Ammanas

With Erikson writing Kharkanus and Esslemont's new series I think one comment I heard, from a Malazan reviewer, really sums up Esslemonts Path to Ascendancy novels when they said, "Esslemont has made Malazan fun again!" I can't remember where I read that, but his two newest books are probably the most fun malazan novels. Definitely not the best malazan book. I find several of Eriksons books (probably all) to be higher quality and more satisfying. I realize some people may not know what I am talking about between "best" and "fun" but its kind of hard for me to articulate.

@maxal Would it be fair to say that Brandon's editor should shoulder most of the blame for the problems you listed?

@StormingTexan Out of curiosity did you read the book or listen to it? I noticed that Kramer is the narrator for this series.

Rereading one of my favorite books, The Player of Games, by Banks. Even though I know how it ends I can't stop turning the page to experience the next scene. Definitely the best Culture novel because the pacing remains crisp throughout the entire book. Sometimes in other Culture books the author gets a little distracted. Also love the first section: "This is a story of a man who went far away to play a game. The man is a game-player called Gurgeh. The story starts with a battle that is not a battle, and ends with a game that is not a game. Me? I'll tell you about me later. This is how the story begins."

Most definitely @Who Sharded?. I think my favorite Naval Battles took place in Stonewielder and my favorite horror scenes were what they found in the temples in Blood and Bone.

I've always been a fan of Keenum. I saw a few games of him playing for the University of Houston and he was a fun player to watch that stood out from everyone else. I have been following his career bouncing across the league and am happy that he has found success this year in Minnesota. He went up another notch in my book when he said throwing the game winning pass was the third greatest moment of his life. Behind giving his life to Jesus Christ and marrying his wife. It was so refreshing to hear!

Apologies to Saints fans, but OH SWEET ADONALSIUM! THAT ENDING TO THE MINNESOTA FOOTBALL GAME!

My Spoiler Free review of all eight Esslemont books: It was a bit of a twisty path the lead me to completing all of his books. I had originally tried reading his books intermingled with Eriksons during my first malazan read, but I was overwhelmed with following Eriksons plots and keeping everything straight that I couldn't handle more plots and storylines that Esslemont threw at me. I also found Esslemonts writing to be dense and hard to concentrate on so I gave up after Stonewielder. I then gave the Path to Ascendancy novels a try and found, to my delight, that Esslemont had completely changed his prose with these new novels. The pages were almost thrumming with energy and enthusiasm that I immediately fell in love with. I decided to give his original six books another chance and after Return of the Crimson Guard I found, though improved from what I remember, something was missing. I switched to the audiobooks narrated by Banks and that made a huge difference and found he really makes the books come alive. Even though there are several things that Erikson does better in the main ten book series here are two things that Esslemont does better than Erikson: 1. Whenever he wants to interject philosophy into the text it always feels appropriate. 2. I loved the greater range of locales/scenery. Everything from jungles to Ice wastes. Some other great things from Esslemont is really filling in the gaps from Eriksons series, and great look into Segulah culture. Here is my ranking of his books 1. Deadhouse Landing 2. Dancer's Lament 3. Orb, Sceptre, Throne 4. Stonewielder 5. Return of the Crimson Guard 6. Blood and Bone 7. Assail 8. Night of Knives

Just saw the movie Along With the Gods: the Two Worlds. Evidently this is a Korean movie with english subtitles and it was absolutely a beautiful movie. It was all about love and forgiveness mixed in with grim reapers and epic fantasy scenes. I can't remember the last time I cried at a theater, but this movie really touched me.

Is that a Moon Scepter in your pants or are you just happy to see me? Also the following youtube video. Replace Heaven with Tranquilline Halls and Angel with Herald.

They have basically come out with a anime about that (based on a book series). Translated to english it is called, "The Saga of Tanya the Evil". It is a great show if you want to give it a chance. I watched via Crunchyroll (a free app for my roku box).

One of the funniest books I have ever read. Its one of those books that I could recommend to just about anyone (new or veteran fantasy reader) and feel like they would enjoy. Many of my favorite series I hesitate to recommend to others because they are not for everyone (see Malazan). If someone was fairly new to fantasy I would recommend Mistborn (it gets mentioned over Stormlight because the original trilogy is completed and it's a tighter story), The Lies of Locke Lamora, First Law series and now Kings of the Wyld.

One of the more underated books of the series. So many epic scenes in it! My second favorite Erikson novel!

I think Minnesota is the only team the Saints need to worry about in their conference BK. I think they can handle Philly, and Atlanta. The AFC has been shakey all year as well.

I think, from what I understand, they don't like it when he switches to what I call the "macro" mode of telling the story. He tells of events kind of like reading a historical account. One thing that I love about this method is that it really moves the plot along. I have always been more of a plot guy. Some readers prefer getting into characters heads and hearing about every thought, emotion etc. and the author doesn't write the story like that.

I know your question was put to BK, but I was one of the ones who convinced him to read it. The writing style doesn't jive with some people, but I love it and Grace of Kings is one of my favorite books. The author weaves his tale by switching back and force between macro and micro, past and present. It is never confusing and the payoff is in my opinion a majestic book. This book isn't for everyone, but one should definitely give it a try!

Currently reading The Land:Founding by Aleron Kong. This book is a new type of writing (or at least new to me) called literary RPG. It is pure cotton candy, but fun so far.

Could the The Unknown God be Cthulhu?

Hah I was about to give up on The Way of Kings, but switching to the audiobook really helped for me. I have gone back and read sections of it so it wouldn't be a problem if I wanted to read the entire thing; but why would I? Krammer and Reading are such a delight!

@StormingTexan It is a very real possibility that I came in with too high expectations. I discovered this series by reading a review where they say, "And based on this book, Islington deserves those comparisons to genre stalwarts. Love The Wheel of Time? This is about to become your new favorite series." https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/shadow-lost-introduces-fresh-fantasy-voice/

I always thought that the concept of Warhammer is cool, but its hard to know where to start. One of my favorite authors (Paul Kearney) has written a couple of stories in the Warhammer setting I have been meaning to read them.

I am going to give this another shot; only got a third of the way through the first one before giving up. I keep on hearing people rave about it so I am currently hold number 6 on two copies at my library. I have been known to vastly change my opinion on a book so we will see!

I think that I am the only other one to read Deadhouse Landing on the Shard. You can feel free to send me a private message if you want to discuss it.

I think this thread should be a spoiler tag free thread, but I still would put in spoiler tags just to be courteous to others and avoid any potential arguments. I think the Path to Ascendancy is Esslemonts best books and am planning a longer post soon that gives my feelings on his books with how I would rank them (currently just started my last Esslemont book which is Assail). I heard that depending on how things go he may extend the Path to Ascendancy series out beyond the trilogy he signed for. Normally I would say this is a bad idea, but these books are so much fun and there are so many more stories he could tell during the time period he is currently in. Regarding Kharkhanus, I dont know if you saw the first post on this thread, but major information concerning that.

Very cool. Its always been kind of a pipe dream to get into this, but I know that I don't have the money, and make the time and huge effort needed for such a endeavor. Thanks for sharing!