u/Atimm203

Hello,

Last year I took a dive into this series and fell in love with it after starting a stopping a handful of times. It finally clicked and I blazed through all the way up to book 9 where I burned out. For whatever reason, I could not bring myself to continue. So I decided to step away from the series and give my mind a break.

Well, almost a year later I decided that it was time to pick it back up. However, I was worried that I would be lost if I jumped right into book 9. So, because I'm insane, I decided to just start the entire series over from scratch so that everything would be fresh in my mind.

I am confident that I made the correct decision because DAMN. Originally, I liked GotM as a novel. Thought it was a good introduction to characters and themes, but it didn't necessarily blow me away. I only continued the series based off of the hype surrounding it. Now, I am legitimately blown away by the amount of seeds planted and information sewn into the first book that completely flew over my head on my initial read through. The world-building is top notch and I am consuming the book with a much better understanding of what it going on in the bigger picture.

I am eager to read the other books with this outlook and see what else I missed on my first journey. This seems to be a series that demands a second read to truly appreciate the world that Erikson has created here (not that I didn't love it the first time through).

My previous rankings were as follows:

1. Toll the Hounds 10/10
2. Bonehunters 10/10
3. Midnight Tides 10/10
4. House of Chains - 8.5/10
5. Deadhouse Gates - 8.5/10
6. Memories of Ice - 8.5/10
7. Reaper's Gale - 8/10
8. Gardens of the Moon -7/10

I am a little over halfway through GotM right now, but I can already tell that my rating will bump up to at least an 8. Most likely an 8.5. I can't wait to see how my thoughts change over the course of my re-read.

This series is just so fucking cool.

Book 1 - Kings of Paradise

Book 2 - Kings of Ash

Book 3 - Kings of Heaven

*Disclaimer - I've only just finished book 2, so I don't know if it falls apart in book 3. Lol. But I'll be surprised if it doesn't deliver.

I recently started this series and have blown through the first two books fairly quickly. Afterwards, I went online to find some info/discussion and was surprised to see that there wasn't much available. The series doesn't even have a wikipedia page. Criminal!

But in all seriousness, I am in love with these books. The characters are diverse and compelling. Especially one of the main POVs named Ruka. Never have I been so disturbed by the actions of a character while at the same time hoping for their success. The other main POV, Kale, is just as compelling but for different reasons. Both see immense growth as the books go on.

But one thing that I have appreciated is that everything falls into a gray area more or less when it comes to morality. Yes, some characters do horrible things and others do truly good things. But the characters themselves are flawed and interesting. You're given multiple perspectives on characters and events that forced me to alter the way that I saw certain characters. Book 2 completely recontextualizes events and characters in book 1 and I thought that it was masterfully done.

Apologies for the messy post. I am clearly not a professional reviewer, but I just wanted to throw my 2 cents into this sub and hopefully get some more people to try these books. They lifted me out of a reading slump and I am eager to begin book 3. I tried to be as spoiler free as possible!

I had purchased Cold Steel years ago on Playstation and more or less bounced off of it. Just didn't grab me at the time for whatever reason. I had heard about the series and their interconnecting plots and it intrigued me, so I was disappointed that it didn't work out.

Over the years, the games in the series would go on sale and I would purchase them "just in case" I ever got into the series properly (I don't know why I'm like this).

Fast-forward to the past week or so, I have seen a lot of different clips of other games in the series and it looked like a lot of fun. So I did a lot of reading on play order and whatnot for an optimized experience. And then I modified it a little due to the upcoming Sky Chapter 2 release.

I wanted to start the series, but didn't want to be stuck waiting for the sky 2 remake after finishing sky 1 remake.​​​​​​​​​​ I know I could play the original sky 2, but I'd prefer to wait for the updated one. Therefore, I recently tried jumping into Cold Steel again (I also saw that a lot of people ranked these fairly low on their lists, so I figured it would only go up from here)​​. And so far, I'm really digging it. It's fairly dated, but it's honestly not bothering me at all.

I am actually really growing invested in some of the characters. Just recently learned more about Jusis and his family history and I think I am officially hooked, so to speak. It wasn't a grand or earth shattering moment. Just felt human when he was talking to Rean in the hotel room in his hometown.

Anyway, long rambling post to get to the point of saying that I'm very excited to get the full trails experience (no matter how many years it takes me to catch up lol). My current plan is to play CS1, CS2, Sky 1, Sky 2, Sky 3, Crossbell games, and then on to CS3 and beyond. ​​​​​​​​

Wondering how everyone else found the series and what was your jumping on point? Any tips for newcomers? Excited for the journey. ​​