|
Well, after what feels like years of bashing my head against these books, and with The Great Ordeal still months off, I took another swing at the first book. And then the second. And the third. Oh my god I loving get it now. Like, there's still a lot that pisses me the gently caress off (*cough* Kruppe *cough*) and he constantly overplots and obfuscates (still have no idea how Kulp managed to get out of Kurald Emuhrlain), but it actually finally fits together. I know why Jaghuts are so scary! I care about (some of) the Bridgeburners. I no longer want to smack Paran round the mouth. Scattered thoughts: Gardens of the Moon A lot of people criticise Erikkson's writing in Gardens compared to the later books, but I actually didn't find the prose too bad. The structuring is pretty messy though, there's little logic to where the Book divisions come, and the epigraphs are splattered around with absolutely no regard for how they fit into the narrative. To give an example: Book One - Pale opens with an epigraph on the history Malazan military action, ending with "In the Year of Burn's Sleep 1163, the Siege of Pale ended with a now legendary sorcerous conflagration....", which screams for all the world that the following chapter is going to show us the breaking of the Siege of Pale. Instead, we jump to 1161 on a completely different sodding continent. There's refusing to hold your reader's hand, and then there's deliberately tripping their ankles. Felisin's opening epigraph spells out that the Emperor ascended. "The Emperor is dead/So too his master'd companion/the rope cut clean" was a cute little touch. The first half of the Daruijhistan chapters keep obliquely referring to Mammot and Baruk as "the alchemist" and if it wasn't for the DP list I'd be convinced they were the same person (until they both appear on page at once) According to the Foreword this book started life as a movie script centred around the events in Darujhistan, and can actually see it working in Lock, Stockcrime-farce kind of way - Crokus' plot is basically a heist movie, the Bridgeburner's plot is basically a heist movie, Murillio's plot is basically a heist movie. You could trim out the stuff at Pale, and shift the release of the Tyrant as a last minute betrayal and it'd be a fun little movie. Shame nobody would ever fund it. Deadhouse Gates gently caress Nethpara. gently caress Mallick Rell. gently caress Pormqual. gently caress Korbolo Dom. Structurally, I think this is by far the strongest of the early books - it eases into the setting a lot better than the first one, and while most of the plots are a straight "get from A to B" there's such a great escalation in stakes and shifting in what getting to B will actually mean. I found the restriction of Duiker's PoV in the battle scenes really frustrating (would have much preferred a Bakker-style zooming-out from the action so I could actually follow the battle) but it was certainly effective in capturing the sheer chaos and obscenity of war, especially in the early scene with the cussers in the ford. Everything around the Semk god, the convergence of Apt and Lostari at the camp while Duiker was attacking, was an absolute disaster of pacing and plotting, and frankly should have been cut out. Although I think the limited PoV worked masterfully in capturing the sheer impotence and feeling of inevitability in the betrayal at Arren. Did I mention gently caress Pormqual? I really liked the exploration of the history of the First Civilisation - how they nuked themselves into Otataral trying to become soletaken and had to be forcefully put down by the Imass. Reminds me a lot of Dominions. Gothos reveals that Icarium wounded a warren which caused his present instability - given how Kulp escaped from KE I'm a bit worried what this means for Stormy and co's path to ascendancy. Kalam sees a "fake" seer, who claims that all our fates rest upon the Obelisk card, which is allegedly inactive in Seven Cities - I guess Obelisk is either the Jade Pillar, or Caladan Brood (who, despite being an ascendant, doesn't seem to have a card or be tied to a house) so either way, she's probably the most accurate seer since Rigga. Memories of Ice I had a sort of "oh poo poo this guy's actually a genius" moment when I realised that Baaljag is the wolf cub from the clay-covered ay that Pran Chole finds in the first prologue - but I can't quite make the timelines match up unless ay live for millenia (or Baaljag was undead before being joined with Fanderay) I swear I read that it was Kilava that bound Fanderay to Baaljag, but I can't find it in my kindle notes. With that, and how she accidentally threw the Jaghut children through a portal to Hell, i'm starting to think Kilava might be a bit of a idiot. Structurally this is by far the weakest book so far - it's the same basic idea as Deadhouse (army marches until collapse, while a smaller group wander around unearthing magical secrets) but while Deadhouse spent most of its time examining the horrors of war, Memories intercuts between an endless procession of bickering soldiers. Given the weight of the events there's a shocking lack of gravitas. Except when we cut to yet another of the Mhybe's dreams, then it's too much gravitas, and far too maudlin. There's also so many weird decisions in what Erikson wants to actually show the reader - He's perfectly happy to show us someone walking back and forth to bring people to a meeting, but Gruntle's emotionally charged speech over a dead child and valiant rallying of troops into a god-infused army....happens off-screen. The Lady Envy sections are like something out of a webcomic/harem comedy. What the christ was Erikson thinking? The Knight of Death is Baudin, right? He's a Malazan, with weird skin, who remembers a fire and failing to save a girl. Sounds like Baudin. I'm not quite sure about the significance of the twin swords, one with a dent in it. Why do the Marine sister's guarding Silverfox not get names? I'm scratching my head trying to figure out if we should know them or not. Itkovian owns. Itkownsian. [/quote] Predictions (as of the first few chapters of House of Chains) The Forkrul Assail that Karsa finds has too many joints, like the corpse in Tremorlor. The ghost-Jaghut that Corporal List sees in Deadhouse also has too many finger joints - is this something the two races share, or is the ghost actually Forkrul? Karsa is blatantly Toblakai, and the Teblor's lack of knowledge about the outside world is pretty funny (although admittedly, the outside world has surprisingly little knowledge about