Look what arrived today – an early Christmas present. 🙂
On My Mind – Alabama – 12/12/2017
I stayed inside myself on this one – didn’t even allow myself to hope – told myself I was being realistic and that there would be better opportunities in other places and at other times. Well – I just should have had more faith. Tonight – my very, very sincere thanks goes out to the people of Alabama for choosing a kind-hearted, tolerant, principled man.
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On My Mind – Reading Order For The Malazan Series – 12/11/2017
Since I’m so invested in this series AND since I would passionately argue that it’s well worth the time of any Fantasy fan BUT given the complexity of the world Steven Erikson and Ian C. Esslemont have created AND the challenges I faced the first time I tried to read through this, I thought I’d lay out a recommended reading order for anyone interested in getting started.
Taking the books in this order – along with frequent use of the Malazan Wiki – should help flatten the learning curve as you try to understand all the things happening in this amazing world. The recommendations below are based on both my reading experience and some help from the Malazan Wiki.
I’d start with The Kharkanas Trilogy by Steven Erikson consisting of “Forge Of Darkness”, “Fall Of Light” and the “Walk In Shadow” (publication date yet to be announced). These three books chronicle the early history of the world and introduce several key races – the Tiste, the Jaghut and the Azathanai.
Once done, progress to the Path Of Ascendancy series by Ian C. Esslemont – currently consisting of “Dancer’s Lament” and “Deadhouse Landing” and “Kellanved’s Reach” (publication date to be determined). These books tell the story of Kellanved’s founding of the Malazan Empire and introduce all the pivotal Malazan characters that you either meet directly or by reference in the later books.
Next step would be the first of the novels in Ian C. Esslemont’s primary series – “Night Of Knives”. This one tells the story of Kellanved and Dancer’s Ascendancy and precede all the remaining novels.
The next few steps will be books by Steven Erickson in this order:
- Gardens Of The Moon – Steven Erikson
- Deadhouse Gates – Steven Erikson
- Memories Of Ice – Steven Erikson
- House Of Chains – Steven Erikson
- Midnight Tides – Steven Erikson*
- Bonehunters – Steven Erikson*
*I don’t know that it makes any difference which of these two you read first – but they should be read after “House Of Chains”.
After “Midnight Tides” and “Bonehunters”, it becomes a bit ambiguous but I think this will work best:
- Return Of The Crimson Guard – Ian C. Esslemont
- Stonewielder – Ian C. Esslemont
- Reaper’s Gale – Steven Erikson
- Toll The Hounds – Steven Erikson
- Orb, Sceptre, Throne – Ian C. Esslemont
- Blood And Bone – Ian C. Esslemont
- Dust Of Dreams – Steven Erikson
- The Crippled God – Steven Erikson
- Assail – Ian C. Esslemont
Now – please be aware – even if you read the books in this order, you’re still going to deal with a narrative timewarp or two and here’s an example. In Deadhouse Gates, there’s an episode where a group composed of Kulp, Stormy, Gesler, Truth, Felisin, Baudin and Heboric gets pulled into a fragment of the warren Kurald Emurlahn called The Nascent. While there, they encounter a Quon dromon named the Silanda crewed by a magically animated, decapitated crew of Tiste Andii and a number of newly slain Tiste Edur. They eventually win free of the Kurald Emurlahn and the episode is one that seems relatively inconsequential to the overall narrative.
When you get to House Of Chains and you’re reading Karsa Orlong’s story, he and Torvald Nom also find themselves trapped in The Nascent and they also stumble onto the Silanda but in Karsa’s story – the Tiste Edur that Kulp et. al. find slain are still alive and Karsa Orlong is actually the one that winds up killing them all. You’ve progressed two more books into the series but Steven Erikson has jumped backward in his timeline.
You’ll also find that the leader of the Tiste Edur slain by Karsa Orlong on the Silanda – Binadas Sengar – appears in Midnight Tides.
In no way is this a negative – it’s just one of those aspects of the series that occasionally tripped me up the 1st time through.
I sometimes wish I’d been able to read the books in this order the first time through but – in truth – the two new trilogies – Kharkanas and Path To Ascendany – and the discovery of the Wiki – just inspired me to go back and read them all again – and that’s a decision I most definitely will not regret.
🙂
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On The Shelf – Holiday Reading List – 12/11/2017
One of the many, many things I love about the Christmas Break is that I’m normally able to string 2+ weeks of vacation together. It’s my one real chance every year to truly step away from work and put some time into the things I love. As you can imagine, one of the things on my to do list every year is catch up on my reading. I buy so many books over the course of a year and I’m never able to finish them all. They tend to pile up in the library – on the shelves – on the floor – anywhere I can find them a temporary home. While I don’t ever clear the que over the Christmas Break, I always make some real progress.
