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drat this thread. I was looking for something new to read and picked up the first book on a chance, and have just finished the second. Both started slow (though the second less), with me pushing myself the first half of each and then being unable to stop reading for the last three or four hundred pages. I've been staying up at all hours of the night poring over each branching plotline, getting a few hours of sleep each night because of it. By the end of Deadhouse Gates I was as goddamn emotionally invested in Coltaine's march as the historian was, and those scenes interspersed with Kalam's pirate ship adventures and assassin wars through the streets of Malaz City was baller as hell. The ending to the second book seemed really abrupt, though. Each group spends the better part of the book in pursuit of their destination, both Fiddler and Kalam to Malaz City, Duiker to Aren, and Felisin to who cares. And then, upon reaching these places things that seem incredibly important seem to start happening very quickly without any of the drawn-out, lingering moments that the rest of the book thrives on. The Empress essentially info-dumps Kalam in the span of a couple of pages, and then Fiddler's group arrives and then they literally all get teleported by a deus ex machina who essentially says "Oh hey guys have your various happy endings I guess!" I mean, maybe there's more to it in later books, but Gardens of the Moon (though obviously rougher in terms of basic writing) wraps up most of it's plotlines very nicely while spending a few scenes setting up all the sequel-bait. Deadhouse Gates does this a little, particularly with the Felisin v. Tavore setup that I have a hard time feeling strongly about but mostly it just seems like the author hit page 700 and went "Oh drat this book is getting long as fuuuck, better start wrapping this poo poo up." I would love to be told I'm wrong without any overt spoilers, though it's forgivable enough; I'm willing to give a lot of leeway to a series with lore that seemingly runs so deep and multi-layered that it makes the usual fantasy players look like babytown frolics. I already have Memories of Ice ready to go; I was a little disheartened by reading the cast list at the beginning to see Kruppe remains conspicuously absent, however 
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Jun 12, 2013 09:42
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Hey guys, I recently got back into these, finally picking up Memories of Ice and now I'm 3/4 through House of Chains. The OP isn't kidding when it mentions that the writing gets substantially better with every book. Book three almost feels like what the first book wanted to be, and it actually made me kinda like Ganoes Paran, whose inability to command and bitchy attitude actually seemed endearing this time around. I also felt like I had a better sense of what was happening and the gravity of the situation, so when the city was under siege, or Silverfox was loving over the T'lan Imass and then getting it turned around on her, or Itkovian was doing anything I could feel the weight of it. The one bit I didn't really feel was Toc the Younger's plotline. When he abandons his team of unstoppable badasses to join up with the Pannion's peasant army, I assumed it was to show how events were unfolding behind enemy lines, but after like half a chapter of that he immediately gets found out and tortured until the end of the book. Worse, he kills himself at the end and is immediately given a new body, completely undercutting the finality(?) of Whiskeyjack's death. Hey buddy, someone a lot more important than you could've used that body. Still, I like how it left things and am especially curious where they're going to go with bits like Quick Ben's promotion, whatever resurrection scenario happened to Tool, or if the retired Bridgeburners get back into it. As for the fourth book, it is so good. Karsa's entire sequence is amazing, and if anything I wish it was longer, because I just want more time to explore the situation with both the Malazans and Felisin's crew. The only story that seems disconnected is Cutter and Apsalar's, probably because they're off loving about on the other side of the world. It almost feels like their plotline was tacked on so all the character groups stay cleanly divided between books. Like I said though, I still have a ways left to go (just got to the bit with Leoman's entourage getting into a scrape with Fiddler's squad) so I might be presuming too much. Tell me it gets even better after this, and I'm not facing a GRRM-style early peak. Wolfsheim fucked around with this message at 09:37 on May 20, 2014 |
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May 20, 2014 09:34
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feraltennisprodigy posted:Reading the series out of order sounds really pointless to me, Deadhouse Gates has a bunch of characters from Gardens and you'll have no relation to them if you've never read it. As someone who's still only on book four, I'm gonna mention that of the four most prominent returning characters (Kalam, Fiddler, Apsalar and Crokus) two of them barely have personalities in GOTM, one is almost completely different, and the other is Crokus. I didn't have much relation to them in the first book, because all the really cool stuff was centered around other characters. I mean, I enjoyed GOTM, but the series really *clicked* with DHG, and that's where everyone starts to really shine.