the outside world) Some sort of huge conflict is brewing, and I can't quite piece it together - Callow is attacked by mysterious sea-borne armies, and some sort of ice power is brewing far away. Presumably this will mark the return of either the Tiste Edur (who might still be around doing weird poo poo with the Moranth) as they're established as being seafarers, and the Throne of Shadow (which Paran identifies as Kurald Galain, but given how Everybody is Wrong is kind of a theme of these books, I'm inclined to say is Kurald Emerlain) talks about them being poisoned and corrupted by some new Emperor - I'm thinking they originally served the Crippled God (who's warren that the Andii destroyed was described as "nascent", the same as the smashed up bits of KE) but given his abandonment of the Elder Warrens in favour of those in the Deck someone else has stepped up to take over. There's one epigraph I want to quote in full, all the way back from Gardens of the Moon: "It is said that the matron's blood like ice brought forth into the world a birthing of dragons, and this flowing river of fate brough like into dark and dark into light, unveiling at last in cold, cold eyes the children of chaos... T'matha's Children Heboric" Now T'matha means broken something, and is often used to describe undead (T'lan Imass, T'lan Ay), and the use of Matron makes me think of the K'Chain Che'Malle Matron. So, it seems this is prophecying some sort of union between the Tiste Andii and the Tiste Lighty, but that also we're going to be getting dragons coming out the Rent at Morn. Not just any dragons. Chaos Dragons 
|
#
¿
Nov 3, 2016 21:02
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 8, 2024 12:57 |
|
|
House of Chains posted:Ascendancy was but one of the countless mysteries of the world, a world where uncertainty ruled all - god and mortal alike - and its rules were impenetrable. I love these little moments of self-aware humour. Like when K'rull tells Lady Envy (and this is an exact quote) "I don't loving know what's happening, I'm just winging it"
|
|
#
¿
Nov 4, 2016 15:45
|
|
|
Proof that Erikson is a maniac:Deadhouse Gates posted:He held a wedge of emrag cactus...unmindful of the envenomed spikes House of Chains posted:They were said to hold Emulor, a poison rendered from a certain cactus Neither the poison or the cactus are mentioned anywhere else.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 8, 2016 11:28
|
|
|
I loving checked. Admittedly it was like 4:30 in the morning. Still, nice callback, impressive attention to detail.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 8, 2016 16:58
|
|
|
In the name of content-posts, post-House of Chains thoughts: It feels like there's been a significant shift in writing style here, in how Erikkson (gently caress I have no idea how to spell this name) handles the characters and the mysteries in his setting. HoC seems a lot more honest about how it handles the mysteries in its plot. These mysteries are introduced as something that is unknown by the characters in the world, whereas Gardens or Memories just never bothered explaining anything, c.f. Onrack talking about how Kellanved claimed the First Throne in somewhat unknown circumstances, vs Tool saying that Kellanved took the First Throne. The former is a mystery, the latter is only half the bloody story - there's no way for the reader to tell if Tool is not giving detail because it's common knowledge, or because Tool doesn't know. The handling of these mysteries also feels weirdly erratic. It's immediately clear that Keeper is either Urko or Crust - his exact identity is left ambiguous, Fid tells us that Urko is absurdly strong, but Toc t.Y remarks on Crust's legendary anger, so Keeper could be either (and frankly, I hope the books don't give us an answer one or t'other, it's a nice ambiguity) but when it comes to Traveller it's pretty clear he's Dessembrae from the outset but then we have two or three different scenes to drive this point home. Then the mysterious figure who saves Kalam is, running with the theme of In terms of character - S.K.E. seems to have massively reined himself in. Chains is by far the funniest of the books in the series by far, but the humour feels a lot more natural and gentle than in the previous books, with none of the inapproproate slapstick of Lady Envy or Baucheleain and chums from Memories (don't get me wrong, Bauchelain is hilarious, but the adventures of the necromantic Chuckle-Brothers never sat well alongside the more serioues parts of MoI). A lot of MoI felt like it was "banter" in the sense of a public schoolboy, but the reparte in Chains feels much more jovial - it also had the only two parts of the series where I genuinely laughed out loud (the scorpion called Clawmaster, and Lastari (Lostara? gently caress, for an anthropologist he missed a trick by making his loving names make some sort of loving sense) ironically echoing Karsa's line about too many words) My predictions for this book were: Karsa is Toblakai - I meant this as "he is of the race Toblakai" rather than "he is the bloke called Toblakai", but if Erik' can base multiple characters around linguistic trickery, then I think I can use this grammatical inconsistency as a win. gently caress Bithinal. Double gently caress Korobolo, I hope he gets his just deserts (desserts, get it? Whirlwind jokes!) I thought that Icarium fragmented K.E. - seems he destryoed an Azath house. So I was wrong there. I really hope that the sea of Raraku drained into K.E. and caused the flooding of the nascent. I don't think the timelines match up, but it would be nicely elegant. Trull owns, Onrack owns. Greyfrog owns. Greyfrowns. Kilava caused the creation of the Whirlwind. Her capacity for up-loving appears contagious. loving kilava. Gamet went out like a boss  Thyrlann = Tellan = Thyr - there;s trickery here. It would work better if he gave us a pronounciation guide (Thry vs Tyr, T'Lan is maybe further linguisticall from Tlan) There's a certain irony to Karsa being a corrupted form of a shield anvil, collecting souls of those he kills. The Eres' - the missing link, the neanderthal, has it's own handling of magic. gently caress I hope this is something that he develops in later books. Strom Cuzewon fucked around with this message at 14:50 on Nov 9, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Nov 9, 2016 01:01
|
|
|
snoremac posted:I still think the first part of House of Chains, with Karsa being a pig-ignorant force of nature, is the funniest the series gets. Apparently some people don't like him?
