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olar ethil so fat that when she sits around the refugium, she sits around the refugium
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Jul 3, 2019 20:37
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Alhazred posted:That's pretty much what I'm been saying. I generally like that malazan series so far, but there's some things in Midnight Tides that feels like a misstep. Ublala Pung was pretty bad too.
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Jul 3, 2019 23:55
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Jan posted:It's a principle that obviates the need for traditional political positions. If everyone lived with the very basic idea of casual compassion and to always try to leave the world around you a little better than before, there'd be a lot less hatred, waste and senseless death and suffering.
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Jul 3, 2019 23:57
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duiker does manage to tell his version of the story to fisher kel tath iirc, which i reckon means people will hear it
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Jul 4, 2019 02:05
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1994 Toyota Celica posted:duiker does manage to tell his version of the story to fisher kel tath iirc, which i reckon means people will hear it 
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Jul 4, 2019 02:18
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All this political talk made me think of Healthy Dead. I enjoyed the people pining for the normal corrupt dead king over the “do gooders”. And really you should read all the Bauch and Korbal books.
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Jul 4, 2019 02:38
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Dalmuti posted:olar ethil so fat that when she sits around the refugium, she sits around the refugium Come to think of it there is no ambiguity around Olar Ethil, she really is burn in Forge of Darkness, so very flammable .
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Jul 4, 2019 05:21
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Infinite Karma posted:Ublala Pung was pretty bad too. Ublala is obviously mentally disabled. It's female dominant statutory gang rape played for laughs.
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Jul 4, 2019 05:28
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User posted:Ublala is obviously mentally disabled. It's female dominant statutory gang rape played for laughs. In the same vein, in Toll the Hounds Torvald Nom rapes the crime boss's wife while burgling his house and it's played like a comedy porn scene. Totally unnecessary and put me off his whole plotline.
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Jul 4, 2019 09:59
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Alhazred posted:
One is dead, the other is a sex pest. Banks is also dead. Le guin is dead. Richard K Morgan is enjoyably anarchist, but (surprise surprise) has a bunch of dodgy sex in his books. Bakker is.... Bakker. Abercrombie has an attempted rape of a minor character that's handled pretty well, but then the ending of trilogy is just horrendous. It bums me out how even something as progressive and sympathetic as Malazan (Chaur is handled pretty sensitively, Beak is excellent, Stonny's trauma arc is great) still has all these gratuitous rapes. It's just a lazy shorthand for "these dudes are evil". And I hate that we get used to them, that any fantasy has a background expectation of being awful to women. I love a load of these books, and want to share them with people, but there's always the urge to give a content warning, or some caveat that justifies why it's okay to like such-and-such book with rape monsters. And then I wonder, what the gently caress is wrong with this genre. What the gently caress is wrong with me that I can overlook this? I don't really have a point here, or a particular criticism. Just.... Eugh.
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Jul 4, 2019 11:36
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Yeah, when I started reading the books I thougth it was neat how women and men were more or less equal and no one made a big deal out of it. So its extra disappointing when regressive poo poo happens in his books too.
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Jul 4, 2019 12:04
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So all In all Midnight Tides is the worst malazan book so far. Not only because og these issues but it certainly didn't help.
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Jul 4, 2019 12:08
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snoremac posted:I read the series somewhat differently. It’s in our nature to be all sorts of things, but selfish shitheads by their capacity to do anything to get on top will always define the power structures of society that teach people to be shitheads. That’s why, I think, Coltaine tries to ensure Duiker will live on to record events accurately, having the foresight to know he will be villainized, and that the selfless work of the Wiccan’s will remain unrecorded, if history is left unchallenged in the hands of the Malazans. He’s not concerned with his legacy, but having it put down on paper that there is a compassionate way of doing things. Of course, Duiker becomes a tavern drunk (as far as I recall) and Coltaine is thrown to the wolves, historically speaking. Spoilers breh, DG ends with duiker being crucified
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Jul 4, 2019 13:53
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Strom Cuzewon posted:One is dead, the other is a sex pest. Haven't heard this. What did Mieville do?
