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HeroOfTheRevolution posted:It's a weird storyline that basically exists to give Itkovian and the Black Coral Andii something to do and basically references a bunch of unclear and largely forgotten GotM stuff. I wouldn't worry too much about it. I think Silverfox casts out Bellurdan's soul and he's mad that he's not with Nightchill or something. I don't know. My understanding of it was that Silverfox's soul was made from mostly Tattersail's soul, with some of Nightchill and a little bit of Bellurdan thrown in. The parts of Bellurdan's soul (and I guess Nightchill's as well) that weren't used were resentful about being cast aside and decided to try to do something similar to get resurrected. Hairlock was only involved in that he taught them how to do the soulshifting business. I'm not really sure how the putting together parts of souls thing works, but I doubt the author does either.
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Aug 14, 2013 04:47
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HeroOfTheRevolution posted:It's a weird storyline that basically exists to give Itkovian and the Black Coral Andii something to do and basically references a bunch of unclear and largely forgotten GotM stuff. I wouldn't worry too much about it. I think Silverfox casts out Bellurdan's soul and he's mad that he's not with Nightchill or something. I don't know. Yeah, it was kinda weird too now that I think back on it. As a matter of fact those Black Coral Andii were always petty weird and never seemed all that interesting to me.
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Aug 15, 2013 06:28
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I just read the OP and I'm kinda interested. I asked this question in the audiobooks thread, but I'm looking for something with large unit actions and intrigue, I was looking for something along the lines of Black Company or Codex Alera. Would you guys say this series will fill that kind of void?
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Aug 15, 2013 06:51
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It will certainly give you that, though you're going to be getting a lot more than 'filling a void'.
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Aug 15, 2013 07:02
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I started Black Company and couldn't get into if, maybe read a quarter on my kindle. Maybe it was just me being a spoilt bitch but Cook's world building didn't do it for me.
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Aug 15, 2013 09:42
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So I keep seeing critics of the Malazan series comparing it to Dragonball Z, which just is a lazyass critic. Anyways, anyone knows where this comes from? Since there is not that much original thought on the net, I'm guessing people must have picked it up somewhere.
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Aug 15, 2013 10:39
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SageSepth posted:I just read the OP and I'm kinda interested. I asked this question in the audiobooks thread, but I'm looking for something with large unit actions and intrigue, I was looking for something along the lines of Black Company or Codex Alera. Would you guys say this series will fill that kind of void? I don't know Black Company, but coming from Alera, I'd rather recommend to read Mistborn or Wheel of Time first. Mostly, because of what's right there in the thread title, "too many words". While there are great scenes and storylines, as well as unique characters in Malazan, there is also a lot of pseudo-philosophical filler. The magic/supernatural system is a plot device, that has no really discernible rules and is capable of doing something or not depending on the needs of the story. This is usually forgotten by the next book/when it is convenient. Also, there is no "red thread" in the story, no overall goal. People fight a little bit on this continent, a little bit on that, unify against a new ridiculously evil enemy, who is forgotten by the next book, except for maybe him or some of his minions joining the "good" guys, to fight another ridiculously evil new enemy, who is forgotten by the next book, etc. There are some really great characters and dialogues, some really heartwrenching plotlines and scenes, but you have to look for them in a lot of irrelevant kitchen philosophy and inner monologues. BTW. I'm currently on Dust of Dreams (~30 %), which at least is better than Toll the Hounds, only the second book in the last 30 years to make me consider stop reading in the middle of the book/near the end of a series.
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Aug 15, 2013 11:27
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goethe42 posted:I don't know Black Company, but coming from Alera, I'd rather recommend to read Mistborn or Wheel of Time first. Sorry, have we read the same books? Wheel of Time, if anything, is "too many words". Mistborn is just a typical Sanderson book with only 3 books in the series, so hardly a comparison. The Malazan series has some slower moments in various parts of the books, whereas WoT has 2-3 books which are just a waste of words and braid-tugging. Then Jordan realized he was gonna die and killed off half his storylines just in order to bring the story forward.
