[montyswingwell]

I wish there was just a couple... well maybe more than a couple of gynormus books with the entire Malazan stories in order and complete..... I would buy them yesterday.

[Andorion]

montyswingwell, on 21 December 2015 - 03:05 AM, said:

I wish there was just a couple... well maybe more than a couple of gynormus books with the entire Malazan stories in order and complete..... I would buy them yesterday.

If the entire Malazan corpus was to be collected in 3-4 omnibus editions, all readers would have to go the gym for a minimum of 6 months before they could start reading

[royce]

I am currently reading RG and I need some advice. The problem is that I have spent about 2.5 years to get this far for various reasons, and it feels like I have forgotten too much of what went down in the first three books.

I am torn between just starting over right now, or finish it without reading the ICE books and then read SE and ICE intertwined on re read.

I am not sure about reading the ICE books on my first read through is what I am basically asking here, mostly because I can`t wait to start a re read, and at the same time I can`t start over now because RG is SO GOD DAMN AWESOME!

Seriously I don`t know what to do...Is there a Malazan psychologist in here? I am also 36 years old, reading these books in my second language (English), so I have basically accepted that I will probably not properly understand this series before my 50 birthday.

This post has been edited by royce: 04 March 2016 - 07:34 PM

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

In general, I'd say that the ICE books are much easier to follow and keep all the different threads in your mind than the SE books. So if you're intertwining them in an SE reread, they don't increase the burden by too much.

[D'rek]

royce, on 04 March 2016 - 07:33 PM, said:

I am currently reading RG and I need some advice. The problem is that I have spent about 2.5 years to get this far for various reasons, and it feels like I have forgotten too much of what went down in the first three books.

I am torn between just starting over right now, or finish it without reading the ICE books and then read SE and ICE intertwined on re read.

I am not sure about reading the ICE books on my first read through is what I am basically asking here, mostly because I can`t wait to start a re read, and at the same time I can`t start over now because RG is SO GOD DAMN AWESOME!

Seriously I don`t know what to do...Is there a Malazan psychologist in here? I am also 36 years old, reading these books in my second language (English), so I have basically accepted that I will probably not properly understand this series before my 50 birthday.

I would highly recommend reading ICE's Return of the Crimson Guard (RotCG) in-between Reaper's Gale and Toll the Hounds. If you don't, some of the later SE books will spoil major events in RotCG. Furthermore, RotCG will answer a bunch of loose questions you'll otherwise have as SE's series progresses.

Other than RotCG, though, waiting to read all the other ICE books until after The Crippled God won't really cause any problems in terms of spoilers or general understanding. So if it is feeling burdensome, then by all means leave them until later (or not at all if you just don't want to read that much Malazan).

[royce]

D, on 05 March 2016 - 03:09 AM, said:

royce, on 04 March 2016 - 07:33 PM, said:

I am currently reading RG and I need some advice. The problem is that I have spent about 2.5 years to get this far for various reasons, and it feels like I have forgotten too much of what went down in the first three books.

I am torn between just starting over right now, or finish it without reading the ICE books and then read SE and ICE intertwined on re read.

I am not sure about reading the ICE books on my first read through is what I am basically asking here, mostly because I can`t wait to start a re read, and at the same time I can`t start over now because RG is SO GOD DAMN AWESOME!

Seriously I don`t know what to do...Is there a Malazan psychologist in here? I am also 36 years old, reading these books in my second language (English), so I have basically accepted that I will probably not properly understand this series before my 50 birthday.

I would highly recommend reading ICE's Return of the Crimson Guard (RotCG) in-between Reaper's Gale and Toll the Hounds. If you don't, some of the later SE books will spoil major events in RotCG. Furthermore, RotCG will answer a bunch of loose questions you'll otherwise have as SE's series progresses.

Other than RotCG, though, waiting to read all the other ICE books until after The Crippled God won't really cause any problems in terms of spoilers or general understanding. So if it is feeling burdensome, then by all means leave them until later (or not at all if you just don't want to read that much Malazan).

My initial plan was to read RotCG and OST from the ICE books before I start over again. I read NOK after MT. I will probably stick with this plan, so thanks for the heads up regarding spoilers

[Pheran]

Hi folks, I'm a Malazan newbie and I haven't finished the series yet, so far I've read through Night of Knives following the Ultimate Reading Order from the wiki. I'm really enjoying it so far but I have a question. After reading Midnight Tides I was surprised that it isn't recommended before House of Chains because you get the entire backstory of TS in Midnight Tides, who then shows up again in HoC. I'm curious what the rationale is for this - is there some other connection or dependency that I'm missing?

[D'rek]

Pheran, on 14 March 2016 - 06:19 PM, said:

Hi folks, I'm a Malazan newbie and I haven't finished the series yet, so far I've read through Night of Knives following the Ultimate Reading Order from the wiki. I'm really enjoying it so far but I have a question. After reading Midnight Tides I was surprised that it isn't recommended before House of Chains because you get the entire backstory of TS in Midnight Tides, who then shows up again in HoC. I'm curious what the rationale is for this - is there some other connection or dependency that I'm missing?

The narrative reasoning is that:

(end of HoC spoilers)

Spoiler

At the end of House of Chains, Trull is talking to Onrack and decides to start telling Onrack his history - which is in Midnight Tides.

