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Halfway through Blood and Bone and it's a mess. The Crimson Guard just aren't the least bit interesting.
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Nov 25, 2012 23:18
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My favorite part of TTH was the creepy Dying God stuff, it reminded me of the Pannion stuff. And now I remember Gruntle's House of Death and that was awesome. OST could have been really good, but something was missing and it ended up being mediocre. Maybe I didn't read thoroughly enough but I was confused as to what the whole Tyrant thing was about, and the one monster corpse that was left in the tomb.
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Nov 27, 2012 23:22
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bigmcgaffney posted:My favorite part of TTH was the creepy Dying God stuff, it reminded me of the Pannion stuff. And now I remember Gruntle's House of Death and that was awesome. Yeah, I was expecting the Tyrant to have more of a payoff where there would be some kind of really cool reveal of how he fit into the already established Malazan mythology but it never came. Same with the Stormriders in Stonewielder.
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Nov 28, 2012 02:21
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I've been reading some other fantasy and it's kind of surprising how few authors really get the sense of scale right in epic fantasy. Most of the time you've got this existential threat that is coming in to destroy the world, and that's kind of boring. In the Malazan series the conflict comes from within and I never felt that the world was in trouble, just the factions. There are too many powerful groups for everything to really die off and people are too good at rebuilding, but the threat still seems real.
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Nov 28, 2012 03:27
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It's probably been asked before, but is Wheel of Time more pedestrian "regular" fantasy when compared to Malazan or is it still worth reading in its own right? I think I'd like to read that series next, and I don't really mind that it will slump in the middle as long as the Sanderson books finish it off well.
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Nov 30, 2012 19:52
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Yes to your first question, "maybe" to your second. I stopped Wheel of Time after the same thing happened for 4 books in a row. It was just more words.
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Nov 30, 2012 20:00
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Hm. I joined SFBC.com a while ago and they have the full collection + Memory of Light separate when it comes out for around 200 dollars and its pretty tempting just to have the whole set. But I guess I should try them out first. I have them on my kindle just hard to break off from BotF and jump right into another super long series.
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Nov 30, 2012 20:45
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WoT isn't bad but it isn't really comparable in any way to the Malazan series, it's not necessarily worse but it's very different. It's much more traditional fantasy.
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Nov 30, 2012 21:35
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I just finished book 4 and I'm on the fence about continuing. I like the writing and the world-building is just amazing, but I am kinda getting sick of the endless introductions of new characters. Each book gets me really interested in the characters and their personal story, shows how they connect to a larger story, then promptly abandons them. I'm fine with new characters, it's just that after 4 books and roughly 3000 pages, I expect the story to begin moving forward. I understand creating a wide base to propel the remaining story, but at 40% done (4 books of 10), I'm eager for the story to begin moving into the middle of the arc. At what point does he continue telling the story of existing characters and stop introducing a whole new cast for each book? When do we get to see these characters running into each other?
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Dec 1, 2012 03:01
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Azathoth posted:I just finished book 4 and I'm on the fence about continuing. I like the writing and the world-building is just amazing, but I am kinda getting sick of the endless introductions of new characters. Each book gets me really interested in the characters and their personal story, shows how they connect to a larger story, then promptly abandons them. The next book is another whole new set of characters and locations but after that everything starts converging towards the finale to some extent, although he never stops introducing new characters and races, after midnight tides you know almost all the core players. There is always overlap between the books that you may not spot first time round as well. Read midnight Tides before giving up though, its a lot of peoples favourite book in the series.
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Dec 1, 2012 03:18
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echomadman posted:Read midnight Tides before giving up though, its a lot of peoples favourite book in the series. And if you're like me and struggle to get into MT, it's worth pushing through it. I'm like halfway through Bonehunters and loving it, mainly because it goes back to most of my favorite characters.
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Dec 1, 2012 04:38
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CORN NOG posted:And if you're like me and struggle to get into MT, it's worth pushing through it. I'm like halfway through Bonehunters and loving it, mainly because it goes back to most of my favorite characters.
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Dec 1, 2012 04:56
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Azathoth posted:This is kinda what I'm hoping for. It's difficult to push through a 800 page book, but if the story starts rolling downhill after the next book, I'm prepared to go on. Thanks for the information. I seem to be a bit of an outlier here in not really being a fan of MT, so you might end up liking it a lot more than I did. (I will admit it does pick up towards the end though)
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Dec 1, 2012 05:12
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Azathoth posted:At what point does he continue telling the story of existing characters and stop introducing a whole new cast for each book? When do we get to see these characters running into each other? Book 6 is where it all starts rolling together. 5 is the last book where you'll be bewildered by a completely new cast, and the Malazan army from book 4 will stick around for a long time.
