Another post about Epic Fantasy series...

[marcusmarcusrc]

When I was still an undergrad, and regularly spent time in MITSFS, I had at least passing knowledge with all the major fantasy series (and even some of the more obscure ones, like PC Hodgell's God Stalk... which, I note, after publishing 3 books between 1982 and 2006, has gone on a spree of 4 books in 8 years... which maybe I'll track down and read

Comments

[desireearmfeldt]

You live!

*waves hello*

[visage]

I really wouldn't compare the Malazan books to the Black Company novels -- Malazan is far more concerned with epic events of epicness.

The first Malazan book is the weakest of them that I've read, as the author is trying to squeeze more universe-building in than he comfortably can. I've found the others to be reasonably good -- in my category of "every once in a while I'll pick one up and read it". Definitely not everyone's cup of tea, and there are things that annoy me enough in most of them to keep me from reading them more than infrequently. Some people really are quite taken by them, though.

Fortunately, they're comparatively self-contained. There are arc plots running through the series, but each book stands alone reasonably (at least of the ones I've read so far), in that I don't have to really remember much of what happened in a previous book to get into the next one.

[visage]

Someone completely independently asked me my opinion of Malazan last night at my MITSFS hours, and something that came mind: of the books of it that I've read, I consider the second to be the best. So, if you're pondering reading more, I'd lean towards suggesting you read that one.

[firstfrost]

I could not finish the first Malazan book, though it did remind me of the Black Company too (which I really liked way back when). It kind of baffled me at the time - it clearly had all the things I like in books, so why did I keep wondering if there was anything on television while I was reading it?