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I just started Dust of Dreams on my first read through. I am so loving excited. These loose loving ends are all going to get tied together. I expect Karsa to still be my favorite by the end, dammit. But only because Anomander Rake just died. Those are two fantastic characters.
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Mar 22, 2015 08:20
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Jack2142 posted:I also sort of like how the book drops you into the story without spending alot of time giving backstory making me figure things out as it goes on. You have no idea...
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May 21, 2015 08:11
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anilEhilated posted:I love the final reveal of the Icarium plotline, that it's the people accompanying him that matter. Knowing that has made me appreciate him a lot more on reread. What really? I totally missed that and must say I was confused as hell about icarium's whole plot line in like the last three books (after he blew himself up and made his own Warrens, imitating Krul or whatever ) . Can you elaborate?
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Jun 28, 2015 03:58
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snoremac posted:It's funny how at this point it's not even strange when a wizard decides to talk to the god of death while mid-flight across the sky with a talking bundle of twigs on his shoulder. I imagine there's been a lot of conversation about how the heck this series could be filmed. That's the part where Fener's being pulled into the moral real by Heboric is as explained as it's ever going to be. It made absolutely no sense on my first read through but on the second - when I knew what the gently caress was going on and who all these people were - it made as much sense as anything else in what is essentially an extended D&D campaign.
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Aug 13, 2016 01:20
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snoremac posted:What is DC? Deadhouse Cakes. Also I just got done re-reading the first part of House of Chains. This series is 100% better on a read through since I actually have some clue who the players are and where everyone fits in the timeline. I didn't quite understand the background for the Teblor though. Their history is told through Karsa's point of view as he and his two friends stumble upon (among other things) the writing in the cave, the forkrul assail, and the bone steps / cleave in the cliffs, and various snippets from the seven t'lan imass gods. Also there was mention of Icarium, possibly his parents maybe? Since he's half Toblakai maybe he was saving his mother's tribe or something? And maybe the Jaghut hiding above the tribes was Gothos?.. I couldn't quite piece together what happened, though. Anyone have a concise statement?
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Aug 21, 2016 09:15
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lifts cats over head posted:I just finished Memories of Ice last night. I just wanted to double check, but am I the only one who doesn't know what the hell is going on until there's about 200 pages left in these books? I recall feeling the same way for Gardens and Deadhouse. Does House of Chains have the same pace to it? I like the stories but there are times I put the book down and they're pretty hard to pick back up until close to the end. Totally normal. I spent a significant amount of time each book completely in the dark as to who the major players were or what was going on. The upside, though, is that a reread is so much fantastically better than the first read.
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Sep 19, 2016 20:56
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The Ninth Layer posted:Whole series spoiler: Probably the plot was that CG gets Mosag to unite the Edur and Letheras, takes that force across the wastes to free himself. Mosag was hungry for that power and presumably would have handled it better. Instead Rhulad goes mad with torment and focuses his resources on finding a champion strong enough to kill him for good. I thought the plan was for CG to use Rhulad's quest for champions to lure Karsa to pick up the sword. Thus the plan first revealed like nine books prior comes to a head when Karsa kills Rhulad and they get transported to the island together, at which point the CG brushes aside Rhulad and tell Karsa something like "This has been a long time coming Karsa my chosen champion, pick up the sword and become the king badass."
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Nov 7, 2016 09:01
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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.
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Dec 16, 2016 02:00
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I concur that you should keep going. For me, it made absolutely zero sense until much later, but the payout is so great that it was worth the initial struggle. Also I'm bummed because I left my kindle on a plane and now I'm in a foreign country with no good English books to read. I just got to the part with the snake and the quitters on my reread and, again, now that I know what's going on it's fantastic.
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May 17, 2017 13:08
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Re the climax in DoD, the first time I read it I had absolutely no idea what was going on. Only on the re read did it click that those were the same lizards in sky keeps we saw exactly one time eight books earlier, and they showed up at that second because they are the Errant s allies and he nudged them in the way of Tavore. I have no idea how anyone puts that together the first time. The second time though it was awesome.
