yeah I totally agree. When I found Adrian Tchaikovsky I was blown away I hadn’t heard of him before. Not only does he have great books, he writes at like a Brandson Sanderson pace so there’s just so much good stuff to dig into.
All of the books coming to mind by the parameters are glorified fairy porn I didn’t even really like. Bet you can guess the author. Hmmmm.
"The Unraveled Kingdom" series by Rowenna Miller. If you want more action and adventure added to the mix then maybe Melissa Caruso's two (somewhat related) series.
Going more walks so started to listen to the Rosamund Pike narrations of the Wheel of Time. unsure if they’ll match Serkis’ LOTR but I’m hopeful for something good.
I just saw on Goodreads that you had "started it for the 6th time" and almost came here to joke about it.
every once in a while I’ll read the first three then just….stop haha I think I’ve only read the entire series twice years ago.
Still thoroughly enjoying The Sun Eater series and am on book 4 now. The leap from 1 to 2 in quality and originality was huge, and 3 was fantastic and one of my all time favorites as far as this genre goes. Truly was an epic entry. 4 is pretty good so far, though I've heard it suffers from being a split book due to printing issues (4 and 5 were originally one book) so we'll see how I feel at the end. I'm about 30% through... I'm also slightly annoyed that a) the last book is split into 2 so there will be 7 total now, and that b) 6 and 7 are at a different publisher. I rarely collect books and I have all these in hardcover and I'm going to be so annoyed if they are printed differently (sizing / text on the spine / cover art etc). The Sun Eater Series by Christopher Ruocchio I'm also excited for the new book by James Islington (Licanius trilogy) and will dive right into that after Kingdoms of death. Technically this one is out tonight but I'll be starting it a few days late as I want to finish what I'm on. The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1)
Just as a heads up, Ruocchio said the layouts and style of the books will be identical on books 6 and 7 of Sun Eater and they’ve retained the artist. Only difference will be the Baen logo on spine where it used to be DAW. He’s pretty active on Discord and has assured all of us he knows how important it is to us collectors . I would be pissed too
Also, books 6 and 7 aren’t a split. He added book 7 because he needed more to finish the story, DAW said they would only do a 6th, thus he ended his relationship with them and moved to Baen
One, great to see another fan of this series and two, thank you for these updates, that makes me feel much better. He attends my local con most years so I am going to try and get Demon in White signed (assuming that neither Kingdoms of death or ashes of man overtakes it as my favorite).
It's great to see other Sun Eater fans out in the wild. It's my number 1 recommendation these days, and I've had the opportunity to chat with Ruocchio a lot (he's really active on the Mike's Book Reviews discord, however he's having a kid right now and will be M.I.A for a bit), and he's been super transparent about the process, as much as he can be. Good news is that Disquiet Gods is with his editor (fellow author D.J. Butler) and is currently longer than Demon in White! Also, the best part of him moving to Baen is that they let anyone purchase an ARC for like $10 a few months out from release, so we should be able to read book 6 in December prior to release (he's thinking April). Also, my current ranking is: KoD > HD > DiW > AoM > EoS The margin between books 2-5 is VERY THIN, mind you.
@OwainGlyndwr I read Blackwing finally. I've had it on my wishlist forever waiting for a sale but one never showed up so I just said screw it. It was good, grim/dark as all hell, you weren't kidding. It reminded me A LOT of the Black Company, except for the fairly critical difference between the voices of the narrators, Blackwing's was much more coarse. The fight scenes were excellent, and all the Deep King/ God lore seemed super interesting and I'm looking forward to learning more about them. It also felt a little Malazan-y throwing you into the deep end right from the start and not really holding your hand, but that's also an attribute of Black Company and might as well be a descriptor for grim/dark.
Now I'm reading Demon in White because every time you guys praise the series I have to go back to it. I like it, but it hasn't grabbed me like it has for you guys, but I'd really like it to.
I’m still on Howling Dark because I haven’t read recently but the first 3 (novellas included) have been amazing.
It's doing a great job so far of pulling me in with the way he casually foreshadows his catastrophic actions.
Some books work better than other in audiobook for me. I'm reading A Clash of Kings now and switching between book and audio and when I listen to the audio I feel like I keep going back to read things that I didn't catch in the audio
Got to be honest guys... Malazan just ain't doing much for me yet. About halfway through Memories of Ice. The world building is immense, but I don't know that I care about a single character yet.
Glad you liked it! Yeah I'm excited to learn more about the backstory and lore. Pretty excellent for a debut. He's got a new series going now that I've heard really great things about too.