This year is no different – I have stacks and stacks waiting for me and I can’t wait to dig into as many of these potential treasures as possible. I thought I’d post a short list of those books that are at the top of my stacks going into the Break.
House Of Chains: I’ve already mentioned that this one is on the nightstand and I’m making progress. Having said that, it’s not a quick read. I’m about a third of the way through and I don’t expect to finish this one until sometime next week. Once I do, I have a huge decision to make. I can either move on to the next book in the Malazan series – “Midnight Tides” – an equally weighty read but well worth it – or I can step away for a book or two and do something completely different.
It would be very easy to go back and read the next installment of the Sandman Slim series – “Kill City Blues” – which Amazon with an impeccable sense of timing – just dropped off on my doorstep today. These are really fun reads and you can finish them in a day. These books also bring with them a lot of great laughs – which is not a bad option after gritty, deadly atmosphere that permeates all of the Malazan novels.
I also have a couple of options that will take me out of the Fantasy genre. I love history and it was one of the topics that made reading such a huge part of my life. The two biggest components of my personal library are Science Fiction & Fantasy and History. I’ve spent the last 3 – 4 months reading through a Fantasy backlog that I’ve built up so I’m probably due to get back to a History title.
I recently bought Dan Jones’ new book about the Templars – not surprisingly titled “The Templars”. I’ve always been intrigued by this organization but have never taken the time to explore their history in detail. The book has been very positively reviewed and it looks like a great entry point to a period in history that I’m not all that familiar with.
Another good option in this area would be a book I just purchased and am expecting to arrive any day now – The Landmark Julius Caesar: The Complete Works. Any fan of classical history and literature really should check out this series of publications. The Landmark Julius Caesar is the fifth in a collection of definitive editions including The Landmark Herodotus, The Landmark Thucydides, The Landmark Arrian – The Campaigns Of Alexander and The Landmark Xenophon’s Hellenica. Not only are these beautiful volumes but they include an incredible amount of background information, asides, footnotes and accompanying material – making them really smooth reads. This is one I’d like to read through over the Break if time allows.
I also have a science fiction option in the que – the second book in Neal Asher’s Polity universe. Neal’s most recent additions to this universe – a trilogy called Transformation consisting of “Dark Intelligence”, “War Factory” and “infinity Engine” – have been well reviewed and are very popular. I want to read them but I tend to get a little meticulous about how I enter a new universe. He has a whole host of novels set in the Polity that precede this trilogy and I’m determined to read them in order. Before my return to the Malazan series and before reading the first 5 Sandman Slim novels, I started down this road by reading his first Polity novel – “Prador Moon”. It was a little rough – an early work – but the concept was really intriguing – a society characterized by peaceful cooperation between humans and artificial intelligences. I have the second book in the progression – Shadow Of The Scorpion – which I’d like to get through over the Break.
One last weird but fun option for the Holiday is a new author I just found named Jonathan L. Howard. I’ve always really loved H.P. Lovecraft’s novels and short stories – devoured them in High School and own a couple of very nice hardcover “Complete Works” editions. Howard has done something really fun with the mythos – writing a series of stories about the modern day descendants of H.P. and Randolph Carter – a recurring character in many of his stories. I’ve read his first novel – “Carter & Lovecraft” – and enjoyed it. I recently bought his second – “After The End Of The World” – and I’m eager to give it a try.
There’s a lot more but that’s what’s currently on the top of my piles. It looks to me like its going to be a very Merry Christmas!!
Cheers
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On My Mind – George R.R. Martin & Game Of Thrones – 12/10/2017
This is likely going to sound silly to many of you and probably a stale complaint to most but I felt that it would be a reasonable first post for the “On My Mind” category.
I’m one of those literary curmudgeons who refuses to watch Game Of Thrones. I’ve read all of George R.R. Martin’s books – including “A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms” – and I’ve enjoyed almost every word. I love his world and his characters and I really want more. When the TV series first came out, I was tempted but I just didn’t bite. I kept telling myself that I wanted to see it finished on the page first – have the opportunity to build that world out with my own imagination instead of having it built out by others.
That felt like a reasonable decision for quite awhile but here we are – more than 6 years after publication of “A Dance With Dragons” – and I’m still waiting for “The Winds Of Winter” while the rest of the world gets to see the story progress. I’ve gone from being an early fan to one of the few people alive who doesn’t know what’s going on in Westeros and I’m feeling pretty silly about the whole thing.
