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GreenBuckanneer posted:I feel like I need a chaperone with how blue and red talk to each other. I take it you're listening! ...yes, it's *extremely* intimate
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Jan 12, 2023 00:14
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MockingQuantum posted:I've never read any of Malazan, but I was talking to a friend of a friend about fantasy books the other day and mentioned that the Black Company books are some of my favorites, and he thought it was absolutely criminal that I hadn't ever tried Malazan. Is that a fair comparison? He didn't really go into why, and I have no idea who this person was other than he seemed to generally have decent taste in fantasy novels so for all I know he was talking out of his rear end and thought I'd check here... because I want a long fantasy series to bury myself in while work is stressful and WoT is not quite what I want (though I've actually enjoyed the first three books well enough) So Malazan is definitely inspired by the Black Company, but it's much much bigger in terms of scope, number of characters, the power displayed and just about everything really. This isn't always to it's credit, but if you really like cook I think checking out the first book or two is worth your time.
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Jan 12, 2023 00:26
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StrixNebulosa posted:I don’t honestly know if I can talk about a series that features an invading army of crazed cultists dying in a house to a Player Character so densely that literally no inch in the house is left open and not call it grimdark. And that isn’t even one of the bigger dark moments. I think that for me this doesn't necessarily have to be grimdark, it could be extra-cheesy sword&sorcery (of the 'mighty thews') variety, or something played for laughs (like the old 'Samurai Cat' books). But that scene isn't in isolation and in the context of all the rape and torture and war crimes there's no alternative.
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Jan 12, 2023 00:31
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Malazan is an excellent series and don't let anybody tell you any different. I completely understand why people don't make it through the first book but I also will use that fact to judge and divide them into two different camps and base any subsequent recommendations on whether they dropped it or kept reading. It's definitely a litmus test and there is nothing bad about not passing it's just a convenient test of what you are likely to enjoy.
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Jan 12, 2023 00:36
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pradmer posted:Eversion by Alistair Reynolds - $2.99 Seems to also be on sale on the Canadian store, and on Kobo. Lol I need to start just buying things natively on Kobo rather than having to break the Amazon DRM just so I can read them.
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Jan 12, 2023 00:50
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As a Mazalan neophyte, you just have to let go and accept there's things that you aren't going to understand, maybe he'll get back to them later, maybe he won't. It helps that there's an extensive fan wiki that is really good about not putting spoilers in the opening paragraph of their articles. I'm only about a quarter of the way in to Deadhouse Gates and I wouldn't say I've noticed an insane jump in prose quality but it's structured better. The first book, some things would seem to happen out of nowhere, and it also leans heavily on supernatural forces intentionally causing unlikely contrivances but that's also kind of a theme of the first book so I don't ding it too hard on that front. What's also interesting is how freely magic is used. I'm used to fantasy where magic exacts a dear price upon the user and every time they use it's a huge crisis point decision and in Malazan they're using supernatural powers to slam doors in anger and then get mad because it isn't as satisfying as using your hand. I also like that the gods are more like Olympian gods than unseen forces referenced only through ritual or exposition.
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Jan 12, 2023 00:57
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The malazan guy has been really kind to me. That said I read Deadhouse Gates and Bonehunters and it was all just sort of, well, there's some stuff happening. Look there's some weird guys. Oh, they're on the verge of becoming gods? Why? I don't know. I guess because they rode a special boat. Now there are dogs coming! And a special portal carriage! Oh no, a giant green statue fell from the sky. A man has killed his pig god by accident. Now the ghosts of dead children must defend the throne of shadows. This amnesiac with a weird sword is a nuclear bomb, and this other guy must suck his dick for eternity lest he explode. Don't let the jaghut fight the t'lann i'mass or there will be a convergence and I guess the tarot cards might get funny. Who's there? What's that? Oh it's the god of potsherds and this was his plan all along. It was like listening to a guy narrate the painting on the side of his van, which is probably for many people a really cool experience. But drat.
