The Prince of Nothing: missing appendixes

“The Prince of Nothing” trilogy by Scott R. Bakker is the other most praised and recommended epic fantasy series of these years, along with George Martin and Erikson.

It’s the story of a holy war waged across exotic lands, and the man who for reasons unknown uses his godlike intellect to enslave it.

No clunky analogy of medieval Europe here. Odd, fascinating characters in a world full of trouble and sorcery.

In an attempt to get the hardcover edition with the pretty covers you see below I got instead the UK version that has the newest (ugly) covers and that, I discovered, misses some appendixes.

I asked on the forums and here are the scans of those few pages missing. If you get the US editions of the books everything should be there and there should be 100 or so pages of appendixes in the last book of the trilogy.

Achamian’s Map
The Major Languages and Dialects of Eärwa (pt 1)
The Major Languages and Dialects of Eärwa (pt 2)
The Major Languages and Dialects of Eärwa (pt 3)

This series will also be an example of “setting as milieu”, this first trilogy is complete but Bakker should write more books in the same setting. He even commented that the PoN trilogy should be what “The Hobbit” was for Tolkien, so just an appetizer of things to come. Unfortunately the author disappeared from the internet and the first book of the new planned duology was delayed indefinitely. It won’t arrive sooner than 2009.

Nonmen, Sranc, and Men:
The first forgets,
The third regrets,
And the second has all of the fun.

—ancient Kûniüri nursery rhyme

. .

Emergence of setting and secondary-worlds

Even in the fantasy book blogosphere there are sometimes big debates sprawling between the many blogs.

This one is about the design of the setting. An argument I obviously like and agree with the observations being made. In fact some key arguments were already in those two forum threads where I asked suggestions of fantasy books that would deliver what I was looking for.

Being tired of the Hero’s Journey I was looking for a story about a world. Not about one character. A setting where the world outlives its characters. Because people make history, but they are also expendable. Things move on no matter what one does, and the true relevance of actions and choices of some is revealed by the influence they have on others. So there’s a need of story changing hands to make this concept surface. A story that can be emergent from the characters, where characters are plot devices, important, but not the finality. No real story is about one or few people, things are more complex and intricate. I wanted a story with that approach, less naive, something that zoomed in to the close perspective, for the emotional impact and empathy with the characters, then zoomed back delivering the grander scheme of things. The sense of history, continuity and consistence.

I wanted a secondary-world that worked like a sandbox. That would hold many stories within. That made emerge a complexity.

From the other side instead I wanted a world made of rocks. That felt like stone. Something visceral, something where the story came from those stones. A world with a strong feel of “place”. Again not characters moving on a blurred, mutable, interchangeable background, but places that told a story themselves, about those people who lived there, passed by, fought there. Places that could be traveled one day by one group of characters, and later by others. Places as witnesses. Places as the founding pillars of a world. People come and go, but those places would stay, maybe changed, but still there. Witnesses of what happened there, a demonstration of history, bearing its signs, its scars.

Both these aspects are well outlined in that article I linked:

Epic fantasy requires us to build from first principles — vision, sound, touch, taste, scent — and make a physical place in which the action plays out that’s compelling and immersive.

Tolkien also wasn’t making his living writing fiction, and so could afford to take a very long time (commercially speaking) to refine his visions of the Mines of Moria and Rivendell and Mordor. You can find the proof of that in the reimaginings of his settings by visual artists since The Lord of the Rings first came out. Even more than the characters or the plot, the places in Tolkien are memorable.

Those of us who toil in Tolkien’s shadow have that to match, and it’s not a bad measure to judge second-world fantasy by whether you remember the places. I would go so far as to suggest that George’s success with A Song of Ice and Fire maps to the number of memorable places in the world. The Wall, Winterfell, the Aerie. When I think back to other fantasy series, I can remember characters and events, dramatic moments in the plot, and sometimes the general feel of the story even without specifics. I don’t think anyone has drawn as many powerful places as Tolkien and George, at least for me. Back when “novel” was closer to its original meaning, this was what it was all about — being someplace new and amazing through the collaboration of the author’s language and reader’s imagination.

The other concept he describes, aside the idea of memorable places, is “Setting as Milieu”. That also connects to my ideas.

