Yeah, I'm back to The Crippled God on a re-read and just skip the snake until there's a new PoV. Fantastic series but Erikson really dials up the philosophy in Toll of the Hounds. I'm glad he relaxed in The God is not Willing.
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Malazan Book Of The Fallen
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Asshat wormie
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what Wormie said. We read them so you don't have to. They were getting better each go round but his last one was like bad fan fiction. I skipped them all on my last re-read. You are better off going to the malazian wiki than wasting your time with his shit writing.
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I don't think I would have been ready for Malazan at 13, but that's me. Malazan from what I've gleaned, is a massive commitment, exceptionally convoluted in terms of narrative and plot and character and concepts, and it rarely spoon-feeds you anything; you need to do a lot of legwork to piece together what is happening. There is a lot going on in every chapter.
Perhaps a good but somewhat lighter series would be a place to start? Name of the Wind? A few WOT books? There's an other great series called The Prince of Nothing by R.Scott Bakker- a PhD in philosophy, and it shows in the work- but this is a very dark book.
Just don't get Belgariad. lol.
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Valorath
Trakanon Raider
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Eh, I disagree on them being barely readable garbage. Are they of the same quality as Erikson's work? Definitely not. But they're not the worst books I've ever read, and they help flesh out some of the "cultures" or "groups" in the Malazan universe. You learn quite a bit about the Crimson Guard and the Seguleh. There are some interesting perspectives on the night Kellenvad and Dancer ascended, the Koreli stormwall that Captain Faradan Sort was from, and the Forulkan and Jaghut on the continent of Assail. Dassem, Skinner, Cowl, Iron Bars, and Greymane all get some serious screen time.
We've discussed Esslemont's work here in the past, and usually my opinion is an unpopular one. I don't think they're a total waste of time, but you won't feel as invested in the characters and story as you did in Erikson's work. Like Kajimagi said, you can get all the info off of the Malazan wiki. And like him, I do exclude those books from my rereads of the series. I just finished Toll the Hounds on my current reread, and have put off moving onto Dust of Dreams because of the snake. Detoured onto The Lost Metal from Sanderson and am currently considering a reread of the Mistborn stuff and checking out Elantris before I finish the last two of MBoTF.
We've discussed Esslemont's work here in the past, and usually my opinion is an unpopular one. I don't think they're a total waste of time, but you won't feel as invested in the characters and story as you did in Erikson's work. Like Kajimagi said, you can get all the info off of the Malazan wiki. And like him, I do exclude those books from my rereads of the series. I just finished Toll the Hounds on my current reread, and have put off moving onto Dust of Dreams because of the snake. Detoured onto The Lost Metal from Sanderson and am currently considering a reread of the Mistborn stuff and checking out Elantris before I finish the last two of MBoTF.
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Oblio
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Ended up not getting him Malazan, mostly because as someone else pointed out it would be downhill from there. I would rather he not read the gold standard at such a young age.
The Belgariad is fucking great especially when I gave it to him to read when he was 10. Your opinion on Belgariad lines up with with other opinions you have expressed on this board and I try my best to not listen to retards. And you are a retard through and through.
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Kovaks
Mr. Poopybutthole
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I love the prince of nothing and unholy consort but I don't think I would give those to a 13 year old, maybe 16, i probably would have been ok at 14 but it has lot of dark shit that most 13yo probably won't process, but maybe that is just my opinion based on my kids.
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Oblio
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Yeah, my kids are total pussies and sheltered compared to me at the same age. That is okay though, they don't need to be me at 13. I have slowly dosing them with 80s movies and the occasional dirty joke. I got my 13 year old the Mistborn and Stormlight series for Christmas. Think I am gonna pic up the WoT series for his birthday this summer.
The kid is a speed reader, he crushes books like a fat kid crush a bag of M&Ms, no joke he read Eragon in a day. Liked it so much he reread it the next day.
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Discovered these books thanks to this thread. I was a bit hesitant when I read the first book, it was confusing not knowing anything about the world and the author doesn't have an omniscient narrator or anything explaining stuff to the reader, so it is a big puzzle you figure out slowly. It took two books but now that I'm reading the 3rd (memories of ice), I can say I'm hooked. Only thing I dislike, English not being my first language, is the description of the geography. I absolutely do not understand half of the terms used to describe places.
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zzeris
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I think that's a perfect setup for him honestly. Not sure if he's read any Tolkien but that's another good early series. Maybe early Feist, or Earthsea novels. Schwab or Novak for variety. Brent Weeks writes some good action. I'd save Malazan and Black Company for last. He's got a long adulthood of extremely subpar reading ahead of him. No reason to ruin his life too early.
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Oblio
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He read everything Tolkien like 5 years ago. I forgot he did read Book One of the Black Company, that was right after Eragon. Eragon is his favorite book he has ever read, so Black Company didn't have a chance. I think I will have him revisit black company in a few years.
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zzeris
King Turd of Shit Hill
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My likes changed so much over those years as I read more. I still think Malazan is the best series ever written but there's a ton of good stuff and we all have preferences. I kept WoT way too high on my list for far too long just due to my love of the first 5 at a certain point in my life. Same with GRRM. Tell your son you'll save him the trouble and never buy SoIaF. Dude has no kids, and his wife won't finish his half assed series anyway.
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Not sure how much that would have helped you. There's a significant chunk of my vocabulary that I know only because of Erikson.
Potsherd, scree, virulent(ok, I knew that one, but he uses it unconventionally) are some of the ones off the top of my head.
Oblio
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One author I will not introduce him to until the series is finished is Rothfuss. As much as I enjoyed those books fuck that guy. Also, no GRRM until he is dead or finished the series.
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Kovaks
Mr. Poopybutthole
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I was into Shanara, valdemar and Michael moorecock when I was his age, my kids a passes too, they are still 9 and 7 but I'm trying to get them into 80s movies, over Xmas break they watched super Mario Bros, last unicorn willow and a few other 80s movies, can't wait till they get to watch Conan, beastmaster and sword and sorcery, when I was their age I had already seen everything and by 13 I was reading Irving Welsh, I just can't see them handling it though.
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zzeris
King Turd of Shit Hill
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I hate Rothfuss honestly. He's a one hit wonder and has no true desire to continue writing. George is the same way at this point, but he gave me more lol. Rothfuss created such a good book that the Gary Stuism of Book 2 just read awful to me. Jordan's last few books were fairly awful too. The gilding had worn off.
“Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick to your fingers."
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I skipped the 'snake' chapters on my re-reads until they run into ..well you know and I don't want to spoil it for the rest. Save the drudgery, stay for the tears.
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Dunno what your 1st language is but these books have been translated to a lot of other languages. I only e-read now and I am constantly hitting the dictionary/wiki/google function in Moon Reader +. That's for every book , not just SE