6 ms·

Ken Follett Says Readers Still Like Epic Books

53 points by lermontov 3y ago

The-Old-Hacker 3y ago
https://archive.ph/wXsYX https://archive.ph/wXsYX
Grimburger 3y ago
Never read Follett but certainly keen for Brandon Sanderson's 5th Stormlight book sometime next year, they are huge books, he's definitely become my favourite writer despite being a bit meandering in prose sometimes. The guy raised $40m in a kickstarter and pumped out 4 novellas this year, it's impressive how much of a literary machine he is.
- bellgrove 3y ago
  Perhaps I went into this series with unrealistic expectations but I found it pretty disappointing. Same for Rothfuss. There is a huge volume of older fantasy novels that are a much better investment of time, IMO.
  - cageface 3y ago
    Which are your favorites?
    - bellgrove 3y ago
      I really loved the Gormenghast series. Worm Ouroboros. Gloriana and the Elric saga by Moorcock.
  - havblue 3y ago
    I think pillars of the earth and name of the wind were both entertaining but I was somewhat annoyed by both of their villains who just try too hard to make the reader hate them. We get it. The bad guy is evil.
    - TylerE 3y ago
      That's the other thing I don't like about Sanderson. Shades of grey is so much more interesting than black and white.
      - someuser2345 3y ago
        Sanderson's villains do have their own shades of grey, even if it isn't quite as emphasized as in GRRM's books. The villain of the first Mistborn book was genuinely trying to keep the world safe; he was just terrible at it, and he had an evil god whispering in his ear for a thousand years. The Parshendi are first shown as just villains, but later books show their side of the story and they become far more sympathetic.
        jamesgeck0 3y ago
        Yep, there's also a major character who has been pulling strings behind the scenes in about ten different books across various series. How good or bad they are depends on how closely their aims happen to align with the goals of the main protagonists of the story. Although it's really easy to miss; presently this is mostly easter eggs for sharp-eyed readers. IIRC Sanderson has stated that he's trying to set up a Star Trek type setting. He's developing all these different cultures with different values, and eventually they're going to become space-faring and come into conflict with each other over their different priorities.
  - wiredfool 3y ago
    I bounced off of one of the early Stormlight books, maybe Way of Kings. Doesn’t mean it’s bad or others won’t find it rewarding. Sanderson rewards readers who are looking for world building and the reveal of the way things work. I liked the first Mistborn trilogy, but couldn’t get into the later ones. For recent large scale fiction that’s also not going to work for everyone, I really liked the Terra Ignota series. (But, if the warnings and the first chapter put you off, you’re not going to like it)
  - TylerE 3y ago
    What kills Sanderson for me is the dialog. Real people don't talk like a Mormon sunday school teacher. No warrior on a field of battle is going to yell "oh butterfingers!" in the middle of a battle.
    - mholm 3y ago
      Characters in general for Sanderson books tend to feel like Sanderson picked one trait, and something 'surprising', and made that their whole personality. Then he builds from there. They eventually become complex characters but for awhile after their introductions they feel like a cardboard cutout. And of course the characters still feel much more puritan and sterile than I would prefer.
    - Josteniok 3y ago
      I don't think he is super great at dialog, either, but I like how his cursing is world-specific rather than just reusing what we think of as cursing in our world. He has quite a bit of it in Stormlight Archives (see: https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/7204-swearing-in-roshar/ https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/7204-swearing-in-rosha...) but it doesn't "offend" us here in our world because it is specific to their world.
      - huthuthike 3y ago
        That's kind of a high fantasy trope. "Blood and ashes!" from Wheel of Time comes to mind. It's like how they like to use different measures of time and distance. "It took him a fortnight to travel all those leagues." Helps take you out of the real world.
        Grimburger 3y ago
        > "Blood and ashes!" from Wheel of Time comes to mind Probably fair to note that Sanderson wrote a bunch of those books to finish up the series after the author died and at his estates request?
        3y ago
  - Grimburger 3y ago
    It took me three times over a few years to even finish The Way of Kings despite liking his other books, it's definitely a rough beginning but am basically hooked at this point.
    - livueta 3y ago
