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Has anyone sorted out the lovely proofing in the ebooks? I just bought a kindle and would like to give this man more of my money, but I don't want to read about the adventures of Toe the Younger or the Tiste Andü. Is it something that got better as they went along? Do the new(er) books suffer from the same issues?
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Oct 11, 2012 06:14
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polyfractal posted:I was curious about that too. She is also a maybhe, which is similar to how Quick Ben can hold a bunch of soulshifted souls. That said, transforming from a woman to a man seems a bit odd. My personal theory is that Quick Ben is the son of Korya + Arathan, and somehow inherited Korya's ability to hold souls. (FoD speculation) I think it's just a similar name. There's no suggestion so far that Quick Ben - as in, the actual guy, not counting all his extra souls - is anything other than a Seven Cities guy born in 'modern' times. Korya could be the Tiste Andii soul inside Quick Ben, but so could any number of other characters, or someone we haven't met yet. Granted, FoD breaks a lot of what we "knew" from the main series, but I'd be surprised to see anybody from the main series who was not already established as being alive in this era.
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Oct 11, 2012 07:03
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mirthdefect posted:Has anyone sorted out the lovely proofing in the ebooks? I just bought a kindle and would like to give this man more of my money, but I don't want to read about the adventures of Toe the Younger or the Tiste Andü. As far as I can tell, there are two versions on Amazon - Tor and Transworld Digital. I got the Tor versions of the first three, and there were typos on every other page (it read like they had scanned the book in and ran it through a crappy text recognition program or something. Lots of c's turning into e's and r's into n's and whatnot). I picked up the Transworld versions of House of Chains and Midnight Tides, and they seem to be a lot better on the typo front. Although they have their own weirdness - in HoC when I try and switch it to the black background/white text just gives me a black page (I'm guessing they forgot to change the text color?), and so far MT is fine unless I'm using the cloud reader, where the font size inexplicably changes from sentence to sentence. Here's an example: http://i.imgur.com/0PUwI.png (I don't think it's too spoiler-y, but i marked it to keep SALR from converting the link just in case) (go figure, I flip to a random page and grab a small excerpt and there's still a "turgid" in there. He really likes that word, doesn't he?)
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Oct 11, 2012 07:05
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polyfractal posted:I was curious about that too. She is also a maybhe, which is similar to how Quick Ben can hold a bunch of soulshifted souls. That said, transforming from a woman to a man seems a bit odd. My personal theory is that Quick Ben is the son of Korya + Arathan, and somehow inherited Korya's ability to hold souls. Remember there's a chance that He's both of them. His body isn't that old, and is a seven cities native. But the pair of them may have transferred their souls into him.
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Oct 11, 2012 07:31
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polyfractal posted:I was curious about that too. She is also a maybhe, which is similar to how Quick Ben can hold a bunch of soulshifted souls. That said, transforming from a woman to a man seems a bit odd. My personal theory is that Quick Ben is the son of Korya + Arathan, and somehow inherited Korya's ability to hold souls. Shouldn't that be quite unlikely, FOD is at least a couple of thousand years (if not more) before what happens in the BOF. In GotM there is also a Rhivi woman that is a mahybe, which in all likelyhood is not related to Quick Ben.
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Oct 11, 2012 08:12
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Cardiac posted:Shouldn't that be quite unlikely, FOD is at least a couple of thousand years (if not more) before what happens in the BOF. In GotM there is also a Rhivi woman that is a mahybe, which in all likelyhood is not related to Quick Ben. Couple hundred thousand years, isn't it?
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Oct 11, 2012 08:41
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Leospeare posted:Couple hundred thousand years, isn't it? Keeping track of time in Eriksons world is doomed to fail.