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Sep 1, 2017 20:55
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Gravity Cant Apple posted:They're real things. I mean, they're real things in the sense they fictionally exist in a fictional universe. They're not real things in the sense that you can go down to Walgreens and buy candles that extend your actual lifespan for a century. Now that that's cleared up, do we ever get closure on Nait and the Prairie Dogs? After the ending of ROTG when he blew up the Chaos rent that ate Tayschrenn and saved the day he just sort of disappears. I haven't seen him pop up in any of ICE's subsequent books, unless I'm crazy. BigHead fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Jan 2, 2018 |
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Jan 2, 2018 17:38
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Mordja posted:Unpopular opinion, but I read the first Bakker trilogy and kind of loathed them throughout. The man's just not a good enough writer to convincingly make Kellhus at all believable as this brilliant genius, instead all the characters around him just come off as inconsolable morons. The setting's fairly neat and it had some cool concepts, but not enough to make me consider reading his followup books. I read that Bakker trilogy and it was terrible. It was especially terrible once I thought of the three main characters as the football jock, the pretty girl, and the genius who could win the girl from the football jock if everyone just listened to his superior logic, especially his jerk dad. And in the end he sure shows them. The whole thing was written like a high school freshman's stream of consciousness. I'm cranking through ICE after my re-read of the Erickson MBOTF. ICE isn't nearly as terrible as Bakker. Anyway that's my two cents thanks for reading.
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Apr 24, 2018 06:47
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:The bone communications device gets dropped fast in the rest of the Malazan books, because One-Arm & WhiskeyJack went rogue from the It (or one similar to it) is used again in Orb Scepter Throne to negotiate between the Moranth and Mallik regarding the impending bombing of D-stan. . That's the only other bone phone I can think of.
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May 1, 2018 19:34
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The Ninth Layer posted:Yes, at some point Kellanved finds the "First Throne" which gives him control of at least one T'lan Imass legion. It's why Tool begins the series in service to Adjunct Lorn. Fuzzy Mammal posted:We learn in dancer's lament that it's Gothos who sets them in that path, too.  Kellanved taking control of the Logros leads to Dassem Ulton being named First Sword and firing Tool from his position of First Sword so can go hang out with the Adjunct.This led to Hood taking revenge because Traveler now a) was supposed to be his Mortal Sword and b) those Imass are supposed to be dead and in Hood's realm. Which led to Traveler breaking his Mortal Sword vow to Hood, which leads to Hood kidnapping and really loving up Traveler's daughter. Which led to Traveler swearing vengeance on Hood, which led to Traveler killing Rake after Rake stole his vengeance. Which led to whathisname going free from the sword. Which led to saving the Throne of Darkness (how the Emperor and Hood convinced Rake to kill Hood) in the finale of the penultimate book and saving the world (with a now-alive and free Hood and his mini-army of Jahgut, and the bridgeburners who ascended once Hood quit his job) at the finale of The Crippled God. I think it was in TCG that the last piece of that chain of causation fell into place, with a flashback during Tool's point of view chapter, during the trek across that desert. Turns out the plan for the finale of TCG was put into place way back when. Edit: formatting. BigHead fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Jul 1, 2018 |
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Jun 30, 2018 23:50
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Bauchelain and Emancipor Reese are a close #2 malazan series comic-duo, or #1 comic duo if you prefer horror-movie genre + the three stooge genres over P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves + Bertie Wooster wackiness. Is their standalone book any good? Or books. However many there are.
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Aug 10, 2018 20:29
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OneSizeFitsAll posted:
BigHead posted:
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Aug 25, 2018 15:47
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Don't forget the chained God's body was also stored in the great ravens. That's why rake's great raven buddy shows up out of loving nowhere in the middle of the finale. I have no idea if the coltain crows and great ravens are related but there you go. They probably aren't related. Crows travel in murders as everyone knows, but ravens prefer pairs or tight knit family units. Crows also go caw, while ravens go croak. Ravens are like writing desks, while crows resemble an abacus. There are other differences (ability to carry Wiccan souls vs godly corporeal forms notwithstanding) too if anyone wants a really interesting lecture.
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Nov 21, 2018 21:47
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I just finished a reread of TtH. I found it immensely more enjoyable by reading only the first and last books, and skipping everything in the middle.