|
|
#
¿
Nov 9, 2016 14:52
|
|
|
I'm getting a real Goofus and Gallant vibe from Midnight Tides Gallant writes about the unrelenting horror of a coin clad corpse coming back to life Goofus describes a zombie thief implanting a sea urchin into her vagina I least I see why people compare Bakker to Erikson.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 14, 2016 18:18
|
|
|
I've just finished Midnight Tides and I am bashing my head against these family trees. Mother Dark has three children: Darist, Anomander Rake and Silchas Ruin. That's easy. She also, according to Osserc, had some previous, and unknown, children. That's easy too. Scabandari Bloodeye, Father Shadow allegedly had three daughters: Menandore, Sister Dawn Sukul Ankhadu, Dapple Sheltatha Lore, Sister Dusk. Menandore's true father is Brother Light, trapped in the Moon (Sorry/Apsalar calls him Grallin way back in book one) But from Udinaas' visions we see that Menandore AND Dapple have the same father - Osserc. Who very much is NOT trapped in the moon. And is described as "First Son of Light and Dark" which is somehow a) different from shadow, and b)he's not actually a son of Mother Dark. (I did also briefly think that Mother Dark = Tiam, but I think that was just me getting mixed up by "blood of Tiam" (as Rake and half the Andii drank her blood) and "Mother Tiam") I also can't make the timeline fit: Midnight Tides starts in 1159, (4 years before the Fall of Pale) with Withal washing up after the Meckros city is smashed up by icebergs (seemingly the same icebergs that Pannion summons in 1164) yet Feather Witch makes reference to the Hold of the Beast finding new masters (Fandaray and the other one) AND to Path-Shaper having "fevers in his fell blood", which can only be K'Rull and the infected warrens in MoI, which both take place in 1164. Am I missing something here? I will say though, it's refreshing to have a continent-wide metaphysical cock-up that wasn't directly Kilava's fault, and at least Mael sticks around to actual fix it. Although the creation of the soletaken that lead to the fall of the first empire and creation of the Jheck seems a direct result of the Imass abandoning the Beast Hold in favour of Tellan, so maybe we can blame her for this too.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 17, 2016 18:47
|
|
|
^^^^Thank christ, thought i was losing my marbles. I was happy to let the distances wash over me (when has logistics ever mattered in fantasy?) but Erikson seems exactly the sort of guy who'd hide little hints and details in dates, and I could not make them line up. Ynglaur posted:Also some of the characters either lie or wrong or are wrong and trying to lie at the same time. I'm working on the assumption that everyone is a loving moron unless their name is Ben. And even he messed up with Hairlock.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 17, 2016 22:45
|
|
|
anilEhilated posted:Pretty much. OST and BnB are polarizing but there's zero loving excuse for the avalanche of disappointment that is Assail. If she had done a better job of convince them that the Ritual was a bad idea, then the First Empire wouldn't have been able to do whatever vaguely mysterious soletaken thing they did to gently caress themselves up. I'm not sure I'll have the energy for books outside the main series, especially as after Bonehunters has just revealed that The missing Segulah, Moc, AND the entirety of the T'orrud Cabal are (probably) near-immortal near-ascendants which is such an absurd swerve from the previous foreshadowing that I'm starting to doubt if its actually worth the effort of puzzling stuff out.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 20, 2016 15:18
|
|
|
snoremac posted:The repeated part would just be "He repeats a statement to emphasize its emotional power." Thus. "We all repeat statements to emphasize their emotional power. In this world of dust and death. Of dust and death."Thus. ftfy Also "preternatural" I hate that word.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 23, 2016 15:26
|
|
|
Knobb Manwich posted:Why? It's a similar but different concept from supernatural. Because the whole idea of preternatural as opposed to natural/supernatural is based on a really medieval idea about how the world works and what is/isn't miraculous or not. And the whole idea of natural vs preternatural vs supernatural doesn't really make any sense in the context of a high-magic epic-fantasy, where every Tom, Dick and Ha'Rry is a semi-human half-immortal demi-god. It also sounds silly.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 23, 2016 19:42
|
|
|
Ulio posted:The Roman Empire assimilated the people it conquered thoroughly when it conquered them while taking things they were good at. I feel the Letherii only did the latter with the Bluerose horse riding technology being an example of that. In Midnight Tides it doesn't feel like the conquered people feel like true Letherii. Romans were so good at assimilating people there is a word for it Romanization or in the case of US Americanization. They didn't do a very good job of taking the riding technology. I loved the joke about the stirrups being crap. An anthropologist like Erikson will have certainly come across the (probably bullshit) theory about how stirrups were responsible for the entire creation of feudalism, and I can imagine the poo poo-eating grin he had when he came up with that gag.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 23, 2016 23:29
|
|
|
zeal posted:In previous reads of House of Chains I'd not noticed, or at least failed to retain, that the Whirlwind Goddess thought Kilava and Onrack's hankerin in the caves the night before the the Ritual resulted in the human race. I mean, she's totally insane, and since we do actually see Onrack and Kilava's kid much later she's flat wrong, but it paints the whole whirlwind cult in a new light if the relentless bloodshed is all because the goddess was taking her rage out on she species she thought stemmed from Onrack's infidelity. I somehow didn't pick up on this - where does it say that about Ms. Raraku? Also is Bottle's grandmother Rigga the Wax Witch? They're both Itko Kanese, and the way he remembers her seems to line up with her brief portrayal. They also both refer to the "prod and pull", whereas somewhere between most and all the other characters talk about the Lord's Push. Also also, given how there's a direct correlation between unnecessary verbosity and absurd power (Kruppe, Iskaral Pust, Tehol/Bugg) I'm putting tenbux on Ormologan and his frog critic as both being secret ascendants. Probably some shamanistic sympathetic magic through their paintings - which could be the Deck of Dragons, the weird puppetry that Ben and Bottle both do, or an offshoot from Onrack's forbidden paintings. Also also also, loving mules. Both Kruppe and Pust have seemingly super-intelligent yet super-lazy mules. And I cannot tell if this is evidence of some hidden meaning, or if Erikson is just trolling. Strom Cuzewon fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Nov 27, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Nov 27, 2016 01:54