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Jul 4, 2019 18:27
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Ben Nerevarine posted:Haven't heard this. What did Mieville do? Emotionally abusive and manipulative to a string of girlfriends. Nothing illegal by the sounds of it, just a massive scumbag.
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Jul 4, 2019 19:59
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Mieville also collaborated with a serial harasser, misogynist, transphobe and alleged rapist on a children's book, which doesn't exactly speak highly of him.
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Jul 4, 2019 20:19
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I thought Mieville was a card carrying communist. This is all news to me, Any references?
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Jul 4, 2019 21:03
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User posted:I thought Mieville was a card carrying communist. This is all news to me, Any references? Hey I would hate to break it to you, but being on the left does not prevent some dudes from being awful scumbags.
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Jul 5, 2019 19:11
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Toll The Hounds Prologue + Chapters 1 - 6 I was down with a virus for the better part of two week so my reading of this section was marked by a hiatus. This feels like one of the weakest "starting part" that Erikson has done so far. It's all just people talking in bars and walking around Genabackis. There were some fights and a new Jaegermeister cult shows up by over all it was fairly dull. I really dislike Tiste Andii as the narrative always grinds to a snails pace whenever they show up. I hope they all get killed by an animal god or something.
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Jul 8, 2019 09:11
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Toll the Hounds is the weakest book and despite apologist arguments, not even the background info from the Tiste trilogy can save it.
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Jul 8, 2019 13:11
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Reddit sucks but this spoiler filled post about TTH does well to sum up why it's good actually. I won't go as far to say it's the best book in the series, but it matters. https://www.reddit.com/r/Malazan/comments/c9ad0g/toll_the_hounds_is_the_best_dont_me/
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Jul 8, 2019 13:27
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Hand Row posted:Toll the Hounds is the weakest book and despite apologist arguments, not even the background info from the Tiste trilogy can save it.
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Jul 8, 2019 13:43
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snoremac posted:I mean, I hold it in high esteem and don’t remember what you’re talking about. It’s been said before in this thread but it’s interesting how strongly people differ on their faves and least faves, and I think it’s because the series has so much variety that it’s bound to produce that effect. When I think of TtH I immediately remember the omniscient narrative sprawl over Darujhistan with the Kruppe-esque tone. It was a delightful language feast and had such compelling character vignettes (like the young psychopath who’s jealous of his brother). The vignettes of The deaths and near misses following Hoods arrival are some of Eriksons finest writing. Funny and tragic in equal measure, its wonderfully messy and human. "Plunge then, courage collected, into this welter of lives" I found a lot of Eriksons narration quite dry, and kinda wish more of the series was written in a way that clearly evoked the characters in the story.
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Jul 8, 2019 14:21
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Hand Row posted:Toll the Hounds is the weakest book and despite apologist arguments, not even the background info from the Tiste trilogy can save it. Best convergence sequence in the series.
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Jul 8, 2019 16:43
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Cardiac posted:Best convergence sequence in the series. It's up there, certainly, until you make the mistake of reading online how it was all decided by loving d20 roll.
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Jul 8, 2019 19:14
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I should point out I like all the books so I am not saying it sucks. Tiste stuff is just generally the weakest plot lines so it automatically gets lowered in any ranking.
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Jul 8, 2019 20:53
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I really enjoyed Nimander's schtick of having all the same doubts and conflict as Mandy Rake, but without the (deserved) adulation of the masses he just collapses into a self-loathing mess.
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Jul 8, 2019 21:13
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thumper57 posted:It's up there, certainly, until you make the mistake of reading online how it was all decided by loving d20 roll. That part rules though?
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Jul 8, 2019 22:41
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thumper57 posted:It's up there, certainly, until you make the mistake of reading online how it was all decided by loving d20 roll. The d20 didn't write the story afterwards.
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Jul 9, 2019 00:47
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thumper57 posted:It's up there, certainly, until you make the mistake of reading online how it was all decided by loving d20 roll. Who gives a poo poo. Lord of light was literally based on a bad pun. I don’t read stuff by sci-fi /fantasy authors that isn’t their fiction. Cause if they were good scientists they wouldn’t write fantasy/sci-fi. And who cares about their opinions (some exceptions apply).
