[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

1. Memories of Ice
2. Midnight Tides
3. House of Chains
4. Deadhouse Gates
5. Gardens of the Moon
6. The BoneHunters
7. Toll The Hounds
8. Reaper's Gale

I'm not ranking any of the other books because I haven't read them. Some of these rankings vary depending on my mood and what I've most recently read.

[kalmavet7]

ha I'll bite, though i find i can never look back at this list without thinking "wait, that book was better than ..."

1. Memories of Ice
2. Midnight Tides
3. The Bonehunters
4. Deadhouse Gates
5. House of Chains
6. Gardens of the Moon
7. Reaper's Gale
8. Toll the Hounds

[Raraku]

Ok i ll have a go too

1. Memories of Ice
2. Midnight Tides
3. Deadhouse Gates
4. Toll the Hounds
5. House of Chains
6. Reapers Gale = Bonehunters = Night of Knivies = Gardens of the Moon
9. K & B novella

[HoosierDaddy]

My order:

1. MOI - The best book so far. Epic battles, fantastic world building, and fantastic characters.

2. RG - Welcome back Tavore! We have the return of T & B, absolutely I wish I could kill you characters (Invictad & the other Letherii douches), + the March of the Malazan Marines. +++

3. MT - The intro of T & B, the Edur-Letherii War, & the convergence in Letheras.

4. DG - The Chain of Dogs, to me, remains the most memorably tragic affair in fantasy history. Wow.

5. TBH - Still awesome with the Icarium, Karsa, 14th once they return to Quon story lines.

6. HOC - Still fantastic - Karsa's entry initially hurts as it slows down the series, the Whirlwind story line is kind of boring, but the later Karsa & K.M. & Q.B. scenes tear it up.

7. TTH - Might be because it took me so long to get into it, however, the last 250 pages or so were just fantastic. After re-read is apt to change.

8. GOTM - While it remains the originator, it is still the most confusing book I've ever read (I have re-read since!). It was fantastic, and different, and made me want all the rest to this day. What it lacks most is the depth that Erikson has begun to build into his books. GOTM is only like 400 pages, but still fantastic.

[Aptorian]

1 MoI
2 DG
3 TtH
4 MT
5 NoK
6 GotM
7 BH
8 HoC
9 RG

[Optimus Prime]

1. MoI
2. TtH
3. DG
4. GotM
5. MT
6. RG
7. tBH
8. HoC

Every book I would rate in the high 8.5-9 region or higher....so this is really like picking straws.

[magicrealist]

Midnight Tides
Memories of Ice
Gardens of the Moon
Toll the Hounds
Deadhouse gates/ Return of the Crimson Guard
The Bonehunters
Reapers Gale
House of Chains

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Optimus Prime;358167 said:

Every book I would rate in the high 8.5-9 region or higher....so this is really like picking straws.

Well, yeah. Even my #8 Erikson book is better than most other authors best effort. It's all relative.

[Urb]

Forum fu... BAM!

• House of Chains (SE is at his best when he focuses on one character. Once I start reading, I can't put the book down)
  
• Memories of Ice (Itkovian, Ganoes Paran, Toc, Envy and the Seguleh...)
  
• Midnight Tides (the most "complete" book)
  
• Deadhouse Gates (Coltaine, Baudin, Heboric, Duiker, Gesler and Stormy...)
  
• Reaper's Gale (Beak, Hellian, Bugg...)
  
• The Bonehunters (Icarium vs Trull, Apsalar vs the Claw, Karsa vs Samar Dev, Quick Bottle vs Edur fleet, Paran vs Poleil...)
  
• Toll the Hounds (only read this one once, so it might be I change my opinion soon)
  
• Gardens of the Moon ("Unleash the seven withing me!")