      That's a really interesting perspective to read because I feel almost exactly the opposite: liked TWoK and have been progressively disenchanted with each subsequent book. TWoK reminds me of the (Mirror-Moon TL of the) original F/SN VN in that the author/TL being bad at realistic characterization actually enhances the experience. F/SN Shirou and TWoK Kaladin are both weird broken robots with warped perspectives, and exposing the reader to an exhaustive amount of the (creative and surprisingly involved) setting, both mundane and horrific, through those perspectives is actually pretty interesting in a literary way and ascends above what could otherwise have been just plain bad writing. Other posts in this thread have referenced the development of Kaladin's character through the arc of the plot, and I think that's what lost me. "Fixed" Kaladin is an uncanny-valley imitation of a fleshed-out character; "broken" Kaladin is, intentionally or unintentionally, a lot more fun. I found myself actively disliking many of Sanderson's attempts at expanding his characterization, especially in RoW.
- MisterBastahrd 3y ago
  I need to look more into Sanderson's stuff, because the first of his books I cracked open seemed like it was written for an 8 year old. His narrative style is not something I enjoyed. I'm sure he meant it to be whimsical, but to me it just felt jarring and a detraction from the story.
  - wiredfool 3y ago
    A good chunk of Sanderson is explicitly targeting YA or earlier.
  - Rebelgecko 3y ago
    FWIW, I also had the perception of his writing being more on the YA side, but I was pleasantly surprised by the Stormlight books (although I haven't read all of them yet). It's definitely not full-on Grimdark (for me that's a good thing), but still felt very mature. I don't think Sandersons sensibilities will ever let him write a sex scene or dialog with English profanity, but that doesn't bother me.
- snarf21 3y ago
  Stormlight started out so well but it is having the same sprawl problems that all Epic Fantasy faces. The more characters you introduce, the more plot you have to manage and the slower any character moves forward. Too many writers are reluctant to kill their darlings. Even GRRM, who was willing to kill Ned and surprise with the Red Wedding, lost control of all his threads years ago and that is why he'll never finish ASOFAI. It will require too much work to find "satisfying" ways to kill everyone off and lead the plot to an ending.
- jasonlotito 3y ago
  Yeah, I can easily recommend Sanderon books to people, and there is enough variety that people might like some and not others. Tress and the Emerald Sea and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter were both interesting, and Tress was especially a refreshing tale outside his norm. You know he's an amazing author because whenever he is mentioned, people will come out of the woodworks to proclaim how they don't like his work, and the problems they have with it, as if that means anything. This isn't to say that you have to like his work. Rather, he's so good, that instead of people promoting the epics they do like, they instead can't help but still talk about Sanderson. And that's incredibly powerful.
  - Grimburger 3y ago
    I really enjoyed Tress and Yumi/Nightmare Painter (couldn't get into the wizard one), not going to lie, his style is a bit cringy and he doesn't do humour well, along with what seems like a bit of moral preaching seeping in, but they are definitely fun books that are easily accessible. Same with The Emperor's Soul which his new novellas seem to hark back to. Yumi is him capturing that essence from a decade ago, though I wasn't really a fan of the ending.
  - JambalayaJim 3y ago
    Most fantasy genre fans have tried a bit of Sanderson simply due to how prolific and popular he is. Hence we all have opinions. In the same vein, most fantasy fans will also have some opinion on Harry Potter. Or pop music fans will have something to say about Taylor Swift these days.
- pie_flavor 3y ago
  Stormlight is great, but I feel like his novellas are really underrated too. The Emperor's Soul is one of my favorite books ever.
- imetatroll 3y ago
  I could be misjudging because I read his Stormlight books with large gaps of time between readings but the first book, as I recall, was excellent while the later books quickly fell into YA territory for me. It seems to me that he either has found that his audience is much younger than I am and they crave a different writing style which he is happy to cater to or he is simply trying to write too much and doesn't spend enough time fleshing out descriptions. His sentences structures are bland as well. The Wheel of Time for all of its warts sets a precedent in terms of how a world can be described all the way down to differences in clothing styles. Granted it did get a bit wearing reading about what people were wearing. So it was a bit extreme, but I find myself missing that in other books I read.
DrThunder 3y ago
I really loved Pillars of the Earth. I've heard his other series are great too, but I haven't gotten a chance to read those yet.
- coldpie 3y ago
  Yeah! I can definitely recommend the Century Trilogy, too.
MenhirMike 3y ago
