What's Good about the Malazan Books?

[wingedferret]

I see many people gushing about these books. What is it about them thats so good?
I tried to read through the first book but didn't get very far because of density. it just wasn't fun wading through the text.

[Yojimbo]

It is dense. Very dense. The world of the Malazan books is practically a living, breathing creature itself with a much more involved history and backstory than even Middle-Earth. Erickson's world stretches back millions of years -- but Gardens of the Moon doesn't waste any time explaining or infodumping much of anything at all.

In the forefront is the story of some soldiers sent to recon a city-state ripe for conquering, while the regulars of a bar in that city-state go about their own petty (or not so petty) squabbles. In the background is a game of gods trying to one-up one another, a million year old war between mummified Neandertals and a race of Titans, a floating city controlled by an Elric pastiche to beat all Eric pastiches, and a whole mess of other stuff that only begin to come to light in succeeding novels.

I like that amount of density. There's a lot of plot in those books -- maybe too much for some. At the same time the characters (even the Elric pastiche eventually) are given real motivation and great characterization, so you actually care about them and their struggles.

I think the Malazan books slightly edge out A Song of Ice and Fire as the best (deconstructionist) fantasy novels of the last ten years. But only because they clearly embrace all the weirdness and wonder the fantasy genre can offer right off the bat, while Martin is doing more of a medieval romance with extras.

Jim Cannon

[The Disgruntled Poet]

I read the first Malazan book and found the writing good, but had trouble slogging through Deathhouse Gates (?) the second. It was just too... busy for me.

I am not really sure what you mean by deconstructionist though... how are either the Malazan books or the Martin books deconstructionist?

Maybe Malazan since he does seem to play on the conventions a little bit and sweep everything into his non-stop bustling panorama?

But Martin just seems to me to be a pretty well-written compelling costume drama... only read the first one, so perhaps, I missed something in the later books. :confused:

[Iozz-Sothoth]

But Martin just seems to me to be a pretty well-written compelling costume drama... only read the first one, so perhaps, I missed something in the later books. :confused:

Examine how the characters in Martin relate to standard high-fantasy archetypes, and how the way politics is conducted in ASoIF relates to how politics is conducted in standard genre fantasy, and you may see why.

Another sign that this is a deconstruction -- or at least not standard fantasy fare -- is that Martin kills the 'wrong' characters; in a typical genre fantasy novel, pretty much everyone you root for will live. That this last isn't so in ASoIF is probably more apparent in the later books, though.