Why You Should Read Malazan – Part 5: The Themes

Previously - Part 4: The Characters While the ten core Malazan books are filled with tons of awesome plot, memorable characters, and more laughs and tears than you know what to do with - Erikson also made sure to pack in some consistent themes and messages that are ever present. There is not enough time…

Why You Should Read Malazan – Part 4: The Characters

Previously - Part 3: The World So, a long time ago when I was only just beginning to think about making The Quill to Live, one of my co-editors (Will) asked me to make a list of my 100 favorite fantasy characters of all time. I started making my list, but then turned to him…

Why You Should Read Malazan – Part 3: The World

Previously - Part 2: The Plot One of the longest-standing go-to complaints I hear when I read fantasy book critiques is “lazy world building”. What this refers to is an author taking people and cultures that exist in either our real world (such as Russian or Middle Eastern) or popular established worlds (such as elves…

Why You Should Read Malazan – Part 2: The Plot

Previously - Part 1: The Introduction Malazan’s plot is huge and sweeping, but let me see if I can help ground you. The first thing to understand about Malazan is that the protagonist isn’t a person, it's a people. The Malazan Book of the Fallen follows the story of the Malazan empire - and their…

Why You Should Read Malazan – Part 1: The Introduction

So I am going to do something I swore I would never do: review my favorite fantasy series of all time - The Malazan Book of the Fallen. The reason I am breaking my self-promise is the lovely people at Tor sent me copies of the new Malazan spin-off stories to review, Dancer’s Lament and…

The First Post – Part 1: What Makes the Great Great?

Many people often read popular fantasy books and question why they appeal to such a wide audience. While obviously no book will appeal to everyone, I wanted to share some of my thoughts about what makes some of these series so impressive to many people. The First Law - by Joe Abercrombie: Joe Abercrombie has…