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Oct 11, 2012 09:13
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Cardiac posted:Shouldn't that be quite unlikely, FOD is at least a couple of thousand years (if not more) before what happens in the BOF. In GotM there is also a Rhivi woman that is a mahybe, which in all likelyhood is not related to Quick Ben. Pretty much everyone else in the book is still around, so why? We know that quickben has some very old souls in him. And calls mother dark " mother" and draconus "father" at one point.
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Oct 11, 2012 09:29
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Masonity posted:Pretty much everyone else in the book is still around, so why? We know that quickben has some very old souls in him. And calls mother dark " mother" and draconus "father" at one point. Sure, the souls in him might be old, but weren't they wizards from the Seven Cities that Quick Ben enticed to join him during the Bridgeburner pursuit. Of course, they might be old enough to have known Mother Dark and Draconus. Quick Ben is always described as coming from the Seven Cities, which is in a world separate from Kharkhanas. Also, if Quick Ben was around then, he would probably be an ascendant by now and they typically don't go unnoticed. In which book does he call mother dark mother, and vice versa for Draconus?
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Oct 11, 2012 10:44
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Cardiac posted:Sure, the souls in him might be old, but weren't they wizards from the Seven Cities that Quick Ben enticed to join him during the Bridgeburner pursuit. Of course, they might be old enough to have known Mother Dark and Draconus. Should be spoilers! We have people new to the series read the posts too. And while you are right, we know that at least one of those mages was a Jaghut, and one (possibly a different one) knew very old magic relating to soul shifting. Ben himself was a relatively modern mage from Seven Cities, with a sister in the cult of Poliel, who rose high in the cult of Rashan. He was top tier power-wise already, without the other 11 souls. Either him or one of the other 11 (i'd guess one of the other 11) was a former Malazan High Mage, as was Nightchill / Sister of Cold Nights, who was herself one of the Azathani, kin (and a close ally at one point it seems, along with K'rul) to Draconus. So while they were "seven city mages" at the time of the soul shifting into Quick Ben, who they were before trhat is up in the air. At least one of them is likely to be a contemporary to the Forge of Darkness books, if not an actual character. I'd personally be shocked if at least one of the pair isn't inside him. And the answer to the last question is "The Crippled God".
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Oct 11, 2012 11:00
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The Ninth Layer posted:I also got done reading Forge of Darkness. For the most part it felt like a setup novel to when the truly crazy bits are going to happen, but it was no less enjoyable for it, and had the usual cast of great Erikson characters. I'm definitely looking forward to the conclusion of the trilogy. I recently finished it and this was my feeling as well, my only disappointment was that Erikson didn't really blow me away with the ending, as he did in his other books. While big events happened, nothing was a surprise so it was all anticlimatic. Poor Andarist 
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Oct 11, 2012 14:23
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Arathan is mentioned in the Book of the Fallen, albeit not directly. (Midnight Tides) Spite mentions to Lanas Tog that 'a misguided sibling who'd thought he was being kind' rescued Baaljagg, the last ay, to have Fanderay's soul inhabit her. We see this rescue when Toc receives a vision. Since this happened after the fall of the Crippled God, Arathan is around at least until then. I found the quote, by the way, in a Malazan forums thread from 2006 arguing that the 'he' there was an error by the editor. Whoops! HeroOfTheRevolution fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Oct 11, 2012 |
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Oct 11, 2012 16:36
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HeroOfTheRevolution posted:Arathan is mentioned in the Book of the Fallen, albeit not directly. (Midnight Tides) Spite mentions to Lanas Tog that 'a misguided sibling who'd thought he was being kind' rescued Baaljagg, the last ay, to have Fanderay's soul inhabit her. We see this rescue when Toc receives a vision. Since this happened after the fall of the Crippled God, Arathan is around at least until then. Nice find! I could have sworn that I saw Erikson say that Quick Ben was in FoD but "someone we would not recognize". Of course, I can't find that reference now. And given the context of soul shifting, I guess pretty much anyone could be candidate if you consider the souls inside of Quick. Question about the Hust Legion - what the hell happened? I don't really understand that part. Did they all go crazy because the armor + swords made such a horrific sound they just shut down? Or was the wine actually poisoned? Question regarding the gates. Grizzin Farl said that when one gate opens (Darkness), another one opens. At first I thought that meant the portal that opens in the Glimmer Fates, where the dragons fly out of. But then Hood mentions that he is using a gate to reach the world of death. Is the dragon portal not a gate then?