|
|
|
Spermy Smurf posted:No one knows about the mules. That is dangerously plausible, and suggests they've got more of a hand in Darujistan than we've been lead to believe.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 27, 2016 12:46
|
|
|
zeal posted:I wouldn't say that. What with Smiles's sister getting sacrificed to him to bring the fish back to their village, and the offerings to Mael in Malaz City mentioned in the Malaz segment of either Bonehunters or Deadhouse Gates, it'd seem he still has plenty of folk worship scattered around the world. I also seem to recall Withal's prayers being what summoned Mael to the Crippled God's island at the end of Midnight Tides, so Mael probably still has other worshipers among the Meckros cities. That slave trader who destroyed one of the Teblor tribes, whose hands and feet Karsa cuts off in House of Chains, he was a priest of Mael as well. And if there's two such priests known to be farting about, there's probably more. Mael's probably got the most human supporters of any elder god but T'riss or the Errant. I think it's Midnight Tides that talks about how sailors (and presumably Meckros) don't really worship Mael. Sure, they make propitiations and have all their superstitions and what-not, but it's not to invoke his favour, it's to try and divert his attention so they can stay under his radar and avoid getting hit with storms or tidal waves or however he decides to show his blessings.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 1, 2016 17:53
|
|
|
Is Fall of Light worth it despite all that? I have a decent tolerance for monologuing, but that looks like it could get exhausting. Talking of exhausting: I've just finished Bonehunters, which is maybe the most draining of all the books so far. And I mean that in a good way. It's one long trudge from one disaster to the next, and it's relentless in its tragedy. I've criticised the close-up nature of Erikson's battles before, but the Pyroclasm at Y'Ghatan absolutely blew me away (as well as blowing away Crump and Truth). It also gave us a rare glimpse at the academic culture of the Malazan world - it's controversial whether or not Fire Elementals actually exist, or if they're just really big fires. Compounding the tragedy is just how betrayed and disgusted I feel with Leoman. What an absolute coward. Worse than Korbolo Dom, worse than loving Mallick Rel. And half a chapter earlier he was the most sensible and rational character in the books! I'm almost shock at how viscerally I hate him now. drat good writing. There's a nice symmetry between Leoman and Lasseen - one betrays in defeat, the other betrays in victory. I'm somewhat less enamoured with the Empress than Mr Of The Flails, but it's rare that a book can introduce a twist of that scale and make me rage at the unfair cruelty of the world, rather than the unfair cruelty of the author. I feel it should carry a Titus Andronicus-esque warning on the cover "One atrocity every 2.8 chapters". And the final near atrocity - the rain of jade statues. I feel a bit like Erikson is playing games with the reader now. The scattered remarks about the changing face of the moon are quite clearly sequel hooks, hints at all the weird machinations going on behind SURPRISE! WE'RE DOING IT NOW! and then Heboric, despite more than his hands being ghosts, finally gets some resolution and emotional closure after a lifetime of doubt and suffering. For all his verbosity, Erikson manages to pull off some incredibly powerful sucker punches when he decides to be succinct ("Not Destriant. Shield Anvil" "The Year of Ten Thousand Lies") I'm less enthusiastic about the books handling of its Ascendants.. T'Amber is Eres'al for no readily apparent reason, the Soldier of Death is blundering about looking for a wife for Hood, and Mammot and Baruk are centuries old - something that is somehow never mentioned or hinted at all. In fact, the only foreshadowing I can recall on this is a remark in MoI that the Seguleh second is "missing". Which implies a recent occurrence, not "has been missing since beyond living memory, and before our country existed in it's present state". The whole thing feels like a needless layering of plots. The worst of these is the revelation that Hood was responsible for Whiskeyjack's death - it's not clear what his precise involvement is, putting off the healing maybe, distracting WJ from healing it, maybe even nudging the falling pillar onto it - but it completely ruins WJ's story arc. Not that it was much of an arc to begin with. In GotM WJ is an outcast, betrayed again and again, reeling from tragedy, trying to make a final home for his people after Just One Last Mission. Then in MoI all our assumptions are shattered, and he becomes a double-triple-agent, reeling from the fallout of somebody else's gigantic cock-up, who is driven by the mistrust of his allies into a reckless assault that gets his entire army killed, before the very obvious badguy, who has spent the entire book shouting about his desire to betray and attack him, betrays and attacks him. And because Whisky had decided that walking halfway across the continent on a broken leg was a good idea, he dies. And now we find out that he only died because the literal God of Death was harbouring a grudge. Complex, yes. Deep? No. Minor Thoughts: We'll be seeing Scillara's child again - especially as there's a good chance she's a Child of the Dead Seed, and not actually Dom's. Outrider Hurlochel continues to be fantastic. I want a spin-off book of him, Keneb and Blistig just being quietly competent while the world falls apart around them. Give them Corabb too. Hurlochel is conveniently absent minded after discovering the truth about Fellisen. I get the feeling that the Lady's Push had something to do with that - Oponn does something similar on Letheras (Beddict forgetting to tell the Ceda about Kettle being dead, and one or two others that I can't remember) so it's nice to see a small moment of genuine benevolence from an ascendent once in a while. Hedge has become the God of Sappers. Brilliant. Pearl continues to be the worst assassin ever - although his betrayal stung just as much as Leoman's. I'm disappointed, rather than angry. Dude could have made so much more of himself than he did. We finally have a confirmed identity for Keeper - Urko Crust, and Cartheron also pops up again. I kind of wish Erikson had shown some restraint here and left it as hints. From his appearance in HoC it's clear that he's one of the Crusts, but it's perfectly ambiguous about which one he is, which I thought was a nice little mystery. As is, we now know the identity of nearly all the original crew - the only vagueness left are the identity of the Claw, Hawl, and the mysterious (ghost?) captain that saved Kalam, who I was sure was Crust until now.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 3, 2016 00:18
|
|
|