Often in fantasy a setting lives by its characters. You follow the story of someone, in a secondary-world, as “fantasy” can’t preclude from it. But when the character is done, the setting also disappears with him. The setting lives as long the character. As if it was theater, after the piece is over the scenography is disassembled, taken away. The writer has a story to tell, and created a setting to contain that one story.

But if that’s the goal then the fantasy setting is superfluous. Because a story can be adapted to every setting with very minimal effort. Being “fantasy” is entirely a quality of creation and consistence of a secondary-world. So you look at fantasy when you are looking exactly for that device.

The article says that once you made an effort to create a setting as milieu, then the setting can outlive the single story. You created something emergent with its own life. And it doesn’t matter if the main characters die or disappear, because the story can move on, to completely different people, but still in the same world. This gives continuity and consistence. And this is something unique that fantasy, as a genre, offers to writers.

This is the quality of fantasy.

Setting is also milieu. Stories set in the same fictional universe support one another, and generate a sense of the familiar in the readers — a sense of returning.

Internet legends last a day

In regards to the “Jade Raymond” new internet legend. This is my reaction:

What’s the point here beside a “I hate people” argument? Because this isn’t the internet. This is the world.

I don’t know what happens in the US but if we get over here a pretty woman doing politics then you CAN BE SURE that the image will always come first, that you’ll have plenty of (admittedly questionable) humor and satire about it. It happens the same with writers, actors, journalists, dancers, bankers, whatever.

This isn’t even the byproduct of male-chauvinist society. Women drool after soccer players. Not always because they play well soccer. Women drool after actors. Not always because they act well.

This isn’t the “game industry”, this is everywhere. And I don’t get the outrage. Aren’t movies promoted because there’s Leonardo DiCaprio or George Clooney in it?

Now we sue webcomics because the humor doesn’t correspond to an idea of personal taste?

One wonders what could have happened if instead of Assassin’s Creed she was the producer of The Witcher and agreed to appear in a digitalized form as one of the hookers.

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Orwell 2007: books that need to burn

Apparently there are still some who think certain books deserve to go in the fire.

This isn’t a case of worried parents about their innocent, grown but still children seeing nipples in The Witcher. It’s instead about another amusing variety: feminists.

I had opened a thread on westeros forum to ask about other worthy fantasy epics missing from my list and someone brought up John Norman’s “Chronicles of Gor” series. If length is a factor this one would be at the top. TWENTY-SEVEN books of about 400-500 pages each! Written by the same author in the span of forty years. I guess dedication is out of doubt here.

The description on the wikipedia was also intriguing:

a series of twenty six novels that combine philosophy, erotica and science fiction.

And,

Gor is an intricately detailed world in terms of flora, fauna, and customs. John Norman — the pen-name of Dr. John Lange, a professor of Philosophy and a classical scholar — often delights in ethnography, populating his planet with the equivalents of Roman, Greek, Native American, Viking, and other cultures.

Most of the novels in the series are action adventures, with many of the military engagements borrowing liberally from historic ones, such as the trireme battles of ancient Greece and the castle sieges of medieval Europe. Ar, a Rome-like city in which several of the novels are set, maintains a “margin of desolation” similar to that of Mesopotamia’s Gu-Edin.

So I went looking if they were available in a purchasable form, meaning some cheap omnibus editions, and found one that was supposed to be published just these days.

Since the description is weird (one to three months to get a copy? For a book released just now?) I tried to search the Dark Horse site to find out if the book was really out and when/if the following were planned. And found no references. At all.

Weird.

So I did another simple Google search and discovered some fun facts. The first is that a shop listed the book as “in stock”, but the publisher wasn’t Dark Horse, but Diamond. For those who don’t know Diamond is the retail distributor for Dark Horse comics, so this is weird too. The second fact is that I found bloggers who were also puzzled by the disappearance of the omnibus from Dark Horse catalog. Because it was there. There’s even a Google link to the site that now points nowhere.

One of these blogs gave a first hint:

Apparently a comic book publisher named Dark Horse Comics is planning on publishing a Gor Omnibus, a single book containing the first three novels of the Gor series. For some reason this made the feminist comic book geeks livid! They were all typing away at their little keyboards, trying to organize a boycott of Dark Horse in an effort to prevent publication. And what I found amazing was they didn’t see it as censorship.

And apparently it worked, as one of these activists confirms, quoting a response mail from Dark Horse:

We have not completely cancelled the publication of the Gor Omnibus–but it has been suspended for the time being. Please do check back to the website for any updates.