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Oct 11, 2012 20:18
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Forge of Darknesspolyfractal posted:Nice find! For the Hust The wine was poisoned. And for the second thing, I think it was just the creation/opening of all the gates.
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Oct 11, 2012 20:41
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Man, I have forgotten a ton about Quick Ben from GotM. I can't remember if we ever saw two things come to fruition: 1. He smells of spice like soletaken. 2. Ammanas calls him a shapeshifter, also implying soletaken. My brain is just collapsed under too much lore.
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Oct 12, 2012 01:51
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Most of the Jaghut-Imass wars were around 300,000 years before Burn's Sleep, the First Empire predates the Fall of the Crippled God by about a century (MOI) and existed at the very least from 120,000 to 90,000 years (DG), and possibly to 70,000 years before Burn's Sleep (MT). Any dates more precise than a decade or two aren't really reliable.HeroOfTheRevolution posted:Arathan is mentioned in the Book of the Fallen, albeit not directly. (Midnight Tides) Spite mentions to Lanas Tog that 'a misguided sibling who'd thought he was being kind' rescued Baaljagg, the last ay, to have Fanderay's soul inhabit her. We see this rescue when Toc receives a vision. Since this happened after the fall of the Crippled God, Arathan is around at least until then. That could have been me in that thread, haha. I love being proven wrong about this series (swearing blind that there would be no Hounds of Light since Erikson said so, for instance) dwarf74 posted:Man, I have forgotten a ton about Quick Ben from GotM. I can't remember if we ever saw two things come to fruition: We know two things about that subject, that he IS a soletaken and he isn't a snake soletaken. Although that last part is from Erikson's direct word so take it how you want.
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Oct 12, 2012 19:16
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Apropos of nothing, was I the only one who read "Shadowthrone" as "Shadowthorne" until I was at about the fourth book or so? I think by then I'd read GotM twice. re: Quick Ben Apart from the 'having many souls' bit I don't remember Ben changing into anything else. But it's been a while, admittedly, since I read that late in the series. Am I just forgetting momentous occurrences?
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Oct 12, 2012 19:40
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savinhill posted:Midnight Tides is my favorite book out of the whole Malazan series. I had the same problem as you the first time I started reading it but I got pulled into the story once I got used to the new setting and characters and it just started flying by after that. Yarrbossa posted:Having just finished MT, I can safely say yes. Everything gets imnteresting really quickly, and Tehol and Bugg are amazing as stated. Just dive in, and you'll more than likely enjoy it just as much, if not more, than the first 4. Yep. You guys were right. I was a little disappointing that Midnight Tides' events didn't climax towards the events that happened in House of Chain's prologue. I really was dying to know what happened there. I'm still a little confused as to why Mael would have the battle where the betrayal took place frozen in Jhagut sorcery. Did he know that it would end up keeping the Hold of Death off that land and trap the Tisti Andii spirits that died there as well as pretty much everyone else who would die after? Seems pretty harsh. For a while I was convinced that Gerund was actually going to end up being Hood.
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Oct 15, 2012 03:19
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Robot Danger posted:Yep. You guys were right. I was a little disappointing that Midnight Tides' events didn't climax towards the events that happened in House of Chain's prologue. I really was dying to know what happened there. I felt exactly the same after finishing! Apparently more about that event is given by later books and a tiny bit is even given in Bonehunters but it's not much. I can't really answer for the other question though, because I haven't the faintest of ideas behind Mael's motivations there. You get a much better sense of the timeline from Bonehunters though, because I hadn't the faintest idea how far back in the past the MT storyline was. Press on! I just finished Bonehunters and it was flat out awesome.