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May 24, 2014 09:05
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RE: the fat fetish, I did notice Tattersail but not Felisin Younger, though I might have just missed it? If anything I thought she would've been physically similar to Felisin, albeit of a different ethnicity. Having just finished House of Chains I thought it was more noticeable that he took the time to describe how Tavore was thin but with huge breasts. Between that and her hot lesbian lover with the fantasy equivalent of a stripper name I was rolling my eyes a little bit. Anyway, I've definitely hit a bit of a wall with Midnight Tides and it's similar to the same one I hit with the first book; I can see glimmers of interesting things afoot with the Letherii society and Tehol's scheming, but the Tiste Edur and everything related to them is just so dry and lifeless. Which is odd, because Trull Sengar was great in the last book and the whole situation with the Edur was compelling as gently caress. I've learned to trust Erikson and stick it out because I know just seeing the fall and how it ties back into everything will pay off, but it is such a slog, especially when it's coming right after Karsa's loving amazing personal journey. And because people were talking about how we see this poo poo in our head; the Tiste Edur are basically ashy-skinned Morrowind-style dark elves, the Tiste Andii are black-skinned white-hair D&D-style dark elves, and the Letherii (and the random slave race serving under them) are all pretty much just humans, right?
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Jul 3, 2014 05:36
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Just finished Midnight Tides and...drat. drat guys. What the hell. What the hell, Trull Sengar. I was pretty much reading the last hundred pages in wide-eyed shock of everything incredible happening at once. I still contest that the Tiste Edur bits were dry as gently caress, even after Rhulad becomes a GOLDEN GOD and all, but drat if that last scene of the three Sengar brothers sharing the wine and having one last genuinely good time together before you knew it would all turn to poo poo wasn't completely heartbreaking. The ending is frustrating, but I guess in a good way, because it left so many questions unanswered, and I really want to know what happened to every significant character and whether or not they'll be returning in future books, considering the time period in which this one takes place. Also found it funny that it took five books before he bothered laying out a clear definition of what the hell a warren is.
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Jul 10, 2014 10:03
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Shockeh posted:Correction: He laid out a clear definition of what one character who may or may not be wrong thinks a Warren is! It's about as straightforward as I've come to expect. I do have some questions about book five, though, now that I've had some time to absorb it: -It may have been explained early on and I lost it in the sea of 'thirty characters are being introduced at once' but what was Hull's enormous vendetta against the Letherii, and if it was so heinous why did neither of his brothers carry as much spite? Is he just over dramatic? -Also, in the ending, why did the Nerek shank him? I thought that the Nerek were on the Edur's side due to the blessing and wasn't quite sure if I missed something obvious stating their intentions otherwise? -While I appreciate that the Crippled God seemed to devolve into a comedy of errors constantly, what was with the shift between his godlike power (giving Rhulad immortality, resurrecting the Tiste Andii woman, etc) and then his flailing impotence? And if he was able to be so easily usurped, why couldn't Bugg just outright kill him? Or does it not work like that, and/or are we getting into future book territory? -Is it just me, or are the Letherii a scathing condemnation of American imperialism/capitalism, and western civilization in general? Kinda surprising in a series that seemed to focus on general philosophy and not so much politics, though maybe I'm putting more into it than intended. -How much of what is implied to be important (such as Tehol learning the names, Uruth deciding to punish all Letherii for Udinaas unintended betrayal, Udinaas' son, Shurq's pirate crew and Kettle's whole situation) is followed up in any meaningful way, considering the huge time gap between this and every other book thus far? -Why does Bugg rule so hard?
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Jul 10, 2014 19:54
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I'm about midway through The Bonehunters and just when I thought I had these books figured it out in terms of 'action' (swords, sorcery, military strategy and an obvious reverence for high-powered explosives) I hit the chapter where Bottle has to lead the survivors of the burning city to safety through old crypts. It was nerve-wracking, mostly because it plays on real fears of claustrophobia that the more fantastical elements of undead pseudo-cavemen and blade-handed reptiles that live in floating mountains lacks, I loved the way it explored how each character would deal with that situation, and I think it hit harder mostly because of how unexpected it was. Erikson, you clever bastard. I also like that he pulled the same trick with Corabb that he did with Karsa:make him laughably ignorant, shatter his naivete, and then see how he copes with it. I really love the way the characters actually seem to change as people. It's downright anti-Tolkienism. A question about the book, though:are we suppose to infer Mappo just straight-up died when he went tumbling off the cliff with that demon and Icarium woke up with that random rear end in a top hat? Or if a straight yes/no is going to spoil something, will the answer be 'just keep reading'?
