you should read the king killer chronicles, it is one of the bests but its incompleted sadly. but its literally one of the best fantasy books ive read edit: scratch that i see it on your bookshelf 😂. will leave this up for others though
Hey. Great video! I read ASOIAF and then my fav series mbotf in high school too 10yrs ago, so this was fun to watch. Forgive me but this comment is going to be LONG. But please indulge me while I rave 🙏 May I please recommend you Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson? I first read it at 17-18 and unfortunately, it means my reading peaked in high school lmao. I read ~100 books/year and 10yrs later at 28 I've still never found anything that compares with Malazan. Given what you say in this video, I have the hunch it may be a series for you. It's certainly not for everyone (far too complex for many), but I always say, if the series is for you, it will likely skyrocket to be in your top 5 series ever. If you love worldbuilding (it's my fav aspect of SFF) I implore you to read Malazan Book of the Fallen as its written by an archeologist/anthropologist Steven Erikson. And it's based off years of ttrpg campaigns in an original world that he then adapted into books and turned into this insanely massive and devastating epic. Its the best epic fantasy out there, it's truly unlike anything else in existence, it's massive in scope, insanely ambitious, impeccably written (book 1 is great but slightly rough compared to the rest of the series as it was written 10yrs prior AND adapted from a screenplay), and it makes Game of Thrones look quaint and simple by comparison lol. And I LOVE ASOIAF, but Malazan just blew it out of the water. Its also called Book of the Fallen for a reason. No characters are safe. Basically every book has a Ned Stark or Red Wedding type event. The series has a massive cast of characters and spans continents. There are predominantly 3 continents that the story takes place across, and so certain books (esp in the beginning) have their own unique stories. Like imagine if Dany wasnt in GoT at all, but then book 2 was entirely Dany's story and all the other stuff going on in Essos. Then book 3 jumps back to Westeros. Thats how Malazan works. The books have such large casts that there arent main characters, but an easy way to speak about the series is through the eyes of the 3 Paran siblings. So #1 Gardens of the Moon follows Ganoes Paran as he is sent by the empress to investigate a magical mass acre of a village. Its carried out by 2 newly ascended gods, and one of the gods possesses a young girl who avoided the attack. Ganoes follows her trail to the Malazan army all the way on another continent called Genabackis where the Malazans are in the process of defeating the last 2 free cities after like a +20yr military campaign. An elite unit in the army called the Bridgeburners is where this girl ended up and Paran becomes their captain. The Bridgeburners are then tasked with infiltrating Darujhistan and helping to sabotage the city for when the Malazans arrive. Book #2 Deadhouse Gates sees Felisin Paran, [Ganoes] Paran's younger sister unfortunately get caught up in the empress's cull of nobles, and the empresses righthand woman Tavore Paran (the other sister) is in charge of sending all these nobles, including her little 14yo sister to the penal mines off the coast of the continent of Seven Cities to mine Otataral, a magic negating ore. Aside from 4 crossover characters from book 1, its an entirely new cast. But on Seven Cities, a prophetess named Sha'ik is fulfilling prophecy, leading to the rise of The Whirlwind, a mass violent uprising of the native peoples revolting to expel the Malazans from their continent. A Malazan High Fist named Coltaine has to lead a train of 60K Malazan refugees to the last Malazan holdout city of Aren, the distance of Montreal to Miami, and he does it with enemies dogging his heels the entire way. The event becomes known as the Chain of Dogs, and I literally had to get a tattoo because thats how impactful it was and thats when I knew what a special series I had found. Then Book #3, Memories of Ice jumps back to Genabackis and picks up where book 1 left of and takes place at the same time as book 2. In this book we meet The Crippled God, (coincidentally the title of the last book in the series 👀). Then book #4, House of Chains picks up with the Whirlwind in Seven Cities after the events of book 2 and follows Tavore Paran in large part. The final one ill talk about, book #5, Midnight Tides is incredible. Just when you thought you got the hang of things, Erikson dumps you onto Lether, a brand new, completely isolated, uncontacted continent in the midst of an escalating conflict that begins over a breached seal-hunting treaty lmao. The human Letherii are at war with the Tiste Edur, meanwhile the Letherii empire is rotten to the core with the final gasps of unchecked capitalism. And turns out this book is the backstory of a character you meet in book 4 (hes legit like "youre probably wondering how I ended up here, chained to this rock for a few years in a slowly flooding realm") and it takes place before book 1. Shocking. Then after that, all three storylines weave together so intricately and meticulously, its honestly a miracle. So the point I'm getting at is that it truly is a massive masterpiece like no other, and its an insane magnum opus of ambition that genuinely shocks me it even managed to get picked up by a publisher willing to take a chance on it given its such a mad concept and huge risk. But it paid off. You just need to trust Erikson is writing this way for a reason. So if I were you, I would pick up book one. I was in 11th grade and didnt find it challenging at all, but many people do, so if you do you can either just keep reading past the confusion (thats the best part, its like a wonderful mental puzzle to solve! I love it), or you can read book 5 instead as its an easier entry point and makes for a fantastic standalone novel tbh. Ive read the series 10 times now and experimented a bunch with reading order and i think books 1 or 5 are the best place to start. But you could technically start with book 2 as well. Please go check out some booktube malazan videos!