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Dec 1, 2012 12:39
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The way it feels is that book 1 is the end of the last series, books 2 and 3 are prologues, books 4 and 5 are the intros for the new series and everything after builds off that. Books 1-3 are really about wrapping up the original armies of the Malazan Empire and ending their story.
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Dec 1, 2012 18:32
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About four chapters in to DoD and am loving it. I enjoyed TtH but it was by far the least enjoyed for me out of the series, I am super interested to see how this will all tie up.
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Dec 2, 2012 04:12
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02-6611-0142-1 posted:Book 6 is where it all starts rolling together. 5 is the last book where you'll be bewildered by a completely new cast, and the Malazan army from book 4 will stick around for a long time. I'm definitely feeling this. I'm about a quarter of the way through 6 and it has a completely different feel, not entirely because 5 was so different. It just feels like the setup is mostly done and it really is starting to roll towards its ending. I was really dragging my feet to start Midnight Tides since it just felt like such a roadblock at the time, but I ended up liking the story enough. I like it a lot less in hindsight after book 6 has started out so fantastic, though.
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Dec 2, 2012 18:27
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HeroOfTheRevolution posted:Halfway through Blood and Bone and it's a mess. The Crimson Guard just aren't the least bit interesting. Just finished it. The Crimson Guard is a bunch of wuzzies. No wonder they got beaten by Kellanved. Seriously though, there were too many tracks that ended up in nothing. Quite neat how it tied in with Stonewielder though, when they explained why Skinner was at the Wall. So the only interesting that happened was that they stopped a repeat performance of calling down one of the Crippled Gods followers. Otherwise, Kallor was much less interesting than in other books. The Crimson Guard is reunited, Skinner is dead, and they are still quite pointless. For being an army of semi-immortal mercenaries with a grudge, they really lack focus. Ardata and the Enchantress was not particular interesting either. Although, Golan and the Thaumaturg army was quite interesting although I really dislike long jungle treks. Only redeeming feature, now we can finally get to know what happened in Assail and where Silverfox went.
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Dec 3, 2012 09:03
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Not a single one of the Blood and Bone story lines pay off in the least. Skinner dies in the most hilariously afterthought way possible. Then the whole Disavowed storyline ends and everyone makes up as if it never happened. Ho-hum. The piece of the Crippled God from Stonewielder is stolen by Lady Spite, then turns out to be nothing anyways. Pointless page-filling garbage with Osserc, with L'oric showing up for no reason. I think this had something to do with Saeng opening the path to Elder Light and Osserc returning there but I... have no idea. Crimson Guard has a big secret... sorry, the secret is in another castle (Assail). Where did all the man-beasts go? What the gently caress is Lek or whatever? The Crimson Guard and Spite/Envy are probably the least interesting characters in the entire series. Kallor is boring and hasn't changed. The Jatal storyline is loving pointless. The Golan storyline was literally themed as a storyline that goes nowhere, but it still felt pointless. I'm usually a ICE apologist and I thought OST was a really good book, but this was more like Stonewielder. A ton of pointless poo poo that goes nowhere with no particular relevatory payoff. For what it's worth, read B&B after The Crippled God because it explicitly makes mention of the climax of that book. HeroOfTheRevolution fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Dec 3, 2012 |
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Dec 3, 2012 16:40
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HeroOfTheRevolution posted:Not a single one of the Blood and Bone story lines pay off in the least. gently caress you Esselmont, you get a bunch of interesting threads from the Malazan Books and you just poo poo on it. I understand why you didn't get to write the main storyline. Some comments though: The piece of the Crippled God is probably inert since the Crippled God and his believers have moved on, and the time line in B&B is in sync with the Malazan Book of the Fallen. Envy and Spite are more interesting in FoD, here Spite is just pointless and behaves like Gollum. My precious...... Although I would argue that the impression of Osserc in FoD, where he is a self-interested prick continues in B&B. Funny part is that all other Ascendants find him quite pointless, which is constantly remarked in the series. Sort of explains why the Tiste Liosan are so hosed-up.