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Aug 4, 2014 03:52
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I thought they kinda touched on this in Memories of Ice when they uncover those long-lost Barghast swords and discuss how magic made such impeccable craftsmanship somewhat irrelevant. I also figured that's why the Imass are as they are; you don't really need to move beyond animal skins and flint when you've already figured out how to become immortal and shapeshift and travel between planes of existence and such.
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Aug 17, 2014 04:07
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I'm making my way through Reaper's Gale right now, still early on, but I just got to Karsa's first appearance. I literally laughed aloud when it consisted of him killing a rat out of boredom, handing it to the ship's captain just to be an rear end in a top hat, then proceeding to beat his own royal escort into submission for being impolite 
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Sep 24, 2014 01:18
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Look man, if you don't picture Karsa as Conan the Barbarian at 250% scale I don't know what to tell you. Still making my way through Reaper's Gale and just made it to book three, when the Malazans arrive. I was kinda surprised that they do such a quick about-face turning the Errant from benign observer to power-hungry sociopath. I know they mentioned that he's catching some of the trapped demon's feelings or whatever, but it still seems pretty abrupt in a series where you see every other character gradually developing over a span of books. I also thought it was a bit much how vindictive and cruel the chancellor is, though I assume that's to setup his satisfying eventual downfall. Having said that, I'm still enjoying it, and I love that I have absolutely no idea how this Rhulad/Karsa/Icarium bit will play out because all three have so much going on beneath the surface that it could go any which way, assuming any two of them even meet up and aren't driven apart by circumstances. Also interesting to see Quick Ben somewhat on the ropes and not knowing how to deal with it compared to his usual habit of showing everyone up, though I pretty much enjoy the character no matter what 
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Oct 5, 2014 20:11
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Whew! Finally finished Reaper's Gale. Also, none of the three bookstores I've gone to have the next book available, which means to Amazon I go, I guess. So anyway, here are my criticisms/praises/etc: I don't necessarily get the BEAK  stuff because he was a bit player who got to save his friends and go to Heaven with her brother. Considering the nonstop shitshow that every other character's life is he got off pretty drat well, and even inadvertently turned the Tiste Edur back on the right path.I really liked all of the team-ups; Ben, Hedge, Onrack and Trull Sengar were great together, and on the opposite side, Udinaas's group that absolutely hated each other was also a real treat. The Bonehunters were good as usual, and I find myself surprised that Hellian's gimmick hasn't gotten old; the bit where you find out that she alone was approaching their invasion the right way was hilarious. I also liked that the villains all get their poo poo ruined so thoroughly. The chancellor getting killed almost as an afterthought to the Malazans storming the palace was the perfect end, and the various ways the Patriotists ended up being murdered was incredibly satisfying. Karos maintaining his delusions right up to the end was just the right kind of pathetic. I did have a couple questions though, and I'm not sure if it was stuff I missed or they explain later, or whaaat: -What was Redmask's deal? He was Letherii, and the mask was made from the scales of a matron, but do we ever get more than that? Were his K'Chain Che'Malle guardians just waiting to see if he was worthy of wearing it and then slicing him open when they realized he wasn't? -Did Icarium die when he activated his ancient machine? Or I guess I should say, is that really it for that chump? -How did Tool's sister get from the Awl killing field to the deathless realm that everyone spent the entire book traveling to in what seemed to be a brief amount of time? -Why did both Wither and Clip immediately try to murder Udinaas when they arrived through the portal? Because he would've tried to protect Kettle? -Are the Tiste Edur and Letherii generally done? Tehol as emperor and the remaining Edur saying 'gently caress this, we out' seems like kind of a capstone moment, especially since there's only three books left. Wolfsheim fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Oct 15, 2014 |
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Oct 15, 2014 16:32
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ZombieLenin posted:Also the excuse that the revenge thing was just a feint doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you consider that for most of the books nobody (or near enough) is actually aware that ST/Cotillion are actually the Emperor/Dancer. To be fair by the second or third book it's pretty much past being even an open secret to what seems like common knowledge. I mean, I know the series pretty much follows the most capable and knowledgeable actors in the narrative, but still.
