The end of the journey

And thus, one of the best and hardest series I have ever read, comes to an epic close.

Not to spoil anything, but the appearance of the menacing Crippled God, and all the backdoor treachery was just the perfect way to close out this fantasy masterpiece.

I still have plenty of other stories to read involving this amazing universe, some series written by Steven Erikson that I am hunting down, and The Malazan Empire series written by Ian Cameron Esslemont, which I purchased on my Kindle a while ago.

It was quite the journey, that started on October 14,2018 and finished about an hour ago, making it 932 days between book one, Gardens of Moon, and book ten, The Crippled God.

I started using the Bookly app to keep track, and I have really specific data from starting book three, Memories of Ice, unfortunately from the first two volumes I only have total pages read, but the break down goes like this.

1. Gardens of the Moon (635 pages)
2. Deadhouse Gates (699 pages)
3. Memories of Ice (925 pages) (24 hours 58 minutes)
4. House of Chains (1021 pages) (23 hours 41 minutes)
5. Midnight Tides (624 pages) (20 hours 46 minutes)
6. The Bonehunters (804 pages) (24 hours 7 minutes)
7. Reaper’s Gale (1003 pages) (18 hours 55 minutes)
8. Toll the Hounds (1269 pages) (22 hours 36 minutes)
9. Dust of Dreams (816 pages) (12 hours 57 minutes)
10. The Crippled God (913 pages) (25 hours 23 minutes)

This gives me a total of 8,709 pages and a reading time, from book three to ten, of 173 hours and minutes.

I will highly recommend that you read this series, a real must for any fantasy lover, after reading less intrinsic series, I have been reading fantasy for more than 20 years, and this is a vast cast of characters, races, locations, magical systems ( the warrens are my favorite part of the stories), gods, kingdoms, and all around customs, that it can easily become to much if you’re not accustom to this type of stories.

Just to close out this amazing experience, I would like to say that my favorite volume was number two, the whe sequence in Raraku, the holy desert, was just amazing, and it reverberated with me quite personally, living in a desert you can appreciate the sheer vastness and beauty of a place like that, and Mr. Erikson captured it exquisitely.

Now, to begin new journeys.

Off to read.

azr.

Into the night

As I check my progress with the last of The Malazan Book of the Fallen, and with my deadline being today, my night has just become more interesting.

As you can see in the image above, taken from the Bookly app, I still have 148 pages left,and with my pace of reading, this will take 4 hours and 13 minutes to read.

Off to read, caffeine don’t fail me now.

azr.

Into the final stretch

I have really determined to finish reading The Crippled God by tomorrow night, firstly because I can put it down, and I’ll like to use this weekend to read another book before the start of my almost month long Star Wars marathon.

I am currently on page 699 of 908, with everything pointing in the direction of an intense late night reading session.

The aim for this night is to reach at least page 782, which is the beginning of Chapter 24, the final of the series, before the two epilogue that close out the book.

Off to read.

azr.

The last leg of the Malazan journey

I tried really hard last night to finish Dust of Dreams, buy my old nemesis sleep got the best of me.

But one of the perks of having young children is that getting up late is rarely an option.

So around 6:45 a.m. with a cup of black coffee the size of a medium bucket, I started the final pages of the ninth volume, and for the looks of it, if anyone was left alive from the shit-storm from the last chapter, it will close out with a bang.

To finish off this massive series, I found that it was only fitting to read the last book in printed form, this particular book ( see the picture below) has been eagerly awaiting in my Bookshelf for about 10 years, it’s time has finally come.

To accompany this start of the final chapter, I’ll read in between session some new material from the Dark Knight, the newest issues of Death Metal, and the now classic Grant Morrison series of Batman & Robin.

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• 

Off to read.

azr.

Solid effort

I am coming off a really good day of reading, 253 total pages.

I made some headway with Dust of Dreams, currently on page 642 of 816, hopefully, I’ll start with the tenth and final chapter of The Malazan Book of the Fallen, The Crippled God, by Monday at the latest, that would give me 55 days to finish it before the year of reading is over.