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Jan 12, 2023 00:59
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Yeah, not in terms of prose, style or theme, but in terms of “wtf is happening” he reminds me of Gene Wolfe or Jack Vance Also I think you shouldn’t have skipped the first book
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Jan 12, 2023 01:04
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I like Malazan because it has some very hard-hitting emotional moments. It does take a long time to get there though.zoux posted:As a Mazalan neophyte, you just have to let go and accept there's things that you aren't going to understand, maybe he'll get back to them later, maybe he won't. This. If you don't mind the prose style and can let go of the constant need to look stuff up, it will go easier. He does eventually give you big pay-offs for the important stuff. zoux posted:Also I think you shouldn’t have skipped the first book Yeah, skipping book 1 and then reading book 6 after that is not what I would recommend either.
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Jan 12, 2023 01:21
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I've never understood the whole "and it was a D&D campaign the whole time!" complaint wrt Malazan I get that he's admitted that's where the inspiration for the world came from, but I can't think of a single thing that is evocative of either D&D in specific or an RP campaign in general. Would anyone have even noticed if he didn't bring it up himself?
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Jan 12, 2023 01:22
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WarpDogs posted:I've never understood the whole "and it was a D&D campaign the whole time!" complaint wrt Malazan No I don’t think so, just like how The Expanse originated the same way If it doesn’t feature beholders it’s basically like saying “I made a plot with characters”
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Jan 12, 2023 01:27
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Patrick Spens posted:So Malazan is definitely inspired by the Black Company, but it's much much bigger in terms of scope, number of characters, the power displayed and just about everything really. This isn't always to it's credit, but if you really like cook I think checking out the first book or two is worth your time. I'm the forums biggest Glen Cook stan, and I made it two and a half books into Malazan. There was a lot of stuff going on, but it just wasn't coming together for me.
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Jan 12, 2023 01:44
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mllaneza posted:I'm the forums biggest Glen Cook stan, and I made it two and a half books into Malazan. There was a lot of stuff going on, but it just wasn't coming together for me. I made it 8 books in. That's like 8000 pages. It certainly is one of the books of all time. I'm probably the dumbest person to have tried to read them. I assume people either finish the whole series or stop after 1 or 2 of them. But I...read 8 books. Brendan Rodgers fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Jan 12, 2023 |
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Jan 12, 2023 01:46
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Malazan is maybe the highest on the ladder for me for both 'this series is amazing' and also 'this is not for everyone.' I don't mean that in a gatekeepy way; i just can't fault anyone who bounces off it hard for any number of reasons that I wouldn't argue about. In addition to the general dark-but-arguably-not-grim tone there is a lot of sexual violence and plot threads that go nowhere or aren't mentioned in 4 more books, massive character bloat, and a very deliberate sense of not giving you the whole story at all times. I never once got the gross horny-author vibe from the sex at least, but even so there's a big trigger warning here. I still think it's worth a shot if you like big doorstopper fantasy. If you can get into it and like it there are big rewards and some of the later set pieces are just  but it's a hell of a road to get there.
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Jan 12, 2023 01:54
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WarpDogs posted:I've never understood the whole "and it was a D&D campaign the whole time!" complaint wrt Malazan  I believe it was more GURPS than D&D.
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Jan 12, 2023 01:56
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For the record when I say grimdark I don't mean "shouldn't exist" I mean "comes with all of the associated stuff in that term" with the potential nihilism, violence, gore, sexual assault etc. So read with caution...and enjoy! I love horror novels, I love some grimdark novels. In general I prefer softer stuff, but when you gotta sit down and dig into a big messy dark fantasy novel, Malazan is there for you (and there for you, and there for you, and there for you!)
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Jan 12, 2023 01:57
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MockingQuantum posted:I've never read any of Malazan, but I was talking to a friend of a friend about fantasy books the other day and mentioned that the Black Company books are some of my favorites, and he thought it was absolutely criminal that I hadn't ever tried Malazan. Is that a fair comparison? He didn't really go into why, and I have no idea who this person was other than he seemed to generally have decent taste in fantasy novels so for all I know he was talking out of his rear end and thought I'd check here... because I want a long fantasy series to bury myself in while work is stressful and WoT is not quite what I want (though I've actually enjoyed the first three books well enough) It's comparable to Black Company in that a lot of the plot is about poor bloody infantry trying to make it through a war that also involves demigods who can shapechange into dragons, thousands-of-years-old wizards who can snap their fingers and blow up entire mountain ranges, and undead Neanderthals who have been fighting the war since the last ice age. But the Black Company books are tightly focused on the Company, and the Malazan books have a massive cast and a point of view that wanders all over the place. At its best, it's got a feel of massive sweeping history that I haven't seen anywhere else other than Dune. At its worst, it's a new plot thread every five pages and a new set of character names with lots of Fan'tasy Apo'Strophes to remember.
