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Two questions regarding RotCG/TtH: 1. In TtH, Dassem has a vendetta against Hood, which relates to his daughter. Did I miss where this was explained at some point, or are the precise details meant to be a mystery at this stage? 2. In the epilogue of RotCG, Dassem has a conversation with Hood following the climactic battle. His animosity towards Hood does not seem to be present here - what am I missing? Finally, a query about book order. I've decided, having just finished TtH, to read Stonewielder (which I started today) and Orb, Sceptre, Throne before the final two Erikson books, which I've heard are best read without splitting up. Is there any compelling reason not to do this?
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Aug 24, 2018 17:24
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I too am just over halfway through Stonewielder and enjoying it. It's definitely better than RotCG, which is obviously better than NoK. I quite like how the change of viewpoint gives us different views of viewpoint characters from earlier in the book, most notably Greymane and Kyle. It definitely feels more focused than RotCG and I'm genuinely looking forward to seeing how the story strands play out (and inevitably converge). After that it's Orb, Sceptre, Throne and then on with the final two books in the main series. I am loving M:BotF a great deal, but for various reasons it's taking me years to read, which means I'm often forgetting details from earlier, although I do occasionally read the excellent re-read articles on Tor to combat this. I really want to re-read them afterwards, as it's clear that this would be a rewarding experience, but Christ, I don't know if there's enough time left in my life given the backlog of other books I have, fantasy and non. I really want to give the Gormenghast trilogy a go; I have the recent Beren and Luthien release sitting there; got the Dark Tower series last Christmas; my wife recently read Kingkiller Chronicles and won't shut up about it and I admit it does sound good; then there are the P.G. Wodehouse books I recently got, various historical novels, plus Dune and Rendezvous with Rama plus various others I can't recall. But by god Malazan is one of the best fantasy series I've read and I think by hook or by crook I must give it another read through before I pop my clogs. It has filled the ASoiaF-shaped hole in my life (still haven't read Dance with Dragons) and then some.
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Oct 18, 2018 12:02
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Strom Cuzewon posted:I'm really enjoying the re-read, I'm not stressing out over trying to figure out all the little details and can just enjoy the story and the characters for what they are. Yeah, one issue I currently have is constantly straining my memory to place certain characters/references to things from several books ago. I love the detail and lack of spoon-feeding, but it does also cause a tiny amount of stress too when I feel I'm not getting the full benefit due to not remembering something too well (albeit it's partly my fault for taking so long to get through the series). I'm looking forward to coming at them from the other way around when do re-read them, having those "aha" moments, with lines and events making more sense as part of the bigger picture with the benefit of hindsight. Read the Earthsea quartet years ago and really enjoyed them. I do like the sound of Kingkiller though, but am doubting it's as good as my wife reckons. Interesting to hear your highly negative view, as they seem generally quite well-regarded, although I can't say I've exactly read tons of reviews now I think of it. Would definitely prioritise Dune over Rama, due to its status and it just sounds cool. I think the Gormenghast trilogy has to come high up my priority list, as again I love the sound of it and it's unfinished business from my teens, when I struggled to really get into it. I may end up reading some of the other Malazan stories after finishing TCG, but I may also want a break from the world and to dip into something else for a bit.
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Oct 18, 2018 13:26
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Lotta love for Kingkiller in here then.  Strom Cuzewon posted:Feather Witches tile casting actually predates Mother Dark, that's really cool) Can this be elaborated on without spoilers past the end of Toll the Hounds, because I'm curious? Her tile castings in Midnight Tides happen before the whole Mother Dark/Andii rift - I know MT happens before the main story but that doesn't sound right? dishwasherlove posted:I have read the entire series and prequel books twice and I just found out I was pronouncing Malazan wrong the entire time. Sadness. What's the correct way? I pronounce it with the emphasis on the first syllable.