anilEhilated posted:I'd say it is worth it if only because all the setup promises the third book to pretty pretty loving grand, but it also continues in FoD's trend of turning everything you thought about Malazan on its head. Hood always seemed way more chill than that, so I'll look forward to him finally getting involved in shenanigans. Feather Witch states that (MT Spoilers) [spoilers] "Death sits upon the throne of ice" so he's blatantly a Jaghut. Or Hood's Domain is a tattered remnant of Omtose Phellack, which wouldn't really make any sense. [/spoiler] Why that's significant I haven't the foggiest. Unless that's why there's the Empty Hold in Letheras. It would mean Death is not a natural part of the world, and only exists in the Deck, not the Cedance, which predates the coming of the Tiste to Malazan-land. So the K'Chain Che'Malle didn't just create entropy, they created death as well. I'm gonna need to buy more string and corkboards.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2016 23:31
|
|
|
I'm not sure which part of Reaper's Gale has hit me harder: Beak's death, Toc's death, or Kilava not being a gently caress-up
|
|
#
¿
Dec 15, 2016 15:03
|
|
|
BigHead posted:Limp is great and is my new favorite B character. I don't think he had more than one or two speaking lines in the whole series but he just keeps showing up and injuring himself. Heh, that's quality humor. Best B character has to be Touchless and the weird arguments he keeps having with himself. I guess he must be possesed by Oponn, but they're both shoving him in different directions.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 16, 2016 12:16
|
|
|
Who is Fisher kel Tath and can somebody please break his quill?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 19, 2016 18:07
|
|
|
anilEhilated posted:Have you got to Toll the Hounds yet? By then you'll be wishing for someone to punch out his teeth. I know I was. It was the glut of Fisher epigraphs at the start of Toll that made me post that. I'm now halfway through and starting to revise my opinion of him. I was almost welling up reading the scenes with Fisher and Duiker. Absolutely crushing to read, and I almost started hating Duiker, for not being able to tell the story of the Chain of Dogs Although I'm putting money on Fisher being some sort of secret Tano spiritwalker - it's how he seemingly knows everything about everyone.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 21, 2016 22:21
|
|
|
Toll the Hounds trip report - It seems like the lazy pacing of Toll is kind of unpopular among fans, who prefer the more chaotic flow of the rest of the novels. I actually appreciated the way it slows everything down and gives us a chance to take stock of everything before we dive into the finale - especially as I massively enjoyed all the street-level shenanigans back in Gardens, and Toll has that same feel to it, but without the exhausting milling around from tavern to house to secret lair to tavern to rooftop to tavern again. Imagine how amazing Gardens would be if Erikson wrote it now. It's also the most Malazan of the Malazan books, which is why I don't understand the negative response to it. The bulk of these books is people plotting and scheming with only dodgy information and inferences about what everybody else is doing, until we get some sort of catastrophe when everything slams together. And Toll takes that to it's logical conclusion - we have a book in which nobody has any idea what anybody else is doing. Not a bloody Scooby doo. And it's fantastic. Harllo never knows who Murillio is, Murillio barely understands where Harllo has come from, Vidikas ends up as the antagonist in a kidnapping plot that he isn't even aware of. The Bridgeburners don't know who hired the assassins, the assassin's know but don't know why. The entire Darujhistan plot is a huge snarl of different tiny stories tugging in a hundred different directions, which makes the violence and death even more powerful when it comes - it's both shocking and unexpected to the characters, but inevitable and ill-fated to the reader. I really liked the assault on K'Ruls Bar - by most standards it's a pretty typical Bridgeburner fight - chaos, misdirection, spectacular improvisation and reckless use of explosives in confined spaces. But take it from a warzone and plant it in a temple, and suddenly it becomes absolutely horrifying. I didn't quite buy all of his philosophising about what it means to be a solider until that moment. I also want to make a list of all the characters that die grinning - I can remember Moroch Nevath and Mallet, but I swear there's loads more. Bringing back Pearl after his one scene (7 books, 2 million words ago) was a nice touch, and makes me worry about all the side characters I've not been keeping track of - I know that even with my note taking I've lost track of the T'Lan Imass who were chasing Karsa and the Unbound. Are they even still around? The ending was as hardcore and apocalyptic as we've come to expect from Erikson, but I have to confess that I have no idea what anybody was doing. Not a bloody Scooby doo. The whole thing was a secret alliance between Hood and Rake to free the Gate from Dragnipur (probably with some input from Ganoes, given Hood's secret whispering) but none of the mechanics make any sense - he releases the gate using the web of sorcery that Draconus intended to be a God to escape the sword, but was actually Kadaspala's attempt at getting revenge on Rake for killing his sister, which is implied Rake did as part of some devious plot with Andarist and Ruin back when Kharkanas fell and....something. It's too fragmented for me to fully get. And then Rake sends his mate to slow down Kallor, because he somehow knows that Kallor will be there, even though Kallor doesn't really have a plan beyond "get to the convergence", and the Hound start massacring Darujhistan for some unknown reason, then the Hounds of Light appear just for the giggles. Why did Hood have to appear in the flesh? Why did he need to murder huge chunks of Darujhistan? Couldn't Rake have killed him somewhere out in the wild? Why did Rake need Dassem Ultor to kill him, couldn't he have just opened his wrists? Why did Shadrowthrone want Dassem to be involved, and why was Mael trying to slow him down? The only reason he would have to do that is to stop Rake entering the sword, but Mael gains nothing from that, and it seems very out of character for him to try and stop people defeating chaos. Especially as Draconus' inner monologue implies that Dragnipur was created to bind the Crippled God in some way (or at least adapted, as he'd been working on it since before the Crippled God fell). If the whole problem with Dragnipur is that it tore the Gate of Darkness from it's natural migratory path, then why did Rake unveil it and permanently settle it around Black Coral? Isn't that just going to cause the same problems? And Itkovian somehow continues to still own. I sure hope his replacement Shield Anvil is up to the job!