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Oct 27, 2014 01:25
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anilEhilated posted:edit: Mind you, I also genuinely like Blistig and my favorite character is Udinaas. You don't want to put much faith in what I'm saying is what I'm saying. Udinaas is great. I love that by The Reaper's Gale he holds absolutely no reverence or fear for all these ancient, powerful warriors he's been saddled with, continuously calls them out on their bullshit, and doesn't care that any of them could murder him at any time. Like Seren says: the only likable one in the whole group.
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Nov 13, 2014 08:39
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Started re-reading these because ~quarantine life~ and just finished House of Chains the second time and the OP is correct; they are even better on a re-read because all the hints of stuff to come (all the hints of Karsa's journey sprinkled through books two and three are so good). Something I didn't notice the first time is that the Tiste Liosan are completely pointless? They get owned by the T'lan Imass killing their fake god, they say "maybe icarium will help us!", never find him, then get scared away from Gesler's squad by some munitions and shrug and leave. And on the other side, L'oric fails to help Felisin and then gets rescued by his emotionally distant father. At the time I assumed this was building to something later but years and years ago I made it to book nine and even though my memory is spotty I don't remember them ever showing up or doing anything important ever again.
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Jun 22, 2020 04:41
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anilEhilated posted:The Liosan play a big part in the final two books. L'oric I don't remember being mentioned again. Osric shows up a couple times in ICE books but it's never very interesting. Trip report: I am almost finished re-reading Bonehunters and L'oric does show up again, but only to begrudgingly assist Leoman escape the burning city, then to survey the aftermath of the attack on Cutter & co., lecture Scillara about motherhood, collect his pet demon then leave. Bonehunters is a weird novel. Outside of the (absolutely incredible imo) burning and escape from Y'ghatan the first 3/4ths feels like everyone is just on some half-assed sidequest. Karsa fights a random demon. Quick Ben and Khalam find a bunch of sky keeps, shrug and leave. Mappo and Icarium also dick around with a sky keep. Iskaral Pust just dicks around. They position Dejim Nebrahl as this huge, serious threat but he basically feels like a retread of the Jheck's soletaken god at the end of Midnight Tides which was also basically six cat monsters (and gets dispatched pretty handily in a similar way despite the larger buildup). Afterwards, the next 1/4th abruptly shifts to bridging the gap and getting all of our Seven Cities friends and putting them on a collision course with the Tiste Edur. It's probably the first novel in my reread that feels front-loaded with filler.
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Oct 23, 2020 04:13
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Oh man, I just finished my re-read of Reaper's Gale and I think, almost in the opposite way that The Bonehunters feels spread too thin in the first half, RG feels too dense in the second. Which I know seems like a joke since every book has two dozen+ characters doing things, but I think RG also has this weird start and stop momentum that drags it out. -In previous books all the the plotlines kind of converge into one big, frantic climax of poo poo going down (the final night of the Whirlwind imploding, the Chain of Dogs at its end, fighting through hundreds of assassins during a riot, etc). In RG the big moments like Beak's sacrifice, Redmask's war, the struggle over Scabandari's soul and Karsa's duel all happen spread out enough that the tension keeps being released instead of building up. It's weird, when I read this the first time I recalled Tehol finishing Karos' puzzle and getting attacked for it as being just after the big 'oh no they are arrested and Bugg is trapped the all is lost moment' bit but it happens, like, in the last 100 pages, well after we know the war is about to be over. The pacing is a little hosed, I dunno. -Hannan Mosag just getting casually murdered by the Jaghut who then finds out that the situation was already under control is a pretty good moment, but the sea beast trapped in the ice is so incidental to everything else happening compared to its looming presence in MT that you always knew it was gonna be dealt with handily, so it still feels a little off that the Warlock King's plotline kind of ends with that after everything. -So many characters! So many I didn't remember, and that's because nothing really happens with them! Rautos is a rich guy trying to figure out Icarium's machine who dies when Icarium enters his machine. Venitt is a servant who is both a slave and the deadliest assassin in Letheras, who decides at the end gently caress it, the bourgeois dies, and is never seen again. I can't even remember exactly what happens to Bivatt because after Redmask dies and Tool show up with an army it's assumed she's gonna be put to the sword but it feels almost incidental considering how much emphasis is placed on her and Brohl Handar in the first half of the book. And then the Tiste Andii...like, why even have that plot if you're going to try and tell it in the span of like ten pages and then mostly negate it at the very end? I remember it being something of a big deal when they pick them up in Malaz City in the previous book and I know they have a full-fledged plotline in the next one, but there wasn't nearly enough time spent with these characters to suddenly be concerned that Nimander's sister is crazy and gonna kill the mother and then gets fake suicided because it's couched inbetween so much more going on. Because it's a singular POV you don't even really get the interplay between characters like you do with Udinaas' party, you just know that this guy thinks he sucks and hates that he has to stop his sister and then he stops his sister, and then Clip pops up to go "oh hey come with me". Like, it's so unrelated to everything else happening it feels like it could have even just happened in the next book? It's very jarring and probably kills the momentum more than any other part of the book. -Having said that, Silchas Ruin getting completely owned by the Malazans and fleeing and Koryk just casually crossbowing the chancellor to death in a hallway and laughing about it were both extremely funny moments that I didn't remember.