Yes! I just picked gardens of the moon up, and I can't wait to get reading it! I'm putting it off for now though until I finish the 5 other series i am reading at the same time, and I think I need a tad bit more reading experience before I start that book. But yes, Malazan sounds amazing!
Oh speaking of historical events to fantasy, you would LOVE Guy Gavriel Kay. Just skip his first Fionavar trilogy. Everything else is historical fantasy. Sailing to Sarantium is about a mosaicist decorating the dome of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople during the reign of justinian and theodora. Its a great duology. Lions of Al Rassan is the Spanish reconquista. Song for Arbonne = albagensian crusade. Many more. Some of the most beautiful writing anyone has ever seen. He worked with Tolkien on the Silmarillion too btw. Fun fact.
I enjoyed the grit and modern take on fantasy this book series offers. You just have to kind of skip the awkward sex slave scenes and other questionable sex imagery. Another thing is that unfortunately, you can't really call this book series great if it's not finished, so there's that...
Thank you so much for clicking on this video! Make sure to comment any ideas or suggestions here!
you should read the king killer chronicles, it is one of the bests but its incompleted sadly. but its literally one of the best fantasy books ive read
edit: scratch that i see it on your bookshelf 😂. will leave this up for others though
Hey. Great video! I read ASOIAF and then my fav series mbotf in high school too 10yrs ago, so this was fun to watch.
Forgive me but this comment is going to be LONG. But please indulge me while I rave 🙏
May I please recommend you Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson? I first read it at 17-18 and unfortunately, it means my reading peaked in high school lmao. I read ~100 books/year and 10yrs later at 28 I've still never found anything that compares with Malazan. Given what you say in this video, I have the hunch it may be a series for you. It's certainly not for everyone (far too complex for many), but I always say, if the series is for you, it will likely skyrocket to be in your top 5 series ever.
If you love worldbuilding (it's my fav aspect of SFF) I implore you to read Malazan Book of the Fallen as its written by an archeologist/anthropologist Steven Erikson. And it's based off years of ttrpg campaigns in an original world that he then adapted into books and turned into this insanely massive and devastating epic. Its the best epic fantasy out there, it's truly unlike anything else in existence, it's massive in scope, insanely ambitious, impeccably written (book 1 is great but slightly rough compared to the rest of the series as it was written 10yrs prior AND adapted from a screenplay), and it makes Game of Thrones look quaint and simple by comparison lol. And I LOVE ASOIAF, but Malazan just blew it out of the water. Its also called Book of the Fallen for a reason. No characters are safe. Basically every book has a Ned Stark or Red Wedding type event.
The series has a massive cast of characters and spans continents. There are predominantly 3 continents that the story takes place across, and so certain books (esp in the beginning) have their own unique stories. Like imagine if Dany wasnt in GoT at all, but then book 2 was entirely Dany's story and all the other stuff going on in Essos. Then book 3 jumps back to Westeros. Thats how Malazan works. The books have such large casts that there arent main characters, but an easy way to speak about the series is through the eyes of the 3 Paran siblings.