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Oct 26, 2019 17:49
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I'm about halfway through the last book, and I'm at the scene where Paran gives the sappers a cache of munitions and asks them to make him proud and go hog wild against the turned Wolf army. The sappers just stare at him in silence and he gets all awkward, asking Boil to go see if they are alright. Boil reports that the corporal has wept a single joyful tear and the rest are stunned by happiness. . That is such an effective few pages showing how crazy they all are.
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Jan 4, 2020 05:24
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kingturnip posted:The Snake is a mirror to the Bonehunters, but - spoiler for The Crippled God; seriously, don't read this until you've finished the last book - they're more than that, because they eat the locusts/shards, which are the D'ivers that make up the Forkrul Assail god. Badalle seems to take on some of its power, at the very least. My memory is that the snake was clearly laid out as the Worn of Autumn protecting the kids. Snake = worm. That's about when it was revealed the Worm killed all her followers except what's his name because all the rest of the followers wanted her to join the dark side. Hence the worm showing up at the conclusion to protect the last of the bonehunters who were standing over TCG. The worm was with them when the kids were with them. Though maybe the "eating the locust God" thing makes sense now that I think of it.
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Jan 25, 2021 04:51
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There's a chain of events (ending spoilers) that I didn't put together until my reread: Kellanved taking control of the Logros leads to Tool getting fired from the job of First Sword of the T'lan Imass, and Traveler being named First Sword. After getting fired, Tool can go hang out with the Adjunct for Gardens of the Moon. This led to Hood getting angry because Traveler a) was supposed to be his Mortal Sword, not Shadow's and b) those Imass are supposed to be dead and in Hood's realm. Traveler breaking his Mortal Sword vow to Hood leads to Hood kidnapping and loving up Traveler's daughter. Which led to Traveler swearing vengeance on Hood. The Rope convinces Rake to kill Hood, which led to Traveler killing Rake after Rake stole his vengeance by killing Hood first. That frees up Hood from his job (Hood's payoff for being part of the plan). Hood's army of undead entering the sword leads to Drakonus going free from the sword and Hood's army of undead saving the Thone of Darkness (saving the Throne of Darkness is the payoff the Emperor and Hood used to convince Rake to kill Hood) in the finale of the penultimate book and saving the world That allows Hood and his mini-army of Jahgut to resurrect, and the Bridgeburners to fully ascend to fill Hood's job, and save the day in The Crippled God. I just wanted to add that I picked up Gardens of the Moon to slowly read between my other reading project, which is dry as dirt. In the second or third chapter, before Paran even meets the Bridgeburners, someone just casually mentions that Hood took Traveler's daughter. That's a series of intricate plot points spanning the books, starting from page 20 or so and ending at the conclusion of the last book. I appreciate that. BigHead fucked around with this message at 06:56 on Jun 20, 2021 |
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Jun 20, 2021 06:43
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Gravity Cant Apple posted:Was Tool ever fired from being First Sword? I thought he still held the title while he was traveling with Envy and co in Memories of Ice? The title was one of the big reasons why the Seguleh were so keen on dueling him, and when he lost to Mok, Kilava got pissed and tried to kill Mok for beating the First Sword of the T'lan Imass. I'm pretty sure First Sword of the Empire is a separate title from First Sword of the T'lan Imass. The rest of what you said checks out though. Look at that! https://malazan.fandom.com/wiki/First_Sword_(disambiguation)
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Jun 21, 2021 15:24
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OneSizeFitsAll posted:Anyone found that Malazan has spoiled other fantasy series at all? I was reading some discussions about this series vs Wheel of Time online and most people recommended if one was to read both then to read WoT first, as enjoyment of it will be diminished after reading Malazan. I can sort of see it theoretically, given the overall quality of MBotF and the way it offers such a non-spoon-fed, postmodern take. And WoT is such a huge commitment, even if it's purportedly a lighter read. But I feel tempted after watching the 1st few eps of the adaptation. I have not found that Malazan has spoiled anything, except perhaps appreciating in-depth world building so much that single short volume stories are a bit harder for me to read. I have read both Malazan and WOT. Malazan twice and WOT three times. I have not found Malazan to have ruined WOT at all. If anything you appreciate the gargantuan world building Jordan undertook with WOT. Plus the story was generally charted out from the beginning, so the series is as cohesive as something that long can be. I would highly recommend jumping into WOT. If you can slog through Malazan, then WOT is a breeze. It's much more approachable. The first book is written for tweens and is 100% a LOTR knockoff (after that the series becomes dramatically better). The bad guy is literal Satan. His minions are obviously and clearly Evil and do evil things. The good guys have slightly different flavors of the motivation of "fight literal Satan." On my last re-read, which I did because my 9 year old book worm nephew picked up the first book, took me all of like four months to finish. It's not like Malazan where you need to chart out multiple simultaneous D&D campaigns with nine different alignment charts to figure out what the hell is going on, and everyone communicates in grandiose innuendo and raised eyebrows. In short, both are good and good for different reasons. Definitely pick up WOT and enjoy the wild ride. If you do pick it up, look up the podcast Wheel Takes, which is a new read through podcast where they discuss the books in order chapter by chapter. You can't google anything without being completely spoiled, and you don't want to be completely spoiled, so that podcast is the most safe avenue for having a secondary resource.