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Aug 15, 2013 11:53
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Cardiac posted:So I keep seeing critics of the Malazan series comparing it to Dragonball Z, which just is a lazyass critic. It's just a surface comparison of "people have power levels and end up fighting." Power levels = DBZ. Anyway I finished Blood and Bone the other day, a little late to the party I know. Probably the best of ICE's books just in terms of the quality of writing, this time he really nailed the atmosphere and characterization of the other Malazan books. He's also gotten rid of the annoying habit of writing about characters without revealing who they are; this was something that was ever-present in Crimson Guard and Stonewielder but this time around there aren't any huge mysteries left unresolved (besides the sequel hook) or mysterious figures doing stuff. ICE tied a lot of stuff together with this one and even connected the book to events in both The Crippled God and in Forge of Darkness and the forthcoming Kharkanas books, As someone who was always lukewarm about ICE I think he's finally hit his stride.
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Aug 15, 2013 17:32
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Cardiac posted:So I keep seeing critics of the Malazan series comparing it to Dragonball Z, which just is a lazyass critic. Mostly though, Erickson's entire premise is that high "power levels" have their own form of "gravity", which means that the stronger you are in the Malazan world, the more likely you're going to bump into someone who's at least on a comparative level, and then when you get a couple of serious 'powers' near to each other in either a team or conflict, that will attract even more 'powers' and wanna-bes, which simply causes a critical escalation as the amount of power in a location gains enough "gravity" to form sort of a black hole that sucks in anybody who's a badass, in the vicinity, to put it casually. Since DBZ is all about constantly training and increasing power to do more and more ludicrous attacks, it's an easy (but fairly fallacious) comparison to make if you want to be dismissive. There aren't many characters in the Malazan series though, who could literally blow up the planet with a single attack (although Caladon Brood's hammer could foreseeably do enough damage to cause an apocalypse, but he's one of the 'pillar' characters for me for most of the series, and doesn't really change much - or even do much - for most of the books, he's kind of too powerful to allow to get into serious conflicts, kind of like how Superman is 'the most boring superhero'). coyo7e fucked around with this message at 20:49 on Aug 15, 2013 |
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Aug 15, 2013 20:46
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SansPants posted:My understanding of it was that Silverfox's soul was made from mostly Tattersail's soul, with some of Nightchill and a little bit of Bellurdan thrown in. The parts of Bellurdan's soul (and I guess Nightchill's as well) that weren't used were resentful about being cast aside and decided to try to do something similar to get resurrected. Hairlock was only involved in that he taught them how to do the soulshifting business. I'm not really sure how the putting together parts of souls thing works, but I doubt the author does either. He seems to rely on split personalities when it comes to characters making important decisions, albeit leaning towards Nightchill taking over more and more. (Eg, should Silverfox be killed early? Eh, she's acting like Tattersail now, let's leave it for awhile. Oh poo poo, now she's off on a tangent.) I'm halfway through The Bonehunters so I guess I'll wait and see what future events reveal.
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Aug 15, 2013 22:02
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SageSepth posted:I just read the OP and I'm kinda interested. I asked this question in the audiobooks thread, but I'm looking for something with large unit actions and intrigue, I was looking for something along the lines of Black Company or Codex Alera. Would you guys say this series will fill that kind of void? Erickson has actually stated outright that the black company was one of his major influences, so I imagine you'd enjoy it. A significant portion of the series follows a group of soldiers and although I've never read the black company, I would recommend you read you through the first two books if you want to give it a try. If you don't find the characters in the first, and the battles in the second to be to you liking, you probably won't enjoy the series. On another note, why's everyone always so down on the philosophical aspects of the books? That's one of my favorite things about the series. Tehol's musings in the nature of his society, Duiker's thoughts on humanity, Rhulad's discourse with the crippled god. They all add to the story. They flesh out a character's motivations and help us understand them better. While I'll admit, some are less intriguing than others (shut up clip) I still prefer them to a more typical style of exposition. If you imagine the series without these moments of self reflection it loses a lot of it's depth. People talk about how these books are able to reach incredible emotional heights that other books just don't come close to, and I think a deep understanding of the characters is a big part of that. Sure, it takes some time out from the action now and then, but would you care as deeply about the consequences of those actions if it wasn't there? There are so many different points of view that it never feels like he's trying to hammer home any one particular point. It's not like he's preaching his own philosophy and trying to convert the reader, he's just using it as a tool to help form connections with the characters. It seems like everyone's really critical of it, but I think it's an essential part of what makes these books so drat good.
