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poetril

I mostly read fantasy, but had some personal favorites this year:

The Blacktongue Theif - Christopher Buehlman

Kings of the Wyld * Bloody Rose - Nicholas Eames

Farseer Trilogy - Hobin Hobb

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Hey I read all those books this year as well, all great books.

I'd add the Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erickson to that list, if you like a grittier dark fantasy.

Word of warning: only read Malazan if you have 400+ hours burning a hole in your lifespan. Those books are good, but they are _long_

I saw a lot of recommendations for that series and ordered the first book, but I wasn't able to get through it. There's something about it that makes it very boring to read rather than enjoyable.

Something similar happens with Tad Williams.

I am only on book three, but part of my issue is how much seemingly deus ex machina occurs. The world is alien, deep, and unknowable. At any moment, some previously unidentified entity can twist events on their head.

Big baddie about to destroy town? When all hope is lost, a powerful, benevolent force sprouts from the ground to end the threat.

Science fiction gets “one thing”. People are the same, but now you can backup your conscience onto a chip. How does humanity adapt?

Erickson gets 1000 things that will be revealed the moment you think you know where the plot is headed.

All that being said, it is interesting, layered, and a wild ride.

deus ex machina was a complaint of mine as well, but as you get further into the story you realize how it's actual gods/ascendants/people causing the things that happened. some of those things were put in place thousands of years in the past. he does have several magic systems in the series, but they all have rules and they're followed.

> Something similar happens with Tad Williams.

I totally get where you're coming from here. I adore Erikson, and I enjoy Williams but I sometimes need to force myself to keep reading his works (and then really enjoy them when I do).

However, Bobby Dollar (his shorter trilogy) is exceptionally fun. It's much tighter and funnier, well worth reading maybe especially if you've bounced off his other works.

Farseer Trilogy should really come with a disclaimer to not read if you're depressed or going through a difficult time. The author is very skilled, but that series was analogous to being kicked repeatedly in the balls, given how much the main character goes through.

My brother has coined the term Depression Olympics between this and The Stormlight Archives for what the characters go through and Farseer makes Stormlight look like childsplay

There's like five trilogies in the same world, well worth reading the whole thing. The first is probably the worst in terms of what the characters go through, but the really nice part is how later books build on what happened here.

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