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Dec 4, 2012 08:34
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What I really don't get is why I.C.E keeps trying to make mysteries out of nothing. It's like LOST in some ways. What is the point of not telling the reader that Warleader is Kallor? I'm actually not going to spoiler tag that because it's stupid. I haven't come to the part of the book where it's explicitly stated, which I expect it will be. But it's just so obviously stupid to an avid Malazan fan. He does this all the time, it was really painful in Sceptre, Orb, Throne with Mordecai, Orchid and all that. In this book it's even worse, with I.C.E using 'indigenous' words for regular stuff like weapons without describing them: WTF is a whipsword? Or a afnasdazak? It feels like some incredibly lazy or sloppy narration. I've come about 1/3 in to the book and I'm not very excited, it feels like there is no real purpose to the book. Just I.C.E pulling poo poo out of his rear end and placing it in a 'magical jungle'. Oh and a robot and a submarine?! COME ON! zokie fucked around with this message at 10:59 on Dec 4, 2012 |
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Dec 4, 2012 10:56
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Murk and Sour were good, at least, if nothing we haven't seen before.
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Dec 4, 2012 21:46
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zokie posted:What I really don't get is why I.C.E keeps trying to make mysteries out of nothing. It's like LOST in some ways. What is the point of not telling the reader that Warleader is Kallor? I'm actually not going to spoiler tag that because it's stupid. I haven't come to the part of the book where it's explicitly stated, which I expect it will be. But it's just so obviously stupid to an avid Malazan fan. Holy poo poo the Warleader is Kallor? Hah! Still got half the book to go, that's a mind blower.
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Dec 5, 2012 00:37
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Bluedust posted:Holy poo poo the Warleader is Kallor? Hah! Still got half the book to go, that's a mind blower. Its pretty obvious from early on but as the book goes one he really lays on the "hey this warleader dude looks familiar" "those carvings on every temple look familiar" "the guy on these coins looks familiar" Blood and Bone was a let down after Orb,Sceptre,Throne. I think the fact that Erikson had already fleshed out Darujhistan and its main characters in the main series that Esslemont had less to do and more to work with, when he went back to characters that he's had more control of he lapsed back into mediocre fantasy. That said it had some enjoyable parts and now that we're out of the parallel timelines that the last few books have had it may pick up. Esslemonts books are still better than a lot of other stuff out there, and all his information is canon at least even if it reads like fanfiction sometimes. So you get a broader understanding of whats going on in the malazan universe.
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Dec 5, 2012 03:57
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Nice little package came for me today:  
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Dec 7, 2012 03:05
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Very nice! Amusingly I have the same terrible Bonehunters edition making GBS threads up an otherwise stellar looking set of books. Santa's sleigh meets clownshoes in some sort of automobile accident. I remember someone telling me the UK edition has good art though, have to see about picking that one up sometime.
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Dec 7, 2012 03:18
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The American TtH cover is 10x worse than any other. Even in person it looks grainy and out of focus.
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Dec 7, 2012 04:02
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I find all the cover art charming in their own way. This was the most feasible way for me to get the set in hardcovers. I actually kinda like the bonehunters cover  I enjoy the look of the newer Bantam paperbacks, but I actually find the original UK artwork to be the least appealing (I'm thinking specifically of MoI,HoC, and MT, the rest are cool). Anyway barechested Fabios and overturned Santa sleighs aside, I'm very happy with my set. I live in Canada and joined the American SFBC in order to get this set. To eBay them individually I was finding these for about 30 dollars each at best, much more expensive and difficult if I wanted to collect the original US hardcovers and pretty much impossible to find a complete set of the original UK ones. So I got my whole set for about 75USD plus an extra 20 or so because MT was out of stock at SFBC. I found a warehouse that lets Canadians ship american products to their place, so I set that up as my address and was able off the US only site that would have been otherwise off limits. It was about an hour trip over the border to get them. Been a bit of an adventure for them so I'm pleased. Pegnose Pete fucked around with this message at 05:27 on Dec 7, 2012 |
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Dec 7, 2012 05:19
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Yeah I love the Bonehunters, the red suited guys are the trading cooperative, there are zombies clinging to it, and there was probably an avalanche somewhere in the travels they went through, although I haven't read that one in a few years.