Rumor has the book coming out as early as 2018 but I’ve lost faith. Martin keeps saying that the book’s just not finished, that he has other projects he’s working on, that we may still see a related Westeros book in 2018 – long to short – I’m not holding my breath and I’m beginning to reconsider my original decision.
Given the man’s age and his current health, I would not be surprised if someone else had to step in and finish the series – in the same way that Sanderson had to help conclude The Wheel Of Time. Please let it not be so.
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In The Cart – The Fuller Memorandum – 12/9/2017
I am a huge fan of “The Laundry Files” and will buy these books in hard cover the day they’re released. For anyone else who’s a fan but who’s not watching release dates, the next installment in the series will be titled “The Labyrinth Index” and is scheduled for release on March 3, 2018.
For those of you who haven’t experienced this series, it’s an insanely funny take on the Lovecraftian universe, set in the present day, where summoning and demonology and magic are all driven by theoretical mathematics. Magicians become computational demonologists and all of the major 20th century powers have government agencies whose mission is to both control the occasional outbreaks of Lovecraftian horrors – which have been steadily increasing since the development and adoption of new information processing / computing capabilities – and preparation for an inevitable “Case Nightmare Green”, an event described in the The Laundry Files Wiki as a time “when the human population has grown sufficiently large – with the result that a critical number of minds are observing reality – and our solar system moves into a region of space with particular properties, thus allowing all kinds of magical and Cthulhoid chaos to take place…A mass-extinction level event, those in the know are hoping for enough of humanity to survive for the seventy or so years it’ll take for our solar system to move out of position, so that the survivors can repopulate the Earth.”
There’s so much to enjoy in these books – what I’ve always particularly appreciated is the way Stross juxtaposes the insane with the mundane. Anyone who’s worked for a government agency whose mission is central to national security will love the way Stross places a pivotal struggle for the survival of humanity in the hands of a traditionally bureaucratic government agency ruled by HR, Finance, Procurement and bound by the dysfunctional nature of any national government’s budgetary process. On top of that, Stross’ principal characters are purposefully and amazingly average in so many ways – typical British reserve, a cynical, beaten down attitude to their own bureaucracy, lives that focus on living within a middle class budget and trying to find a way to get normal, everyday errands taken care of – yet always somehow capable of finding either the creativity, the courage or the overwhelming good luck they need to keep saving the world.
Honestly, I love books that find a way to always make me laugh out loud and these novels almost always do – they’re awesome reads. This is also probably a great time to dive in since Stross finished an initial story arc and assembling a pretty fascinating cast of characters with his most recent book – “The Delirium Stacks” – and is set to launch what sounds like it will be his “Case Nightmare Green” story with a new book scheduled for release in “The Labyrinth Index”.
The Fuller Memorandum is the 3rd book in the series – following The Jennifer Morgue and preceeding The Apocalypse Codex. I double bought this hard cover and would love to find a good home for my second copy. The condition of the copy in question is Used – Like New and ranges in price on Amazon from $5.99 to $15.00. This copy has very minor damage to the corners – otherwise as close to new as you can find.
Contact me if you’re looking for a copy.
Cheers,
Brian
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On The Shelf – Devil Said Bang – 12/9/2017
I’m currently in the middle of a couple of series – all of which I’m really enjoying. I’m going to stay with what I currently have “On The Nightstand” – “House Of Chains” – and am committed to getting through all of the Malazan novels that I still haven’t read before moving to anything else but no guarantee that I won’t drift.
The books “On The Shelf” I wanted to highlight today are the “Sandman Slim” series by Richard Kadrey. I’ve purchased hardcover versions of the first five the series: “Sandman Slim”, “Kill The Dead”, “Aloha From Hell”, “Devil Said Bang” and “Kill City Blues” and I’ve read the first four. I paused on “Kill City Blues” because I wanted to get back to the Malazan novels and am currently well into “House Of Chains” but I’ll eventually get back to these.
Here”s what I’d tell you about these books – they’re just fun. The author has a pretty amazing knowledge of all sorts of weird stuff and – for the lack of a better word – he’s just incredibly witty. My wife actually enjoys it when I read these books – she likes to hear me laugh and when I’m reading any of the books in this series – I laugh out loud – a lot. Besides, until Jim Butcher publishes another Dresden novel – PLEASE HURRY THIS UP – Sandman Slim is a pretty decent alternative.
I don’t think Kadrey’s going to win any awards – and I sincerely apologize if he has and I’m just not aware – but I’d still recommend these books. They’re worth the time and the money – and you may very well make your partner happy – priceless.
Caveat – don’t buy these books if you didn’t find at least some aspects of Milton’s Satan in “Paradise Lost” to be intriguing. In Kadrey’s universe, the lines between worthy and not don’t get drawn cleanly between Heaven and Hell or Angels and Demons. His universe is a lot more complicated and much more interesting than that.
