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Message: <blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 3240381" data-attributes="member: 812">Count me as a fanboy. I don't care for Martin's work -- never finished the first book, and I don't think Bakker is a very good story-teller (the first twenty pages of The Prince of Nothing is the best part of the whole series), and Erikson's not a GREAT writer, for sure. He's not much of a stylist and I understand why folks find GotM tough to get through.I LIKE books that require re-reading and are dense, complicated and confusing. I find it fun to pick through huge tales and go, "Oh! I never realised that so-and-so had already found out about such-and-such." And Erikson gives me that in spades.Deadhouse Gates is an AMAZING novel, by any reasonable standard, and I personally found Memories of Ice even more moving. The following three books have had some good stuff (Midnight Tides was surprisingly hilarious at times) but he hasn't quite gotten back to that high point yet.I love the scope and sweep of these books, and I like how he's using fantasy to talk about stuff that fantasy's good at talking about -- he sort of NEEDS two-hundred-thousand-year-old characters to say what he wants to say. I like that it's not a story about a guy who has to stop this one unstoppable evil, and once he does so, everything's okay (until the writer gets offered a chunk of change to write ANOTHER series). It's about how individuals, organizations and societies tear at each other and damage each other and every now and then manage to help each other.I find it very moving (when it's at its best), and always entertaining.But then I'm a fanboy. Just ask JR, he'll tell you.</blockquote>

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