[Sindriss]

1. Memories of Ice
2. Toll the Hounds
3. Midnight Tides
4. The Bonehunters
5. Gardens of the Moon
6. Deadhouse Gates
7. House of Chains
8. Reaper's Gale

[Agraba]

Midnight Tides - Most compelling dialog, best story flow, best writing style, great characters

Memories of Ice - of all books, the sheer magnitude of events strikes the readers in MoI most of all; it makes you feel in their sordid situation more than others

Deadhouse Gates - most tragedy-struck book of all in the series; also introduction to some of the best characters and plotlines

Bonehunters - most chaos-oriented book of the series, this is where things go horribly wrong for everyone; like the "Empire Strikes Back" of the Malazan series

Toll the Hounds - Thus far this book has the rarest kind of events (something like Rake or Hood dying, or the moon shattering, those could happen once in a million years... to have all happened in one night!). Also, of all books this one actually gets into the feel of the individuals the most

House of Chains - I think this book has the most revelations and introduction to crazy concepts, as well as having heartbreak of its own kind, and a great convergence of characters at the end

Gardens of the Moon - of all books this one excels the most at cunning and character plotting; it has a convergence of intentions that leads to a messy outcome

Reaper's Gale - This is the most politically oriented book where SE shows his portrayal of economic catastrophe and socialist uprising

[Cougar]

DG
MoI
HoC
RG
MT
GotM
TtH
BH

[Sir Bob]

MoI
GotM
Mt
DG
BH
RG
HoC
TtH

there you have it, though DG,BH,RG and HoC could be in any order for me.
MT would have been low after only one read but upon rereading i liked it a LOT more so maybe TtH will grow on me.

[CaryNC]

1. Gardens of the Moon
2. Memories of Ice
3. The Bonehunters
4. Deadhouse Gates
5. Midnight Tides
6. House of Chains
7. Reaper's Gale
8. Toll the Hounds

[Dragnipurake]

1) tth
2) mt
3) gotm
4) moi
5) bh
6) rg
7) hoc
8) dg

[HalfTere]

Wow, how do you all like Memories of Ice so much?
Anyways, of the ones I've read in full

1) House of Chains
2) Midnight Tides
3) Gardens of the Moon
4) Memories of Ice
5) Deadhouse Gates

[HoosierDaddy]

HalfTere;358950 said:

Wow, how do you all like Memories of Ice so much?
Anyways, of the ones I've read in full

1) House of Chains
2) Midnight Tides
3) Gardens of the Moon
4) Memories of Ice
5) Deadhouse Gates

Wow, you are here 3 books in advance? I'd seriously advise stepping out and reading TBH and R.G. at least before coming in here, otherwise so much is going to get spoiled that the books will lose a lot of their luster.

Because it is teh Epic. I imagine it has a lot to do with the actual introductions of really epic characters like Rake, Brood, & the Grey Swords.

While also giving a very detailed, and poignant acount of the BB's, Onearm's Host, & Whiskeyjack's assault on Coral.

As well as it has such classic moments of: "Okay, the goat stank of desperation", Kruppe standing down Brood, Picker's torcs, Gruntle's general badassness, the two necromancers & Q.B., + the just badassness of the last 250 pages or so.

On another note, I imagine the return to Genabackis had a very positive affect after the "seemingly" random departure to the storyline in 7 Cities.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

HalfTere;358950 said:

Wow, how do you all like Memories of Ice so much?
Anyways, of the ones I've read in full

1) House of Chains
2) Midnight Tides
3) Gardens of the Moon
4) Memories of Ice
5) Deadhouse Gates

Yeah, do yourself a favor, stay out of the forums for the books you haven't read. I know it's tempting, but you'll enjoy the books more if you don't know what's going to happen.

[Abyss]

Subjective to point in time, but...

DG - the sheer awesome novelty of the CoD storyline puts this tops for me.

MoI - where we saw just how staggeringly good SE was with a cast of thousands. I constantly waver between this and DG for my #1 spot.

TtH - the slow build to the big finish worked for me.

RG - solid entry in the series.

TB - great book but it always bothered me that Yghatan and the Poliel convergence were bigger events than the actual ending, and we had already seem Kalam v Claw in DG.

HoC - really does a lot to build the world but has less 'holy fnck!' impact than above books.

MT - all kinds of goodness, arguably i could rank this higher but the almost stand-alone nature keeps it here.

GotM - last among giants. great, but only touches on what comes next.

- Abyss, fickle.

[HalfTere]

Raymond Luxury Yacht;359022 said:

Yeah, do yourself a favor, stay out of the forums for the books you haven't read. I know it's tempting, but you'll enjoy the books more if you don't know what's going to happen.

I'm not a moron, I know to avoid spoilers. It's just that this forum has interesting and active topics not related directly to Toll of the Hounds, but rather to the series as a whole.