The Fantasy/Sci-Fi Books Thread Book • Page 80

I think I’ve got a Gwynne sitting in my audible right now. But once I finish this King trilogy, back into Malazan I go

 

i also have the way of kings sitting around as my intro to sanderson so ive got options but i was at barnes and noble today and saw malice and decided to get it

 

Those were both books I read when I was getting introduced to modern fantasy so I think you'll have a good time.

 

The first time I read WoK I did nothing for two straight days but read, sleep, read. What a book. Amazing he’s topped it twice in the series now.

 

I vividly remembering reading the opening and just being absolutely blown by the magic. I didn't know people were building intricate magic systems like that. That book starts with a BANG.

 

yeah after 50 pages Malice is very easy to get into. definitely see myself taking an hour or two to read every day

 

Still working on my Gwynne book as well from our book exchange

 

Finally almost done with To Green Angel Tower. Tad Williams should be talked about more. Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn will definitely end up high on my favorite series list.

 

Gwynnes just some great easy fantasy. If you look into it a lot more then you can find the hidden bits but it's so accessible and a great starting fantasy. The 2nd series, Bloodsworn, is so much better written (not that TFATF is bad, because its not) but such a great growth. Can't wait for book 3.

I really need to continue. I've read Dragonbone Chair twice and just never went through any more.


I'm moving onto Demon in White now! I finished up The Shadow Casket and whilst it was good, there were a lot of decision that I don't really agree with and it sorta took me out. Curious to see what happens in book 3 but it felt like shock value for shock values sake and not the story.

 

been in a bit of a fantasy slump for a while now so the past couple months have just been old comfort sci fi i've read a thousand times (dune/foundation), baldur's gate 3 has me really itching to get back to what i really love though. it's either finally time to push through further on my deep shame of never finishing WoT or cahill for something new, we'll see how i feel later.

the real answer is that i'm just going to continue to play obscene amounts of bg3

 

Lol BG3 def got me more interested in fantasy literature

 

Somehow got an ARC of the Bloody Chorus (must be getting a re-release). Didn't someone here say they'd read it?

 

Anyone here read the Book of the New Sun?

 

Time for a Mistborn update.

I'm about 200 pages from the end. More context: The skaa army launched a surprise attack against one of the Final Empire's garrisons because they were inspired by Kelsier. The attack did not go well.Most of the middle of the novel feels like it's been spinning its wheels until this point. I know the "Sanderlanche" (aka the climax) is coming, but it took an awfully long time for me to feel the gravitas and stakes. And then Kelsier choosing to double down on fighting the Lord Ruler because of a former slave turned rebel? Eh. Cool throwback, and the mood in that scene was mystical and eerie, but not sure I love the plot choice.

Having finished Warbreaker recently, and now really sticking with this one almost until the end, my jury is still out on Sanderson. I know both of these novels are from earlier in his career, so I really hope that everyone saying he levels up (in terms of his prose and overall) turns out to be true for me, too.

 

Whenever I play a fantasy video game you can bet your ass I'm also reading a fantasy series. It's best when you can really match it up, like playing the Witcher games and reading the Witcher books, but that's obviously not very common. I'm thinking when BG3 comes out for PS5 (which I am just dying for) I'll probably dive back into some D&D lit.

 

Yeah I've been thinking some Forgotten Realms or D&D stuff would be good for BG3. Probably some Dragonlance; the newest Weis & Hickman just came out, I'm excited about that. It's nice to have that synergy.

 

I always forget about Dragonlance. Maybe that will be my next big project now that Riftwar's done.

 

So I read The Fall, enjoyed it, quick easy read, figured I'd jump into book one straight away and I see that it's free to amazon prime members? Which I haven't seen since like, back when Kindle Unlimited was just a part of Prime, I did not know they still did that.

 

Some self pub authors do all book ones in their catalogs as perma-free as loss leaders

 

Ohhhh nice! I just read the ARC of The Ice and let me tell you, that book needs releasing now.
What did you think?

 

I enjoyed it enough, but it probably wasn't how I should have started. Just being thrown into the action like that was a lot.

I also spent sooo long trying to find the city on the map. I probably should have figured out sooner why I wasn't going to find it, lol

 

it’s a good entry point and can be argued whether you read it first or not but it can be pretty action-heavy. Think you’ll enjoy OBAF more if that’s the case!

 

Ok so here are some thought on Riftwar. Basically the idea is that I'm going to mention the things that I wanted to know before starting the series, specifically each series's function in the larger narrative. I will stay away from spoiling specifics, but it's possible that if you are very sensitive to spoilers, and want to read the series completely blind, I might say something you wouldn't wish to know. So that's the warning, and I don't think I'll get into specifics I would consider spoiler tag worthy, but if so I will spoiler tag them.

First off, The Riftwar Saga, either books 1-3 or books 1-4. The US version splits up the first book into 2 books. So this is where the Riftwar gets its name, it's the single most important part of the entire series. I've read a lot of reviews that believe it peaked here, I disagree, but more on that later. You more or less get a complete story here, if that's all you wanted to read. Looking back at everything that was important in the endgame, every single seed is planted here.

There are two worlds at battle during the Riftwar, the first is Mikdemia where most of the series takes place. This is the "Tolkien" world. Elves, dwarves, goblins, all that fun stuff. The second is Kelewan, a fiercely feudal, eastern inspired culture with less magical creatures.