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Oct 15, 2012 05:23
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Masonity posted:Should be spoilers! We have people new to the series read the posts too. Sorry about missing spoilers. Although we're not really discussing the plot here, more the fluff around the characters. Well, I agree that he probably has some old souls in him, but he is not one of the ancients so to say. For being a wizard with 12 souls in him, he is not that powerful, we regularly see him almost burned out by the magic he is using. For instance, the defence of the Throne of Shadows from the assault of Icarium.
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Oct 15, 2012 08:17
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Yarrbossa posted:I can't really answer for the other question though, because I haven't the faintest of ideas behind Mael's motivations there. You get a much better sense of the timeline from Bonehunters though, because I hadn't the faintest idea how far back in the past the MT storyline was. Mael's motivations is quite interesting. He has 2 sides in the series, as Bugg which is a friendly helpful god, the other side is the blood hungry sea god, which is manifested several times in the story. For instance, when induced by Mallick Rel.
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Oct 15, 2012 08:21
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Cardiac posted:Sorry about missing spoilers. Although we're not really discussing the plot here, more the fluff around the characters. In Reapers Gale when he and ghost Hedge are helping to defend the soul of Scabandari Bloodeye, he absolutely destroys the three soultaken daughters of Scabandari (Sisters Dawn, Dusk and Dapple) in straight up magery. He and Hedge mention how he has grown in power since the battle with Icarium. I have no idea what changed in him though, been a while since I read it. Also it's loving Icarium so no suprise he's knackered after that.
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Oct 15, 2012 08:34
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ed balls balls man posted:In Reapers Gale when he and ghost Hedge are helping to defend the soul of Scabandari Bloodeye, he absolutely destroys the three soultaken daughters of Scabandari (Sisters Dawn, Dusk and Dapple) in straight up magery. He and Hedge mention how he has grown in power since the battle with Icarium. I have no idea what changed in him though, been a while since I read it. Also it's loving Icarium so no suprise he's knackered after that. Well, one of them got creamed by a cusser, right. Anyways, his increase in power should then be related to some accord with Ammanas/Shadowthrone for helping out? Sort of boring that Hedge didn't have unlimited ammo for his cussers once he became mortal again, although that would probably be a little too much.
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Oct 15, 2012 09:14
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Cardiac posted:Well, one of them got creamed by a cusser, right. Anyways, Yeah, but the cusser was fired into the gaping wound in the dragons stomach while trying to drag itself away from Ben. Also Menandore only turned on her sister when she realised the three of them couldn't win against Quick Ben, and that was before the cusser was fired.
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Oct 15, 2012 10:34
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Cardiac posted:Sorry about missing spoilers. Although we're not really discussing the plot here, more the fluff around the characters. Quick Ben is sandbagging more than any other character in the novels, with the possible exception of Shadowthrone. Everything we know about his limitations is based on his own testimony, and he is basically a pathological liar. He's also quite clever; plently clever enough to not want to start a convergence centered on himself. Note that going toe to toe with Icarium during one of his episodes is about as buff as you can get in this series. He just generally prefers to rely on cleverly using the smallest amount of power that it takes to get the job done. Edit: He's probably a soletaken gerbil though, or something equally useless. User fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Oct 18, 2012 |
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Oct 18, 2012 05:19
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Something has been bothering me in Toll the Hounds. At the beginning of every chapter and in the places between switching viewpoint, there is a "narrator" of sorts. Is this omniscient narrator Kruppe? It certainly has the feel of his way of speaking and his seeming knowledge of everything that is happening. Or am I just making this up and the narrator is just a narrator?
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Oct 18, 2012 06:46
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Nope, you were right the first time.