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Nov 20, 2020 17:30
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I just started Dust of Dreams again, which was the one I stalled out on however many years ago about 100 pages in. Having now re-read every book leading up to it during quarantine I think what bugged me about Reaper's Gale this time through is how transitory it is. It's a mess of trying to resolve character conflicts from previous novels (its strange how few scenes Rhulad, his parents and the Warlock King are actually in considering their prominence in Midnight Tides) setting up characters who don't do anything until later novels (the Tiste Andii refugees, the K'Chain Che'malle), having a lot of POV characters who mostly just watch things happen (like, half of the new Letherii characters), and making some baffling choices like completely stopping Redmask's POV after Toc shows up, Tool out of nowhere, etc. It's not exactly a bad book, none of them are, but Hellian, Tehol, Bugg and Beak do a lot of heavy lifting in the second half. Conversely, I think I appreciated Toll the Hounds much more this time as both a nearly direct sequel to the first and third novels as well as a fairly self-contained story in its own right that wraps up most of its loose ends. I forgot how great Kallor's POV chapters are, how well it fleshes out a few characters that don't get much to do in the first novel (Murillio, Challice, etc) and how likable Nimander/etc are after his dire sections in RG, how funny all the Noms are, Cutter cutting down Gorlas in seconds, etc etc etc. It's just all so good. I assume DOD will be just as transitory as RG was considering the book opens with Erikson straight-up saying "yo this doesn't have an ending read the next one for that ok bye" but at the very least I'm already invested because I read the other books so recently I can actually remember the deal with Kisswhere, Skulldeath, Sinn, etc. this time around. Wish me luck!
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Dec 29, 2020 08:28
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I'm in the home stretch on Dust of Dreams and I knew something horrible would happen to Hetan based on half-rememebered spoilers from forever ago and I think I can see what he's going for but its probably one of the only part of the series so far that is legitimately hard to get through because of how miserable and senseless it is. I feel like the scenes with the Khundryl Burned Tears are supposed to kind of show the flipside; the Barghast having monstrous practices subverting the noble savage trope but then the moments where he shows the raw humanity of Warleader Gall of the Khundryl as he mourns the death of a young man his son knew and reconnects with his estranged wife is genuinely moving...except it happens before the Barghast scenes, so instead of reinforcing the idea that good people could still live and thrive in a tribal warrior society it basically shits on the idea that they're anything but beasts. Its a really weird way to go with it, though admittedly I have about 200ish pages left so maybe it comes back around in a less miserable way but it's hard to see how a permanently traumatized Hetan freezing to death and her brother and the only two other people who give a poo poo dying by mischance could turn around. Also I know that this book is explicitly going to be bereft of a lot of conclusions but in a way I hope they don't come back to the Barghast just because of how ugly and drawn out it has been so far. It also highlights one niggling thing I've noticed on this re-read, which is a tendency to do some abrupt retcons. Like at the end of Memories of Ice when Toc is reborn in Anaster's body to lead the Tenescowri, this just leads into Reaper's Gale where everyone except Toc dies offscreen just before the book starts, Toc spends most of it saying how dumb it was that he was reborn in Anaster's body and refusing to fight and then he dies again. That same book then sets up a weird justification for Tool to be anywhere near Lether and shows him as a proud and powerful war chief with his even more powerful sister at his side, only to come back in DoD to go just kidding, he's a totally ineffectual leader and his sister left and he makes every bad choice and he and his entire family die horribly. Whoops! I think this time it felt a little more egregious because while it feels like a similar 'just kidding everyone died this character is reset' move instead of happening between books we spend a huge chunk of this one just ...waiting for it to happen.