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Aug 15, 2013 22:16
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You all make great points. But my avatar makes a better one. Especially when talking to a butcher fan (I also loved the roman Pokemon series and Dresden so that's no insult)... Motherfucking velociraptors with swords for hands flying giant mountain spacecraft.
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Aug 15, 2013 22:31
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Pokeylope posted:
I don't mind the philosophical aspects in and of themselves, it just seems like in later books that there's a lot more of it and most new POVs introduced later in the series engage in lengthy internal monologues of it.
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Aug 15, 2013 23:23
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Masonity posted:Motherfucking velociraptors with swords for hands flying giant mountain spacecraft. this and nazi caveman zombies are what keep me coming back
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Aug 15, 2013 23:42
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Masonity posted:You all make great points. But my avatar makes a better one. Especially when talking to a butcher fan (I also loved the roman Pokemon series and Dresden so that's no insult)... Well, with this sort of information, how can I resist.  Honestly I was kinda considering this series. I'm sure I'll catch some heat for this, but I've gone through the first 6-7 Wheel of Time books and honestly I've burned out. I find certain characters which I don't like get entirely too much time and other aspects just seem like simple communication could solve just about all the issues.As for Black Company, the prose style from the first paragraph on hooked me, it was the second series I read as a kid behind LoTR and the idea of following the exploits of some extremely bad dudes, as they're swallowed up by some even worse dudes was really interesting to me when I was 11 and they just stuck with me. When I got older and reread them last year, it really struck me how much my love for strategy games and stories in general was shaped by this series. So when I read the first paragraph of the OP and it mention Black Company, well just thought I'd give it a look. Thanks for the info guys gonna go Download it now since I have 4 token burning a hole in my pocket. SageSepth fucked around with this message at 00:59 on Aug 16, 2013 |
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Aug 16, 2013 00:57
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Dalmuti posted:this and nazi caveman zombies are what keep me coming back I am so confused. What caveman zombies were there and how were they nazis?
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Aug 16, 2013 02:15
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Spermy Smurf posted:I am so confused. What caveman zombies were there and how were they nazis? Imass were essentially cavemen. They became zombies in order to commit genocide against the jaghut. Very few jaghut had anything to do with tyrants, so it's pretty much a tusked holocaust with some very dry humor
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Aug 16, 2013 02:33
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Dalmuti posted:Imass were essentially cavemen. They became zombies in order to commit genocide against the jaghut. Very few jaghut had anything to do with tyrants, so it's pretty much a tusked holocaust with some very dry humor And it's dry because they are desiccated corpses 
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Aug 16, 2013 12:09
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goethe42 posted:I don't know Black Company, but coming from Alera, I'd rather recommend to read Mistborn or Wheel of Time first. Agreeing with Cardiac, were we reading the same series? The magic system in Malazan has one of the most unified set of rules that I've seen. You may not understand the full set of rules at all times (especially in the beginning of the series). But by the last few books, its very clear how it all works. If you retrospectively analyzed all the magic in the series (excepting GotM perhaps) I have a hard time finding anything Gandalf-y. It also adds a lot of depth to the characters. Why Quick Ben uses the types of magic that he does, why some elder races can gently caress poo poo up, why younger mortal races are more graceful with their loving poo poo up, etc etc. It all boils down to a set of rules that are very consistent. There are a few holes for sure: Icarium seems to have super powers, the Azath are relatively unexplained, the K'Chain Che'Malle are a bit of a wildcard in the whole magic system. Regarding "red thread", the main story line takes a while to fully formulate, but by time you hit the fourth book (iirc?) it starts to materialize why you've been reading about all the disparate battles across the continents. If you don't have an inkling of the main plot then you haven't really been paying attention. Lastly, one of the points of the series is that there is no universal "good" guy or "bad" guy. I think Erickson did a pretty good job painting everyone in shades of grey.
