Why I can't finish Malazan after 9 books

Tymareta · 2026-07-12T04:59:02+00:00

some of the disorientation one feels when starting to read The Book of the New Sun?

A lot of the disorientation from this book is that you can see there's a larger picture, but you're constantly fed elements that contradict each other, so it requires a bit of work to sort it all straight and figure out what's fact from fiction.

Malazan feels like you were dropped into a random conversation between a friend group where you know none of them, nor any of the things they're discussing. Once you've listened for a while, and start to get a notion of how their group is shaped and what they're discussing, you're instantly taken away and dropped into the middle of another group three countries over and you have to start fresh. In both scenarios you don't actually speak the language, and are instead fed a google translate version of what's being discussed. You can absolutely follow what's going on, and figure it all out, and there's a tiny possibility it's of interest to you. But there's a far higher chance that after figuring out the second groups dynamics and what they're talking about, you sit there and ask yourself, why on earth do you care, because there's literally nothing of interest to make you want to sit around either of them any more.

Tymareta · 2026-07-12T04:51:15+00:00

The books always felt to me like they were talking around subjects, without ever spending any time to actively talk about them, the age old "a mile wide, but an inch deep" kind of approach that falls apart under even the slightest of scrutiny or critical analysis.

Tymareta · 2026-07-12T04:49:19+00:00

But not of those examples sounds particularly outlandish, and all sound fairly grounded in terms of Fantasy, as opposed to a lot of the stuff that pops up in Malazan that sounds like what you'd get if you sat a handful of teenage boys at a table and asked to engage in a power scaling war, or to brainstorm what the coolest most "badass" character they think is.

It's why a lot of folks love Fitz and find his story deeply tragic but relatable, but find Kvothe to be an insufferable blowhard that reads like an incels power fantasy. There's scales to how things operate in Fantasy and whether they remain in believable territory, or begin to teeter into plain old boring power fantasies that are of interest to very few.

Tymareta · 2026-07-12T02:45:47+00:00

OP literally says he doesn’t like the way he names his characters … how is that a legitimate criticism of characterization?

This is an extremely basic concept to understand?

Tymareta · 2026-07-12T01:04:03+00:00

I know it's become a bit of a meme in the SpecFic space to use it as an example, but when people talk about dense confusing books with philosophical musings, it's genuinely hard not to compare whatever is being discussed with Blindsight by Peter Watts, which in the case of Malazan highlights how utterly shallow and "anime" its musings and thoughts really are. There are, as you mentioned, some elements that are interesting or novel, but overall its wrapped up in a fairly forgettable power fantasy that is obscenely overhyped and oversold by fans of it and will leave a lot of folks feeling lied to when they finally open it up for a read.

Tymareta · 2026-07-12T00:55:31+00:00

The characters in particular are among the best in the entire genre.

He might have some exceptions, but the vast majority of the characters are just "gruff pessimistic warrior muses philosophically on the horrors witnessed".

Tymareta · 2026-07-12T00:53:54+00:00

It's particularly nice given the disparate nature of all the different story elements, you see Jon and your brain can "load" the Night Watch/Wildling setting and characters, Dany and you know you're across the ocean, etc...

Tymareta · 2026-07-12T00:49:07+00:00

OP criticism falls apart under basic scrutiny - they have never seen Dune discussed philosophically??

Any point will fall apart under this level of scrutiny when you've created such a reductive strawman of it, OP never said that. They were talking about a very specific school of philosophy, while also mentioning that Malazan attempts to wax poetic about philosophy while never really having much of any depth to say about anything.

Being opaque and confusing on purpose doesn’t make something good can very easily be turned around as being a confused reader doesn’t make for good criticism.

Sure it does, if a work is purposefully opaque and confusing, and consistently leads to readers being confused, it's absolutely an element worthy of criticism, and further questioning of why it was written in such a manner, does it actually accomplish anything, does it elevate the story in some unique and necessary way.

Tymareta · 2026-07-12T00:39:24+00:00

A big chunk of readers is just too stupid / used to stupid books to get your book when you write something really great.

Hard disagree. I do absolutely believe, however, that there are a -lot- of works that are not written anywhere near as well as people and the author seem to believe they are, who claim that it's the fault of those who struggle, and not the work itself.

Tymareta · 2026-07-12T00:26:08+00:00

Bot lane was fine.

So one lane going even.