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Jan 12, 2023 01:59
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Tiny Timbs posted:No I don’t think so, just like how The Expanse originated the same way I don't think I'd known that for sure, but I thought it was fairly obvious that the Expanse originated as a TTRPG. It didn't stop me enjoying it, but it was definitely a thing. ccubed posted:
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Jan 12, 2023 02:02
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zoux posted:As a Mazalan neophyte, you just have to let go and accept there's things that you aren't going to understand, maybe he'll get back to them later, maybe he won't. It helps that there's an extensive fan wiki that is really good about not putting spoilers in the opening paragraph of their articles. I'm only about a quarter of the way in to Deadhouse Gates and I wouldn't say I've noticed an insane jump in prose quality but it's structured better. The first book, some things would seem to happen out of nowhere, and it also leans heavily on supernatural forces intentionally causing unlikely contrivances but that's also kind of a theme of the first book so I don't ding it too hard on that front. Erikson was an archaeologist before he was an author, and it shows. Archaeology is a science where you pick up the story in the middle and have to come to understand how it fits into the greater context; Gardens of the Moon does the exact same thing. There are parts of the story that don't seem relevant until they are, and some of them turn out not to be relevant - they just happen to be in the same trove as things that were. There are characters whose initial appearance misleads you as to who and what they really are, and why they're doing what they're doing, because you only get one piece. For example: it's fairly easy to work out who Shadowthrone and Cotillion are, and knowing that you know roughly how they got to where they are, but you don't know why it happened because that evidence is somewhere else.
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Jan 12, 2023 02:13
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I skipped the first book and fell in love with the Chain of Dogs so your mileage may vary. I honestly think Gardens of the Moon is one of the weaker books in the beginning of the series.
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Jan 12, 2023 02:18
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WarpDogs posted:I've never understood the whole "and it was a D&D campaign the whole time!" complaint wrt Malazan I can't say for sure that I didn't know going in, since I didn't pick up Gardens of the Moon completely blindly, but I certainly got that vibe from the profusion of characters and plot threads while only a handful (who I presumed to be based on human players) are fleshed out. So at times it reads like a GM building on their campaign notes without editing out threads that the players never picked up on. Also, the dialog reads more like it's ad libbed than carefully crafted to sound like normal people talking (in abnormal circumstances, granted). Lead out in cuffs posted:I don't think I'd known that for sure, but I thought it was fairly obvious that the Expanse originated as a TTRPG. It didn't stop me enjoying it, but it was definitely a thing. I had no idea whatsoever from watching the show (haven't read the books yet). I did think it would make a good setting for a video game but that's more so because realistic Newtonian space warfare on the scale of a solar system sounds more interesting to me than WW2 in space. Precambrian Video Games fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Jan 12, 2023 |
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Jan 12, 2023 02:24
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Had no clue from the books at all until I saw someone mention it. Nothing really stood out as different from all the other action-packed sci-fi I’ve read.
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Jan 12, 2023 02:30
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It's really only the first half of the first book of the series that follows the original plot of the tabletop game, but some early characterization in the first book certainly comes with that. The tv series does a much smoother job of characterization since they're in their more developed state from the jump.