Also, I finished the amazing story of Gates of Gotham, and to be honest, being an architect, I’m a sucker for stories that focus on cities like characters, and the having a villain named The Architect, it just the cherry on top of the cake.

For today’s reading, I’ll start with the new series, at least in Mexico, of Dark Nights, Death Metal, as you can see I’m a sucker for anything and everything written by Scott Snyder.

The other comic book on deck for today is the next chapter of Jim Zub’s run with Conan the barbarian, I really liked the last story arc, so I’ll continue buying it in single issue format.

Busy, busy Thursday, if I’m not mistaken.

Off to read.

azr.

The final stretch

Today is the deadline for my spring vacation break reading goal.

As you can remember, the goal was to finish three books I was reading, from which I have already finish A Tolkien Miscellany and Anerican Gods, the third one, Dust of Dreams, is showing some resistence.

Currently I am on page 568 of 816, that means 247 pages left to read, and according to the calculation of my Kindle, there’s a little under 10 hours left of reading.

It’s quite the task, I think I’ll just jump into it, armed with good lighting, snacks, and caffeine. Hopefully I’ll come out the other side victorious.

As always I’ll throw into the mix some time to read graphic novels, just finish the amazing work by Scott Snyder and Sean Murphy, The Wake, the artwork remains me so much to the work of the legendary Mike Mignola, just feel in love with it.

To continue with the great imagination of Mr. Snyder ,in collaboration with Kyle Higgins, next up is the mini series Batman: Gates of Gotham, expanding on the first day of Gotham City.

Off to read.

azr.

1 down, 2 to go

Yesterday I finished the eighth volume of The Malazan Book of the Fallen, Toll the Hounds.

It took me a couple of months, but I assure you it’s time well spent, this particular volume has a slow build, but in the last 200 pages everything collapses between undead warriors, dragons, shadow hounds, and the rise of the Crippled God.

I can’t wait to start with Dust of Dreams,and eventually with the last volume, The Crippled God.

I have 84 days, and about 1,800 pages to go, let’s get this done.

Tomorrow I’ll post my progress with this year’s reading goal, spoiler alert, it’s not going that good.

Off to read.

azr.

3 hours 4 minutes

I am fast approaching the end of the eight volume of The Malazan Book of the Fallen, Toll the Hounds, and let me tell you it has gotten very intense.

Right now, I am on page 1159 of 1269, and if all goes well, I’ll probably be starting the Dust of Dreams as early as Sunday, originally I was thinking that around Tuesday, but with the pace increase, it will be done much early.

To close out the night, I’ll like to cross the 100 pages left mark so I can sleep soundly.

Off to read then.

azr.

Showing some results

It will appear than my change of strategy has paid off, in the last two days I went on Toll the Hounds from page 1043 to 1102, that’s 15 pages more than expected.

I know is not that much, but with the way I was reading it’s a great improvement, if I keep this pace up, I’ll be starting with Dust of Dreams by next Tuesday.

For today’s complementary reading I’ll go back to my favourite barbarian with tale Rogues in the House, originally published in Weird Tales of January 1934.

I’m feeling than my pace and energy has been renewed.

Off to read.

azr

Change of strategy

In my pursuit to try and finish my current book, Toll the Hounds, I breached the most important thing that I promised myself when this project started, to have fun.

I was viewing this like a short race, when it’s in fact a Ironman marathon of reading, and if I’m not having fun, what’s the point.

So I’ll change how to finish on of my main goals of the year, to finish The Malazan Book of the Fallen, right now I’m on page 1043 of Toll the Hounds, and still have 2 more books to read, The Dust of Dreams, 816 pages long, and The Crippled God, 908 pages long and the final chapter of this epic saga.

With this numbers in mind, I will have to read about 22 pages per day in order to finish by the end of this year of reading, which is on June 6.

In between those pages, and hopefully getting really close to my total goal of 37,984 pages, I’ll read everything and anything at hand.

To continue with my goal of one short story per day, I’ll read the next fantastical story from the Wizards anthology, written by Elizabeth Hand, and on the neglected department of graphic novels, I’ll continue with the second volume of Cullen Bunn’s Uncanny X-men run.

Off to read.

azr