[Quinthane]

i'm seriously finding it difficult to be really engaged by other books/authors. whatever level of enjoyment i find is tempered by Earwa and my desire to be back there. was in B & N's yesterday, just staring at the sci/fantasy section with lots of colorful books with colorful stories by authors with colorful names and i couldn't give a crap.

...and there was no Unholy Consort. no matter how hard i stared.

[Callan S.]

I was reading a darkness at sethanon - spoilers

(click to show/hide)

One of the main characters dies suddenly, to a freak event and it was quite sad - but then, oh, it was a doppleganger who actually died

And...I've kinda just stopped. Bookmark is just sitting there in it.

There's just something sickly about not being able to have a character just die and stay dead - sure, it's sad a main character dies. Twice so to something seemingly small and a freak event. But it seems even worse to then whitewash it away! We can't even take fictional tragedy? It's not even a real person! Yet we can't take that, even in a world full of people who, even if they live to a ripe old age then die of old age, were going to have to face that? Surely we are atleast tough enough to face fictional tragedy! Gah...have stopped reading. Seems poisonous, even.

[Royce]

i'm seriously finding it difficult to be really engaged by other books/authors. whatever level of enjoyment i find is tempered by Earwa and my desire to be back there. was in B & N's yesterday, just staring at the sci/fantasy section with lots of colorful books with colorful stories by authors with colorful names and i couldn't give a crap.

Yeah,it is a bit like going from heroin to chewing gum.

[Quinthane]

...yeah...and at first it seems wonderful but then you find you can't stop chewing the stuff and soon you're in a Big Red colored nightmare packed with flavor-crystals....and gone are the days of your simple, quaint heroin use. now you're just Bazooka Joe's bitch.

[Kellais]

I know the feeling...although i do not think there is only Scott's work.
Everything i read now has to compete against Earwa and Malazan. And most books fall way short of it, unfortunately.

Steven Erikson and his Malazan Book of the Fallen is on the same level of awesome as the PON and AE books, imo. The worldbuilding is at least as deep and his style of storytelling is superb as well. He has an interesting structure in his tale, a tale for once not being a linear thing with different PoVs but more a patchwork that will yield a beautiful tapestry in the end.
Erikson is an archaeologist and anthropologist and it shows in his worldbuilding and in his societies and cultures. And he also has interesting philosophical layers.

[Madness]

I feel I need to take the time and make a monolith in mind while reading the entire Book of the Fallen - Esslemont included.

Obviously, I will be doing the same with Bakker when TSA is done.

Who can I offer you, Quinthane... I think we all share a sliver of your lonely pain and confusion when we hope that our readerly environments will yield signs of our pagan pageantry.

Read Bakker's other books.
Dune Saga/Standalones by Frank Herbert.
Tyrants & Kings trilogy by John Marco.
Monarchies of God Series by Paul Kearney.
Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov.
Drenai Saga by David Gemmell.
Phule's Company by Robert Aspirin.
Bio of a Space Tyrant by Piers Anthony.
Pratchett.
PKD.
Heilein.
Lovecraft.
Lynch.
Abercrombie.

Lol - basically just looking around my piles of books. I really should take a gander in my other room.

None of these are Bakker and yet each might offer a salve to your pains.