Some sites give the book as already out and maybe Dark Horse tried to publish it “anonymously” to avoid too many troubles, but it’s only my wild guess.

Some other blogs explain at least the reasons:

As a puerile fantasy novel series that promotes rigid gender roles, idealises the emotional and sexual slavery of women, and demonises women who assert control over their own sexuality, it’s much less entertaining.

The Gor series, by John Norman, dropped off the reprint lists some years back. Being anti-censorship, I was much enheartened by the natural demise of this despicable work.

Now comics publisher Dark Horse is reprinting them in omnibus form, possibly because they have seen the pot of gold at the foot of the misogyny rainbow, or possibly because our culture just isn’t replete enough with fictional examples of women who really – honestly! – want to be raped.

They have a point and their criticism is right and probably deserved… but censorship? That’s never excused. Especially in a work of fiction where you CAN roleplay with absurdity. Where you CAN explore what would be forbidden otherwise.

Because in this case my impression is that those feminists who feel offended by the books are those who are blurring fiction with reality more than the author of those books.

Weird that they think to be feminists, because it’s when you are discriminated that you should truly learn tolerance. And by identifying a danger in a silly fantasy series you actually give it more power than it ever had. You are pouring life back into an enemy that would have no reason to exist today. You should be entertained or smile at the naivete of these books, instead they are given a relevance that they shouldn’t have and probably never had.

How can you fight for equality of men and women when you don’t miss any occasion to mark and exasperate that parting line?

This is also another demonstration of the real, counterproductive result of censorship: you publicize and diffuse what you wanted to hide. I wouldn’t have written about the series if nothing had happened, maybe some will now become curious and buy the books.

And maybe they are even fun to read. Not politically correct, but still fun.

The covers are wonderful. Or maybe they are distasteful too?

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See George Martin’s world come to life

Usually fantasy art destroys the sense of wonder you get from a book. You imagine scenes in your head and when you see them portrayed you are always deluded by the result.

This is a rare exception. I’ve read the news from Most Popular fantasy blog, Martin is at work to make a sourcebook/encyclopedia on “A Song of Ice and Fire” and there will be 13 illustrations by Ted Nasmith to give life to some key locations in the books. One artist I’ve never heard about but obviously talented.

You can see eight of these masterpieces on the artist’s website, by clicking on one of the small images at the top, then clicking the image appearing for a full-size version.

This *does* justice to Martin’s work. It is as powerful as you can imagine, and actually adds to it. These illustrations wouldn’t be out of place inside the books themselves, they would complement them perfectly. As opposed to WoT’s sourcebook, where the illustrations would kill every attempt at keeping things cool in your mind. Awe-killers. Too often no art is much better to something mediocre.

Not in this case, those paintings would make some gorgeous covers for the books themselves. Why we never get cover art this good?

I’d make a school

There’s an interview with Lum and Dave Rickey at F13 and I wanted to answer the last question.


So, presume you had an infinite amount of time, an infinite amount of talent and an infinite amount of money. What do you make?

I’d make a school. I’d make an environment that is half production, half school.

So that, instead of stealing talent from other companies and feed this incestuous behavior, you grow talent and have that talent go feed yours and others companies. So that you build and refine talent instead of just hiring those who got their experience somewhere else.

You can have a school that doesn’t train abstract, but that teaches the basics and then the practice. You could have those students working and practicing with real games developed (and pay them for this work), and in the case what they make is good and they demonstrate talent, you hire them directly into the company.

And one day they’ll lead something or even be teachers themselves.

And with ‘school’ I don’t intend a MMO school. I intend something that will open to every activity. Game designers, writers, artists, animators, programmers, musicians, actors and so on. If one day you have a game and then want to make a TV series about it, you open a new production for it. Publishing games, animation, books, whatever. From a side you open the school, from the other a new production.

And with ‘school’ I also intend a place where you can go live. Like those colleges you have there in the US. But where also grown-ups are accepted. Apartments, cinemas, bars, dancing halls.

I’d actually make a town. With the school in the middle.

Maybe put it at the bottom of the ocean, and call it “Rapture”.

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Return of the Crimson Guard + Malazan map collection

Steven Erikson shares the Malazan world with his friend and co-writer Ian Cameron Esslemont (ICE for short).

