Malazan is well known as one of the most highly rated Fantasy series, while also known to be very complicated to read. I experienced it myself when I tried to read it a few years ago.

But what I learned from this sub and elsewhere is that you often get a general feeling about a Fantasy series and what it is about. For example, even before reading the Farseer Trilogy, The Witcher Series, or, most importantly A Song of Ice and Fire, I knew what I was getting into. What is the main premise, what makes this series special etc.

But with Malazan, I have no idea apart from that it is really hard to get into and that there are Velociraptors with Sword-Hands.

So I am asking you: What is Malazan actually about? I am not asking for why it is good or a Spoiler free review, more what the core selling point is.

For example, the Witcher is about a monster hunter who tries to save his adoptive daughter. ASOIAF is about political scheming, dynastic warfare and a looming threat from the North.

I’m huge One Piece fan and one of the best things about it are the running gags. Zoro always lost, Luffy healing by drinking milk, Chopper’s bounty being low because he’s mistaken for their pet, etc. Or, which I’m pretty sure is a running gag, Steven Erikson’s obsession with potsherds and ochre. Any recommendations for good fantasy with long running gags thrown in here and there?

I stopped reading Malazan halfway throug House of Chains, and at this point I don’t think the series is for me.

I know a lot of people consider Memories of Ice one of the best fantasy books ever written, but even that one only really worked for me up until the end of the Siege of Capustan. The second half became a slog, and some of the decisions made by characters who are supposedly brilliant commanders/strategists felt incredibly stupid to me.

My biggest problem with the series is probably the characters. There are just so many of them, and the vast majority aren’t interesting enough for me to care about. Even the characters I do like often get a relatively tiny amount of page time spread across thousands of pages, so I never build the kind of emotional attachment the books seem to expect from me. When major characters die, my reaction is usually just “oh, okay” rather than actually feeling anything.

Whiskeyjack is probably the clearest example of another …

I just noticed something pretty wild while reading Morning Star in Russian.

I’m currently practicing reading books in English so I often reread chapters in English after reading them in Russian. That’s how I noticed this particular difference.

In Chapter 9, “The City of Ares”, the English version says:

“You see Cassius at all?”“Twice, at the end. Why?”“Oh, nothing.” He turns to me, eyes glittering. “It’s just that he’s the one who put Pops down.”

But the Russian translation says:

— Ты виделся с Кассием?— Один раз, под конец. А что?— Это он помогает переправлять сюда беженцев, — поворачивается ко мне Севро, и в его глазах появляется блеск.

The Russian version translates roughly as:

“Have you seen Cassius?”“Once, near the end. Why?”“He’s the one helping smuggle refugees here,” Sevro says, turning to me, his eyes glittering.

So the meaning isn’t just slightly different. It’s completely different.

Damn! Honestly, this really ruined the experience for me. I …

I am looking for high/epic fantasy books, excluding LOTR, with depth (characters, plot, worldbuilding) like A Song of Ice and Fire. R. It would be nice if it includes dragons or dragon-riding stuff, as I just love dragons. Please suggest some books.

Hi everyone, we’re M.A. Carrick! And no, we’re not speaking in the royal plural; we’re two authors, Marie Brennan and Alyc Helms, writing under a joint pseudonym.

We’re the authors of the Rook & Rose trilogy, and we just published the first book in our Sea Beyond duology – THE EYE OF LEVIATHAN.

This new series is historical fantasy set in Golden Age Spain. In addition to colonizing the New World, Spain has discovered the passage between the Pillars of Hercules to the Sea Beyond – a magical otherworld of fantastical seas and faerie islands, and is colonizing those as well. Into this milieu, a faerie takes on a mortal guise to infiltrate the royal courts and guildhalls to try to stop the Spanish conquest of faerie. Meanwhile, that changeling’s mortal counterpart is lost in the tempests of the Sea Beyond, and is just trying to get home.

You can find out more about our joint works at www.macarrick.com.