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Oct 23, 2018 13:14
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Strom Cuzewon posted:Oh I meant the stuff she describes in her readings. All that portentous "and light was born and made the dark sad as planets were cast to the earth" stuff. Oh right, thanks. quote:The hard part is resisting the urge to say ma-la-ZAHN, with a very fantasy sounding emphasis on it as three syllables. But given they're from Malaz you're meant to squash the last syllable, like how it's Englund, Germun, not Eng-Land, Germ-Man. I'm English, so my inclination is to pronounce it ma-la-ZANN, but as I said before with emphasis on the first syllable. Never really thought it might be wrong, even when wondering how other people pronounce things like Tiste Andii (in my head it's tis-teh an-dee-eye, like the Roman triarii).
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Oct 23, 2018 16:05
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Strom Cuzewon posted:It rhymes with Twisty Andy and I won't hear otherwise! Let us fight. Ben Nerevarine posted:Before I started reading it was MAL-uh-zann, after I started reading and discovered it was an adjective I figured it was probably Muh-LAZ-in but that sounds dumb so I never stopped saying it the wrong way. Isn't it both? Sure I've heard reference to "Malazans" on various occasions.
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Oct 24, 2018 16:56
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Just finished Stonewielder. Esslemont's definitely getting better by the book. Wonder if that trajectory will continue with Orb Sceptre Throne. Looking forward to it in any case as I like the Darujhistan setting and the idea of continuing on from events there after Toll the Hounds.
OneSizeFitsAll fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Dec 14, 2018 |
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Dec 14, 2018 17:18
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I read all the Black Company books some years back and really enjoyed them. You can definitely see the influence on writers like Erikson but I prefer Erikson's more descriptive prose and detailed world-building. He does humour more effectively than Cook too. Would recommend the Black Company series to anyone looking for a sort of Malazan-lite with more scaled-down and efficient plotting and prose.
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Dec 18, 2018 17:33
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Cardiac posted:Efficient plotting is not how I would describe the latter Black company books. They were more of a shaggy dogs tale with no focused overall story arc. Hmm, been too long for me to debate that either way. But I mainly meant that they are far less sprawling and complicated than Erikson's plots.
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Dec 18, 2018 18:30
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I've just finished Orb Sceptre Throne and while not perfect by any means I really did enjoy it a great deal, certainly more than the other ICE books I've read (KoK, RotCG, SW). I especially enjoyed spending more time with the Seguleh, both through the eyes of their Second and from the outsider perspective of Yusuk. As ever, thanks to the oblique and sometimes unnecessarily vague storytelling employed by both ICE and SE, there were elements of confusion afterwards, most of which were helped by looking at the Re-read of the Fallen. But there are still some things I don't get: 1. Why do the Seguleh have one fewer mark on their mask than their rank - i.e. the Second has one mark, the Eighth has seven, etc? 2. If the true mask of the First was the one retrieved by the Eleventh from Moon's Spawn, what was the one worn from the tomb outside Darujhistan by the Legate, and why did it set the Seguleh's altar going, get them travelling to Darujhistan, convince Jan to bend the knee etc? 3. Not something I didn't understand per se, but apparently Karsa was alluded to in the book (which makes sense seeing as he hung around after TtH, although him not getting involved with all the commotion towards the end makes less sense) but I seem to have missed it. Can anyone vaguely relate what the reference to him was? Now on to the homeward stretch of the last two SE books (glad I had the foresight to bring DoD with me on holiday). I may then read some more ICE - do his books continue their upward trajectory in quality?
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Jul 14, 2019 08:19
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I guess that explains those then, thank you. Wonder what I'm missing re the two First masks then. Pretty fundamental to the book I've just read but these books are so opaque at times I don't even know if I'm being dumb or not. Just read the DoD prologue and enjoying the new details about the K'Chain. Edit: Strom: sure, I got that, but why did its emergence cause the priest to tell Jan to fulfil their destiny at the beginning of the book, and Jan to agree to serve the Legate? OneSizeFitsAll fucked around with this message at 11:33 on Jul 14, 2019 |
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Jul 14, 2019 11:19
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Strom Cuzewon posted:Oh right Sorry if I'm being obtuse, but that doesn't seem to clear it up. How does he call them and why do they later submit to him? The altar in their temple has a definite reaction, causing the priest to say it is time to fulfil their destiny. Have he and the altar somehow just been tricked, likewise Jan later on - is he just under the false impression that the Legate is the First? Esslemont's writing at the beginning where the mask is found in that claustrophobic tomb is some pretty effective horror writing in my opinion.