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Jan 12, 2023 02:41
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WarpDogs posted:I've never understood the whole "and it was a D&D campaign the whole time!" complaint The issue for me personally is that D&D campaigns fit a fairly standard plot structure that's easily recognized and once recognized it tends to make the narrative predictable. When I'm reading The Deed of Paksenarrion and she gets her paladin horse at fourth level and I go "oh, goddammit, we're getting level ups" it's because now I know that the character is following the player's handbook and the story just got a lot more predictable. You generally don't get real plot twists in a D&D game based novel; there are only going to be certain kinds of character deaths; so on. It's the difference between something like The Blacktongue Thief, which was a perfectly enjoyable book, vs, say, Lies of Locke Lamora, which was goddam brilliant. You don't have parallel narrative structures in a novel based on a D&D campaign because D&D campaigns only have one major narrative arc. Past that, there's a certain amount of breakage of the suspension of disbelief when a character literally says something like "pfeatherpfall" . It takes me out of the story as a reader, like an actor looking directly into the camera and winking. Which, ok, fine, if that's what you're into, ok, it's just not my thing. As to Malazan specifically I have a much bigger difficulty with the ap'ostrop'he's than I do with the narrative structure Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Jan 12, 2023 |
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Jan 12, 2023 02:45
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Jedit posted:Erikson was an archaeologist before he was an author, and it shows. I met Erikson at a convention and he seemed to be a relatively normal, geo-professor type guy, who’d rather be out in a field somewhere drinking warm beer and reconstructing the past from antlers and potsherds. He was supposed to be cohosting a panel on Indiana Jones, but nobody else showed up, so he just shot the poo poo and told us old field trip stories for an hour. A+ experience. Anyways, once you know he’s an archeologist, you start to see it in the way he describes landscapes, floods, deserts, and so on. NmareBfly posted:Malazan is maybe the highest on the ladder for me for both 'this series is amazing' and also 'this is not for everyone.' Completely agree - there’s some dense lore and plots that come together on re-read, wild epic battles, dark comedy, but also Every Type of Violence and Suffering. Not exactly the kind of books you could recommend to a coworker.
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Jan 12, 2023 03:32
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Fans of blood sucking carrion insects will love it
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Jan 12, 2023 04:38
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Brendan Rodgers posted:I made it 8 books in. That's like 8000 pages. It certainly is one of the books of all time. I'm probably the dumbest person to have tried to read them. I assume people either finish the whole series or stop after 1 or 2 of them. But I...read 8 books. Cool. Presumably the first 7 were at least somewhat enjoyable because you stuck with it through the 8th. I think if I'd started when the series started, I'd probably still be reading it, but I took a look at it after some previous discussion of it in this thread and ho-lee-poo poo. Once you add in the prequels, sidequels and the main series, this thing is 20+ book and counting. Plus novellas. And... no, I can't imagine enjoying this thing enough to invest the amount of time (and money) I'd need to invest to really get into it.
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Jan 12, 2023 06:11
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I can’t remember if I knew The Expanse's tabletop roots before I watched the show but in hindsight they're very obvious in the way the characters get practically railroaded from one villainous plot to another. Whoever ran the original game was not the subtlest GM.
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Jan 12, 2023 06:20
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NmareBfly posted:Malazan is maybe the highest on the ladder for me for both 'this series is amazing' and also 'this is not for everyone.' and at its worst, it's like reading a fan wiki for a JRPG series you've never played
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Jan 12, 2023 06:31
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The only reason Malazan is good is because Steven Erikson is actually a really good writer. If he were even slightly worse, Malazan would be an unreadable mess — as evidenced by all the Malazan books written by the other guy, which are unreadable messes.
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Jan 12, 2023 06:36
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I never got into mazalan because everyone kept telling me I'd understand it after my first or second reread, and if I don't even reread the bible to make sure I go to heaven, I'm not rereading a confusing as gently caress book series to see if something clicks this time. If you dig it, awesome. Just not my kinda thing.
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Jan 12, 2023 07:49
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eXXon posted:I can't say for sure that I didn't know going in, since I didn't pick up Gardens of the Moon completely blindly, but I certainly got that vibe from the profusion of characters and plot threads while only a handful (who I presumed to be based on human players) are fleshed out. So at times it reads like a GM building on their campaign notes without editing out threads that the players never picked up on. Also, the dialog reads more like it's ad libbed than carefully crafted to sound like normal people talking (in abnormal circumstances, granted). IIRC, it was more like the world originated as a campaign setting, and stuff that happened in the game forms the backstory of the Malazan Empire's founding and so on. While the main sequence of novels is (mostly) a separate story set a bit later (although featuring some of the OG player-characters here and there in the cast). Been a while though so I could be remembering wrong.