|
|
#
¿
Dec 31, 2016 16:07
|
|
|
anilEhilated posted:Quoting this for posterity, as the next Shield Anvil you'll encounter is quite the character. Ha! Excellent. Although I was making a joke about how Norul and Velbara were unceremoniously killed off somewhere before RG quote:As for the dislike - I can only talk for myself but TtH is my least favorite book of the bunch and it's because of the Darujhistan segments. Kruppe's narration gets really grating (although there is a reason for drawing attention to it so it might get a pass on that account), but most of the storylines go nowhere or serve to set up really stupid anticlimaxes in OST. Plus I honestly found I didn't give a drat about Crokus or anyone traveling with him, but that might be just me. Yeah, the ending with the Tyrant felt like a big sign flashinf "read my mates book". The Kruppe narration wasn't too bad - much better than having him or Pust actually speaking - and the little dips in and out of different characters lives (the mule on the corpse wagon, the guard with a heart condition) was a nice touch. And the climax does seem to support the "cotillion and shadow throne are mules" theory. Which might be a joke, but I'm pretty much convinced.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 31, 2016 20:00
|
|
|
Who likes predictions? I love predictions, and so, before I dive into DoD/TCG, here are my predictions for just where this madness is going: Spoiler's from books 1-8 throughout. I feel there's going to be some major reveals about the pantheon and cosmology of the Malazan universe, and we can piece together some sort of creation myth from Feather Witches casting of the tiles, and the Tiste legends. There's two distinct mythologies here - the Andii have Mother Dark and the coming of Father Light yadda yadda which seems to be some highly metaphorical big bang. I think of these in terms of Dark Soul's First Flame - before the fire the world was grey, and the creation of the flame allowed it to be split into light and dark. The Andii seem to think that they're Mother Dark's first children, but Osserc tells us that the Andii were her second offspring. This makes me think that the Andii have their timelines wrong - they didn't predate the Light, they were created at the same time as it. The first born are from some sort of primordial dark, before "dark" was really a proper thing. Feather Witch gives a more literal creation story, that seems to be a description of how the primal forces came to the Malazan planet (Malazan-land? Mezland?) which at this point is just Dolmen, as Burn has not yet begun to dream, and probably doesn't even exist yet. The driving force behind this is the Errant, who sets Fire against Dolmen, creates the Azath to shelter/trap the Jaghut. Bugg identifies the Errant as Forkrul Assail. And from what we've seen, the Assail as a species have some very peculiar ideas about conflict: Calm and Serenity are both Bringer's of Peace, but they seem to interpret this as "kill everyone", which they see as resolving some sort of discord. This would give some motivation to the Assail and all their shenanigans in creating the Holds. They clearly can't abide discord, and so are attempting to divide and separate out the universe into it's component parts. Ice goes in the Ice Hold, Beasts go into the Beast hold etc. When they can't divide out things they instead set them onto a collision, Fire against Dolmen, Beast against Ice, they don't understand that you can co-exist and cooperate. And then the Dragons come: Midnight Tides posted:"Then, to achieve balance once more, is born the Eleint, and chaos is given flesh, and that flesh is draconic. I'm going to stop banging on about chaos dragons, because it's clearly a tautology. Dragons are some sort of natural response to the creation of the Holds - the Assail have created order, and so chaos must exist to be its opposite. Heboric's epigraph way back in GotM describes "the matron" giving birth to dragons/chaos, and bringing "light into dark and dark into light", so it seems plausible that the Elient were the first children of Mother Dark. Clearly the dragons haven't done a very good job at plunging the world into chaos, and I think we have K'rul and the Assail to thank for that. By bringing the Eleint into the Dragon Hold the Assail trap them in rules of their creation, just like Ganoes permits the creation of the House of Chains. K'rul pulls off something of a coup, persuading the dragons to help him create the Warrens, and then killing them or sealing them away. Sealing them away seems to be the preferred choice - as dragon blood seems to link directly to Starvald Demelain, and drinking it gives you some essence of the dragons themselves. I think the nature of these early battles is something that might get revealed in the Kharkanas trilogy - Midnight Tides gives a bunch of different parentages for Mendandore, Sukul Ankhadu and Sheltatha Lore, but they themselves think they're children of Tiam, not of Mother Dark. So there's clearly more going on there than we're lead to believe. It also means that those three are Eleint, not Soletaken, and so poo poo is going to hit the fan once their blood leaks out into the Refugium. Nice going Ben. So we've got three cycles of this conflict - Light vs Dark, Order vs Chaos, and now Whole vs Crippled. As the nature of magic gets more specific and divisible in the progress from Wandering to Hold to House, so has this battle. I don't think the Crippled God is specifically an agent of chaos, but I definitely think they'll rally to his side. I also think we'll actually learn the Crippled God's real name and identity. He's Grallin, the Lord of Deep Waters, living on the moon. The Jade Meteors came from the moon (I think the reveal will be that they launched from there, instead of being the result of an impact like is suggested in TtH) and they clearly have some similar sort of essence to the Crippled God - his body spawned the Great Ravens, and the impact of the Jade Statue created the Otataral Desert, both absorb magic but are ineffective against Elder Warrens. It could be that this is a result of Elder Warrens being non-native to Mazland - the Tiste, Assail and K'Chain came from elsewhere, so maybe the Jaghut and Imass did too, or maybe their warrens are a different "type" to the Tiste. I don't have a week spare to cross-reference which warrens otataral and ravens do/do not work against. Maybe the jade is an attempt to protect the passengers from the effects of travelling between realms? We've seen how dangerous that can be - Stormy and co are basically ascending, Emuhrlahn has been shattered thanks to Scabandari opening some sort of "gate", and Kulp manages to freak out half the universe by pretending to tear a hole in the nascent. So there's going to be some sort of massive clusterfuck on Letheras. I think the Crippled God is going to unleash the Otataral Dragon (the Consort of the Dragon Hold, who "writhes upon a tree") against the Azath to free the other dragons, who can now access them after Gothos accidentally allowed Nimander to help a giant create an Azath inside Starvald (at least I think that's what happened) Minor predictions: Oponn are clearly the House version of the Errant, who is himself the Hold version of the original Errant. I think they'll betray him (probably through Corabb tripping over his own feet and stabbing him in the eye) as they've shown themselves to be a more even-handed and less nasty than him. Except when they killed Felisin. The K'Chain Che'Malle I think are going to invade Letheras - their plot with Redmask was just to wipe out the Awl in a disastrous battle (kind of like the Awl did to the Grey Swords), as the Awl are the only humans to ever be able to fight the K'cha ffs I am not typing that loving thing out again. The sword ones. Veloci-rapiers. I'm hoping we'll find out how the First Empire created D'Ivers. The temple where the original Trail of Hands is clearly an old Cedance, and as far as I can tell it's still there, being guarded by Olar Ethil. Crokus will take Cotillions place as the Patron of Assassins, or become the Assassin of High House Death or something equally ironic after all his attempts to save Apsalar. Toc will share a quiet drink with Clem, and tell him how he died a terrible death.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 4, 2017 00:11