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Jul 14, 2019 16:40
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Ah right. I somehow missed this:Strom Cuzewon posted:The Seguleh served the tyrant millennia ago, and the awakening of the Altar is his signal to them. Thank you for enlightening me. Edit: ulmont posted:Question 1: Cool, that makes sense.
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Jul 14, 2019 17:44
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That's a nice comic touch. It also feeds into how good both authors are at showing the story from myriad perspectives, from the gods, ascendants, emperors and other major players, to officers of various rank, to the grunts at the bottom, to otherwise irrelevant people like the guy with the garden, and even animals, like the ox pulling the cart. Or the wonderful bit where Erikson takes us into Chaur's mind.
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Jul 15, 2019 09:32
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I loved the journey reading the Black Company books and you can see its ancestry of ASoIaF, and Malazan in particular. Malazan BotF is a bit like TBC on steroids and a good bit better written, so I'm glad I read the latter first.
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Aug 3, 2019 01:09
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In Esslemont's books people seem to incline their heads an inordinate amount.
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Aug 19, 2019 15:56
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Midnight Tides represents a bit of a challenge, as it pans away from areas and characters we're familiar with in a more dramatic way than previously (from memory the only person in the book we've seen before is Trull Sengar). But it really is worth it in the long run, when it starts to tie together in subsequent books in a very satisfying way. It did require a touch more willpower for me than previous books though, and it is where my reading of the series to my wife ended up stumbling, for the reason above (along with our children selfishly existing and having needs).
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Sep 17, 2019 15:00
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I can't say it's my favourite but Bugg and Tehol and big points in its favour.
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Sep 17, 2019 15:17
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I guess that's a valid point of view, but I think a lot of their dialogue is very witty (and continues to be in later books). Moreover I like the relationship they have, and find it funny how it remains similar even after Tehol becomes aware of who Bugg really is.
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Sep 17, 2019 15:49
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Cardiac posted:Also accurate. I haven't read TcG yet (so please no direct spoilers for anyone who responds), but I'm on Dust of Dreams and I was surprised when: Yedan Derryg made short work of a gang of them. I mean they've been built up over the series as a terrifying prospect; in HoC one who's been trapped under a rock for god knows how long renders a Toblakai, one of the strongest species in the series, a vegetable with a flick of her wrist. Then a bunch of them get creamed by this Shake guy who yeah is clearly a strong warrior, but it still came across odd. Maybe it becomes clearer in the last book.
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Oct 17, 2019 14:21
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Cardiac posted:They were not Pures. Oh OK - I guess this gets clarified later (as much as Erikson ever clarifies things). Yeah just playing it safe on the spoilers. As someone who still hasn't finished the series it certainly makes reading this thread less hazardous when people do it, even though I see the argument for not bothering this long after the series was finished. Cryptozoology posted:You might be underestimating just how fuckin metal Yedan Derryg is. Yeah perhaps so. Just not had much build up of his abilities prior to that scene, and the Shake, while obviously having some overall significance what with their relationship to Mother Dark the the Tiste Andii*, have never come across to me as the most potent group of people. Now watch them save the world in TcG or something. *Derryg and Twilight's conversation on the shore does little to properly cast light on this. OneSizeFitsAll fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Oct 17, 2019 |
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Oct 17, 2019 17:28
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Cardiac posted:I have gone through the series 3 times and I think someone here (Annihilated?) have read it 5 times. The end of TTH is a big one, and unfortunately I spoiled one of those events by accident when early on I decided to google "Anomander Rake", and the auto-complete suggested "Anomander Rake death". But overall yes, these are huge, sprawling books which definitely invite a re-read. I don't know if I'll ever manage it, given how much less time I get to read these days and the desire to, you know, read other stuff too. But if ever a fantasy series merits it, this does.
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Oct 18, 2019 13:07
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I liked the Harllo story - I found it pretty touching, albeit in a mostly depressing Eriksonesque way (though the happy-ish pay-off with Stonny at the end gave me wonderful warm feels). On the contrary I found the Tiste Andii bits only OK - the whole Dying God thing felt like a weird red herring, even in a series which generally makes a strength out such things. It was satisfying to see some comeuppance for Clip the Douche, though.
