Malazan Empire: Gabriele - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

I have tried numerous times and never got any further than around page 150. Boring as batshit. Just a bunch of upper-crust Russians speaking French (many "bon mots" or whatever they're called left untranslated in my old edition, completely defeating the purpose of having an English version) to each other at boring soirees.

Maybe I need to get a fully translated version. Maybe I need to push past the WTF stuff to get to the good stuff which I am assured is later on (I guess a Malazan fan should be able to). Couldn't be bothered, did not hold my interest at all.

I have the whole series. It gets a bit melodramatic quite often. I'd even go so far as to say "chick lit"-ish. However the story itself is quite good, if a little repetitive at times, but some of the secondary characters are quite well done. I continue basically through a combination of inertia and to see where she's going to take it. I will give her credit in having many "grey" characters rather than simple black-and-white, even if that's what some of them try to make themselves out to be. Perspective and background play a big part.

She does tend to use italics a bit too much, Oh Ath! Sometimes the melodrama is simply too much to take ...

It's turning out to be a bloody long series as well. Off the top of my head it has been going the best part of 20 years. I haven't read the latest one, but I have no idea when she plans to end it. Maybe I should google it?

Turns out I have a book cover / Completionsim fetish.

Not a few weeks after doing this with the new DUNE books, I have discovered that the Harper Collins (Canada and the UK) versions of Patrick O'Brian's 'Aubrey & Maturin' series (a series I'm only on book 2 of 21 so far), was last reprinted between 2002 and 2010. I have found it mildly inconvenient to find some of the volumes when I search. I like those covers, they are nice and kind of stoic, and feature the original Geoff Hunt naval art on them, just refit into the new style which I will post below. These covers lean into the Nautical theme in layout, with gold lettering on the author name, and a sort of misty but bright adaption of the older art.

My problem is in the fact that by the time I get around to reading all 21 volumes...these covers may become impossible to find, and if that finding difficulty is beginning now, who know where it will be Ain a few years. Add in that IF Disney+ does decide to make a TV show reboot of the series, they will inevitably get bad photo TV show covers.

So yeah, I like these and have 3 of them this way...but there may be an availability problem going fwd.

OBrian-1.jpg


In the States, however, these books are published by W. W. Norton. Norton decided that at the 50th Anniversary of MASTER & COMMANDER (in 2019), they would not only reissue the first book in a new edition, but they commissioned brand new art and a new cover design entirely for the series. The Design, by artist Matthew Benedict was done to actually move through the series as if it's a bunch of stills from the series, and has a way different flair. It almost looks like TinTin Adventures or Johnny Quest to me...and I love the fat lettering on the author name. They feel less nautical overall, but I think they look really nice (I actually like them better) like this. The series is slowly releasing this way (the first 3 books are already out like this, and the next 6 come in November with more to follow in Jan 2022. So these covers will be easy to collect and I like them a lot. So I've switched, and ordered the first three from Norton in the States (the shipping, conversions, and border fees still put them about $1-2 less than I would pay for the Harper versions here).

Anyways, here those are.

OBrian2.jpg

For Tiste.

Rand is a whiney bitch in the books too don't worry

I don’t remember Perrin having a wife in the books though…