For context, I’m a lifelong Tolkien fan, loved The Kingkiller Chronicle, ASOIAF, and Dune; also enjoyed a lot Earthsea, Circe, and Mistborn.

Currently reading the Farseer trilogy.

Got in my TBR (pretty long-term goals lol): First Law, Malazan, The Wheel of Time, Stormlight Archive, and The Dark Tower.

I’ve been getting through Tad Williams’ Memory Sorrow and Thorn trilogy lately and am almost finished with its it’s impossibly massive third installment, To Green Angel Tower.

Then I will begin his Last King of Osten Ard series, which is a sequel, and hopefully, by the time I’m done with that, the new books will
done.

Apparently The Splintered Sun is a prequel to Memory Sorrow and Thorn that will be a Dualogy.

Something I’ve always admired about Tad is his ability to write stories that have an ending.

As in, there is a beginning and a few books covering the events of the story, following the character’s journeys and exploring the world and whatnot, and then, eventually, after much storytelling, there is a sort of final installment that serves as what we would call an “ending”.

There’s an entire book dedicated to wrapping things up and making sense of the whole thing.

This is a good approach to epic fantasy and sci fi.

Many modern fantasy authors consider Tad to be a bridge between the classical fantasy world and the modern one. I agree with this.

Martin gives enormous credit to Tad as his primary inspiration for Song of Ice and Fire.

Brandon Sanderson hails Tad’s Osten Ard books as a “masterpiece”.

And Patrick Rothfuss..

Yes, many authors consider Tad to be a pillar of the genre.

My favorite series of his is Memory Sorrow and Thorn. I adore it so much that I wish that HBO had greenlit a high budget production of it instead of Game of Thrones.

I am a part of a sizable group of people who think Memory Sorrow and Thorn is actually better than Game of Thrones and far more screen ready…. And finished

His other series, Otherland and Shadowmarch are equally masterful.

Otherland specifically is groundbreaking in numerous ways.

Shadowmarch is underrated, and I hope to see it get its due attention someday.

I think out of all the authors who wrote faean folk, Tad is probably the best.

Even his standalones are good. Tailchaser’s Song is the cutest book ever, and War of the Flowers is my favorite portal fantasy.

He also seems like such a humble guy in interviews.

I recall one where he’s doing a one to one discussion with Steven Erikson and they were talking g about the genre, the contrast between the two is so clear in that interview.

Tad has no ego.. no superiority complex, and seems to genuinely love the art like he loves his pets.

I consider him to be the best living American fantasy author.

What do you think of him and his work?

This book was awesome! This was my first time listening to a Graphic Audio and I absolutely adored it. I started it a few hours ago and just got done listening to it and loved every second of it. Loved the main character and I want to know more about her.

As a Brandon Sanderson reader, you'd expect the book to have a plot twist in the end, but I thought this book had an ending much better while not being "SHOCKING" in any way. It was a simple ending,yet very powerful.

I liked this parallel between Gaotona throwing the book into the fire and Shae burning the painting earlier

I definitely think this book had a better writing quality than the og Mistborn trilogy, the only Sanderson series I've read. There was nothing Id change in this book and it is one of the best book I've ever read now.

Well, now let's talk about the audio performance. I loved it! The voice actress for Shae had such a soothing voice and I could listen to her voice all the time, ngl.

If you've not read it yet, Id highly recommend the Graphic Audio. Its only 3.5 hours long so you'd be able to finish it in a day.

That's all Id wanted to say. Have a good day!

I read the first 3 in the 5-book series last week, and they are fantastic.

The premise is that ghosts suddenly start appearing, and nobody is sure why. Eventually, you start getting hints about why and bump into other things like zombies, were-creatures (a very different take on these, though connected with the ghost bit), and demons.

The main character is Fix, essentially a PI exorcist character. He gets the living crap beat out of him in most books, and it is amazing he is still walking.

I'd say it is different than Dresden in that the action is more sporadic and the mystery part is the heavier focus. And the lead character isn't super badass, but more just trying to figure stuff out and usually getting pretty lucky.

Anyone read them?

What do you think?

P.s. Huge thanks to someone on Reddit who recommended this to me :)

Not counting 390 pages from The Strength of the Few 😅

Finally finished the Sun Eater series and absolutely loved it! High praise but I'd rank it up there with Red Rising and Dungeon Crawler Carl as recent favorites. Lions of Al-Rassan not so much. Wanted to love it but didn't find myself as invested as other books I've read lately.

I conveniently found this and the complete trilogy dubbed The Mage Wars at a local used bookstore! Apparently these novels are part of a bigger mythology and are technically prequels to previous events. I also am using a Halloween candle to enhance the mystical cozy atmosphere while reading as we go into the Fall season! After reading this I will go through the rest of the trilogy, The White Gryphon and The Silver Gryphon!

As the Halloween season approaches and I’m getting back into the horror genre, I’m wondering if we all have some good recommendations here for books that seamlessly combine horror and fantasy together? I’ve already read and love Dark Tower, Imajica, Weaveworld, Kagen The Damned and Second Apocalypse

I'm new to reading and have a lot I want to read though (like a hell of a lot) and I find myself wanting to start other series and/or before I've finished the one I've started.

So is it easy to read multiple at the same time and how do you manage it? I hear people talk about mixing genres but I really wanna binge high fantasy right now. Also how do you stop yourself from reading two, preferring one and subconsciously ditching the first one and that worries me too?

These might be dumb questions but just wondering how others tackle this is all

Heya friends,

I have just finished Assassins Apprentice and i struggle with whether i want to continue or not. Fitz just seems like the dumbest/most oblivious MC there is and that's so jarring. Like he seems even more "incompetent" than kvothe and i barely was able to read Wise Mans Fear bc he kept messing up constantly. Does this get better?

I read the two collections of stories, and the first two novels,, and I loved them. There are still 3 novels in the chronical order of the series, would they be such good as the first two ones? Thanks

I finished The Heroes, the fifth First Law book. I've been loving the First Law series. The Heroes I liked, but it's probably my least favorite of the five I read. It's purely military focused.

I remember my time reading a lot of old Star Wars novels. The only one I didn't finish out of the ones I started, was Republic Commando, a military/war novel. So many amazing stories: Darth Plagueis, Kenobi, Labyrinth of Evil, Outbound Flight to name a few. The military Clone stuff felt really boring by comparison.

Now I'm getting the feeling I don't like military books. They feel dull, with long descriptions of details I don't care about. I like politics, interpersonal relations and mystery. Scope too. Thing is, I recently bought the first Malazan book. I want to read it next, but after The Heroes I've begun to wonder if Malazan will be for me. I've heard it's pretty military/war focused as well. What do you think?