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Oct 18, 2012 10:29
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User posted:Quick Ben is sandbagging more than any other character in the novels, with the possible exception of Shadowthrone. Everything we know about his limitations is based on his own testimony, and he is basically a pathological liar. He's also quite clever; plently clever enough to not want to start a convergence centered on himself. Note that going toe to toe with Icarium during one of his episodes is about as buff as you can get in this series. He just generally prefers to rely on cleverly using the smallest amount of power that it takes to get the job done. There was also the time he scared of the Tiste Edur from the Perish fleet by a huge illusion of some horrible sorcery, and afterwards he confirmed he was spent. There is also a situation in Memories of Ice (?) where he faces of against Bauchelain and Korbal Broach and uses 6 warrens on them each, emptying him. There are also multiple scenarios where he gets swept away by sorcery which shouldn't really happen if he was that powerful. For instance, the fight against the short-tails . Anyway, I like Quick Ben, but I think he's more of a smart opportunist than a full-blown ascendant. By being able to manipulate his way he doesn't need that much raw power.
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Oct 18, 2012 11:06
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Cardiac posted:There was also the time he scared of the Tiste Edur from the Perish fleet by a huge illusion of some horrible sorcery, and afterwards he confirmed he was spent. There is also a situation in Memories of Ice (?) where he faces of against Bauchelain and Korbal Broach and uses 6 warrens on them each, emptying him. There are also multiple scenarios where he gets swept away by sorcery which shouldn't really happen if he was that powerful. For instance, the fight against the short-tails . Shadowthrone and Cotillion give up on getting back at him. That alone says a lot, because while Cotillion is perhaps pragmatic, Shadowthrone probably hates being outplayed more than anyone else in the series. And you can call it something other than power if you like, but Quick Ben is basically the poster child of warrens vs holds.
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Oct 19, 2012 03:30
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User posted:warrens vs holds. Warrens vs. Holds is one of these. Moranth munitions are another - how many times does that bit of technology kill off an immortal who's unprepared for it? My favorite has to be Dejim Nebrahl, who was terrifying in his age and has people shaking in their boots. And he's basically smacked down at every opportunity by an insane shadow-priest, a mortal Malazan marine with a knife, etc. It's a breath of fresh air when most fantasy series assume that old stuff was so much more powerful and the modern guys have somehow not only failed to advance in their capabilities, but have actually gotten worse.
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Oct 19, 2012 15:51
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Cardiac posted:There was also the time he scared of the Tiste Edur from the Perish fleet by a huge illusion of some horrible sorcery, and afterwards he confirmed he was spent. There is also a situation in Memories of Ice (?) where he faces of against Bauchelain and Korbal Broach and uses 6 warrens on them each, emptying him. There are also multiple scenarios where he gets swept away by sorcery which shouldn't really happen if he was that powerful. For instance, the fight against the short-tails . Unless I'm mistaken we only have his word that it was an illusion, and that claim was only made when he was asked how he managed it? I could have misremembered that though.
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Oct 20, 2012 07:58
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Masonity posted:Unless I'm mistaken we only have his word that it was an illusion, and that claim was only made when he was asked how he managed it? I could have misremembered that though. Yeah, he said that it was only an illusion and then he got freaked out when the Eres channelled actual power into it through Bottle.
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Oct 21, 2012 20:14
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I basically look at it like this: He is definitely primarily a smart opportunist and exceedingly intelligent but because of his unusual access to multiple warrens he is also very powerful - but only in short bursts. This as opposed to the sheer innate powers of actual ascendants. I thought it was pretty clear that while he did go toe-to-toe with Icarium it did very nearly kill him and didn't really seem like something he'd be up for doing on a regular basis. Makes sense to me at least.
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Oct 22, 2012 14:29
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Like a third of the way through Toll the Hounds and I have a question about a returning character; Duiker. When did he come back? I know he had the soul saving thing that got crushed when and he was nailed to the last tree closest to Aren and some guys charmed to look like those flying monkeys, or maybe they were the monkeys, came and picked up his corpse in some books pro/epilogue. When exactly did he come back or is it explained later?