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Jan 17, 2021 05:50
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OneSizeFitsAll posted:On Dust of Dreams events: I think you're right that the key is having to live both the horror of the victims and the glee of the torturers as it's happening that make it just that much harder to get through. I think the only comparable instance that stuck out to me was in The Bonehunters when the Tiste Edur describing how they tortured and murdered an entire island of people just to incite the Malazans to go after them. Eh, I'm close to the end of the book anyway, but that whole sequence just felt...unnecessary to everything else going on. Like, much in the same way that we never see what came of the city of Pale or returned to Aren, I would've been totally okay just never bringing the Barghast back into the story again, you know?
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Jan 17, 2021 20:04
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Just finished Dust of Dreams last night. What I really appreciated was that the Nahruk showing up at the end doesn't really fit into the conflict that everyone was preparing for in Kolanse so much as it's a threat everyone was a little bit aware of but ignoring only for it to arrive at the worst possible time. I assumed at the start when the K'Chain destriant was kind of ruminating over the matron being insane it was just your standard Malazan 'everything is bad for everyone' worldbuilding, I didn't expect the matron's plan to actually work and end up saving the world. It was a nice touch! I'm still not entirely sure what the deal was with Rutt, Held, etc. Were they also ghosts like Feather Witch/etc? Was it happening concurrent to everything? Will this be answered in the next book?
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Jan 25, 2021 00:24
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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, but right in the middle there's a section where Fiddler is marching and faintly recalls the very beginning of the very first book in the series and then actually speculates on the saga being the Malazan Book of the Fallen and it might've been a little mawkish but goddamn I love this big, complicated, meandering, wonderful mess of a series 
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Feb 18, 2021 07:09
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dwarf74 posted:Yeah, that refers to a major plot point in - I think - Return of the Crimson Guard. I get it with the Nahruk, they've been banging around forever. But I always just kinda saw the Forkruk Assail as this random alien race that mostly stayed out of things, similar to the three wizard kings from that island that are referenced a few times, or Tanno spiritwalkers, or etc. The only one I remember offhand is the one that Karsa freed didn't seem overly malevolent?
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Feb 18, 2021 16:24
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dwarf74 posted:Uh that one killed one of his friends and broke the other one's brain. Self defense!
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Feb 19, 2021 00:23
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I just finished TCG, and now a new series is coming out  I...liked it. I don't know if the series' end ever approaches anything as truly great as the run of books 2-5 but it wraps up well enough. It's funny how overall happy an ending everybody gets based on how miserable the journey is sometimes but it's fine, I like them all and I like that it ends the same way it began (in Malaz City with a Bridgeburner chilling and a weather vane creaking) and I like that the future sword raptors and now-not-undead cavemen shamans carved out a semi-peaceful existence and all of that. It's strange how incidental to the plot Icarium ended up being, and how Cutter/Apsalar are just entirely absent from it outside of a page. Also, I assume Silverfox's situation is relevant to the ICE series?
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Mar 11, 2021 19:14
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So I went and finished Night of Knives in a few days and....yep. The Dassem Ultor stuff is interesting at least? Do Temper and Kiska come back later? It felt like I was reading a prologue more than an actual novel.
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Mar 25, 2021 03:56
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Jaxyon posted:Probably the worst in the series. I just reread this and it was really poorly paced IMO Heh, I thought TtH was even better on reread because you get to spend time kind of savoring everyone mostly just hanging out in the city. Reaper's Gale was the hard one to get through the second time, because so much of if is you knowing who will be important and who won't be and unlike the kind of slow and steady rise to an insane high stakes conclusion it has this start and stop momentum that just wears you down. That book also seems to suffer the biggest curse of "here's fifty POV characters but forty of them are extremely incidental and won't do much other than die badly" in the whole series. Of course, I've only read books 9-10 once so I don't know how well they fare on re-read either.
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Apr 8, 2021 07:37
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Dalmuti posted:all the helian bits are a romp people love beak but hellian carries that book easily a top three character imho I love that one book that ends with her replacement back on Kartool who absolutely loves spiders
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Apr 10, 2021 15:22
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After several weeks off and on I finally finished Return of the Crimson Guard and boy, you'd think something as big as Laseen being assassinated would have more weight to it but it's so abrupt and the novel such a slog that I didn't even realize that's what was supposed to be happening at first. There's also something kind of self-sabotaging about the summoning of Ryllandaras being an extremely big deal when during the Bonehunters saga there's an entire plotline where an evil cult summons a murderous unstoppable ancient god that summarily gets stomped by the Malazans without a thought. Like, Erikson did it as a gag and then ICE did it seriously after the fact.
