Malazan Book Of The Fallen

The only time Anomander Rake loses in the entire series, is when he does so intentionally. Not sure anyone else is on his power level, and he never really seemed in danger.

Wasn't Erikson going to write a Karsa trilogy? Any news on that?

Quick Ben might have crazy power, but he also has quite a few scenes of actually being afraid. Dude knows when to stfu too.

I think Dan's point is the variance of power throughout this universe, not on the individual's level. Martin does a good job of making you think all the characters in his story are just personalities. Malazan is better described as a story of power pushed by a personality.

Do we ever find out who Kruppe and Ruthan Gudd are? Ruthan Gudd is Arathan/Son of Draconus, right?

Intrinsic_sl said:

Yeah the thing, to me, is while there are tons of hyper fantasy power level characters they are mostly 100s of thousands if not millions of years old. And they act like it. They're bored, cynical, tired, etc... It is the upstarts like Kellanved and Dancer causing most of the issues. Then Hood and Co are like awww fuck, we have to do shit on this greatly compressed schedule rather than our multi century spanning normal plans. Oh and there's this alien God / comet statue thing too.

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True. However, Anomander stopped killing powerful beings, and didn't really feed Dragnipur.

Still holding out that Ruthan Gudd is Grizzin Farl. Don't ask me why.

Wasn't the strength of Rake pretty much due to the Sword (which was a god?)? I'm sure without the sword he was plenty strong, but it was the sword that put him over the top. What about that emperor cursed with immortality by the old gods because he tried to kill everyone (which brought the crippled god into their reality?), that guy didn't seem afraid of anyone. But yea, so many crazy powerful characters in that series.

Anomander was extremely powerful. Dragnipur held the portal where chaos was chasing the gate of darkness. It was Anomander's fault that chaos was catching up quicker than expected. By him not housing powerful beings within it to replenish those that grew exhausted from pulling the cart, he begin to work with Dancer and Kellevand to form a solution to the problem.
He was powerful enough to hold his own against Ultor, with the weight off all the souls within Hoods realm in Dragnipur. He also allowed Ultor to kill him.

Intrinsic_sl said:

Well I mean he was Soultaken so could turn in to a big ass dragon. He had to overcome Draconus to even get Dragnipur. Wasn't he like 6th or 7th in the Seguleh hierarchy? Consort to Mother Dark.

Some of this will probably be retconned as the Kharkanas trilogy is flushed out, or added to. But I think Rake was plenty plenty powerful enough even without Dragnipur.

Kallor was pretty much my favorite or 2nd favorite character though.

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Rake was 7th of the Seguleh. Could have gone further, perhaps, but left because he didn't understand why they kept trying to fight him. Draconus was Consort to Mother Dark, Anomander was First Son (a title, not actually her son).

His power did not come from Dragnipur. Instead, his ability to carry the sword spoke to his power. At one point he sets it to rest on a stone in Moon's Spawn, and the rock sweats from the pressure of the sword; yet Anomander was never bowed beneath that weight. The fact that he was able to take the sword from its maker, and slay him with it in the process speaks to his power. Draconus is Azathanai, he created the Tiste people, and gifted the Andii the power of Galain.

Anomander, #1 Bad Ass.

Edit: can't fucking wait for Fall of Light. Also, never considered that Ruthan Gudd was Arathan. His comment that "next time we meet, one of us will die" lends weight to that possibility.

Draconus was cursed by Kallor to be captured by something he had made, yet he still went ahead and made Dragnopur knowing what it meant, and effectively chose who would 'kill' him, that being Anomander. And lets face it, Draconus was in the sword pretty much first yet he was still going strong long after others of massive power had totally succumbed. He was the original Darkness and gave Mother Dark her powers, consort almost makes it sound like he was her bitch

I always liked the Icarium chapters but at the same time they always seemed to stop just as he was winding up, destruction incarnate when angry but still vulnerable when caught by surprise. Calm was going to use him to wipe out the entire worlds population if necessary, so hes fairly powerful

I haven't finished this series yet because I honestly find it kind of exhausting. I've read the first four books and I absolutely love them especially the first three. By the end of book three I finally had shit figured out but there are sooo many characters I feel I need to reread the first three books again. The moment I had stuff figured out on how some shit works was just such a great feeling and I"m wow this world is awesome! I do wish there more hand holding in these books because it's a ton to remember and it's going to require MULTIPLE reads. Anyways I love Quick Ben and the Bridgeburners stuff. I just can't get enough of them so I hate how the books so far switch. The Bridgeburners part of the story is just fascinating to me.

Araxen_sl said:

I haven't finished this series yet because I honestly find it kind of exhausting. I've read the first four books and I absolutely love them especially the first three. By the end of book three I finally had shit figured out but there are sooo many characters I feel I need to reread the first three books again. The moment I had stuff figured out on how some shit works was just such a great feeling and I"m wow this world is awesome! I do wish there more hand holding in these books because it's a ton to remember and it's going to require MULTIPLE reads. Anyways I love Quick Ben and the Bridgeburners stuff. I just can't get enough of them so I hate how the books so far switch. The Bridgeburners part of the story is just fascinating to me.

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I read the whole thing twice and honestly I still missed/forgot a lot of the things that have been mentioned in the last couple pages of this thread. There are really only a couple of meh story arcs in the whole thing IMO (The Snake comes to mind..), and once you're finished with the main books there's all of the Crimson Guard books to take in which fill out the rest of the world. ROTCG wasn't part of the main storyline, but is one of my favorite Malazan books all the same.

I think part of the love/hate that people have for this series is that on one hand, you have this absolutely brilliant, massive world that Erikson created that somehow all ties together. On the other hand - Sometimes I feel like you have to be Erikson to really catch all of it, and like you there were plenty of times where I wish he'd just fucking lay it out plainly instead of 20 shades of hinting around at things. Some of that is just great writing, and IMO some of it is just shitty writing - the reader shouldn't have to do calculus to figure out who the hell the POV talking is, and if you don't catch some of the little things here and there you can get completely lost in some of the later chapters. He'll drop new hints, which reference his old hints, which were vague as fuck anyway. The good news is that (again IMO) the last book is fantastic, and along the way you get some really great side stories (WITNESS!) that are just as cool as QB/Kalam and the Bridgeburners.

The Malazan Empire forums are full of great threads discussing all of the little bits, but I'd stay away from there entirely until you've finished it all (spoilers galore).

I'm just finishing up another series of books and I'm looking for a next one. I read the first 4-5 books 5 years ago or so and I want to get back in to it. I got kind of burned out and stop reading the series. Where do you start these days, is it still Garden of the Moon? I just looked atMalazan series by Steven Eriksonand there are a ton of books prior to it.

What is the correct reading order these days?

edit: Is this accurate:Reading Order of the Malazan Books - Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack Exchange