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Dec 9, 2021 18:40
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The line most memorably badass to me was when the Errant drops the short tail army in the path of the Bonehunters in, uh, DoD. Fiddler, Quick Ben, Hedge, and the sappers hold back the front lines long enough for the rest of the army to dig in. QB dies, and Fiddler retreats to the trench. The line and image that sticks with me is "The heavies rose to meet them."
BigHead fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Dec 15, 2021 |
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Dec 15, 2021 05:19
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latinotwink1997 posted:Witness Karsa telling whatshername "stand back witch" as he prepares to protect the sword from all seven hounds of light.
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Dec 15, 2021 17:38
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D'ivers are shapeshifters that change into many different animals, like a pack of jackals or swarm of bees. Soultaken are single animals like a bear or tiger. Generally speaking they are Very Old. You meet one later that is many dudes who turn into one big animal. I'm phone posting so won't even try to spell their names but the two dudes you mentioned are the two gods you mentioned, and yes Dancer possessed Sorry. They entered the Azath House and ascendedto take the previously empty throne of shadow.The D'ivers and Soultaken are, if I remember correctly, racing for another Azath House to secure its power in this book. Red Blades are a generic company of the army separate from the rest of the army. Like mercenaries. BigHead fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Jan 22, 2023 |
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Jan 22, 2023 17:55
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imagine dungeons posted:Gruntle and his brigade, I think? Huge tiger. That’s my guess, anyways. Yup that's who I was thinking of
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Jan 25, 2023 06:45
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Don't forget, in addition to sex ninja goddess sex school he attends, he also spends what I remember to be three entire chapters devoted to an endless internal dialogue / existential crisis over a girl laying on the same rock as him.
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Mar 19, 2023 22:57
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I have the whole series version on Kindle. I can say it's smaller than the physical books, which I also own. It works great, no issues other than not being able to bounce back and forth between the glossary whenever I forget who someone is. Bookmark your favorite parts so you can go back and read them is one suggestion.
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May 7, 2023 00:33
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SilkyP posted:Cool thanks! Nope each book's glossary is right after that book, so they're all interspersed throughout. And each glossary is different, designed for that individual book. It's not a big deal if you just hit the wiki, though you might get spoiled.
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May 7, 2023 01:05
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They're perfectly fine books. They pale in comparison to the main series because the main series is so great. But they're fine with absolutely nothing wrong with them. If you want to nerd out in a fantasy series you can do a whole lot worse.
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Nov 12, 2023 21:43
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This thread could use more action, feel free to post here! Edit and you can also listen to the excellent read along podcast Ten Very Big Books BigHead fucked around with this message at 01:25 on Jan 18, 2024 |
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Jan 17, 2024 23:57
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I happened to have just listened to the Ten Very Big Books podcast interview with Erickson. He said that Kallor was one of his favorite characters to write because he wanted Kallor to be the biggest possible rear end in a top hat, but also make you feel sympathetic to his plight. I thought Erickson nailed it because I honestly felt bad for the guy by the end of the books.
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Feb 29, 2024 21:42
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Wheel Takes with Ali and Gus just put up a podcast with Guy Roberts, the actor who played Uno. It's a great listen. Lol woops wrong thread obviously BigHead fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Apr 29, 2024 |
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Apr 28, 2024 23:46
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