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Jan 19, 2022 09:01
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I finished Stonewielder and its...fine. Its aggressively fine, though a big improvement over RotCG by at least kind of centering the entire narrative around one particular thing (the Stormwall) and then having everything build up to a climax around that thing. It still sort of fumbles it by downplaying the Crimson Guard's rescue of Iron Bars, easily the most interesting plot thread in the book, and then having Greymane's big decision happen so abruptly that it really de-emphasizes what should be a huge moment. I also enjoyed the random appearance of Loric, who exits the SE books so suddenly that it seemed like a mistake, especially since so much of the last two books centers around the Tiste Liosan. Also, question for people who've read the full series: remember how SE randomly gave both Whiskeyjack and Quick Ben little sisters for one book? Does either one ever come up again? I assumed there would at least be a reference during Leoman's section in Stonewielder but if there was I missed it.
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Apr 11, 2022 02:44
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kingturnip posted:Whiskeyjack's sister - and the backstory that's airily given about her - is supposed to be the reason why Mallet never gets to heal Whiskeyjack's leg; Hood cast some sort of mojo that made WJ always brush Mallet off when he suggested it. You need to read into that quite heavily to get it, and I'm not sure it's great storytelling, but eh. I do remember WJ's sister being claimed by Hood which is why the Queen of Dreams was annoyed when Leoman brought her along on his escape route, but they seemed like such a team that it was very odd to me that when he finally returns in ICE's book she doesn't seem to get referenced at all. Not even a kind of quick retcon like when Toc and Gruntle end one book leading huge companies of soldiers only to have them all die by the next time we see either of them 
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Apr 11, 2022 06:51
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Orb Scepter Throne is ICE's best book yet, much like Erikson he clearly gets better with each attempt but it's taking him a lot longer to get there lol It probably helps that it's set somewhere I already liked following characters I already liked. Antsy's trek through all the various bandit groups trying to kill each other on the crashed Moon's Spawn was probably my favorite bit, though all the Seguleh stuff was pretty good too.
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Jun 17, 2022 07:53
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mischief posted:For all of his faults as an author the guy can write a finale. I always appreciated, even with the weaker books, the point that he takes all these threads and stories and it just condenses into a few chapters of just incredibly well written chaos. There's a few other moments in the middle of the books but after you read a few of his finales you know it is worth pushing on through. This is funny because while he absolutely nails the endings throughout the series the actual last book has a very "oh....okay" ending to me. Like it wasn't bad but it was no Deadhouse Gates either I just started reading the Bauchelain & Korbal Broach collections and it's the same issue, great build-ups and then weak endings throughout 
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Aug 5, 2022 09:31
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The Barghast stuff is weird because unless I'm misremembering something the resolution (book 9/10 spoilers) isn't that their cruelty and savagery is their undoing, it's that they're just kind of in the way of a god showing up who incidentally kills them all without knowing or caring. I'm not sure what to take away from that because 'random mass death just happens' sometimes is already a lesson deeply embedded in the series so I'm not sure we needed another example? Also this is unrelated but recently I've been playing Vampire Survivors and it's the only game I've ever played that comes close to capturing the feeling of one of those big Malazan '1-2 guys just obliterating dozens of soldiers at a time' battle scenes that crop up a couple times per book. Not sure if anyone else got that vibe.
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Dec 9, 2023 22:47
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Alhazred posted:Toll the Hounds is easily the worst book in the series. *BZZT* wrongo while the series never quite reaches the incredible 9.9/10 peak of Book 2 -> 3 -> 4 ever again Toll the Hounds has a cool structure where it parallels that boys journey through the mines with Anomander's journey through his poo poo + it partially succeeds at capturing the mystery/majesty/general wonder of Darujistan which Book 1 honestly whiffs pretty hard and yes Kallor is the loving man
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Feb 29, 2024 18:45
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I can't remember if its MoI or a later book but at one Paran has a conversation with Apsalar about some kinda plague and it's something like this is going to be really bad...for other people without godlike powers or otherwise superhuman abilities, so pretty much not me or anyone else I know. oh well! It's a little meta textual but it always makes me laugh to think about
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Mar 28, 2024 23:04
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