I'm all in for epic books, just no longer a fan of epic series because they too often just repeat the same beats over and over again. I've recently started re-reading The Wheel of Time books, and the first one is still one of the most amazing fantasy novels ever, but mid-way through the second novel I couldn't help but feel like Rand Al Thor isn't moving forward and just being naive even worse than someone well into the heroes journey should be. Same for The Sword of Truth. And don't get me started on Dune, even acknowledging that it went more into philosophy. No offense to anyone that likes the later books in any of those series, but as far as I'm concerned, I've just kept the first ones. Stuff like A Song of Ice and Fire avoids that because it isn't afraid to move the plot to other characters, though of course, we'll probably see the heat death of the universe and the gold master release of Star Citizen before the Winds of Winter releases. Ken Follett is probably one of the best in the genre because he does different things. Pillars of the Earth is an amazing book, and he didn't turn it into a 6-book series or something that just drags on and on and on. So kudos to him for resisting the temptation there! (EDIT: Ah, turns out that I completely missed that he did. That's what I get for not checking.)
- Swenrekcah 3y ago
  > Pillars of the Earth is an amazing book, and he didn't turn it into a 6-book series or something Just in case you or anyone else is unaware, he did write two others in the same 'universe' and their construction is very similar. That is not a complaint however, I thoroughly enjoyed all of them!
  - davely 3y ago
    And a new one in the series comes out tomorrow, advancing the plot to sometime in the 1700’s. (For what it’s worth, I’ve genuinely enjoyed the books and look forward to reading it.) His Century trilogy is a good read, too. Follows 5 families from before World War I, to the 1980s [1]. [1] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/AO8/the-century-trilogy https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/AO8/the-century-tr...
- Wistar 3y ago
  Pillars of the Earth is one of my all-time favorite epic tales.
denton-scratch 3y ago
Someone gave me a copy of Pillars of the Earth in 1996, and I read it in two days flat. It's a brilliant book, and miles better than the TV series (which is not bad).
- snarf21 3y ago
  Agreed, and I've re-read it at least 6 times.
aaron695 3y ago
[dead]
taeric 3y ago
This is silly. There are so many readers, that you can pick most any topic and format and this is a true statement. Nor is it a refutation that we have shorter attention spans. It /could/ be, but there could be a lot of things there. It is a hard question that will take some nuanced investigation to really get a good answer. To this particular claim, though, it is always been the case that a large number of people buying literature are doing so for the signalling use case. Authors shouldn't confuse purchases with reads.
Octokiddie 3y ago
The article doesn't define "Epic Book." Is it just a really long book? Is there something more to it? How many pages is the cutoff?
nrjames 3y ago
I'm wrapping up a read of Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry. What an amazing "epic" book. It will certainly go down as one of the great pieces of American literature. I strongly recommend it.
- kstrauser 3y ago
  I recently added that to my reading stack. I hate to admit that that title made me think it was a romance novel.
FredPret 3y ago
The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson is absolutely epic, in both senses of the word. Books 1-7 are set in the past, Cryptonomicon in our time, and Fall in the future. It's a whole alternative universe that closely parallels our own. Totally a must-read... if you're the kind of person who bothers reading comments on Hacker News.
AlbertCory 3y ago
Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander is 20 books, and I've read them all twice. There's an art there, and you can't reduce it to a formula. Total immersion in a period is definitely a part of it; you can actually find an interview with him on YouTube. He spent his entire life learning about it. Amazingly, I've read that he actually wasn't that good a sailor, in real life.
- pklausler 3y ago
  I very much enjoyed the fun that O'Brian had in The Far Side Of The World with the unavoidable problem of plot armor with which authors of book series with continuing characters must deal.
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    I think he says in his interview that he came to wish he'd spent more time on the early years of the wars. Because he was running out of war by the end.
carpe171 3y ago
"the evidence is in my bank account" is an all time quote :)
dilippkumar 3y ago
Came here for a Malazan thread. Didn't find one. Guess it's my turn to start the Malazan thread. > These tales are the tales of us all, again yet again. > We are history relived and that is all, without end that is all.
- mdhen 3y ago
  Best epic fantasy series for me. Witness.
tuatoru 3y ago
With the move to electronic media, there is scope for more experimentation in length. There is no intrinsic reason why books should be a particular length. Books were the length that they were, in the 20th century in particular, because of the needs of the physical printing industry. Cost went up more than linearly with length, beyond a certain point. (In the 19th century books were often serialized in magazines first.)