Marie has written novels about Victorian lady scientists …

Just for nostalgia, I had a flick through my childhood copy of Matilda over the weekend, and I found myself taking a surprising interest in Mrs Wormwood. I think there’s substantially more depth to her than there is to her crooked car-dealer husband, and it got me thinking about who she as a character and speculating about what her childhood might have been like. The conclusions I drew, from the admittedly very little evidence the author gives us, is that she’s someone who like Matilda was born with really extraordinary intellectual capabilities, but unlike Matilda failed to ever realise them.

There’s a few things that make me think that, but the bit that stands out most is her comment to Miss Honey that ‘you chose books, and I chose looks’. The word ‘chose’ is an interesting choice. Mrs Wormwood frames it not that Miss Honey was good at books and she herself wasn’t, but that she chose to focus on glamorising herself up at the expense of …

Looking for some new recs where the main reading experience is “wtf is going on??” Not just twisty thrillers, but books where the world/system/reality itself is the mystery. I love gradually uncovering what’s really going on, what the rules are, how it all works, etc. A lot of the ones I’ve read are dystopian/post-apocalyptic (since this kind of setup happens to work very well there) but I’m open to any kind of speculative fiction!

Some examples I’ve read and liked:

-Wool/the Silo trilogy by Hugh Howey

-Wanderers by Chuck Wendig 

-Wayward Pines trilogy, Dark Matter, and Recursion by Blake Crouch

-The Ferryman by Justin Cronin

-The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch

-The Last Murder at the End of the World & The 7 ¹⁄₂ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

Of these, I loved the Silo trilogy the most, but Wayward Pines and The Last Murder at the End of the World are probably the purest examples of what I mean. I’ve found all of Blake Crouch’s premises to be excellent, …

Title says it all!

I was a bookstore kid and there always seemed to be copy of Dreamsnake on the shelf somewhere. Just that one book by that one author. It’s easily skippable in whatever best-of list, but I finally gave it a try. Wow. It’s been a long while since I’ve read a book that I didn’t want to put down.

It is hard to find reviews/discussions of short stories online. At the end of last year I started subscribing to Clarkesworld. I went with the physical/digital subscription as having a physical copy is important to me and was a major factor in my decision to subscribe specifically to Clarkesworld. After reading each issue, I would search for discussions but found very little online. I figured it would be nice to post my thoughts online, both for those who have read the issues and for those who, like me last year, are thinking of subscribing but want to hear about the quality of the magazine before committing.

Rather than go through each and every story, although, if anyone wants to ask about a specific story I would certainly share my thoughts, I’ll briefly comment on my favorite inclusions in each issue through July (Issue 238).

January 2026 (Issue 232) had two stories that stood out, along with the non-fiction piece, “Destination: The Asteroid Belt”. First, …

I just finished Slow Gods and realized that I had spent most of the book in anticipation of >!the protagonist getting to speak with the Slow!<, and it got me thinking about other books that have similar scenes/entities, where someone has a one-on-one audience with some vastly powerful or knowledgeable being, AI, etc. What are the most interesting and memorable variations you’ve seen on it?

Looking for something with a lived-in spaceship, a fun crew (with good chemistry), and an interesting plot or adventure.

ideally under 250 pages (350 is my hard limit) and well written

Any recommendations?

Hello reddit, I’m Guillermo del Toro.

I’ve written & directed Cronos, The Devil’s Backbone, Blade II, Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth, Pacific Rim, The Shape of Water, Nightmare Alley, Pinocchio, Frankenstein, and more.

It’s been a few years since I stopped by here for The Shape of Water. So get to it, ask me anything, vamonos!

-—————

Pan’s Labyrinth is back in theaters October 9th, presented on the big screen in 4K for the first time, to celebrate the 20th anniversary.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBGKGm3RYos

Synopsis: It’s 1944 and the Allies have invaded Nazi-held Europe. In Spain, a troop of soldiers is sent to a remote forest to flush out the rebels. They are led by Captain Vidal, a murdering sadist, and with him are his new wife Carmen and her daughter from a previous marriage, 11-year-old Ofelia. Ofelia witnesses her stepfather’s sadistic brutality and is drawn into Pan’s …