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Oct 23, 2012 00:02
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FlyingCowOfDoom posted:Duiker. When did he come back?
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Oct 23, 2012 00:17
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FlyingCowOfDoom posted:Like a third of the way through Toll the Hounds and I have a question about a returning character; Duiker. When did he come back? I know he had the soul saving thing that got crushed when and he was nailed to the last tree closest to Aren and some guys charmed to look like those flying monkeys, or maybe they were the monkeys, came and picked up his corpse in some books pro/epilogue. When exactly did he come back or is it explained later? Baruk's familiars pick up the thing containing his soul at the end of DHG. He's revived at the end of MoI. He's sitting in Krul's bar listening to the surviving Bridgeburners talk about Black Coral. At the very end, he says he's going to tell them about the Chain of Dogs. dwarf74 posted:He's involved throughout House of Chains, IIRC. He listens to Trull's story with the guys at K'rul's. I don't think he's involved there. Trull recounts his story to Onrack, Monok Ochem, and one other T'lan Imass whose name escapes me (Ibra Gholem?) while waiting to defend the first throne from the Tiste Edur.
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Oct 23, 2012 04:25
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the least weasel posted:I basically look at it like this: He is definitely primarily a smart opportunist and exceedingly intelligent but because of his unusual access to multiple warrens he is also very powerful - but only in short bursts. This as opposed to the sheer innate powers of actual ascendants. I thought it was pretty clear that while he did go toe-to-toe with Icarium it did very nearly kill him and didn't really seem like something he'd be up for doing on a regular basis. Makes sense to me at least. Icarium is Icarium, Bonehunters spoilerThe motherfucking Lifestealer, he's a nuke. None can contain or resist him. The only fights that we know of that involved Icarium either ends up with entire cities/warrens destroyed or something has intervened. Like the Eres'al or his warden. I find it ridiculous that someone gets drained from facing down Icarium as a sign of weakness.
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Oct 23, 2012 10:37
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You're right, I'm confusing my events. I distinctly remember such a thing happening, with the man in question present, but I got the actors wrong.  Duiker's back at the end of Memories of Ice, in either the Phoenix Inn (or K'rul's if that was a thing yet?), and Picker recounts the Chain of Dogs with him there.
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Oct 23, 2012 15:57
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Having recently read Orb, Scepter, Throne (had a lot of great little moments, but didn't hold together overall as well as the better Malazan books, I think Esslemont is improving at least) and Forge of Darkness (much more enjoyable than I was expecting, given that the Tiste peoples are not my favorite part of Malazan lore), I decided to reread Gardens of the Moon. I still like it a lot -- I'm a fan of being thrown into the deep end and figuring out the world as the story unfolds, so even on the first read I enjoyed it, but coming back after learning so much more about this world and seeing all the little tidbits that you just get the tiniest glimpse of or passing mention of here is a lot of fun. There's definitely this sense of "proto-Malazan-world" here as some of the way Warrens, magic, etc is presented feels very different from how it ended up in the later books, but here are so many of the crazy threads that got me started when I first read the series and it is a ton of fun to revisit them. EDIT: Sadly the kindle version has some of those really unfortunate ocr-looking errors, like the occasional substitution of the mysterious Toe the Younger for the more well-know Toc, etc.
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Oct 24, 2012 09:44
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Quinton posted:There's definitely this sense of "proto-Malazan-world" here as some of the way Warrens, magic, etc is presented feels very different from how it ended up in the later books, but here are so many of the crazy threads that got me started when I first read the series and it is a ton of fun to revisit them. I was actually pretty impressed how Erikson managed to rein in a few of the GotMisms by the end of TCG. Such as Tool's magic-deadening aura, which disappears for about 9 books until he unveils it. And Chaos, the Spire of Andii, etc.
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Oct 24, 2012 17:42
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