don't really know where 9 and 10 go because I quit reading.

-Erickson is...okay as a writer, I guess. But Martin is certainly much better.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32217551)



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Date: December 23rd, 2016 11:58 PM
Author: frozen filthpig

charles xii do you have any fantasy/sci-fi recommendations? what are your favorites?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32217828)



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Date: December 24th, 2016 12:10 AM
Author: pearly school love of her life

I like The Black Company, which has the additional advantage of having books that aren't all a trillion pages.

Gene Wolfe is a fun and unconventional author whose work generally has a fantasy edge. You have to put in a lot of effort reading him, though, since he's a bit postmodern and loves unreliable narrators and shit. Expect to do rereads if you want to "get" him.

I liked The Lies of Locke Lamora but the sequels kinda sucked. It works as a standalone though.

Overall I haven't read much fantasy besides the common ones, namely ASOIAF. It's just a lot of investment for a limited upside, ever since Robert Jordan made it so every high-profile fantasy series needs to be a 10-book orgy of worldbuilding.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32217871)



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Date: December 24th, 2016 12:31 AM
Author: glittery digit ratio

like others have said, too d&d for me. fantasy is a genre where there is a fine line where on one side you can "believe" what you're reading and on the other it sounds like the dumbest shit ever. for some people the whole genre seems dumb tho

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32217938)



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Date: December 24th, 2016 12:59 AM
Author: pearly school love of her life

This contributed for me too. The whole "entire race made itself undead for the sake of pursuing genocidal hundred thousand year war" part just made me think "this is stupid."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32218019)



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Date: December 24th, 2016 11:53 AM
Author: Unholy cyan home

"entire race made itself undead for the sake of pursuing genocidal hundred thousand year war"

that sounds awesome

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32219683)



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Date: December 24th, 2016 11:55 AM
Author: pearly school love of her life

On its own maybe, but it gets a bit much when stuff like this is happening all the time.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32219710)



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Date: December 24th, 2016 2:50 AM
Author: Cracking nursing home quadroon

Without having read it: stick to well-knowns like wheel of Time (but make sure you follow the reading guide that you can easily find, there are so many books you have to skip some)

Also you could/should read book of the Lost sin with me. Someone here recommended it awhile ago and it's been on my reading list. Premise sounds really cool. Edit: it was probably charles12 since he mentioned gene Wolfe above

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32218317)



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Date: December 24th, 2016 10:20 AM
Author: pearly school love of her life

You mean Book of the New Sun?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32219160)



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Date: December 24th, 2016 11:56 AM
Author: Cracking nursing home quadroon

Yeah that's it

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32219714)



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Date: December 24th, 2016 11:55 AM
Author: Unholy cyan home

the book of the lost sun is great but is not "fun" in the conventional sense.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32219696)



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Date: December 24th, 2016 3:04 PM
Author: Cracking nursing home quadroon

how so

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32221290)



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Date: December 24th, 2016 3:12 PM
Author: pearly school love of her life

It has an unreliable narrator and the plot, such as it is, isn't really easy to suss out. It's a great book but not the sort of thing you breezily flip through for 20 minutes a day.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32221340)



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Date: December 24th, 2016 10:39 AM
Author: bateful poppy crackhouse headpube

how good can he be if no one is claiming him off waivers

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32219219)



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Date: December 24th, 2016 12:03 PM
Author: Yellow Marvelous Half-breed

tcr

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32219762)



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Date: December 24th, 2016 12:01 PM
Author: crusty judgmental site



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32219749)



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Date: December 24th, 2016 3:25 PM
Author: black insecure dysfunction

name of the wind trilogy and red rising trilogy (sci fi + fantasy) are the best out there right now

joe abercrombie blade itself is fun light reading

robin hobb assassin series is good long term story but it's not traditional fantasy



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32221418)



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Date: December 24th, 2016 3:28 PM
Author: Scarlet histrionic plaza

Guy Gavriel Kay blends historical fiction (Byzantines, Medeival Europe, Vikings) with some fantasy (pagan gods are sort of real in some instances). Just good writing and most of his books are stand alone so you don't have to commit to a long series.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3470140&forum_id=2#32221435)