Cheers
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On The Nightstand – House Of Chains – 12/9/2017
So…..I am a huge fan of both Steven Erikson and Ian C. Esslemont. They’ve created one of the richest worlds I’ve ever had the pleasure of living. I’m pretty sure I own every single word these two gentleman have published and I have it all in hard cover. I’ve also had an interesting history with them. I first stumbled upon S.E.’s work at a bookstore in Heathrow Airport during a flight from Malaysia to Indianapolis. I found softcover editions of both Deadhouse Gates and Memories Of Ice, the blurbs were intriguing and the cover art was pretty compelling. I bought both, stuck them in my bag and spent the London to Indy leg of my trip digging into Deadhouse Gates. I loved it – truly loved it – and went straight on to Memories Of Ice – but in all honesty – I struggled. These two guys created an incredibly complex universe – it was initially conceived as a D&D type role playing game – but they don’t waste much time in their books providing back story. While I enjoyed every word, there were few pages that didn’t leave me with huge questions about what was really going on. I nevertheless persisted – buying and reading every subsequent book written by S.E. – up to and including Reaper’s Gale.
At that point, I think I just ran out of steam. The bits and pieces of lore and back story that I never really understood reached critical mass and I started getting a little frustrated. I continued to buy S.E.’s books as they were published but let them sit on the shelf for a number of years. That could have turned into a permanently tragic case of series interruptus until several recent and fortuitous discoveries brought me back to the work. First and foremost, I found the Malazan Wiki, a key that unlocked almost every bit of unexplained history and lore from every book these two had ever written. This is a little embarrassing to admit but I also came to the realization that Ian C. Esslement was Steve’s partner, that this was actually a shared endeavor and that you can’t truly appreciate and understand the world they’d created without reading both authors. Finally, after concluding his anchor series, “A Tale Of The Malazan Book Of The Fallen” with the publication of Book 10, “The Crippled God”, S.E went back and started building out the early history of his universe by launching “The Kharkanas Trilogy” with “Forge Of Darkness”. Similarly, once I.E. had finished his primary story arc, he did some work on the backstory, first with “Night Of Knives” and then with his “Path To Ascendency” series.. I bought all of those books, read them and – with the help of the Malazan Wiki – I actually, really, finally understood EVERYTHING that was happening.
**One correction here – I.E. actually authored “Night Of Knives” as the first volume in his primary story arc – followed by “Return Of The Crimson Guard”. When I first started reading these novels – I began with S.E. and wasn’t even aware of I.E. as a collaborator / partner – wish I had so that I could have started with his “Night Of Knives” and S.E.’s “Gardens Of The Moon” – that might have helped a bit with some of the content involving the Malazan Empire that I’d initially struggled with. Having said that, the discovery of the Malazan Wiki was the thing that really helped me get my arms around this huge universe.**
All those wonderful little word-building epiphanies led inevitably to the decision to return to S.E’s anchor series. I started at the very beginning with “Gardens Of The Moon” and read up to and through “Memories Of Ice”. I’ve just started “House Of Chains” and I’m very happy to say that I’m enjoying even more than I did the first time through.
For anyone just starting down this road, I’d recommend that you start with S.E.’s Kharkanas Trilogy. “Forge Of Darkness” and “Fall Of Light” are currently available and “Walk In Shadow” will eventually be available. They provide some very valuable history touching on the Tiste peoples, the Jaghut, the Azathanai and the formation of the Warrens. Once done with these, transition to the Paths To Ascendency novels by I.E – “Dancer’s Lament” and “Deadhouse Landing” are currently availabe with – I have to assume – more on the way. Those novels chronicle the emergence of the Malazan Empire as it exists in all the later novels and introduces Kellanved, Dancer, Dassem, Tayschrenn, Surly and all the other principal Malazan characters that you run into later on down the line.
If you start here and don’t hesitate to use the Wiki, you’re going to have a much smoother introduction to this world than I did.
Here are a few links that might be valuable for anyone just starting out:
Malazan Wiki: http://malazan.wikia.com/wiki/Malazan_Wiki
Overview Wiki Entry On The Full Body of S.E. / I.E.’s work: http://malazan.wikia.com/wiki/Malazan_Book_of_the_Fallen
One final note – just today, I found a new title released in this series – “The Fiends Of Nightmaria” by S.E. It’s the newest novella about two really fascinating but tangential characters – necromancers named Bauchelain and Korbal Broach. Just oredered it on Amazon. These stories are fascinating and disturbing and funny – all in one. I’ve enjoyed every word of them.
That’s what’s On The Nightstand this week.
Cheers
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