53 points by lermontov 3y ago

https://archive.ph/wXsYX https://archive.ph/wXsYX

Never read Follett but certainly keen for Brandon Sanderson's 5th Stormlight book sometime next year, they are huge books, he's definitely become my favourite writer despite being a bit meandering in prose sometimes. The guy raised $40m in a kickstarter and pumped out 4 novellas this year, it's impressive how much of a literary machine he is.

bellgrove 3y ago
Perhaps I went into this series with unrealistic expectations but I found it pretty disappointing. Same for Rothfuss. There is a huge volume of older fantasy novels that are a much better investment of time, IMO.
- cageface 3y ago
  Which are your favorites?
  - bellgrove 3y ago
    I really loved the Gormenghast series. Worm Ouroboros. Gloriana and the Elric saga by Moorcock.
- havblue 3y ago
  I think pillars of the earth and name of the wind were both entertaining but I was somewhat annoyed by both of their villains who just try too hard to make the reader hate them. We get it. The bad guy is evil.
  - TylerE 3y ago
    That's the other thing I don't like about Sanderson. Shades of grey is so much more interesting than black and white.
    - someuser2345 3y ago
      Sanderson's villains do have their own shades of grey, even if it isn't quite as emphasized as in GRRM's books. The villain of the first Mistborn book was genuinely trying to keep the world safe; he was just terrible at it, and he had an evil god whispering in his ear for a thousand years. The Parshendi are first shown as just villains, but later books show their side of the story and they become far more sympathetic.
      - jamesgeck0 3y ago
        Yep, there's also a major character who has been pulling strings behind the scenes in about ten different books across various series. How good or bad they are depends on how closely their aims happen to align with the goals of the main protagonists of the story. Although it's really easy to miss; presently this is mostly easter eggs for sharp-eyed readers. IIRC Sanderson has stated that he's trying to set up a Star Trek type setting. He's developing all these different cultures with different values, and eventually they're going to become space-faring and come into conflict with each other over their different priorities.
- wiredfool 3y ago
  I bounced off of one of the early Stormlight books, maybe Way of Kings. Doesn’t mean it’s bad or others won’t find it rewarding. Sanderson rewards readers who are looking for world building and the reveal of the way things work. I liked the first Mistborn trilogy, but couldn’t get into the later ones. For recent large scale fiction that’s also not going to work for everyone, I really liked the Terra Ignota series. (But, if the warnings and the first chapter put you off, you’re not going to like it)
- TylerE 3y ago
  What kills Sanderson for me is the dialog. Real people don't talk like a Mormon sunday school teacher. No warrior on a field of battle is going to yell "oh butterfingers!" in the middle of a battle.
  - mholm 3y ago
    Characters in general for Sanderson books tend to feel like Sanderson picked one trait, and something 'surprising', and made that their whole personality. Then he builds from there. They eventually become complex characters but for awhile after their introductions they feel like a cardboard cutout. And of course the characters still feel much more puritan and sterile than I would prefer.
  - Josteniok 3y ago
    I don't think he is super great at dialog, either, but I like how his cursing is world-specific rather than just reusing what we think of as cursing in our world. He has quite a bit of it in Stormlight Archives (see: https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/7204-swearing-in-roshar/ https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/7204-swearing-in-rosha...) but it doesn't "offend" us here in our world because it is specific to their world.
    - huthuthike 3y ago
      That's kind of a high fantasy trope. "Blood and ashes!" from Wheel of Time comes to mind. It's like how they like to use different measures of time and distance. "It took him a fortnight to travel all those leagues." Helps take you out of the real world.
      - Grimburger 3y ago
        > "Blood and ashes!" from Wheel of Time comes to mind Probably fair to note that Sanderson wrote a bunch of those books to finish up the series after the author died and at his estates request?
        3y ago
- Grimburger 3y ago
  It took me three times over a few years to even finish The Way of Kings despite liking his other books, it's definitely a rough beginning but am basically hooked at this point.
  - livueta 3y ago