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Dec 7, 2012 17:58
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echomadman posted:Blood and Bone was a let down after Orb,Sceptre,Throne. And as it usually happens with Esslemont opinions are all over the place. See for example someone calling it his best, especially after that other one you mentioned: http://ofblog.blogspot.it/2012/12/ian-cameron-esslemont-blood-and-bone.html on the whole, I did think this book was a major improvement on his last one.
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Dec 8, 2012 00:04
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I finally got to the point in The Bonehunters where the book cover scene took place... and that somehow makes it even more laughable now.
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Dec 10, 2012 18:46
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Robot Danger posted:I finally got to the point in The Bonehunters where the book cover scene took place... and that somehow makes it even more laughable now. Yeah, it is really minor and has nothing to do with anything. They could have picked almost any other scene and it would have worked fine.
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Dec 10, 2012 21:56
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Nearly half way through with Deadhouse Gates and for some reason I'm not feeling it as much as I did Gardens of the Moon. I can't even place what it is about it that's making it slower to get through, but I'm not binging through it. Maybe it's the characters? So far I really only like the ones returning from the first book and Mappo and Icarium. Everyone else seems kind of, I don't know... Bland maybe. Also it doesn't really feel like much has happened yet. I'm hoping it will get going in the second half though. The climax of Gardens of the Moon was absolutely riveting.
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Dec 10, 2012 23:48
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It's not healthy to binge on this series anyway IMO. There's too much and they're too dense. I'm confident you'll enjoy the chain of dogs.
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Dec 10, 2012 23:53
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Fuzzy Mammal posted:It's not healthy to binge on this series anyway IMO. There's too much and they're too dense. I'm confident you'll enjoy the chain of dogs. That's a good point. I might have been reading too fast. Some of the stuff wasn't sticking and I had to go reread some of it just to remember what took place last.
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Dec 11, 2012 00:27
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Last night i read the scene in Dust of Dreams where Fiddler does the reading, and i think that it is one of my favorite scenes in the series so far. I can't wait until i get to the part where it all comes together and i find out what everything means. Even Bugg didn't know what the hell happened. Also, I hate the Errant. 
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Dec 11, 2012 00:56
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apophenium posted:Nearly half way through with Deadhouse Gates and for some reason I'm not feeling it as much as I did Gardens of the Moon. I can't even place what it is about it that's making it slower to get through, but I'm not binging through it. Maybe it's the characters? So far I really only like the ones returning from the first book and Mappo and Icarium. Everyone else seems kind of, I don't know... Bland maybe. Also it doesn't really feel like much has happened yet. I'm hoping it will get going in the second half though. The climax of Gardens of the Moon was absolutely riveting. I felt the same way, but Memories of Ice was awesome. Anyhow Deadhouse Gates holds up quite well as a reread.
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Dec 11, 2012 06:26
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Fuzzy Mammal posted:It's not healthy to binge on this series anyway IMO. There's too much and they're too dense. I'm confident you'll enjoy the chain of dogs. Chain of dogs is one of the best parts of the series. I keep forgetting it since it is in the second book in the series, but it is the best part of Deadhouse Gates. Mappo, Icarium, Fiddler, Crokus and Kalam are just sort of meh compared to Coltaine and the Wickans. And the ending...... 
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Dec 11, 2012 08:45
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apophenium posted:Nearly half way through with Deadhouse Gates and for some reason I'm not feeling it as much as I did Gardens of the Moon. I can't even place what it is about it that's making it slower to get through, but I'm not binging through it. Maybe it's the characters? So far I really only like the ones returning from the first book and Mappo and Icarium. Everyone else seems kind of, I don't know... Bland maybe. Also it doesn't really feel like much has happened yet. I'm hoping it will get going in the second half though. The climax of Gardens of the Moon was absolutely riveting. Deadhouse Gates is a slow boil but it's worth the payoff. If you hate Felisin then I'm pretty sure that's intentional, and Coltaine is really one of the biggest badasses in the series. The climax is a little less epic in terms of gods duking it out but on a personal level it's much more fascinating than the first book.
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Dec 11, 2012 16:59
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Cardiac posted:Chain of dogs is one of the best parts of the series. I keep forgetting it since it is in the second book in the series, but it is the best part of Deadhouse Gates. God yes, I hated the book the first time I read it, the second time I really enjoyed it. I wonder if (massive Deadhouse Gates spoilers) Coltaine will turn up in any future books. He's too awesome not to!
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Dec 11, 2012 17:53
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