Originally Posted by
No One
This isn't the first time I've seen this series recommended, so I went ahead and picked up the first book. I'm only about a quarter of the way through, but I'm not seeing the comparison to Song in terms of brutality yet. It's been gory from time to time, but I'm finding it quite restrained in terms of violence and sexuality. If anything, the massive scope and metaphysical concepts remind me more of Dune than anything else. Not thematically, obviously, but in the way you're dropped into an utterly alien setting that's rich with its own lore, rules and shitloads of factions and left to make sense of it all yourself.
Obviously I've only scratched the surface, so it's likely my opinion will change. I'm at least enjoying it, which is more than I can say for most fantasy series!
I wouldn't really try to compare them... SoI&F is about specific characters and families with pretty tight character stories and betrayals. Malazan is more about armies and civilizations, people and gods showing the best and worst a world has to offer. There are really brutal parts in Malazan as well.. The sexuality definitely isn't there, but I don't think anyone said it was. It's totally different. Characters in this series you want to follow are just left behind a lot of the time... there is a bigger story to be told.
look here, upon a sig graveyard.
Bookmarks