The Empire Trilogy - This takes place at the same time as the Riftwar, this is the story of what is going on on the other side of the rift. Janny Wurts writes all of these books with Feist, and you really feel her presence, this is the most politically dense of the series. It's absolutely excellent, starting with a simple and satisfying revenge story but becoming grander as the series goes along. This series probably focuses the most on one character and their pov, while the other series have a wider range of main characters. The good news is, the character they focus on fucking rules and is one of the series best.

So at this point I'm thinking, okay so maybe we'll be switching back and forth, and the characters from Empire will be more important further down the line. Yeah, not true. That's the most time we spend in Kelewan. Onto other shit to worry about!

Krondor's Son's - So these books are like in between books. They are however pretty good and very important to the overall narrative, unlike what I'll be talking about later. Not much to say about these ones. I remember thinking by this point he was settling into a pretty good pattern of setting up a good villain and revenge story, so that's always enough to push me along.

The Serpentwar Saga - This is the end of the first Act. Everything has been culminating to this. We've been hearing whispers of Serpents and whatnot so we know from the name this is going to be very important. And it is. If this were the MCU this is the first Avengers film. It's epic as fuck. If the original Riftwar series was the first jumping off point, this is the second. We get a very satisfying conclusion to what has been 16 years of storytelling at this point. That said, this is also the first whisper we get of the possible "Big Bad." It's decided the main characters and strongest magic users in the series much band together and form The Conclave of Shadows, a shadow organization who's role is to protect the world from further incursions like the Riftwar and the Serpentwar.

So here's where things get messy. Lets call this Act 2.

Riftwar Legacy, and Legends of the Riftwar basically serve the same purpose. We go back in time, to get smaller, less consequential stories during the time of the Riftwar. The Betrayal and Tear of the God were okay, but that's the problem with all of these books, they're all just okay. And the thing is, I think there are people that would love certain ones more than stuff in the main narrative, like the Abercrombie books (although I would argue those books are as important as any books in the series). But for me, it was really just a slog where I wanted to get back to the fuckin Conclave and start dealing with this threat that we now have a name for. There are definitely better ways to read them then straight through, one after the other, while the back of your mind just wants to move on. These books are completely inconsequential to the main story, and the only time I really noticed them mentioned was a bunch of easter eggs in the final book. To bring it back to the MCU, this is the directionless Disney Plus tv show era. I'm not going to go as far as to say you should skip these books, you might find something to love that just didn't click for me, I just want to get across that you can absolutely skip both of these series of books and you will be perfectly fine and it will help with the overall narratives pacing. You can always go back, since they take place in the past anyway. This was the only time I wondered, is it worth it? and did I get enough from the Serpentwar?

Well thank fuck I stuck around for Act 3

Conclave of Shadows - Begins with the best character introduction of the entire series (and like every book has a new bunch of farmboys to introduce us too, so that's saying a lot). Very hard David Gemmell vibes, specifically Rigante. The last book is such a total surprise and taken in the last direction I would have expected it to. I won't say more about it besides its pretty brilliant.

It's clear at this time that Feist is thinking about his endgame. Up until this point there wasn't really an endgame in sight, and it didn't seem like he was even attempting to reach one. But now the pieces are starting to come together. If you want a comparison, it's like when Stephen King came back with Dark Tower 5, and was like yeah and I'm writing 6 and 7 pretty quick then we done. There's still a lot of books to go, but from here on out everything is more focused and the better for it.

Also another sidenote worth mentioning, you only learn bits and pieces about the Gods and Magic in the first Act (none in Act 2, don't worry), but now you start getting really deep into it, and it really comes out of nowhere sometimes, you'll just get an insane exposition dump where it's like it's brilliant, but I'm thinking, this was in the back pocket the whole time and you're still having me kick it around with farmboys at the start of every book? This stuff is always the best part of the books, and the lore is absolutely top notch, with it's own spins on fantasy that I haven't read before.

The Darkwar Saga - So we have three "wars" left. This one was great. By now I was all in. We are focusing on the shit I want to focus on. The story has gotten so big and so epic that every time I learn something new it feels earth shattering. From this point on I loved everything.

The Demonwar Saga - This is the shortest "war", like Krondor's Sons coming in at 2 books. For the most part it is set up for the big finale. The good news is that this is the best kind of a penultimate story. Getting you prepared for the final confrontation, getting you excited for it, and being a great story in its own right.

And finally The Chaoswar Saga - It delivers. You knew from the name it was going to be important if you've been paying the slightest bit of attention during the series. I've often mentioned in this thread, the thing that fantasy can deliver on that no other genre really does, is holding up the burden of truly epic storytelling, which often is a product of time, you read 31 books in a series, the end is going to mean something to you when everything has been building to it. That's the ultimate "reader's high" for me. Of course a really great author can do it in less time, and it is a bit shallow to admit that your enjoyment of something comes from spending a very long amount of time with the characters giving them the breadth to grown on you. But I think most fantasy readers know what I'm talking about. It's what I've been chasing since I finished Dark Tower, or I guess as far back as Harry Potter.

And although Riftwar is not the best fantasy series I've ever read, I can say, that the epicness of being 30 books in and starting up that last book...It's really a feeling of it's own.

Anyway that's way too fucking long of a post. I really just needed to vent a little bit about it before I move on, lol.

 

Finished To Green Angel Tower finally. MS&T has firmly cemented itself in my top series. Jumped right into The Heart of What Was Lost and really enjoying it. Pretty bummed it appears Navigators Children has been pushed back to next year.

 

Man, I don't think anyone does philosophy/fantasy/adventure better than bakker. It's like my part time job recommending that series.