I have purchased it. I haven't started it yet, though. All of my reading lately has had to be research. It's interesting, but I'm definitely ready to get back to some good old fashioned fantasy. I'm looking forward to starting.
Hey, I finally finished the first book in the series. I really enjoyed it. I was a little put off by the 'firearm' weapon. Once finished I eagerly started reading the second book in the series but saw more about the 'firearm' type weapons, so I stopped. I'm not sure why magic (as long as it is minimal) can appeal to me, but any kind of gun powder weapon really bothers me in my fantasy. I started reading Spark City. I enjoyed it the beginning, but then he got to Spark City which has electricity (That's also a turn off for me). I will try and finish that one at some point.
I was going through @arno_ed’s thread again since it got bumped and ended up reading the whole thing, again. Saw your interest in Military Fantasy and Sci-Fi. I wouldn’t deign to call Mr Cook an “old fart,” that being a bit hypocritical on my part, but it brought to mind Walter Jon Williams, a brilliant SF/cyberpunk/ and other stuff writer. I wondered if you’d read his Dread Empire’s Fall trilogy. The first is The Praxis. I couldn’t put these down, and they were the kind of trilogy that when you finished the last one, you thought, “He can’t possibly be finished with this!” Turns out that he eventually got around to expanding on it. Highly recommended. “Military SF,” but so much more. Hope it isn’t to much of a derail here, but so much of SF is really fantasy, isn’t it?
I actually totally forgot there was a firearm weapon in it. It does not play a big role in the overall story (IIRC). I actually also hate it when there is a pun powder weapon in my fantasy story, But since it did not play a big role I got over it. I think in my mind it was more of a crossbow type of weapon I am now reading the "Moontide quartet" by David Hair. I actually really like it. If you get over the total lack of creativity regarding names of cities etc. it is great. I really like the Magic system, maybe the best magic system in any book that I have read.
Seeing this thread a bit late, but here's a great list from Reddit that I found a lot of good stuff from(spoilers for size): Spoiler
Thanks for letting me know. I will probably go back to it at some point. I did enjoy the characters and some of the dark humor in them.
if you end up with a ton of free time, Kindle Unlimited ($10/mo) can be good value especially on a long trip. I really enjoyed Phil Tucker's and Will Wight's works.
Sorry but having the Foundation series at the bottom of the list at number 115 while Butcher is almost in the top 10 is extremely offensive. I love the Dresden Files but they are books to read in the beach or in the toilet, while the Foundation are books that has changed and influenced the whole sci fi literature. It's like comparing a painting by an elementary school kid with Picasso.
@Yung-T This is a pretty good list and I'm definitely going to refer to it in the future. -Middle Earth should really be a little lower and some of the other classics should be higher. It's a poll, though, on a website, so it's going to skew towards a Gen-X and younger crowd -Kingkiller is probably going to end up being #1 when it's finished -Stormlight is excellent -Codex Alera should be higher. Butcher is an excellent author -Wheel of time was awesome through the first five books, then turned into Better Homes and Gardens letter section. Should be MUCH lower -Powder Mage- not sure it should be this high. I think it's just at 21 because it's original -I loved Black Company -I'm ecstatic that Worm is in the top 20. I would even go as far as to put it int he top 10. You can read it legally here: https://parahumans.wordpress.com/ -I'm surprised that Ender's Saga is so low, but I've only read the first book -Gaunt's Ghosts should -really- be on this list. It is fantastic Military Sci-Fi. It may be getting snubbed due to being in the Warhammer 40k universe, but good writing is good writing IMO
Great list Yung-T. I have read most of the top 20 series (except for the ones that have not been concluded. I do not want to read series which are not complete. Ofcourse I would change some rankings, but it is a nice overview of popular fantasy series. Perfect for me to find new ones After I finish this series I will read the third book of Esslemont (Path to Ascendancy). I do not really like Esslemont, but I will read anything if it is in the world of the MBotF. That series is still by far my favorite. But after that I am choosing between "Instrumentalities of the Night" by glen Cook or "Broken Empire" by Mark Lawrence. Has anybody read them both?
Foundation has been recommended to me. However I like Fantasy more than Sci-fi. So that made me not pick it up (the only Sci-fi books I liked was Dune). Would you recommend it? Even for not a sci-fi lover?
Of course I recommend Foundation because it's one of my most favourite series. I must have read the whole series of 5 books more than 10 times since I was a child until now. I did not like the prequels though. The original trilogy is very brilliant and while the original Dune is more character driven, Foundation is more macroscopic where the real protagonist is humanity and the puppet master behind the scenes has been long dead hundreds of years ago. If you like reading history, sociology and psychology you will very much enjoy it.
I liked ICE’s writing better then SE’s in the Malazan world. SE’s is a little stale, meandering and verbose at times (because he’s an anthropologist by trade) and to me, gets a little boring. ICE seems like a better character writer. I read book one of Instrumentalities. It was about 15 years ago and if I remember correctly it was a lot of world building and some highbrow verbiage. My tastes in books have changed significantly since then and I was considering a re-read because it’s Cook.
I don't know if they've been mentioned, but I found Stephen Aryan's books very entertaining. Just finished reading the series. Battlemage/Bloodmage/Chaosmage-->Mageborn/Magefall/Magebane P.S. The Stormlight Archive so far has been amazing.
a "little" verbose? That's an understatement. I dont know about others like @arno_ed but for me it has been pretty much impossible after several tries to read in the original language. I'm not going to open the dictionary and thesaurus two times per page to read a fantasy book. Pretty much all the other sci fi and fantasy books I have been reading them in english with no problem. It's too bad because it the writing takes away from the novel imo. So for anyone looking for a recommendation, if you don't have very big patience and perfect command of the english language, better stay away from Malazan.
It's been a struggle, fantasy books are really hard to read, had to use a thick dictionary and a thesaurus book when I was 12 and wanted to go thru non translated Discworld books.
That's really interesting. I can say that finding words I don't know in books is probably one of my favorite things about the reading experience. I guess I had a similar experience: When I was six, I read the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books. I remember seeing the 'animated' version on TV (it was rotoscoped) and the books were on my grandfather's bookshelf. I remember reading it and thinking 'I don't know a lot of these words, but I'm going to figure it out'. I either figured them out via context or looked them up. I'd say that the word lookup is the best reason to own a Kindle. Just highlight the word and the definition pops up.
It depends. When I read a book to enjoy the genius of the prose, the art of literature and to marvel at the "mot juste", for example Nabokov or Milton, or ancient greek masterpieces like Euripides, then I am willing to go through the trouble to devote 10 minutes per page looking up obscure words and footnotes. But it is worth it in these cases because a translation no matter how well done, takes away all the beauty and doesn't allow you to really immerse in the reading experience. You only get words - the essence- not the real art. It's like killing a singing bird just to eat the meat. I will be honest, the level of writing of this is not worth the trouble. IMO. It isn't beautiful and genius it is uneccessarily superfluous tiring and pretendious. The essence is good enough. I want to read the plot and the adventure there is not much art or beauty behind his writing to marvel at. No offence, it is my opinion. I definitely wouldn't recommend it to someone who wants a light read unless they really have a very good vocabulary and patience.
