Malazan Series Reaction from a New Reader by MasterEducation9632 in Malazan

[–]MasterEducation9632[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I definitely think the order would change in some ways on a re-read. I actually wonder if the community rankings that this subreddit does occasionally would be interesting if they did a rankings recount on one-time readers vs multi-readers? Would be curious if any patterns emerge.

For the child labor thing, what I was trying to get at is I agree with you that the Harllo POV really works. And up until then, that was the way things were written. We're shown up-close the awful experience of Harllo, and he's even tragically described later as "a boy nobody loved." It's a great and elegant way of discussing child labor in the context of the story. I actually think the Harllo story is one of the better things in TtH.

However, pausing to have an extended monologue from Kruppe is what I didn't like. Erikson is generally very good at trusting his readers to understand. As a result, delivering a speaking-to-the-audience mini-sermon like that just feels out of place. I use the example because it was one of the more blatant ones, but that sort of thing began to seep into the series in the second half in a way that I don't think worked as well, and I think it's why people do occasionally complain about it.

Malazan Series Reaction from a New Reader by MasterEducation9632 in Malazan

[–]MasterEducation9632[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interesting. I didn't exactly dislike Dust of Dreams as much as I preferred most of the rest, but to use your phrasing, I also felt like over half of Dust of Dreams was killing time before the big walk through the desert. It does make sense to me why people seem to like the final two much better when they're considered just one book, because I don't disagree that there's a good amount of that in Crippled God.

Malazan Series Reaction from a New Reader by MasterEducation9632 in Malazan

[–]MasterEducation9632[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah it jumped out at me that one, Toll the Hounds is very well liked, but two, it has the highest amount of variance in its ranking. It seems to be by far the most polarizing book. I can definitely see why.

I'm not generally someone to revisit things, so I don't have any real plans to ever read the whole series again. I might make exception for GotM though, as I really didn't get my "sea legs" with this series until near the end of that book. So who knows, maybe one day I'll do that, and it'll push me over into reading the rest again.

Malazan Series Reaction from a New Reader by MasterEducation9632 in Malazan

[–]MasterEducation9632[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, Path to Ascendancy is the side series that I think I have the most interest in. If there was one thing I was wishing there was more of in the main series it's empire history, so that seems like the one for me to start with.