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Jan 12, 2023 08:59
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Jedit posted:Erikson was an archaeologist before he was an author, and it shows. Archaeology is a science where you pick up the story in the middle and have to come to understand how it fits into the greater context; Gardens of the Moon does the exact same thing. What I was coming here to say. Erikson makes the reader dig up and dust off the drat potsherds, and try to piece them together on their own because who wouldn't want to put a bit of effort into that?
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Jan 12, 2023 09:02
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I never got into mazalan because everyone kept telling me I'd understand it after my first or second reread, and if I don't even reread the bible to make sure I go to heaven, I'm not rereading a confusing as gently caress book series to see if something clicks this time. If you dig it, awesome. Just not my kinda thing. Argh, this was bad advice, way worse than saying to skip book 1. Focusing so much on waiting until the later books for it all to make sense - let alone multiple rereads, christ - completely changes your relationship with the book; instead of naturally trying to piece it together, you're left waiting for a moment of revelation which will never come Each book has a 100% contained arc with a defined beginning, middle, and end. Further books merely expand upon the world and give you a better appreciation or understanding for what happened before. This is true of basically every series written by a competent author, it's just more pronounced in Malazan because it was a high priority
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Jan 12, 2023 09:35
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I never found the malazan series that hard to follow. I did cheat a little downloading the fictionary dictionaries for my kindle that were spoiler free but would remind you who a character was if you got a little confused but its really not as complex as people make it out to be. Different settings are even written a little differently in terms of tone and dialogue that seem to help keep the narrative flowing even when there's a drastically different story line hitting its straps. Yeah in such a massive series there's some stumbling, some loose plot threads and some of the passages to become a little navel gazey but the pay off and the set pieces that you get make it all worth while imo. I'm still yet to find a series that measures up in my mind. I've read the entire series twice and will one day do a third and its not because I missed things or failed to understand things, just because they're that drat good.
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Jan 12, 2023 10:49
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eXXon posted:I certainly got that vibe from the profusion of characters and plot threads while only a handful (who I presumed to be based on human players) are fleshed out. So at times it reads like a GM building on their campaign notes without editing out threads that the players never picked up on. Also, the dialog reads more like it's ad libbed than carefully crafted to sound like normal people talking (in abnormal circumstances, granted). It's actually really interesting reading about the process. Erikson wrote a blog post on the subject: https://steven-erikson.org/the-world-of-the-malazan-empire-and-role-playing-games/ And he answered some more specific questions in this Tor AMA. Scroll to comment #53: https://www.tor.com/2010/09/27/questions-for-steven-erikson-on-gardens-of-the-moon-start-asking/
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Jan 12, 2023 12:22
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I didn't find Malazan all that hard to follow, but I did eventually decide that it was too grimdark and dropped the series halfway through.
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Jan 12, 2023 13:00
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I never got into mazalan because everyone kept telling me I'd understand it after my first or second reread, and if I don't even reread the bible to make sure I go to heaven, I'm not rereading a confusing as gently caress book series to see if something clicks this time. If you dig it, awesome. Just not my kinda thing. I remember that when I was bored in church as a kid I used to reread Revelation because that's where God blew 85% of his FX budget. Right after 9/11 I also watched Meggido: The Omega Code 2 which starred R. Lee Ermey as the US President, Michael Biehn as the theoretical hero and Michael York as The Antichrist. I watched it because right after 9/11 it was the only drat movie in theaters which had violence/explosions/action in it. Apparently a spoonful of Jesus helped all that stuff go down. or vice-versa.
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Jan 12, 2023 15:40
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Patrick Spens posted:I skipped the first book and fell in love with the Chain of Dogs so your mileage may vary. I honestly think Gardens of the Moon is one of the weaker books in the beginning of the series. Chain of Dogs was fantastic and what kept me reading the series. I am glad I did because the sagas that came after were equally good e.g. Karsa.
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Jan 12, 2023 16:45
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Something that really frustrated me about reading the first book is that there are a lot of characters and concepts introduced but never explained. I had to reread sections several times just because I still wasn't quite sure what was going on. It certainly doesn't help that Erikson has a very dense writing style.
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Jan 12, 2023 16:46
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