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Oct 28, 2019 10:59
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I love how Hellian is listed in Hocus Pocus's post as a "competent" sergeant, and how even though she is barely ever not utterly piss drunk, hardly ever seems to know exactly where she is or what's going on, or even is able to distinguish between her two corporals or ascertain that there actually are two, that is still an accurate description of her.
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Nov 3, 2019 00:41
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Just starting The Crippled God. Home stretch, baby! Loved Dust of Dreams. Some wonderful (and also some horrific) stuff in there.
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Nov 26, 2019 22:28
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A few chapters into The Crippled God and have a question. Maybe I'm missing something. Why/how is the gate to Akhrast Korvalain sealed? Or does this get explained later?
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Jan 8, 2020 02:23
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I mean, some of what seem to be the main antagonists of the series denouement don't have access to their warren, and are going to use the heart of the onstensible series antagonist to break what's sealing it. It's all so big and thus it's frustrating to not know why/how this situation is what it is. I know that kind of confusion is the Malazan experience right there, but at this stage in the proceedings I wanted to check whether I'm supposed to know or not. Obviously I know why the FA are being pricks in general, or at least their justification of it. ulmont posted:Both of you are right - OP is right with the spelling and you're right with "kinda." https://malazan.fandom.com/wiki/Ahkrast_Korvalain Does the link spoil TCG?
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Jan 9, 2020 00:16
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I'm reading the books to my wife and it's such fun going back to the beginning and noticing new details, bits of foreshadowing etc now I've finished the series. Hope we make it through this time; we made it up to Midnight Tides previously, and because of her being jarred by the setting shift, coupled with the demands of young kids and various other life poo poo, we kind of petered out. Now about 4 years later we're rebooting and are determined to get her through to the end, though it will inevitably take some time.
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Jun 14, 2020 16:31
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I'm re-reading them in the form of reading them to my wife at the moment. We're a little through Deadhouse Gates at the moment (having previously reached Midnight Tides together but tailed off due to kids selfishly deciding to be born). Erikson is often banging on in interviews about how he wrote the books with re-reads in mind, but it does show. Lots of little details, foreshadowing, names dropped in earlier than I remember them appearing from the first time round. It's a ball reading these with slightly less confusion than the first time.
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Nov 30, 2020 13:53
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Alhazred posted:Maybe he should've made his books shorter then. It took me half a year to read the six last novels. Can't argue with this. Took me loving years, but then again I do like a cheeky spliff of an evening and these are the last books you want to be reading while stoned.
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Dec 1, 2020 19:03
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Did it strike anyone else as a bit weird how (spoilers just in case) Laseen dies in one of the non-main books (RotCG), and her death is almost glossed over in the main series thereafter. Sure, Rel is obviously Emperor, but there's no reference to what happened to Laseen, so people who are only reading Erikson's books must feel a little confused compared to those who, like me, read both his and ICE's books in publication order. I know ICE is obviously a co-creator of the world and his books are non-trivial in the overall context, but it still seems odd that someone could read just the mainline series and have the death of such a pivotal character in the world not referenced, even in passing. Just wondering how this came across to people in that category. OneSizeFitsAll fucked around with this message at 14:19 on Dec 24, 2020 |
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Dec 24, 2020 14:15
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On Dust of Dreams events: I knew when reading it something was coming up, because I was also reading bits of the Re-read of the Fallen, and there were constant references to "the event" in the comments - it was plain that something divisive that affected lots of readers was on its way and yes, when I got there it was a horrible passage with some absolutely senselessly brutal behaviour, but worst thing in the books so far? I'm reading Chain of Dogs to my wife at the moment and to my mind events in that are worse: Duiker and to a lesser extent Kalam constantly encountering scenes where women and children have been raped, tortured in horrible ways and killed... there's one scene where women had been raped then strangled with their own entrails and babies put on spits; another where children have been crucified. Yet more scenes showing the aftermath of the rape, torture and death of children pop up throughout the book. I mean the obvious crucial difference is that these tend to be snapshots after the fact, maybe a paragraph of description at most, whereas the stuff with Hetan in DoD is rather more drawn out and happens in real time, but to me the images described above, perhaps along with the Bidithal circumcision poo poo from HoC, are still more upsetting than the hobbling. It's just as well Erikson is adept at including humour to balance this kind of stuff, because there's a lot of seriously grim stuff throughout the series.
