Help deciding on buying a book saga. Ive begun reading goodreads!!

Hello fellow book people

I am into high fantasy, harry potter, lord of the rings, the hobbit.
I just finished reading the Sabriel trilogy

I am finishing up Bartimaeus right now i just started pltomys gate.



now i have started to wonder what to read next. Buying books can be expensive, however with our regional library shut down, i am considering buying a 10 book series.

The book series in question is
Malazan Book Series


I have read thru many a review on goodreads. It sounds like it is a rewarding series to get thru. Good reads has a lot of differing reviews.

Does anyone else have any encouraging words for me to spend money on buying this whole series? I am looking at 150$ CAD.

cheers

Jordan- My wife is just about to finish the 10th book of this very series. She is totally into this sort of genre and she absolutely loves the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. She says it's fabulous and highly recommends it. She cites it's a commitment, as there are tons of characters and the story spans a large time period, and each one of those ten books is thick.

A lot of libraries have ebook loans.  Maybe yours is still doing those.

I enjoyed it.

I thought the books written by another in the same world were terrible, though.

Jordan, I love the Bartimaeus series. If you enjoyed Stroud I highly recommend his other series--Lockwood and Co.

That said, the Malazan series is quite good. I also recommend Patrick Rothfuss and RF Kuang, though both of those have shorter trilogies.

If you have an e-reader I suggest using Libby Overdrive, which many libraries use. If you can buy online, I recommend purchasing from https://www.abebooks.com/ which is usually much cheaper than other online purchasing.

While many libraries are closed, many are using curbside pickup to serve their communities--I would double check to make sure they are not providing this service. I think the Vancouver Island Library has a mail service.

Good luck!

Daniel Ray wrote:Jordan, I love the Bartimaeus series. If you enjoyed Stroud I highly recommend his other series--Lockwood and Co.

That said, the Malazan series is quite good. I also recommend Patrick Rothfuss and RF Kuang, though both of those have shorter trilogies.

If you have an e-reader I suggest using Libby Overdrive, which many libraries use. If you can buy online, I recommend purchasing from https://www.abebooks.com/ which is usually much cheaper than other online purchasing.

While many libraries are closed, many are using curbside pickup to serve their communities--I would double check to make sure they are not providing this service. I think the Vancouver Island Library has a mail service.

Good luck!

Hey thanks for the suggestions.

I am however quite adverse to reading an e-reader. do not like it much and prefer a book :)

yea VIRL is not doing books by mail at this point. I always have about 5-10 books out by them. I imagine covid is making BBM quite hard.


Edited to add

I have bought the series. thank you all for the encouragement

Now that I have a few more seconds, and sticking to fantasy only..

Robin Hobb's books are most excellent, but her characterization is so good that I can't stand one entire trilogy due to dislike of the main character.

Martha Wells is another of my favorites.


If you make it over to the big island, there sure are a lot of good used bookstores to choose from. I don't remember buying a new book in the last decade... Fireside in parksville is my overall favorite; mum's book bin in campbell river has the largest fantasy/sci-fi section in the area. Russells in victoria certainly has the most shelf-footage, but I don't much enjoy victoria. Honorable mention to the SOS thrift store in parksville; paperbacks are $1-$2, and sometimes you get lucky and come away with a whole stack!

D Nikolls wrote:Now that I have a few more seconds, and sticking to fantasy only..

Robin Hobb's books are most excellent, but her characterization is so good that I can't stand one entire trilogy due to dislike of the main character.

Martha Wells is another of my favorites.


If you make it over to the big island, there sure are a lot of good used bookstores to choose from. I don't remember buying a new book in the last decade... Fireside in parksville is my overall favorite; mum's book bin in campbell river has the largest fantasy/sci-fi section in the area. Russells in victoria certainly has the most shelf-footage, but I don't much enjoy victoria. Honorable mention to the SOS thrift store in parksville; paperbacks are $1-$2, and sometimes you get lucky and come away with a whole stack!

Thank you for the author suggestions

Yea the chance of me going over are very slim. I just don't care for it. There is a pretty good book store in qualicum next to naked naturals as well. qualicum is where i most likely will go because it is much more bike friendly. parksville is a car town.  If i borrow a community members car, sometimes i make it to the sos in parksville. It is usually last minute after driving around. It is never a easy day going over to the big island with all of the shopping and long Lists of places to stop!

alas buying books online

If you like fantasy, I think you will surely like The Witcher saga. In the past few months I became really attracted to it and started reading (I already knew about this saga because there are some games about it and in the past I read few pages, was nice). The writer is a polish man, Andrzej Sapkowski and in the last period I am really getting interested about polish culture and I really fell in love with his books. Hope you will enjoy it as much as I do.

A series that I found fun in college was The Belgariad by David Eddings.  It's a set of 5 books, and there's a second series of 5 books called The Mallorean that follows.  Then there are a smattering of side books about specific characters.  I found the first series the best, with the rest being worth it to revisit the characters.

A classic is the 5-book Amber series, starting with Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny.  There's a much-later-written, not-as-good second 5-book series.

And my personal love is The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay.  It's only a trilogy, but he's also written several incredibly good stand-alone books each in its own fantasy world.  Fionavar is the most like Tolkien, not shocking as Kay helped Christopher Tolkien assemble and edit The Silmarillion.

NB:  All of the above are older books - I haven't picked up Eddings in decades - and they may be racist and/or sexist in ways I never noticed in the 90s but would sadden me now.  YMMV.

For something more modern (and radical, or at least the author is) N.K. Jemisin is worth your time.  The Inheritance trilogy and the Broken Earth trilogy (not at all in the same world) will break your heart and put it back together again a thousand times.

Fantasy wise I would have to say the dungeons and dragons main story is pretty good.If your into fantasy scifi Check out the Dune Saga.Another good one is The Burning Sun Trilogy by C.J. Cherish.Both our about futuristic nomads that take down the ruling class.