So if you want to read the complete story about that world things are slightly more complicate than with Erikson own storylines.

We have this scheme that works for the first seven novels:

Genabeckis Continent & campaign as main arc: books 1 & 3
Seven Cities subcontinent & rebellion as main arc: books 2, 4, & 6
Lether Continent and Tiste Edur: books 5 & 7

Book 1, 2 and 5 are ideal starting points, as they present each a new block. While book 6 is the first truly not standalone and leading right to the seventh. It’s also with the sixth and seventh that most plots come together.

Chronologically the first would be book 5. Then book 1. Book 2 and 3 are simultaneous, and 4, 6 and 7 one after the other.

What we know about the remaining three books:

“Toll the Hounds” : It should be already complete or near completion and it should be out by August 08, with a contemporary publication in UK and US for the first time. It goes back to Genabackis (so the continent of book 1 and 3), and is supposed to have a huge climax at the end.

“Dust of Dreams” + “The Crippled God” : The last two books will read as one gigantic novel to give the series an epilogue. Erikson also confirmed that both books will take place in a new continent that was never used in his books.


This is about the “core” about the Malazan saga. Then there are spin-offs and complements. For future projects Erikson already said he could write a sort of prelude book “to explore the pasts of some of the Ascendents (such as Anomander Rake) before they became the powerful figures we see them as in The Malazan Book of the Fallen”.

Then we have three “Bauchelain and Korbal Broach” novellas that shouldn’t present continuity problems and that you can buy bundled here for $40. Not cheap but cheaper than their cumulative cost. Three more novellas are planned, like a second series to this book.

And finally Esslemont. His first so-so book “Night of Knives” is already out. Is better read before “The Bonehunters” (Malazan’s 6th book) and chronologically sits before book 1.

His next book “Return of the Crimson Guard” was instead announced in a “normal” edition for 11 August 2008, along with “Toll the Hounds”. But you may get it around January if you are willingly to spend $150 for a super-deluxe early ed.

Some complained that “Night of Knives” felt more like a novella than a fully realized novel like Erikson’s books. For RotCG Erikson confirmed that the book counts 280k words, making it bigger than Deadhouse Gates for comparison (expect about 800 pages).

The book is probably better read after “The Bonehunters”. And we have already a “review” (from westeros forums):
“One of the in-circle guys at Malazan who read the book felt it was more readable than Erikson’s prose.”

UPDATE – Still from westeros:
I got some information about the PS special edition as well.

It’s due to be released in March. It’s 266,000 words.

The covers will be done by the superb Edward Miller. Cover and synopsis should be up by Christmas.


Here’s the summary.

Steven Erikson – Malazan Book of the Fallen

1. Gardens of the Moon
2. Deadhouse Gates
3. Memories of Ice
4. House of Chains
5. Midnight Tides
6. The Bonehunters
7. Reaper’s Gale
8. Toll the Hounds
– August 2008
9. Dust of Dreams – 2009
10. The Crippled God – 2010

Steven Erikson – Bauchelain and Korbal Broach novellas

1. Blood Follows
2. The Healthy Dead
3. The Lees of Laughter’s End

Ian Cameron Esslemont

– Night of Knives
– Return of the Crimson Guard
– August 2008


To conclude, some maps I collected. Still missing some.

Malaz City
Malaz Island
Genabackis (original GotM)
Genabackis (corrected MoI version)
NW Genabackis (detail, from House of Chains)
Quon Tali + Malaz island
Central Malazan Empire (Quon Tali + Falari Isles)
Korel – Land of Fist (From Stonewielder)
Seven Cities
Seven Cities (variant)
Chain of Dogs – 1st half (Seven Cities east)
Chain of Dogs – 2nd half (Seven Cities west)
Lether
Kolanse (From The Crippled God, western part of Lether)

Most current mock-up of world map and position of continents (shapes are not correct, positions and relative dimensions should mostly be).

I-will-not-be-used!

I’m currently 250 pages into Robert Jordan’s “The Great Hunt” and liking it so much more than “The Eye of the World”.

I also have the almost tangible feel that I’m reading something unique. You can re-read a book, but you can read and ‘live’ a story only once. The first time through is unrepeatable and precious on its own. I also know that the series has its peak with the fourth book (The Shadow Rising) and goes strong at least till the sixth. So I know that if I’m loving the second book there’s much more entertainment for me to have. I was reluctant to read Jordan because he has many haters, and those haters also have a point.