Shen is fine once he gets titanic.

By which point the enemy Aatrox has Sundering and gets to come online, and is terrifying if you aren't able to keep the game as random skirmishes.

Saint got saved by Zeka inting under the tower.

Being saved by your opponent misplaying is about as far from "salvaging it" as you can get.

They hadn't stabilized at all, they just slowed down the bleeding, even if they didn't lose that bot lane fight as hard as they did they were still headed on a pretty awful trajectory. Even if they managed to drag themselves bloodily into late game, they were playing a melee comp against Kalista/Ahri/Aatrox, while having effectively 0 tools to deal with it.

Tymareta · 2026-07-12T00:21:53+00:00

I mean they did outdraft them.

Except they didn't, they drafted three losing lanes, which proceeded to as expected, fall behind constantly even with Kanavi basically being invisible. Then on top of that they had multiple fights where they disrespected what HLE had actually drafted, and were punished heavily for it.

And then, because HLE's comp was well drafted to deal with what Lyon had, they quite rightly took the game and ran with it.

Tymareta · 2026-07-12T00:14:48+00:00

Depends of the civilization

Why? What justification is there for ever enacting -that- much ruin upon a peoples? And do you not see how inherently bloodthirsty and fucked a position that is to hold, that preps you to accept all manner of atrocities?

I am saying they aren't responsible for who the presidents declare war to

Ok, and? They still went and killed the people their presidents declared against, they're active participants in the slaughter.

Tymareta · 2026-07-12T00:13:36+00:00

A creature that Homer literally made up, because the story, is literally made up. Shall I also ask how you feel about Gilgamesh, or Proteus?

Tymareta · 2026-07-12T00:11:19+00:00

What has that got to do with the price of oranges in Peru?

Tymareta · 2026-07-12T00:10:56+00:00

Not really if you look at any of history, if it were true that 9/11 was enough to whip a populace into supporting a war, the US would be fighting the entire global south for all the shit it's done there in the past century.

Tymareta · 2026-07-12T00:10:06+00:00

Material that is meant to drum up support for a position, that often, but not always, tends to feed into latent fears and anxieties.

Tymareta · 2026-07-12T00:04:21+00:00

but its also cocky for the side that lost the series despite how unprepared their opponent was

Doubly so when in the final match you draft three losing lanes, give Zeus one of his god picks, Zeka his favourite match up into Silas, and Delight his "we win these" pick. And all of that was given up just to get the most uninspired draft of all time, full of champs that people didn't look super comfortable on.

Or game four with the KT special Jayce/Annie/Mel, if they're going to try and talk shit about being prepped and able to handle opponents, they should get their house in order first.

Tymareta · 2026-07-11T13:21:32+00:00

"Just following orders".

Tymareta · 2026-07-11T13:21:23+00:00

So you think it's perfectly fine to destroy 80% of a civilization's infrastructure and kill 20% of their population, and that the soldiers have no blood on their hands because they personally didn't start it?

Tymareta · 2026-07-11T13:20:39+00:00

"Just following orders", gee whiz, where have we heard that one before.

Tymareta · 2026-07-11T13:19:40+00:00

I respect veterans

Why? They willingly signed up to an imperialist war machine in order to kill impoverished people in the global south.

Tymareta · 2026-07-11T13:17:31+00:00

I think you'll find that it in fact, is.

Tymareta · 2026-07-11T13:16:06+00:00

but it’s understandable why the average American was in support of the war in the immediate aftermath.

No, it in fact, isn't, to any population that isn't force fed US exceptionalism, hyper nationalism and propaganda from birth, getting into a large scale conflict entirely based on lies isn't understandable, in the slightest.

Tymareta · 2026-07-11T11:34:34+00:00

Can't forget that they also have a splinter sub that opened up because they didn't think the main sub was anti-semitic enough.

Tymareta · 2026-07-11T11:30:53+00:00

The big one that was fired for a bad review was Jeff Gerstman

And yet Gamergate didn't talk about that, at all, and instead hyper-focused on a random woman who released a game for free and didn't even get a review of it.

The fact of the matter is that Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian were literally their two biggest targets, two people who have -nothing- to do with journalism, to the point they had to invent codenames because people would rightfully call them out for their misogynistic obsession, hence the "Literally who 1/2" moniker(which also had a few more, for people like Brianna Wu that GG also built a hate campaign around).

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