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Aug 16, 2013 12:19
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polyfractal posted:And it's dry because they are desiccated corpses i've reconsidered
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Aug 16, 2013 14:11
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So I'm about a third of the way into House of Chains, and I think I may have missed something at the end of Deadhouse Gates: I'm up to the reintroduction of Kalam, and its talking about how he and Minala are training children in Shadowthrone's warren. The last thing I remember was the scene between Kalam and Laseen, so I'm a bit lost as to what I missed/forgot.
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Aug 16, 2013 15:15
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Hmm, you definitely missed something. There's a whole section were Minala and Kalam come across refugee children and take them in and I forget how they end up in cahoots with Shadowthrone, maybe a bargain to escape an attack by raiders or something? I forget. EDIT: My memory blows, this kind of sums it up better: http://malazan.wikia.com/wiki/Minala
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Aug 16, 2013 15:18
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The Ninth Layer posted:Anyway I finished Blood and Bone the other day, a little late to the party I know. Probably the best of ICE's books just in terms of the quality of writing, this time he really nailed the atmosphere and characterization of the other Malazan books. He's also gotten rid of the annoying habit of writing about characters without revealing who they are; this was something that was ever-present in Crimson Guard and Stonewielder but this time around there aren't any huge mysteries left unresolved (besides the sequel hook) or mysterious figures doing stuff. ICE tied a lot of stuff together with this one and even connected the book to events in both The Crippled God and in Forge of Darkness and the forthcoming Kharkanas books, That is comforting because I had been avoiding ICE books (partially due to fatigue from reading the Erikson series straight through), but I have actually liked Crimson Guard so far and even enjoyed Night of Knives (but it was thankfully a bit short or else it would have wore on me).
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Aug 16, 2013 17:59
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Was hoping I saw a Tiste Adii cosplay here at GenCon, but sadly I asked and they were only your garden variety Drow. :-(
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Aug 16, 2013 19:10
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Imass are more like Neanderthals in that they're an evolutionary offshoot that's closely related to the main branch of humanity but isn't quite the same.
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Aug 16, 2013 22:08
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HeroOfTheRevolution posted:Imass are more like Neanderthals in that they're an evolutionary offshoot that's closely related to the main branch of humanity but isn't quite the same. yeah cavemen
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Aug 16, 2013 22:22
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Imass aren't Nazis, they only hate one race
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Aug 16, 2013 22:24
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Elyv posted:Imass aren't Nazis, they only hate one race little known fact: after TCG, tool went on to a prominent legal career in the malazan empire 
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Aug 16, 2013 22:27
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Were the Imass really out of line? I thought Jaghut society was so bad that they voluntarily dissolved themselves and decided to live in solitude, because it was basically like the Roman empire with super powered monster butchers as the government.
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Aug 16, 2013 23:11
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I thought the Jaghut abandoned society before tyrants really became a problem. Didn't some guy just walk in one day, explain to them why civilization is bad, and they just agreed? The way the whole tyrant thing works doesn't seem to lend itself to having a society of tyrants.