    That's a really interesting perspective to read because I feel almost exactly the opposite: liked TWoK and have been progressively disenchanted with each subsequent book. TWoK reminds me of the (Mirror-Moon TL of the) original F/SN VN in that the author/TL being bad at realistic characterization actually enhances the experience. F/SN Shirou and TWoK Kaladin are both weird broken robots with warped perspectives, and exposing the reader to an exhaustive amount of the (creative and surprisingly involved) setting, both mundane and horrific, through those perspectives is actually pretty interesting in a literary way and ascends above what could otherwise have been just plain bad writing. Other posts in this thread have referenced the development of Kaladin's character through the arc of the plot, and I think that's what lost me. "Fixed" Kaladin is an uncanny-valley imitation of a fleshed-out character; "broken" Kaladin is, intentionally or unintentionally, a lot more fun. I found myself actively disliking many of Sanderson's attempts at expanding his characterization, especially in RoW.
MisterBastahrd 3y ago
I need to look more into Sanderson's stuff, because the first of his books I cracked open seemed like it was written for an 8 year old. His narrative style is not something I enjoyed. I'm sure he meant it to be whimsical, but to me it just felt jarring and a detraction from the story.
- wiredfool 3y ago
  A good chunk of Sanderson is explicitly targeting YA or earlier.
- Rebelgecko 3y ago
  FWIW, I also had the perception of his writing being more on the YA side, but I was pleasantly surprised by the Stormlight books (although I haven't read all of them yet). It's definitely not full-on Grimdark (for me that's a good thing), but still felt very mature. I don't think Sandersons sensibilities will ever let him write a sex scene or dialog with English profanity, but that doesn't bother me.
snarf21 3y ago
Stormlight started out so well but it is having the same sprawl problems that all Epic Fantasy faces. The more characters you introduce, the more plot you have to manage and the slower any character moves forward. Too many writers are reluctant to kill their darlings. Even GRRM, who was willing to kill Ned and surprise with the Red Wedding, lost control of all his threads years ago and that is why he'll never finish ASOFAI. It will require too much work to find "satisfying" ways to kill everyone off and lead the plot to an ending.
jasonlotito 3y ago
Yeah, I can easily recommend Sanderon books to people, and there is enough variety that people might like some and not others. Tress and the Emerald Sea and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter were both interesting, and Tress was especially a refreshing tale outside his norm. You know he's an amazing author because whenever he is mentioned, people will come out of the woodworks to proclaim how they don't like his work, and the problems they have with it, as if that means anything. This isn't to say that you have to like his work. Rather, he's so good, that instead of people promoting the epics they do like, they instead can't help but still talk about Sanderson. And that's incredibly powerful.
- Grimburger 3y ago
  I really enjoyed Tress and Yumi/Nightmare Painter (couldn't get into the wizard one), not going to lie, his style is a bit cringy and he doesn't do humour well, along with what seems like a bit of moral preaching seeping in, but they are definitely fun books that are easily accessible. Same with The Emperor's Soul which his new novellas seem to hark back to. Yumi is him capturing that essence from a decade ago, though I wasn't really a fan of the ending.
- JambalayaJim 3y ago
  Most fantasy genre fans have tried a bit of Sanderson simply due to how prolific and popular he is. Hence we all have opinions. In the same vein, most fantasy fans will also have some opinion on Harry Potter. Or pop music fans will have something to say about Taylor Swift these days.
pie_flavor 3y ago
Stormlight is great, but I feel like his novellas are really underrated too. The Emperor's Soul is one of my favorite books ever.
imetatroll 3y ago
I could be misjudging because I read his Stormlight books with large gaps of time between readings but the first book, as I recall, was excellent while the later books quickly fell into YA territory for me. It seems to me that he either has found that his audience is much younger than I am and they crave a different writing style which he is happy to cater to or he is simply trying to write too much and doesn't spend enough time fleshing out descriptions. His sentences structures are bland as well. The Wheel of Time for all of its warts sets a precedent in terms of how a world can be described all the way down to differences in clothing styles. Granted it did get a bit wearing reading about what people were wearing. So it was a bit extreme, but I find myself missing that in other books I read.