Other than that, HoC was written before MT, and seems to flow generally pretty well after DG and MoI, but yeah since MT takes place chronologically earlier you *can* read it beforehand (but some concepts and ideas may not be as meaningful without reading the first 4 first). Some people have even read MT first and liked it enough to then go and read GotM.

[Pheran]

D, on 14 March 2016 - 09:05 PM, said:

The narrative reasoning is that:

Other than that, HoC was written before MT, and seems to flow generally pretty well after DG and MoI, but yeah since MT takes place chronologically earlier you *can* read it beforehand (but some concepts and ideas may not be as meaningful without reading the first 4 first). Some people have even read MT first and liked it enough to then go and read GotM.

Ah, I think the Ultimate Reading Order may have tripped me up a bit on this narrative reasoning since I did read The Healthy Dead in between HoC and MT, and by the time I read MT I forgot that point in the end of HoC. But I still sort of feel like Trull wasn't that well introduced in HoC and that I would have had more appreciation for where he was coming from had I read MT first, but this is of course a matter of opinion. I wouldn't advocate reading MT before everything, but a placement between MoI and HoC is possibly an interesting option. Of course, doing that would expand the reading gap between DG and HoC, so there's a downside to everything I guess.

[worry]

The back and forth between time and location are part of the trip.

[cliftonprince]

Crazy complicated! Thanks to all for the chart. Which evidently I failed to heed. I guess I have already departed the beaten path.

In another thread http://forum.malazan...t-all-straight/ I pointed out what I felt (admittedly under-informed by not yet having completed Deadhouse Gates ) may have been an advantage for a dissident sequence that I have followed (quoting myself):

Spoiler

cliftonprince, on 02 April 2016 - 02:47 AM, said:

I am reading in the order 1. Gardens of the Moon, 2. Memories of Ice, 3. Deadhouse Gates. I've finished the first two and I'm about 100 pages (one ninth?) of the way into Deadhouse Gates now. ...

I don't think this sequence will be a problem. It's turned out (though I didn't know it at the time) that by choosing this particular order, I have followed Dujek One Arm's Host across Genebackis, straight through from Pale (with flashbacks to previous action in the North) to Capustan and ultimately Outlook. Now that I'm amid Deadhouse Gates, it seems to me, that this reading order was rather intelligent. To the contrary, the jarring effect of jumping continents and leaving an entire war theater behind, by reading Deadhouse Gates in second place, would have been rather disorienting. My method has allowed me to read through to resolution in a large number of story-threads which I otherwise probably would have forgotten ... . And the reading-order JPG file says I shouldn't [have trouble with this sequence].

In fact, I have to admit that I'm a little confused as to why Deadhouse Gates is the usual second-place book. Aren't its plot and setting the least well related to the other books, among those three? Aren't the other two books more closely linked to each other than they are to it or, than it is to them? Or is that a spoiler waiting to happen ...

Anyway, just thought I'd clue this thread in, to the disaster that's about to happen in my own progress through the first (as I've chosen my sequence) three.

This post has been edited by D'rek: 02 April 2016 - 10:43 PM

[melonsparks]

I thought the "Read everything in most logical narrative order" option was interesting -- specifically how NoK comes after MT.

I think I can see why people would make that argument (though I haven't read MT yet), but it seems advantageous to read NoK right after GOTM -- before moving on to Deadhouse Gates.

NoK is rather short and elaborates on some of the mysteries touched on in GOTM. This makes the next few books more interesting in general than they would be having not read NoK first. Also, having read NoK before DG, one is able to make some connections along the way that make a few specific things in DG a little more intriguing.

[Keith189]

Hi there, where would The Fiends of Nightmaria fit in with the reading order? I ask this as I'm reading the whole series from the start.
Many thanks Keith.

[ArchieVist]

It's a direct sequel to Crack'd Pot Trail so it can be read after that one.

[Keith189]

ArchieVist, on 20 September 2018 - 08:12 PM, said:

It's a direct sequel to Crack'd Pot Trail so it can be read after that one.

Many thanks for the reply.

[Ieloreth]

Where does the Path to Ascendancy Trilogy fall on the ultimate reading list? also where (speculatively) will The God is Not Willing go?

[worry]

Theoretically Path to Ascendancy is an alternative entryway into the Malazan world, but frankly I think it works best after MBotF and ICE's Novels of the Malazan Empire. It's impossible to say how I'd react to them if they were my first foray, given how much being informed about the world colors how I read them, but I have to imagine reading them first "spoils" some of the mystique of history in MBotF.


That said, once you're past the first Erikson and Esslemont series, all prequel/sequel series can be read in any combination you want really. Publication order doesn't hurt. Sticking to one series all the way through presumably won't hurt either (though at this point obv none are complete). They're all packed with info, but there's nothing I'd call spoiler crossover so far, and I don't really anticipate any.

[Ieloreth]

Thank you greatly for the information and fast response time.

Have a good one, eh

[Steamer]

Hi fellow ascendents

I have seen the completed Path to Asendency series in bookshops

At what point may one read this series??

So is it possible to read Dancer's Lament after MoI or would it be unadvisable?

Thanks

Steamer

[Bonehunters]

So how spoilerish is the prequels?