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Aug 16, 2013 23:23
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The Imass were out of line because they went from defending themselves to genocide, and went as far as killing Jaghut children and Jaghut that just wanted to chill ( ) and do their own thing and stay way from everyone else. they got way too obsessed with killing every Jaghut ever, even the ones that weren't a threat in the slightest
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Aug 16, 2013 23:43
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Loving Life Partner posted:Were the Imass really out of line? I thought Jaghut society was so bad that they voluntarily dissolved themselves and decided to live in solitude, because it was basically like the Roman empire with super powered monster butchers as the government. All that was before the tyrants. I bet Hood just ripped a huge fart at dinner and Gothos said gently caress it Dalmuti fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Aug 16, 2013 |
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Aug 16, 2013 23:46
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Ethiser posted:I thought the Jaghut abandoned society before tyrants really became a problem. Didn't some guy just walk in one day, explain to them why civilization is bad, and they just agreed? The way the whole tyrant thing works doesn't seem to lend itself to having a society of tyrants. That was Gothos, IIRC. Showed up in their super city of Jaghuty awesomeness, convinced everyone civilization was for the birds and then everyone went their own way. After that he chilled in the city by himself and wrote Gotho's Folly. The Jaghut race came to collective consensus that civilization was not all that great, even though it is what every race seems to strive for. So they went about their own way, largely living peacefully by themselves or with close kin. It was well before tyrants were a problem. Tyrants were the few and far between Jaghut that decided to be dicks instead of sitting around making paper dolls or raising horses or writing books Elyv posted:Imass aren't Nazis, they only hate one race That's not entirely accurate: they are quick to try and kill anyone that seems "tyranty". For example, they are interested in killing the Tiste Liosan, murdered the imposter Demon who was pretending to be Father Light, and attempted (without success) to kill the Forkrul Assail polyfractal fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Aug 17, 2013 |
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Aug 17, 2013 05:44
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So what does Hood defeating death actually mean? Did he create the Malazan after life? Kallor gets pretty emotional when he discovers what happened which is pretty unlike him. We hear about him building an army in Forge of Darkness so I hope we see more of that in the rest of the prequels.
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Aug 17, 2013 07:11
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Well it might have been find and dandy for the Jaghut, since they had superpowers. Not so much for your average Imass.
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Aug 18, 2013 00:07
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polyfractal posted:
 is at least somewhat appropriate, as much as it is a "DBZ" level of dismissive criticism which seems to be de rigeur in TBB, alongside American posters bitching about sex scenes which upset them.
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Aug 18, 2013 05:53
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coyo7e posted:It's been a while however, I'm pretty sure that I regularly came across the Imass feeling pretty uhh, 'antagonistic?' against anybody who threatens their own supremacy in the world. So yeah, Basically, Imass couldn't stand the fact that they were continuously at the mercy of the Jaghut. The Imass were then more numerous and more civilized (in their own eyes) because this came after the Jaghut's own decilne, but every so often a Jaghut decided to be a Tyrant and just became master of a continent or two of Imass, and they couldn't really do anything about it because Jaghuts were all quite ridiculously powerful. Tyrants Jaghuts might have been 'uncommon', but i suspect there was still one around every twenty or so years (because there were still quite a few Jaghuts) and that all were pretty much civilization-destroyers for the Imass. So, well, the Imass decided that they needed to kill all the Jaghuts in order to make sure the threat disappeared. One thing led to another, and here comes the T'lan Imass. As for 'all shades of gray', well, you have to keep in mind that half the races in the world are currently threatened by annihilation, so of course fro their points of views they need to be ruthless (Barghast, Forkrul Assail, Tiste, Jaghut, Imass, K'chen....)
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Aug 18, 2013 14:17
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One of the themes in the books seems to be that civilization is terrible and we should never have done it. Linked to that is the idea that's it's too late now and we'll have to live with it. The Jaghut have managed to get rid of civilization, but it turns that it only works if you're quasi-indestructible demigods who can conjure up food out of thin air. And even with them the ones who disagree with abandoning civilization go ahead and inflict it on the Imass.
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Aug 18, 2013 17:03
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Just finished the 3rd book last night, quick question. Who was Dassem Ultor again? I can't remember if they've explained it or not yet.
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Aug 18, 2013 17:10
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