New books thread!

[Petra]

Not sure if this is listed anywhere, but..

Steven Erikson's Malazon Book of the Fallen is amazing.

Welcome to the Marmite of fantasy series. Prepare for explosion of contrary opinions.

I'm on Saint's Blood - Book 3 of the Greatcoats series. Still a really enjoyable series.

Just read The Essex Serpent, which was a really enjoyable fiction about relationships and family in Victorian times in the UK.

And probably about 50 other things I don't remember right now.

[Giramael]

Not sure if this is listed anywhere, but..

Steven Erikson's Malazon Book of the Fallen is amazing.

Yeah it is only THE BEST THING EVER! Tough at times but so rewarding in so many different ways. As a bonus it turned me on to Glen Cook (who inspired Erikson), and while The Black Company is more hit and miss it is also bloody brilliant

I've been audiobooking The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch recently. Really enjoy the story and characters, not so keen on the shifting back and forth from past to present with the non stop interludes.

[Petra]

I actually really enjoyed the flashback style of Lies of Locke Lamora,

If you loved Malazan then a big shout out to Greatcloaks series, Name of the Wind (which may never be finished and I'm sure most of you have already read anyway) and the books of R. Scott Bakker (which get a little overly slow towards the latter books but start off in a storm of delight... so pretty familiar to Malazan readers...)

[Madin]

Enemy by K. Eason, an epic fantasy has animal familiars, magic, and dark without being grim.
The Black Company by Glen Cook, which is military fantasy that follows a mercenary company through war between demigods.
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson, which is hard SF, and has some of the same issues I have with Kim Stanley Robinson of huge pauses to discuss science for thirty pages. I just skim through those sections.
All Systems Red by Martha Wells, a scifi novella about a murderbot cyborg AI that hacks the code that controls it, and uses that freedom to watch soap operas for free when on break from being a planetary expedition bodyguard.

[Draconus]

Obviously Malazan being one of my favorite series... below are some I've read recently that I enjoyed to different degrees:

- Red Rising by Pierce Brown: Its somewhat Fantasy/Sci Fi. Very entertaining
- Raven's Shadow Series by Anthony Ryan: Nice action packed book
- The Draconis Memoria by Anthony Ryan: Entertaining read
- Cradle by Will Wight: Nothing earth shattering but I found very entertaining
- The Shadow Campeign by Wexler Django: More military esque fantasy with an interesting magic system.
- Lightbringer by Brent Weeks: Another interesting series with a different magic system.
- Tales of the Kin by Douglas Hulick: The younger, less good looking brother of Lies of Locke Lamora
- Everything by Brandon Sanderson!

Anyhoo, those are just some i found good reads

[Vaen]

I'll bite. Malazan is so bad. Couldn't get past two books and even that felt like a waste of time, though the second book was markedly better than the truly awful first book. That first book's writing is still memorable in how totally bad and confusing it was. I feel like the go-to excuse for that is "it's not explanatory world-building, Erikson lets you figure stuff out!!!" and that strikes me as synonymous with shitty fantasy writing. Plenty of authors let you figure stuff out without struggling to understand what is fundamentally going on in the scene because the descriptive writing is so bad. I'm pretty sure I bought the first 6 books at one time, really hoping to like it. I still have them, maybe I'll give them a shot if I ever get through my already extensive reading list.

Welcome to the Marmite of fantasy series. Prepare for explosion of contrary opinions.

[Draconus]

I agree that its initially very confusing. I think you will enjoy it if you keep reading... Specially if you have them all!

[Kanae]

Welcome to the Marmite of fantasy series. Prepare for explosion of contrary opinions.

Yeah, that's super true.

I absolutely hated the first two books when I first started reading them, while Eriksons' writing style is convoluted and doesn't really come into it's own until House of Chains the story lore is great. He does better in Memories of Ice than he did in Garden's of the Moon and Deadhouse Gates though when it comes to how he writes.

Once you get accustomed to his style, it's super enjoyable I think. I'm glad I listened to my friends and pushed forward with it rather than discarding them.