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Jan 17, 2021 13:06
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On the snake: One thing I wasn't clear about : was there a particular reason the Forkrul Assail were harrying them, beyond their general "judge/kill all humans" MO?
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Jan 25, 2021 11:21
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dwarf74 posted:Uh that one killed one of his friends and broke the other one's brain. Just the latter of those two. Bairoth gets killed later when he and Karsa are captured. SansPants posted:If I remember right it was the T'lan Imass. Isn't there a huge ramp of bones from the ones who died in the battle? It was them, along with Icarium. Which has some nice symmetry in TCG when she in turn imprisons him (though I don't think she overpowers him, just finds him unconscious). Wolfsheim posted:I'm still slowly making my way through the The Crippled God and I'm still not sold on the Forkrul Assail showing up in the eleventh hour to actually be The Big Threat, and it was weird to throw in a reference to the Empress dying which I assume happened in one of the spinoff books, I'm fine with the former, for reasons other posters have already mentioned, but I also found the latter kind of strange, even though I had read RotCG (just was very apparent to me that it wasn't dealt with at all in the main series). OneSizeFitsAll fucked around with this message at 23:53 on Feb 18, 2021 |
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Feb 18, 2021 23:50
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Strom Cuzewon posted:I love that for all his pretentiousness he's not above doing/admitting to dumb stuff like this. LIke how his explanation for the Karsa vs K'Chain wrestling match was "i wanted a badass fightscene" To his credit, Erikson is very conscious of including pay-offs for the reader, in the form of epic or satisfying confrontations, whether involving combat or not. He respects that his readers read his dense, sometimes confusing work with the expectation that it ultimately will yield dramatically satisfying moments, and endeavours to provide that, while still sticking to his creative guns and avoiding spoon feeding and the like. The stucture of his books - with convergence of big powers and major players playing a big role both on a micro (per-book basis) and macro (overall in the series) level - does lead into this quite nicely, of course.
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Apr 6, 2021 16:06
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Hellian absolutely rules.Alhazred posted:Reaper's Gale is, even by malazan standards, an endless slog of misery. Think I mentioned this upthread, but I'm reading Deadhouse Gates to my wife at the moment, and while it may have more high points than Reapers Gale, I still think it's the most depressing - the amount of references to children and babies not just killed but tortured slowly to death is I think much higher than any other book and makes it pretty unpleasant at times. Still a great book, but yeah... I think the point about random cruelty and malice towards those "different" could have been made without quite so many babies on spits, children with multilated faces slowly dying on a cross and Jaghut children with their bones smashed then pinned under rocks, then their father stuck in unending, eternal, parental grief.
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Apr 10, 2021 18:57
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Josh Christ posted:Deadhouse is a really grim book overall and I think all of that helps to make the fate of the Chain of Dogs not feel like this one off moment of galactic cruelty. The world is a loving lovely nightmare, and you let yourself get your hopes up for these people against all reason, all evidence to the contrary, and you get brought back down hard. True, and the way Coltaine etc are "rewarded" is one the of the grimmest things about it - not necessarily because it's gruesome (though of course it is), but particularly in the terms of the sheer injustice, in light of their insane heroics.
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Apr 11, 2021 11:32
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My recollection is he generally goes with the latter (long "i" version) of those. Both are different from what I use, and by the time I learned this and some other correct pronunciations I had wrong, they were too embedded to really change, especially given I had also established them with my wife when reading to her.
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Apr 13, 2021 14:22
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A lot of the time she is "on screen" she displays unlikeable traits, i.e. bitter and deliberately hurtful comments to those around her who are trying to help her. However, it is very clear what the background and underlying causes of this behaviour are (summarised in the post above). Some people seem to find it hard to connect her behaviour to those things and afford her the concomitant empathy. Sexism is probably quite a big part of it.
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Sep 16, 2021 17:47
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It was all a dream. Probably Kruppe's.
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Sep 20, 2021 17:27
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