Sara's reading log

I am a book hoarder and reader. My main genre is SF, but I also love magic realism, fantasy and general fiction. Favorite authors are Iain M. Banks, Ursula K. LeGuin, Haruki Murakami, José Saramago, Isaac Asimov, Ben Aaronovitch and more. My rating system is based on five stars. I rate books based on my expectations and what a books aims to be. This means that the brilliant 'Fahrenheit 451' gets five stars because I thought it would be good, people said it was good, and it was good, but 'A Closed and Common Orbit' also gets five stars because in its series, in its style, I really enjoyed it and was not disappointed.

Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson & Steve Rune Lundin

  • Started on: 2013-01-27
  • Finished on: 2013-02-26
  • Read in: English
  • Rating: *****
  • Genre(s): Fantasy

After posting the pictures of my new bookwall (only fiction on that wall ) one of my followers on twitter recommended I start with Steven Erikson’s series The Malazan Book of the Fallen. I was daunted by the size, especially with my slow, slow reading pace these days, but one of my resolutions was to not skip the big books. So I started reading this work, and I loved it from page one.
The world in the Malazan series is a complex world with many races of which the humans seem to be the most important (in this book). But there is also the Moon’s Spawn (a floating fortress) with the Tiste-Andii, gods and their ascendants, dragons, the immortal T’lan Imass and probably many others. Magic is a real (very real) thing in this world, combined with the gods and their warrens. The book is the story of part of the conquering war of the Malazan Empire led by Empress Laseen against the Seven Free Cities. We follow (mainly) the Bridgeburners and the people surrounding them, on their way to and during the battle for Darujhistan.
I was warned that Erikson expects a lot from his readers. He lets us hit the ground running, and doesn’t bother explaining much about the world we are dropped in. But if you give the story some time it gets clearer (the gods, the warrens, the magic, the war, the peoples), and more importantly, more fun. By the end of the book I couldn’t wait to find out what comes next in this huge complex world. The story is complex and no where near complete when the book finishes, but it is worth it to read it. Five out of five stars, and another series I cannot wait to get in to.

  • Started on: 2013-01-27
  • Finished on: 2013-02-26
  • Read in: English
  • Rating: *****
  • Genre(s): Fantasy

After posting the pictures of my new bookwall (only fiction on that wall ) one of my followers on twitter recommended I start with Steven Erikson’s series The Malazan Book of the Fallen. I was daunted by the size, especially with my slow, slow reading pace these days, but one of my resolutions was to not skip the big books. So I started reading this work, and I loved it from page one.
The world in the Malazan series is a complex world with many races of which the humans seem to be the most important (in this book). But there is also the Moon’s Spawn (a floating fortress) with the Tiste-Andii, gods and their ascendants, dragons, the immortal T’lan Imass and probably many others. Magic is a real (very real) thing in this world, combined with the gods and their warrens. The book is the story of part of the conquering war of the Malazan Empire led by Empress Laseen against the Seven Free Cities. We follow (mainly) the Bridgeburners and the people surrounding them, on their way to and during the battle for Darujhistan.
I was warned that Erikson expects a lot from his readers. He lets us hit the ground running, and doesn’t bother explaining much about the world we are dropped in. But if you give the story some time it gets clearer (the gods, the warrens, the magic, the war, the peoples), and more importantly, more fun. By the end of the book I couldn’t wait to find out what comes next in this huge complex world. The story is complex and no where near complete when the book finishes, but it is worth it to read it. Five out of five stars, and another series I cannot wait to get in to.