Books
Here are some of my favourite books/series. You can find a list of (most) of the books I read at Goodreads.
Malazan Book of the Fallen
"Gardens of the Moon", the first entry of the Malazan Book of the Fallen
I love epic fantasy. My first series worthy of that name was The Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan's epic fourteen book series (although he died after writing the eleventh book and the series had to be completed by another author, Brandon Sanderson).
Brandon Sanderson himself is also not a stranger to epic fantasy, having written the Mistborn and Stormlight Archive series (which are all part of his Cosmere universe).
After reading these Young Adult oriented series, I searched for something more. I started reading more dark material (yes, including His Dark Materials, haha funny joke): I sampled some Elric of Melniboné, I thoroughly enjoyed the Chronicles of the Black Company and the Drenai series. I've gotten into new(ish) authors like Joe Abercrombie and Mark Lawrence, to name a few. I remember getting excited when they announced that this fantasy series I had read was getting adapted to a TV series. "Great", I thought, "maybe that means the author is finishing the last few books that are missing. I can't wait to see how they adapt A Song of Ice and Fire".
None of these series, however, is my favourite epic fantasy series. That title goes to the Malazan Book of the Fallen.
Steven Erikson and Ian C. Esslemont created a universe for their role-playing games. Developed over the years, they eventually decided to write novels and novellas in this universe, ten of which make up this epic series.
Do not be fooled by this description, the universe is not a simple derivation of Tolkien's creations. There are no elves and orcs here, but something more alien, more ancient.
We start by following a relatively small group of characters, and by the third or fourth book, we've visited multiple different continents, we're starting to get a scope of the thousands of years that are encompassed by this tale, and the cast just keeps growing and growing. You will be overwhelmed, but stick with it and Erikson will show you something very special by the end of book ten. You'll want to read the series again. And again.
It's dark, dense, funny at times, tragic most of the time. I've read it two times and there are still many questions, many things I don't exactly understand, many plot points that I can almost grasp, but not quite. And the prose is fantastic.