DrThunder 3y ago

I really loved Pillars of the Earth. I've heard his other series are great too, but I haven't gotten a chance to read those yet.

coldpie 3y ago
Yeah! I can definitely recommend the Century Trilogy, too.

MenhirMike 3y ago

I'm all in for epic books, just no longer a fan of epic series because they too often just repeat the same beats over and over again. I've recently started re-reading The Wheel of Time books, and the first one is still one of the most amazing fantasy novels ever, but mid-way through the second novel I couldn't help but feel like Rand Al Thor isn't moving forward and just being naive even worse than someone well into the heroes journey should be. Same for The Sword of Truth. And don't get me started on Dune, even acknowledging that it went more into philosophy. No offense to anyone that likes the later books in any of those series, but as far as I'm concerned, I've just kept the first ones. Stuff like A Song of Ice and Fire avoids that because it isn't afraid to move the plot to other characters, though of course, we'll probably see the heat death of the universe and the gold master release of Star Citizen before the Winds of Winter releases. Ken Follett is probably one of the best in the genre because he does different things. Pillars of the Earth is an amazing book, and he didn't turn it into a 6-book series or something that just drags on and on and on. So kudos to him for resisting the temptation there! (EDIT: Ah, turns out that I completely missed that he did. That's what I get for not checking.)

Swenrekcah 3y ago
> Pillars of the Earth is an amazing book, and he didn't turn it into a 6-book series or something Just in case you or anyone else is unaware, he did write two others in the same 'universe' and their construction is very similar. That is not a complaint however, I thoroughly enjoyed all of them!
- davely 3y ago
  And a new one in the series comes out tomorrow, advancing the plot to sometime in the 1700’s. (For what it’s worth, I’ve genuinely enjoyed the books and look forward to reading it.) His Century trilogy is a good read, too. Follows 5 families from before World War I, to the 1980s [1]. [1] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/AO8/the-century-trilogy https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/AO8/the-century-tr...
Wistar 3y ago
Pillars of the Earth is one of my all-time favorite epic tales.

denton-scratch 3y ago

Someone gave me a copy of Pillars of the Earth in 1996, and I read it in two days flat. It's a brilliant book, and miles better than the TV series (which is not bad).

snarf21 3y ago
Agreed, and I've re-read it at least 6 times.

aaron695 3y ago

[dead]

taeric 3y ago

This is silly. There are so many readers, that you can pick most any topic and format and this is a true statement. Nor is it a refutation that we have shorter attention spans. It /could/ be, but there could be a lot of things there. It is a hard question that will take some nuanced investigation to really get a good answer. To this particular claim, though, it is always been the case that a large number of people buying literature are doing so for the signalling use case. Authors shouldn't confuse purchases with reads.

Octokiddie 3y ago

The article doesn't define "Epic Book." Is it just a really long book? Is there something more to it? How many pages is the cutoff?

nrjames 3y ago

I'm wrapping up a read of Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry. What an amazing "epic" book. It will certainly go down as one of the great pieces of American literature. I strongly recommend it.

kstrauser 3y ago
I recently added that to my reading stack. I hate to admit that that title made me think it was a romance novel.

FredPret 3y ago

The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson is absolutely epic, in both senses of the word. Books 1-7 are set in the past, Cryptonomicon in our time, and Fall in the future. It's a whole alternative universe that closely parallels our own. Totally a must-read... if you're the kind of person who bothers reading comments on Hacker News.

AlbertCory 3y ago

Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander is 20 books, and I've read them all twice. There's an art there, and you can't reduce it to a formula. Total immersion in a period is definitely a part of it; you can actually find an interview with him on YouTube. He spent his entire life learning about it. Amazingly, I've read that he actually wasn't that good a sailor, in real life.

pklausler 3y ago
I very much enjoyed the fun that O'Brian had in The Far Side Of The World with the unavoidable problem of plot armor with which authors of book series with continuing characters must deal.
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  I think he says in his interview that he came to wish he'd spent more time on the early years of the wars. Because he was running out of war by the end.

carpe171 3y ago

"the evidence is in my bank account" is an all time quote :)

dilippkumar 3y ago

Came here for a Malazan thread. Didn't find one. Guess it's my turn to start the Malazan thread. > These tales are the tales of us all, again yet again. > We are history relived and that is all, without end that is all.

mdhen 3y ago
Best epic fantasy series for me. Witness.

tuatoru 3y ago

With the move to electronic media, there is scope for more experimentation in length. There is no intrinsic reason why books should be a particular length. Books were the length that they were, in the 20th century in particular, because of the needs of the physical printing industry. Cost went up more than linearly with length, beyond a certain point. (In the 19th century books were often serialized in magazines first.)