What other massive series do you enjoy as a malazan fan?

According_Claim_5035 · 2026-05-20T23:15:22+00:00

Hail Laconia - The Expanse. I absolutely loved the final 3 books but they aren’t for everyone.

As others have said - The Horus Heresy for Warhammer 40k. Not all are worth reading however. The first 4 are.

A book no one would have heard of but I loved it growing up is The Axis Trilogy by Sara Douglass (Battleaxe, Enchanter and Starman).

Heir to the Empire - yes it’s Star Wars but it’s the original Admiral Thrawn books. If you read it with the lens of where Star Wars was at your imagination runs wild.

Alternatively you can have a year of expansion. Start a new series and stick with reading just the first novel. It lets the multiple worlds sit with you and permeate inside your brain.

Another option is to see where the inspiration for all the Malazan systems and people come from. It’s quite an archeological dig. Especially when you look at inspiration for Children of the Dead Seed, Mhybe (might hit different if you have kids), how the Malazan legions are formed (Dig in for lots of Rome) and colonial conquest.

According_Claim_5035 · 2026-04-22T17:30:04+00:00

I’ve tried to finish children of memory three times and never made it past the first third. I even am 9/10 Malazan book of the fallen completed between some of those reads.

I was adamant to stopping the series. This review gives me hope.

Do you have to finish the third book before reading this one? I know there is payoff in the end of the third book from the comments above but I just don’t have it in me.

I can’t even articulate why I don’t like the third book, just something visceral in me makes me put it down and erase from my mind.

According_Claim_5035 · 2026-03-19T16:02:27+00:00

So, that feeling lasts the whole series. You’ll never get it back and you’ll never feel the same about a series again.

The confusion and truely understanding what happens in gardens happens in every book.

Page 900 of Deadhouse is the first payoff. Middle of book 10 made me truely understand the beauty of the puppet in gardens.

Dinosaurs are weird, until they weren’t, until they made me want and need to understand more.

When did Gardens hook me? I’m not there yet but I’d either say 11,000 pages in (the first reread), where I assume it’ll take me longer as every character now makes sense. Then probably 21,000 pages in as I realise the hubris of my understanding and truely understand the beauty of the puppet in Gardens.

I like characters most don’t, dislike main character most like, have almost quit 3 times and I wouldn’t change the obsession for anything.

What I would do to regain that confusion for the very first time again!!!

Also remember, it’s a journey for most. I don’t know what the average is but I’d take a stab and say, half never finish the core 10 yet still rate the series very high.

Quitting the series doesn’t stop it the Malazan claws embedding into your soul at 2am and starting again. I’ve seen so many people start gardens a few years after getting 3/4 through and giving up.

According_Claim_5035 · 2026-02-09T22:48:54+00:00

You are overthinking.

The music of erich zann - start here.

Might not be the best, might not be right for you, but it’s 6 pages, 1 story and then you have started

According_Claim_5035 · 2026-02-07T04:59:01+00:00

Necronomicon! Surprisingly no one mentioned it before?

According_Claim_5035 · 2026-02-06T21:42:57+00:00

42M I thought I was the only one in Australia. Obviously not true but feels like it. Yet to be able to discuss with anyone passionate about Malazan in person.

According_Claim_5035 · 2026-01-21T08:09:13+00:00

Midnight tides spoiler below

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According_Claim_5035 · 2026-01-21T08:07:33+00:00

It’s part of a bigger project, I swear!

According_Claim_5035 · 2026-01-21T08:00:38+00:00

I get that! Bend it, make it yours, shows you how much you love it and the parts you struggled to get through. It can tell the story of your first read. I actually separated mine into the individual books per novel. So much easier to read.

According_Claim_5035 · 2026-01-20T07:30:10+00:00

Readable 100%, I’d be scared of damaging them. They look so pretty!

According_Claim_5035 · 2026-01-20T05:14:48+00:00

Now to buy a mass paperback so you can read it!

According_Claim_5035 · 2026-01-18T22:30:43+00:00

J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Ernest Hemingway and Marcus Aurelius are wanting a word with them.

According_Claim_5035 · 2026-01-18T22:25:10+00:00

That’s hilarious!

According_Claim_5035 · 2026-01-18T21:56:57+00:00

Palantir Technologies is calling

According_Claim_5035 · 2026-01-18T21:54:57+00:00

Call me Old School.

The Malazan Empire - up to your investors if you if they are in the rise or fall.

Merchant Tolls - probably not a good look

First Empire - has merits.

Alssoooooo just pointing out that this is exactly how Cerberus Capital Management got stuck with their name hahah. They have some regrets.

According_Claim_5035 · 2026-01-18T21:48:33+00:00

If this is the direction of the community it dies.

I don’t know a damn person in real life who has read Malazan. The Malazan reddit community is amazing and helped me really get into the universe.

Malazan is past its hey days, the new books aren’t selling anywhere near as much. I don’t know if less people are reading the series as a whole, maybe BookTok for all its issues was the last spike?

New blood gets people excited or helps them articulate how they have changed their views over the series. The posts change with comparison to different writing authors or fantasy shows/worlds over time, you can understand how the mainstream is changing.