So #1 Gardens of the Moon follows Ganoes Paran as he is sent by the empress to investigate a magical mass acre of a village. Its carried out by 2 newly ascended gods, and one of the gods possesses a young girl who avoided the attack. Ganoes follows her trail to the Malazan army all the way on another continent called Genabackis where the Malazans are in the process of defeating the last 2 free cities after like a +20yr military campaign. An elite unit in the army called the Bridgeburners is where this girl ended up and Paran becomes their captain. The Bridgeburners are then tasked with infiltrating Darujhistan and helping to sabotage the city for when the Malazans arrive.
Book #2 Deadhouse Gates sees Felisin Paran, [Ganoes] Paran's younger sister unfortunately get caught up in the empress's cull of nobles, and the empresses righthand woman Tavore Paran (the other sister) is in charge of sending all these nobles, including her little 14yo sister to the penal mines off the coast of the continent of Seven Cities to mine Otataral, a magic negating ore. Aside from 4 crossover characters from book 1, its an entirely new cast. But on Seven Cities, a prophetess named Sha'ik is fulfilling prophecy, leading to the rise of The Whirlwind, a mass violent uprising of the native peoples revolting to expel the Malazans from their continent. A Malazan High Fist named Coltaine has to lead a train of 60K Malazan refugees to the last Malazan holdout city of Aren, the distance of Montreal to Miami, and he does it with enemies dogging his heels the entire way. The event becomes known as the Chain of Dogs, and I literally had to get a tattoo because thats how impactful it was and thats when I knew what a special series I had found.
Then Book #3, Memories of Ice jumps back to Genabackis and picks up where book 1 left of and takes place at the same time as book 2. In this book we meet The Crippled God, (coincidentally the title of the last book in the series 👀).
Then book #4, House of Chains picks up with the Whirlwind in Seven Cities after the events of book 2 and follows Tavore Paran in large part.
The final one ill talk about, book #5, Midnight Tides is incredible. Just when you thought you got the hang of things, Erikson dumps you onto Lether, a brand new, completely isolated, uncontacted continent in the midst of an escalating conflict that begins over a breached seal-hunting treaty lmao. The human Letherii are at war with the Tiste Edur, meanwhile the Letherii empire is rotten to the core with the final gasps of unchecked capitalism. And turns out this book is the backstory of a character you meet in book 4 (hes legit like "youre probably wondering how I ended up here, chained to this rock for a few years in a slowly flooding realm") and it takes place before book 1. Shocking.
Then after that, all three storylines weave together so intricately and meticulously, its honestly a miracle.
So the point I'm getting at is that it truly is a massive masterpiece like no other, and its an insane magnum opus of ambition that genuinely shocks me it even managed to get picked up by a publisher willing to take a chance on it given its such a mad concept and huge risk. But it paid off. You just need to trust Erikson is writing this way for a reason.
So if I were you, I would pick up book one. I was in 11th grade and didnt find it challenging at all, but many people do, so if you do you can either just keep reading past the confusion (thats the best part, its like a wonderful mental puzzle to solve! I love it), or you can read book 5 instead as its an easier entry point and makes for a fantastic standalone novel tbh.
Ive read the series 10 times now and experimented a bunch with reading order and i think books 1 or 5 are the best place to start. But you could technically start with book 2 as well.
Please go check out some booktube malazan videos!
Yes! I just picked gardens of the moon up, and I can't wait to get reading it! I'm putting it off for now though until I finish the 5 other series i am reading at the same time, and I think I need a tad bit more reading experience before I start that book. But yes, Malazan sounds amazing!
Oh speaking of historical events to fantasy, you would LOVE Guy Gavriel Kay. Just skip his first Fionavar trilogy. Everything else is historical fantasy.
Sailing to Sarantium is about a mosaicist decorating the dome of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople during the reign of justinian and theodora. Its a great duology.
Lions of Al Rassan is the Spanish reconquista.
Song for Arbonne = albagensian crusade.
Many more. Some of the most beautiful writing anyone has ever seen. He worked with Tolkien on the Silmarillion too btw. Fun fact.
Well you’ve simply got to do some book-faithful ASMR roleplays based on this series. There is a terrible dearth of such content on youtube
I enjoyed the grit and modern take on fantasy this book series offers. You just have to kind of skip the awkward sex slave scenes and other questionable sex imagery. Another thing is that unfortunately, you can't really call this book series great if it's not finished, so there's that...