The Wheel of Time surely isn’t an overly original and interesting series, and as a writer Jordan has flaws. But at the same time there aren’t many *stories* like this one, told like this one. It’s charming, it flows. I come from reading Glen Cook’s Black Company that surely is a more interesting book, more trenchant. I like more the dark fantasy of Glen Cook, but Jordan has that charm of the flowing story. It’s so much more readable and immersive. It isn’t unpredictable, but you are caught into it nonetheless, if you let it catch you. Not original, but it’s as if Jordan is using the same notes to make an incredibly charming melody. It’s a melody you think you already heard many times, but never so charming and accomplished.

It’s incredibly accessible, fluid. That’s his talent, and bait for critics. You don’t read Jordan if you want a new, surprising, unconventional kind of fantasy, or if you want something clever. But you read Jordan if you want to read a “story” that feels like the archetypal story. Something ageless.

So while my interests and preferences don’t correspond to Jordan, the book is still capturing me more than books that I would rate above his.

This second book is superior to the first, as I said. Not as Tolkien-esque, better structured, moving at a faster pace and building on top of the first book. While the first was an “escape”, this one is a “quest” (hunt). I also have the impression that Jordan isn’t just writing the same book twice, but that the plot was structured before the first book was written, and that this second book is telling another part of the story. The story has more breadth, better pacing, till now.

Some ideas at the basis of the series aren’t anything mindblowing, but they are always archetypal.

“I-will-not-be-used!”

This feels a bit like Shinji’s “I will not flee” (Evangelion) mantra. Both characters are a bit too much whiny and overdramatic for my taste but behind Rand there’s a concept that is interesting on its own.

Contrary to LotR where the power is in a object (the ring), in WoT the power is in Rand himself. So he cannot simply dump the burden on someone else, nor escape because he is his own trap.

“With great power, comes great responsibility.”

Nor he is part of the super-hero mantra. It’s not about abandoning one’s sense of responsibility so that others will do the task. It’s not about not caring. He simply doesn’t have an easy way out because the only way to avoid the worst (for himself and others) is to do something. He knows he has a power that will destroy him and those around him if he DOESN’T do something. So he HAS to do.

But what to do?

He is clueless. He has no idea about what is going on but at the same time he has the mantra of the title. He won’t let others manipulate him for their own interests. He will not harm to favor others.

The trap is that he knows he doesn’t want to be used, but doesn’t know how they’ll try to use him. How they’ll trick him. He know he can’t outsmart them. He could do everything and the contrary but that would be an even surer way toward the disaster. He can’t act randomly. He knows he has a very little hope to avoid the disaster. So it’s not a toss of a coin. It’s something extremely delicate, something he has to be careful with.

The only ones who know more than him and who can help him, he cannot fully trust. The Aes Sedai are his help, but also those who want to use him and the closest menace. He also knows where the “evil” is, so he knows where NOT to go. That’s the only certainty.

And all this leads to an interesting situation. There’s good and evil. The evil side is not shade-of-gray, but truly evil as the archetype demands. On the other side (the light) there are different factions who claim to be on the right side and be the voice of that side, and, ironically, the templars are the worst of the bunch. Everyone acts in the name of the light, but where this light truly is, is undetermined. Or maybe a matter of choosing the less worse.

Feels a bit like the political situation in modern times. We all share an universal concept of “evil”. But when it comes to find the right thing to do there are thousands of voices overlapping, and no convincing alternatives.

Anyway, this leads in the books to an interesting scenarios: he has good and evil both whispering things at his ear. Tugging on his sleeve.

But the “evil” is the only one to always tell the truth.

P.S. – SPOILER
In fact in the first book “evil” coincides with “stupid”. As it’s the Dark One himself to suggest Rand how he can be defeated.

Dark One- “Nooo, you won’t use the ‘eye of the world’ against me *wink-wink, nudge-nudge* Nooo!”

New books at my door

I got my monthly shipment of books:

– “The Name of the Wind” Patrick Rothfuss (660 pag.)
– “The Blade Itself” Joe Abercrombie (515 pag.)
– “Gardens of the Moon” Steven Erikson (700 pag.)
– “Deadhouse Gates” Steven Erikson (935 pag.)
– “Memories of Ice” Steven Erikson (1180 pag.)