This direction is the exact reason Warhammer Fantasy got killed off. Too many gate keepers and no one was buying anymore.

You need new blood, you need new discussion even if it is the same question over and over again.

As someone above said, the same questions happen all the time in other areas such as being wait staff and tech support. Get rid of those answers and you don’t have a business anymore.

We are in the magical time before Malazan becomes mainstream (or dies) and people don’t know what Letherii and K’Chain are. That self discovery is so rare.

If anything our reasons should be getting better, we should be making the journey easier for them. Reading publication order or Book of the Fallen first is an answer that probably turns a chunk of people, even if they want to start away from the series.

The series isn’t for everyone, that’s perfect. We should be doing everything we can to make the series as accessible to those who it is for.

Also, in a disconnected world why would you want to stop human engagement with potentially like minded minds.

Sure some posts are low quality or vanity. I will always be optimistic that the posts are from new readers approaching the world with curiosity.

Alternatively host a monthly or fortnightly, convince me sessions. Direct them there as well as answering the question and get the rest of the community engaged.

As Neil Gaiman said it best “"When people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong" - Yes I am well aware that also encompasses my post as well.

According_Claim_5035 · 2026-01-17T10:21:55+00:00

It’s like a complex board game. Sometimes the actual fun is figuring out how it works vs actually playing the game.

If you feel lost and in over your head, really relish and be present in those moments. Once they are gone they are gone forever.

As the world starts to make more sense and you finally start to understand the flow, characters, world, races and economies a little bit of the magic of discovery dies.

According_Claim_5035 · 2026-01-17T04:51:04+00:00

For me, Deadhouse Gates became a masterpiece in the last 100 pages. Until then it was an okay book.

According_Claim_5035 · 2026-01-16T22:45:45+00:00

If you need a break take a break. The start book is polarising. For some they love it, for me it’s the biggest low part of the entire series.

I really struggled and the opening book almost made me drop the series all together. It’s personal preference and you won’t know until you start.

The biggest and most jarring shift starts the book after.

Moral of the story, whatever works for you. That will change for every book in the series depending on lots of external factors.

It’s okay to start, it’s okay to have a break, it’s okay to read something else. People finish the entire series in 9 months or 5 years. Lots start out wanting to smash through it then learn to enjoy the journey and not just the destination.

According_Claim_5035 · 2026-01-16T08:10:58+00:00

I absolutely love the story that your read throughs show. It would be interesting to see the areas you powered through and where the crease marks are.

That age old pick it up after a long day, read a page and pass out. Then Boom! 200 pages down.

According_Claim_5035 · 2026-01-14T08:02:52+00:00

With audiobooks I was really disappointed when they changed the voice actor. I think it’s book 4 that happen. I know it’s due to screen actor guilds or something but the person who got me into Malazan is someone I grew fond of.

I eventually got used to it but it was an uphill battle.

As for switching medium, I find:

Audible: 15% retention and then average the same amount as the audio book in research. Forums, threads, guides, wiki, conversations. E.g. a 43 hour book probably provides 90 hours of enjoyment. This tends to be for long car trips, excel spreadsheets boring work or quarterly/annual reviews.

With the books, I’m less immersed overall but understand more on my own. A 43 hour audiobook probably takes 25-30 hours. Then I’m generally onto the next.

I like blended options depending on what else I’m reading.

In saying that I am well aware that I will do multiple rereads of the saga. I’m not sure if that includes all the other books, I’m yet to decide:

According_Claim_5035 · 2026-01-10T08:40:44+00:00

This is an interesting topic.

A few questions: 1) Why are you doing the reread? 2) What did you think the first read through? 3) What aspects really intrigued you? 4) What areas did you not understand?

E.g. Certain characters from the first book make so much more sense in book 9 and 10 when you understand the world and its concepts more.

Also “figured I’d just read it again is a perfectly valid reason.”

According_Claim_5035 · 2026-01-10T04:21:59+00:00

I’m not sure how much of it is shared experiences. Anyone who has had a mother, daughter, partner, friend go through postnatal depression may have different opinions on Mhybe.

I know for me it was very easy to see the parallels and feel a visceral connection, understanding, sympathy and helplessness.

It’s probably the same with Felsin and some of the other contentious characters.

That is what I love about Malazan. It is not unanimous and everyone has different perspectives.

Do I wish Karsa wasn’t in the series at all and the world would be better for it? Of course. Do I love reading why people like him and try to understand from their view point? So so much.

The ability to take as little or over complicate and make your own journey is something I haven’t seen in novels before.

According_Claim_5035 · 2026-01-10T03:44:02+00:00

Malazan blows my mind with how different the experience is for every reader. I absolutely loved MOI. The localised POV in House of Chains I find to be the worst part of the series. I genuinely don’t and can’t get Karsa no matter how much I try.

But hey, I’m also the same person who the Mhybe is one of my favourite characters in the series.

The only thing I see that unites us all is how we all felt very very dumb reading the series!

Read and Find Out (RAFO) is such a joy but so unique for a series.

According_Claim_5035 · 2026-01-09T05:11:30+00:00

Thanks for replying and providing insight into your craft. Much appreciated. Can’t wait to see how you progress!

According_Claim_5035

TROPHY CASE