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Jul 9, 2019 05:04
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snoremac posted:I mean, I hold it in high esteem and don’t remember what you’re talking about. It’s been said before in this thread but it’s interesting how strongly people differ on their faves and least faves, and I think it’s because the series has so much variety that it’s bound to produce that effect. When I think of TtH I immediately remember the omniscient narrative sprawl over Darujhistan with the Kruppe-esque tone. It was a delightful language feast and had such compelling character vignettes (like the young psychopath who’s jealous of his brother) Toll the hounds has its moments of brilliance Including some of the more horror elements but a big chunk of the book is people being sad and navel gazing over how sad they are. I get why it was done that way but man it drags. Similar to how midnight tides is probably the best book in series because of just how well it sets things in motion toward the end it has a extremely slow beginning and a serious lull in the middle.
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Jul 9, 2019 05:27
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Midnight Tides has had the best pacing so far and Deadhouse Gates has that central cohesive story of the Chain of Dogs that keeps it chugging along nicely.
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Jul 9, 2019 09:21
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NoNotTheMindProbe posted:Midnight Tides has had the best pacing so far and Deadhouse Gates has that central cohesive story of the Chain of Dogs that keeps it chugging along nicely. The chain of dogs story was just fantastic from start to finish. I'll never say a bad word said about it.
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Jul 10, 2019 02:39
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BlindSite posted:Toll the hounds has its moments of brilliance Including some of the more horror elements but a big chunk of the book is people being sad and navel gazing over how sad they are. My favorite was always Reaper's Gale. Can't really pinpoint why
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Jul 10, 2019 09:18
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Popping in, I've just finished Gardens of the Moon last week and I'm churning through Deadhouse Gates. The second book has pretty well grabbed me and I can't believe I haven't read these books sooner. I thought I was a quick reader but I've been pretty much forced to slow down, especially when the PoV switches. It's not often I have to actually interrogate the text and characters or even just be okay with not knowing things / rely on speculation. I'm sorely tempted to buy my own copies just to write in or annotate them...
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Jul 12, 2019 22:13
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That would be fun to see how bad your notes are on a reread
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Jul 12, 2019 22:29
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My recollection of my first readthrough of Gardens of the Moon has me fairly certain that Anomander Rake was 'the bad guy' until quite late on
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Jul 13, 2019 09:13
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Reading Bonehunters and so far there's a lot of shrugging.
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Jul 13, 2019 21:03
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I like Toll the Hounds because I like Darujhistan. That's also why I like Gardens of the Moon despite its many obvious flaws anyone who read it knows about. It's pretty much a perfect fantasy city. Gaslightpunk I guess you could call it. Also like a lot of people all I could think of when I first saw Anomander Rake described was oh look another incarnation of the Eternal Champion.
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Jul 14, 2019 06:12
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I've just finished Orb Sceptre Throne and while not perfect by any means I really did enjoy it a great deal, certainly more than the other ICE books I've read (KoK, RotCG, SW). I especially enjoyed spending more time with the Seguleh, both through the eyes of their Second and from the outsider perspective of Yusuk. As ever, thanks to the oblique and sometimes unnecessarily vague storytelling employed by both ICE and SE, there were elements of confusion afterwards, most of which were helped by looking at the Re-read of the Fallen. But there are still some things I don't get: 1. Why do the Seguleh have one fewer mark on their mask than their rank - i.e. the Second has one mark, the Eighth has seven, etc? 2. If the true mask of the First was the one retrieved by the Eleventh from Moon's Spawn, what was the one worn from the tomb outside Darujhistan by the Legate, and why did it set the Seguleh's altar going, get them travelling to Darujhistan, convince Jan to bend the knee etc? 3. Not something I didn't understand per se, but apparently Karsa was alluded to in the book (which makes sense seeing as he hung around after TtH, although him not getting involved with all the commotion towards the end makes less sense) but I seem to have missed it. Can anyone vaguely relate what the reference to him was? Now on to the homeward stretch of the last two SE books (glad I had the foresight to bring DoD with me on holiday). I may then read some more ICE - do his books continue their upward trajectory in quality?
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Jul 14, 2019 08:19
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