|
|
|
Hiro Protagonist posted:So I'm on Memories of Ice, and I feel I don't understand a couple things. Whenever you don't understand something just replace it with "magicalistic" Ascendents are more magicalistic than wizards, but less magicalistic than gods.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 11, 2017 17:14
|
|
|
^^^^ Also tleilaxu farts, never forget RC Cola posted:I saw you guys talking about Dune a while back. Is it any good/worth reading? I'm pretty much incapable of understanding scifi without looking at it through the lense of Dune. That's how big an impact it's had on me. I'm confident I'm not alone. The comparisons with Malazan always struck me as odd. In the foreword to GotM Erikson cites Dune as an example of how it's possible to throw readers in and trust them to pick up important points - he conveniently ignores how the first few chapters consist of five or six characters explaining their relationship to the hero, setting out their objectives, and describing their philosophical and symbolic roles in the story to come.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 14, 2017 02:57
|
|
|
RC Cola posted:I'm on emperor of dune. So far not liking it too much drat that was fast. Have you got to the dick jokes yet?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 19, 2017 22:40
|
|
|
Dust of Dreams finished and......I'm really not feeling the urge to go onto the Crippled God. Maybe it's cos I've burned through the series so fast, but I can't even tell what the point of the story is anymore. The Kchain sections were amazing, the Bonehunters were better than they've ever been, and the Tool sections were as heartbreaking as I've come to expect. But, is any of that going to matter? There's so much stuff going on, but the choice of what bits Erikson decides are important are utterly confounding. The Grey Swords get all killed off screen, and then replaced with an almost identical set of characters, from a different but almost identical culture. MoI ends with the feeling that both the Grey swords and the former-tenescowri are going to undergo some fundamental transformations. But that potential story just gets thrown away and new people conjured up from nothing to take their place. I couldn't tell you anything about the Perish beyond "there's some bullshit politics that the Grey helms don't care about" And the Crippled God - we've had 7 books of him being referred to only by his title, and then his name just gets dropped into conversation casually, and he's some prick we've never heard of before. Why tease some mystery by witholding that? And if the largest part of him fell on Letheras than why has his manifestation there been so shockingly underwhelming compared to the rest of the world? And Olar Ethil is Burn. What? How? How does the Fire/Light Warren have anything to do with the earth? How can she be the sleeping goddess if she's up and doing stuff? What was all the point of the prophecy and warm gooey symbolism about Fire and Light and the Errant if it's just gonna get ignored? Does any of this come together? Or do I have another ten books of meaningless speculation to go through?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 22, 2017 22:00
|
|
|
zokie posted:The Crippled God is really great it has a really short build up, and then BOOM like 99% of the book are several epic Erikson style convergences. I actually really like the Shake, and the outsider perspective you get of the Malazans on Shake Island is priceless. The snake....eh less so. I was really excited when I figured out the Ribbers were Forkrul Assail. Then it turns out the Ribbers are dogs, and the Forkrul are Quitters. :mystery: Although the cannibalism gave me absolute chills.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 24, 2017 00:35
|
|
|
Strom Cuzewon posted:I actually really like the Shake, and the outsider perspective you get of the Malazans on Shake Island is priceless.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 24, 2017 00:37
|
|
|
Oh god that makes so much sense. I feel a weird urge to show you all my educational certificates now.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 24, 2017 01:30
|
|
|
It's been a few weeks since I finished tCG, and I've been chewing it over and over since then. And I've reached a very simple conclusion. I do not understand Malazan. Give me something like Prince of Nothing or aSoiaF and I can (and will!) pontificate about what those books are all about, what the author is trying to do, where I think he hasn't made his point, where I disagree with his point, etc etc. I get those books. But I cannot get my head around Malazan. I had almost a thousand words rambling about this, but it all comes down to the chekov's roulette he does. Erikson talks about how he delights in swamping the reader with chekov's guns, so as to keep you guessing and surprised when one of them actual goes off. But the choice of guns just confuses me. Throughout the series there are these great big flags pointing out This Will Be Important later. poo poo like: Gothol and Kallor joining the House of Chains Leomon running away with QoD Kuralad Galain opening in Coral Hood wants a wife (EE-I-AL-EE-OO) Otataral explosives are a bad, bad idea The Refugiam, Rud Ellale The Nachts and their shenanigans with Grub and some sword they threw in the water Edgewalker, and the implied link between the Barghast and the warren of shadow Scillara giving birth to a Child of the Dead Seed All of which just drop out of the story, never to be mentioned again. Frankly, it feels insulting. The series sells itself as rewarding attention to detail and speculation. And when I pour more effort into reading and understanding these background elements than I have for any other fantasy series, the book discards them and throws yet more stuff at me. Or kills off key figures offscreen, only to replace them with identical characters (the Perish plot only makes sense to me when I assume Erikson wrote it all as a continuation of the Grey Helms/Tenescowri, only to realise he'd massacred them between books). I understand that the series is meant to just be a window into the Malazan world, just dipping into a portion of its history. And that there are yet more books I haven't read. But "Book of the Fallen" is still one series, Erikson says it has an arc (if I had to summarise it, I'd say the whole story is simply "Kellanved manipulates ascendants to force a changing of the guard"). But the supposed "climax" of the series is between forces that are only introduced halfway through book 9. The Errant basically takes on the role of series villain (in the sense that he was responsible for the climactic confrontation) and he literally vanishes right at the end. Same with Mallick Rell/Korbolo Dom - two of the most hateful characters in fantasy fiction, an absolute masterpiece in building up antagonists - who the books literally and metaphorically decide to run away from for poorly explained reasons. It reminds me of the backlash to Mass Effect 3 and the "lots of speculation" - yes, there's a multitude of hints and insinuations throughout the series, but so few of them come to fruition that I feel like I'm being forced to imagine a story, instead of being told one.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2017 14:45
