Nope. The original ten books were a complete story, and that’s plenty for me. I did try a couple of the Esslemont books and quit after the second as they weren’t very good and never had any direct relevance to the main series.
They aren’t meant to relate to Eriksons world other than I guess they both take place in it.
Fwiw each book is largely self contained.
I mean, they obviously build on each other, and you would be lost if you read book 7 first, but it isn’t like LOTR with the same characters from start to finish.
In one of the books, we meet someone new, and she dies in the next, and the events that saw her killed serve as an introduction and backdrop to several other stories, involving several other characters.
Read it yesterday, pretty good! Solid writing and a tight plot, plus the reveals/worldbuilding were paced perfectly and in satisfying chunks. This is one of those books that left me wanting more while also aware that the book itself was perfectly self-contained and didn’t need anything else.
The Mirror and the Light is the third and final Cromwell book by Hilary Mantel. It finishes the story of Thomas Cromwell, advisor to Henry VIII who got rid of his first couple wives and a good chunk of nobles/dynastic rivals on the side. (Plus the whole religion thing.) I read the first two a while ago, and finally remembered to pick up the third when she passed away recently. It is, like the others, damn good. She makes Cromwell into such a complex and sympathetic character; it’s really amazing. You can plumb the origin of his motivations nearly endlessly, and for all the other characters you get a fantastic view into his view of their motivations. The portrayal of Henry VIII is also sympathetic but left me with no doubt as to how f-ed up the whole monarchy thing is. (Incidentally, she states in the afterword that his nephew’s great grandson brought about the “first English republic”, perhaps giving some clue as to her own feelings on the monarchy.)
I was a little put off by the modern, Big-L Literature writing style, where you drift in an out of his head and through his memories. She frequently uses “he” to refer to Cromwell, when normally you’d think it would mean the other character from the previous sentence. But you get used to it. I was honestly not really in the mood for a book that made me work–and this is a long book, I was deceived by the super-thin paper of the copy I read–but I needed to return it to the library so I powered through, and I really do not regret it. I think it will certainly reward a deep reading about human motivations and the like, but if you just want to read a story, which is more or less how I read it, it is still fantastic.
Strong recommendation! If you’re not familiar with the historical situation, other than “that dude Henry had a lot of wives” then don’t read up on it before starting in, but if you are: the ending was classically tragic in the “bad things happening to mostly good people that still deserve it” kind of way (live by the sword, and all that) but damn, the last few pages still have me thinking about what it would be like to be in his shoes.
The Farthest Shore by Ursula Le Guin
This is the third book in the Earthsea series, and I guess the last in the original trilogy. The book follows the main character from the first two books as he tries to find out why “magic” and knowledge seem to be disappearing from the West Reaches. Le Guin loves writing about the quest, I might like a little more about the characters. I do think the second book in the series is probably my favorite. This one opens up the world a bit and adds a character but really doesn’t engage the reader as much as past books. I still have one more book in the series, Tehanu, and will give that a try in the future. I also have enough interest in Le Guin’s writing to try one of her Hugo Award winners.
I am way behind in reading this thread but I had no idea there were Earthsea books beyond the original trilogy. Don’t know who I missed that, but I’ve got some catching up to do!
The books beyond the original trilogy were written much later, are much less YA, and are generally pretty weird. Not out of the ordinary for LeGuin.
If you want to read more grown-up LeGuin (and you should), Left Hand of Darkness is a highly-regarded classic. I personally would recommend The Dispossessed to anyone. Her short stories are generally very good. Really you can’t go too far wrong picking anything. I picked up something called Planet of Exlie at a book sale, and it turned out to be about a planet where the winters were far apart and severe, and during the winters, marauders from the North would come down and attack the cities, which were of course ill-prepared because of the amount of time that had passed since the last winter. Wonder who stole that idea.
The first three Earthsea are classics of the genre. The second three I consider substantially inferior to the first.
Certainly Left Hand is a classic, but for a new reader, I typically recommend The Word for World is Forest.
Tehanu is my favorite Earthsea book by a considerable margin and is the fourth one, but YMMV. Might be my favorite thing by her period actually. But I haven’t read some of her other classics in a long time, or ever in some cases.
Also, if you haven’t read The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, you should, although it is more of an essay than a story. It’ll only take you five minutes, and it’s online several places, if you don’t happen to have a copy of The Winds Twelve Quarters lying around.
So, it is definitely book 7 of the Malazans, and 3 Dragons just died, Redmask is dead, various other people have died…
Including Kettle, who I had hoped would live.
Very bloody, interesting indeed. Wondering what Book 8 will bring.
Escalation ;-)
Almost a fresh start. I am about 125 pages in and have decided to check the synopsis’s of past books because while I remember the names I don’t remember the past of so many of these book 8 characters.
I’ve just started Bird Box by Josh Malerman and it’s just as tense and excellent as the film, which my wife and I were totally captured by. If you didn’t like the movie (and I know many didn’t) but liked the concept, the book may do it for you. It’s pretty propulsive, and also quite compulsive. It’s hard to stop once you start. :)
I’ve finally worked my way through Joe Abercrombie’s Age of Madness trilogy, the 3-decades-later trilogy following his First Law series. Since it had been around ten years since I originally read those, I actually went back and re-read the whole thing: First Law, then the three stand-alone books, then Age of Madness. And I have to say, I loved pretty much every minute of it. Abercrombie is a master of the grimdark plotline, leavened with enough humor to keep it palatable, populated by terribly flawed characters that I nevertheless find myself loving. After nine books I still found myself ready for more - can’t give a much higher recommendation.
I’m currently reading book 2 of the First Law series, Before They are Hanged, and loving it much more than I did book 1. The first book had a ton of character development and not a ton of excitement, but all of that is paying off in book 2. I own book 3 and that’ll be next. I had not hear of the Age of Madness Trilogy at all, which is probably good (reading blurbs might contain spoilers for the first set). But – is there a middle trilogy? You said nine books!
Abercrombie does have a “young adult” trilogy, that while not as good is worth a read.
No, there are three stand alone books. They aren’t required to enjoy the next trilogy but I would recommend you read them first. They have characters that bridge the trilogies.
1st Law trilogy is very good. Logan NineFingers ftw.
Finally finished Malazan 7. Rather bloody ending…so much death.