To each their own. I've found Malazan to be quite a slog. Enjoyable in parts, but too many characters, too broad in scope for me. I'm on the final book now, and am going to finish it, but I'll feel more relief than anything when I'm done! The Assassin's Apprentice series, being from the first person perspective is in many ways its polar opposite. Each style has its advantages, but I've found I prefer stories where I can really get to know a few characters, rather than necessarily needing a truly massive, sprawling world. (Kingkiller Chronicle is probably my favourite; hope I get to read the rest of it eventually.)

I notice a similar trend in my enjoyment of RPGs, preferring something with a fairly linear storyline to more open world games.

I’m not convinced anyone has ever read of of the Malazan series. Sure, it’s theoretically possible, but has anyone really read /every/ word? Jokes aside, I love epic fantasy, but that series was just a little too epic for me. Wheel of Time has a nice balance, you really get to meet the main characters, it just takes a while.

I read it all.

I would say it needed a series re-edit. First book or two are really differently paced from the end; those two should probably get bulked up a bit, and pulled fully into the final story lore.

Then the series needs a trim down, probably like 33% of pages. It's possible some of the story arcs need to be moved around as well for better readability.

I have just specified like a decade of hard labor, I know. :)

With that done, I think Malazan could be considered one of the all-time great fantasy series. As it stands, it meanders too much at times, and it falls into a sort of military + fantasy sub-genre which I think lessens the impact of the overall story -- it really is an epic RPG-style quest involving hundreds of characters with a (mostly) satisfying finale.

I was put off by the bad writing. Good writing is really wasted on me, I mostly care for it to be sufficient enough not to get in the way of enjoying the story. In my opinion Malazan does not reach even that level, which is too bad as I enjoyed the word building and the most of the characters. For the most part it reads like a DM recounting their D&D campaign (which I understand it is exactly what it is), but what might work (or just be overlooked) on an interactive RPG session doesn't necessarily work on a book.

The first book was very bad, the second book was actually much better and I enjoyed it (I assume the editing was much more extensive), but the third book was again barely readable and put me off the series.

I might start it again at sometime in the future, because it is definitely something I would otherwise enjoy. I think I read somewhere that the third book might actually have been written before the second, which gives me hope.

I think I've reread Malazan about ten times now, generally once a year, and each time I get new things out of it.

And what I love the most is that he planned ten books rather than needing to shoehorn in extra books after planning a trilogy.

I absolutely adore the huge cast of characters and the fact that you kinda need to pay attention to get the most out of it.

I struggle to understand how you even get through it in a year, let alone re-reading it every year.

I don't watch TV, and read for at least an hour per day.

I've been reading a lot since I was very, very young, and have gotten better at it. To be fair, I do have to stop myself from skimming, which is fine with most books but definitely not Malazan.

And also, I probably forget most of it after I finish it, until I read it again.

Depending how (fast) they read, it can be as little as 150h of reading, which is a month or 3 depending how much time they can devote to it.

The audiobooks are 390h total (16 days 5h according to Wikipedia). If your commute takes an hour each way, that’s less than a year even if you only ever listen to it while commuting.

The problem with the series is it seems Erikson wants to use it as a vehicle to talk about a wide range of societal issues, which means we end up with hundreds of pages of Bugg or Kruppe inner dialogue which can be pretty painful at time.

Maybe that's what separates it from other series though.

Ha, I admit for the last couple of books I've resorted to Google's "read aloud" option to listen my way through it while working out and such things. So I'm getting the gist, but definitely not taking in every word (let alone reading them)!

It's been a long time since I read WoT. I recall tearing through the first few books that were primarily focused on Rand & party. Aside from female character perspectives being frustratingly one-dimensional and stereotypical, I found it great. But then it started broadening, where each book seemed to spend less and less time on the main characters, and instead introduced all these other factions and settings and such that didn't immediately tie in in any obvious way. It did all (mostly) come together eventually (with Sanderson's help), but again I feel like the important parts could have been told without spending so many pages in other places. But hey, that's just my taste; clearly others love that!

Yeah, I thought Hobbs' books were well written, just not as much to my taste. I'm less interested in individual characters, or well formed prose (although both are good to have), than plot.

I don't really notice much difference in first and third person perspectives once into a book, although it's more noticeable when starting out. Second person is more jarring - I've read The Raven Tower and Harrow The Ninth recently, both being all or largely in second person.

Interesting point you make with regards to RPGs - open worlds are addictive to me (I played Skyrim for many, many years - and have played almost everything in the Elder Scrolls series).

Ha, yeah, there's definitely a parallel there. I'm much more of a fan of things like Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, and more recently the Dragon Age series (or at least the first couple. Undecided on 3 so far...) I tried to get into both Morrowind and Skyrim, but just didn't find they did it for me. Similar to the Fallout series (which I assume you'd enjoy as well if you haven't played them!)

Re books, Character development is probably #1 for me. I like a good plot as well though, but I prefer one that focuses on fewer characters in order to move forward with them more quickly. With something like Malazan or, say, Wheel of Time (which wasn't as well written maybe, but had quite a compelling plot) I find myself spending the whole time looking forward to the 10% of the book with the characters I actually care about; the rest can start to just feel like unnecessary filler almost.

I really liked the first book and parts of the 2nd and 3rd, but man the 3rd book really threw me off the series. Just a really unsatisfying way to land a trilogy - all of the stress and torment that Fitz had gone through for a couple of thousand pages across the 3 books is given just a few pages at the end, not even in-character, to pay off.

Wonderful prose but man the storytelling was a disappointment. Put me off her work completely.

Re-read the Assassin books recently afte revering them/Hobb as a kid. They're still good but I found plenty to critique this time around. Like, Fitz receives constant physical and emotional abuse from everyone around him but he remains ever loyal. It makes for exhausting reading at various points and his choices becomes increasingly hard to justify. Especially since those around him move on with their lives while he remains stuck: always agonising but ultimately never doing anything for himself. I also thought the antagonists were rather one dimensional haters, with not very interesting arcs.

Anyway! I don't mean to complain. These remain cherished books for me!

I just worked through them so it's a bit of a fresh wound. I wanted so badly for there to be a big satisfying payoff!

> Wonderful prose but man the storytelling was a disappointment.

If you're looking for quality prose with a confusing, hard-to-perceive story in the background, I can recommend Patricia A. McKillip. Most famously, I think, the Riddle-Master books, but most of her fantasy stuff is like this.

It's not so much that the storytelling is disappointing as that it's hard to understand what's supposed to be going on. But the writing style is something else.

As a followup, The 13 Clocks by James Thurber is a very short book, but it has some of the best writing I've ever seen. The story is not confusing, but it's nothing particularly special either.