This time all ordered from Amazon.co.uk because I wanted the UK version (all paperbacks).

“The Name of the Wind” is a MASSIVE edition. It’s one of the hugest books I’ve ever seen and truly impressive. I’m sure the UK edition is far superior than the US one, and the cover is pretty. “The Blade Itself” is a physically smaller book but finely crafted too. Both are from “Gollancz” and I’m going to stick with those editions because they are really wonderful. I like this publisher, it shows some tangible love for the books.

Speaking of what’s inside, instead, both are debuts and Most Recommended along with Scott Lynch. Those kinds of book you can blindly buy and be sure they will be great. If you look around you can read plenty of comments and reviews on blogs and forums, hot stuff. Both are trilogies. Rothfuss’s series should be already complete but we’ll have a new book every year, with the first out not long ago, while Abercrombie is already at the third book that should be out in March.

Just for a vague idea: “The Name of the Wind” should be an epic/adult version of Harry Potter, but where the comparison doesn’t make it justice. “The Blade Itself” instead is a character-driven epic, playing with the classic “party” stereotype to then turn it upside down. Gore and humor part of the recipe.

Some quotes:

“The debut novel from Patrick Rothfuss — the first installment of an epic fantasy trilogy entitled the ‘Kingkiller Chronicle’ — not only lives up to its extraordinary pre-press hype (DAW president Elizabeth Wollheim called it “the most brilliant first fantasy novel I have read in over 30 years as an editor”), it surpasses it. When fantasy fans begin reading THE NAME OF THE WIND, they should be fully prepared to lose all contact with the outside world while immersed in this highly original and mesmerizing tale of magic, love, and adventure.”
-Strange Horizons

“Folks, this is the real thing. Though it’s considerably darker than the HARRY POTTER series, this is also a bildungsroman — the story of the childhood, education, and training of a boy who grew up to be a legendary hero. Not a word of the nearly-700-page book is wasted. Rothfuss does not pad. He’s the great new fantasy writer we’ve been waiting for, and this is an astonishing book. I don’t recommend it for pre-teens, mostly because it moves at an adult-fiction pace and has some truly disturbing events. But he does not describe gore (though the action is intense) and while there is some sexual tension, nothing is shown that would shock a teenager. If you’re a reader of fantasy or simply someone who appreciates a truly epic-scale work of fiction, don’t go through this summer without having read it. At the very least it will keep you busy till the last HARRY POTTER comes out. But I warn you — after THE NAME OF THE WIND, the HARRY POTTER novel might seem a little thin and — dare I say it? — childish. You have been warned.”
-Orson Scott Card

“The Blade Itself easily equals anything released in epic fantasy in the past few years, and just may rise to the top … This book is about characters first, and Abercrombie skillfully portrays them with near-perfect internal and external dialogue set at an ideal pace … he stops just short of spitting in the face of genre and set my heart racing through some the best written fight scenes of any genre. This one is not just for fans of epic fantasy.”
Neth Space

“Abercrombie kicks off his series masterfully with a heroic fantasy without conventional heroes. Its clearly the characters that take center stage here. Their dialogue is full of cynicism and wit, their lives full of intrigue, battles and magic.”
Romantic Times

“The Blade Itself is simultaneously an homage to fantasy of old, a satirical riff on cliches common within the genre, and a contemporary revision.”
Fantasy Book Critic

The fascination with this Noir fantasy is the key cast members. The foursome is not epic heroes, but instead they are flawed to the point that the story line at times feels like an amusing satire of the Tolkien lite imitations. Not for everyone, THE BLADE ITSELF is carried by its deep characters, who tote more negatives than positives and may prove to cause the beginning of the end; these incredibly flawed souls make for a fresh and outstanding fantasy.”
Harriet Klausner

If you want those books try to get them in the UK editions. I can’t stress enough how good they are. Really worlds apart.

Erikson instead goes without presentation. I decided to drop the US version for the UK one but I was betrayed by new editions. I got the first two books in the new edition and new cover, while the third in the old one.

Now not only I’ll need to repurchase that third book in the new version so that I have a homogeneous collection, but I also want “Gardens of the Moon” in the old cover, because I really like it. And I liked more the overall layout of the older version.

Following the new covers of the new editions (of books three and five, as book two and four have old covers even in the new ed):

.