|
|
|
Gravity Cant Apple posted:Some of those things are addressed in ICE's books, others come up in the Kharkanas Trilogy. Not much is actually dropped. I'm sure the planned books will come back to even more that feels unfinished now. House of Chains explicitly mentions that Scillara's rapist ejaculates at the moment of his death - coming straight after Memories of Ice it's something that leaped out at me. And then I spent the rest of her storyline expecting it to become relevant, and then it never does. As to Hood: Bonehunters posted:‘Hunt? Oh yes, we all hunt, but I was closest! Piss on Hood’s bony feet! Pluck out the hairs of his nose and kick his teeth in! Drive a spear up his puckered behind and set him on a windy mountain top! Oh, I’ll find him a wife some day, lay coin on it! But first, I hunt!’ So I guess I took that a bit too literally - he's not specifically looking for a wife, just something the Second throws in to his ranting.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2017 19:37
|
|
|
Spermy Smurf posted:I dont think this is right. Isn't her baby daddy the blue skinned dude? The right hand of Korbolo whose name I can never remember? Kamist Reloe? Scillara identifies one of the napans as the father, cant remember which. It's irrelevant really who the father is, which is sort of the point im trying to make. We have the graphically described rape scene that very strongly evokes the Tenescowri. I don't known how anyone can come away from HoC and not be convinced that Scillara is carrying a child of the dead seed, it was that clear to me. And then nothing comes of it. Basically I dont feel like Erikson is rewarding the level of attention and theorising the series seems to demand. It's like the difference between Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes - Im coming to his books with the expectation that if i pay attention and properly think about the events and ideas he's hinting at that i'll be able to solve some of the mystery, that there'll be some sort of cathartic moment when everything falls into place. Instead there's just more dangling threads, more half formed plots, and I get the same answer I got 3 million words ago: "Read more books"
|
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2017 20:10
|
|
|
dishwasherlove posted:. Given you read the whole series you must have found some redeeming features And how! I know I bitch and whine a lot in this thread, but the fact that I keep coming back to this series despite how bloody angry it makes me is a testament to how drat good they are when it hits home. I think nearly all my complaints would be resolved if it was structured in a more digestible format. If it was a bunch of trilogies (Genebackis, Seven Cities, Malaz Central) that sort of overlapped and followed on from each other I doubt I'd have any problems with it. And it wouldn't feel like so much of a plot treadmill. To balance out my moaning, here's something that I really liked: Zombie Jaghut - the vagueness of their background really worked for me, because the whole idea behind them is that their outsiders dropped into the middle of things. And I really liked how slightly alien their sense of humour was - I don't think I actually laughed at any of their bits, but I definitely see how it could be funny from a certain point of view. So: Who is the funniest character in the series? And why?
|
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2017 23:44
|
|
|
The Ninth Layer posted:Scillara's pregnancy story isn't a big mystery or anything. She carries a child to birth that she neither wants nor cares for, even as she knows she's expected to care for it and even as other characters like L'oric try to make her care for it. Not every story has to be a mystery. Correct. Which is why it's weird to me that we have the scene which suggests it is a mystery. It so strongly recreates the rites of the Domin, and it set up the expectation that there was some significance to how the kid is conceived. Im not saying that he's literally a member of the PD, that would be mental. But Erikson foreshadows that there is something more going on than just a simple pregnancy, which left me feeling slightly deflated when he never follows up on it. It's an illustration of my frustration with his chekovs roulette - lining up a surplus of further plots just to keep the reader guessing about what's going to happen next. I actually really like Scillara's plot. It's a much smaller, human tragedy in the midst of all the world changing epicness.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 17, 2017 09:29
|
|
|
denimgorilla posted:I'm fairly certain its Korbolo Dom's child. His dusky blue skin is noted almost every time he's in a scene and the child has blue skin. Apologies if it seems like I'm jumping down your throat, you're not the only one to do this, but you've utterly missed the point of what I'm trying to say. There is no mystery about the parentage. Scillara openly identifies the father as either Korbolo Dom or Kamist Reloe (as in, she names one, I can't remember which of the two it is) in The Bonehunters. But the rape scene in House of Chains felt to me like extremely heavy foreshadowing, that the father was the guy who got stabbed whilst raping her, making it a Child of the Dead Seed, albeit one conceived outside the Pannion Domin. Then in the Bonehunters it's revealed to be Korbolist Relom. The issue I have is the discrepancy between them - HoC hints at some dark significance about the childs conception, tBH drops that completely and focuses on Scillara's attitude to being saddled with a child. It's a great piece of writing, but it feels totally at odds with the build up. When I think critically about the book it's very weird to me that he sets up something in this very obvious fashion only to not follow through with it. And whilst reading, I found it downright disorientating - there are these plots that I engaged with, plots where I was confident he'd reward me for my devotion, plots that I imagine his fans have written thousands of words of forums posts about, and then the either vanish or get derailed by something unexpected at the last minute. Perhaps a stronger example:In MoI Caladan Brood has a hammer that can destroy all life on earth and is torn about whether to use it to free Burn from the Crippled God. That's One Ring level of MacGuffin right there. And it is never mentioned again in BotF, a series entirely about the battle with the Crippled God. It's like if a history of the Second World War covered the invasion of Paris and then never mentioned Occupied France again.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 20, 2017 22:36
|
|
|
Ha! That it does. But that kind of pales in comparison to wiping out the planet and starting again. Although Brood's cameo at the end of TtH is the exact kind of mythic story telling that keeps me coming back.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 20, 2017 23:46
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 8, 2024 12:57 |
|
|
I really liked what Erikson did with Kallor in TtH and the flashbacks in DoD/tCG. MoI Kallor was kind of cartoonishly evil, so it was great to see his weaknesses, and his messed up sense of honour and loyalty.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 28, 2017 20:33
|
|