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Caveatimperator posted:I think you're the only Malazan fan I've ever heard from who didn't like the Chain of Dogs. I've introduced the series to people and warned them "if the end of DHG doesn't tear your heart out, stop reading." It's not that I didn't like the Chain of Dogs, it's just that once you know where it's headed, it feels really long and drawn out. Also, putting up with Felisin's poo poo is a bit annoying. What I really liked though, (TCG spoilers) was the tiny bit of Blistig. I'd forgotten where both Blistig and Keneb came from, because, y'know, 8 books on you don't remember every single marine by name. Seeing him standing next to Pormqual at the fall of Coltaine, frustrated that his commanding officer was letting Coltaine die because of extreme ineptitude and cowardice, makes me feel more sympathy for his mutineering at the end of the series. Especially since his first mutiny (running back to the city when he was ordered not to and releasing the Red Blades from prison) saves the lives of every single citizen of Aren.
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Apr 6, 2013 00:19
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I thought Fiddler was a white guy with red hair too.
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Jul 11, 2013 07:40
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Tellann and Omtose Phellack both have some pretty massive time travelly effects on time throughout the series. I see what you mean though, you want there to be like a Hold of Time or something.
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Jul 25, 2013 22:35
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amuayse posted:I keep wondering about the tech levels in the books. How advanced are the Malazan and Letherii compared to each other? I know the K'chain Che'malle and the First Empire had some pretty crazy magitech equipment at their command. The Malazans are in the process of conquering every continent on the planet with precise explosives and political brilliance and by managing an army of insect aeroplanes. The Letherii haven't worked out how to ride horses properly. I always thought of them as vaguely equivalent until the scene in Reaper's Gale where the two ships meet, where iirc a single Malazan mage annihilates a cadre of Letherii mages like it's nothing. I found it hilarious because I was building up to this big superpower showdown in my head and they just get swatted down like loving flies. It was kind of like that misdirect in House of Chains where based on the previous books you're expecting it to build up to this complex web of betrayals and murders where there are ten sides to the story, and instead Karsa reappears and murders everybody on every side of every conflict and all the other subplots just end prematurely because Karsa.
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Mar 15, 2014 11:08
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Months later, I am still enjoying the Caladan Brood album and I am still ashamed of it.
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Mar 20, 2014 12:30
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savinhill posted:I'm not a fan of the guy-standing-with-his-back-to-the-camera style Malazan covers. I bet there's just this one guy who is self conscious that he can't draw faces properly
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Mar 29, 2014 23:26
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Spermy Smurf posted:Quoting myself from page 128. I was just rereading the series again and could the answer to why turtle shells are great armor against the Forkrul Assail is simply the noise? Spax walking around the queen is continuously mentioned with how loud it is. If they can't hear, it takes away the assails voice power right? Ganeos did it with cotton in his ears at one point for fucks sake. It may not be about un-punchability and more to do with their Voice? I think maybe you're reading too much into it. More likely it is just well suited to taking force out of fist-sized blunt impacts.
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Oct 25, 2014 07:26
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So I just charged through OST, B&B and Assail in the last month to catch up. My love/hate relationship with this series just became way more complex. I kind of wish somebody would just summarize all the ICE books somewhere so that at the appropriate points in your Erikson readthrough, you get the extra exposition. But I've already forgotten NoK, RotCG and Stonewielder, so I can't do it. In fact, I've already forgotten the ones I just read. Ugh. Bring me my Karsa trilogy.
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Nov 24, 2014 14:54
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anilEhilated posted:I'm about halfway through and still waiting for him to "pop off the page". Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying Hadrian's hijinks immensely, but it all seems really shallow. I really enjoyed about half of that book and cringed my way through the other half. I definitely enjoyed it but I'd never recommend it to anybody who didn't already like Erikson.
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Dec 9, 2014 02:54
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Dirtballer posted:I just reached the end of book four and don't have time to peruse much of the thread (and I am trying to avoid spoilers), but I wanted to ask, to any one who's finished the whole series, do most of these plot thread loose ends get wrapped up into some satisfactory conclusion by the last book? I enjoy Erikson's world-building and imagery immensely, but at this stage there's still so much going on that seems largely incoherent (in comparison to most fantasy series anyway). I think pretty much everything from about book 1-7 gets wrapped up fairly neatly, but there's stuff towards the end that doesn't. Not that it really matters.
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Dec 21, 2014 23:48
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Should I just summarize all the interesting tidbits of information from the ICE books? It'd be pretty easy.
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Dec 24, 2014 13:10
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Okay! My memory of the first three is pretty spotty, it's been years since I read them. Here goes anyway: Night of Knives: This is set after the first chapter of GotM but before the rest of GotM. The two main characters are Temper, a former member of Dassem's First Sword who is lying low, and Kiska, a Claw who left to become Tayschrenn's bodyguard. The main plot is this: It's set in Malaz City, there's some kind of special magical night coming up that only comes every hundred years or something. The Emperor and Dancer have been missing for years. Lasseen has stepped in to fill the power vacuum that they left behind when they went walkabout. They've been exploring Azath houses. When Magical Convergence Night Or Whatever happens, a bunch of magical poo poo happens, hounds of shadow start rampaging around the island and killing people, and most of the book is just Temper and Kiska (separately) surviving poo poo. Kellanved and Dancer reappear, Laseen happens to be on the island at this point, and they confront her. There's a fight, she throws them out of a window or something and they die very public deaths, and then they sneak into the Azath house once everybody thinks they're dead. Essentially they use her to fake their own deaths. Temper ends up as the Guardian of the Azath house, Kiska is a frustrating piece of poo poo and I don't care or remember what happened to her. The only part of this book that I remember being interesting is that Temper's POV chapters have some information about The First Sword and how they worked. They're all named after a section of a sword: Temper, Ferrule, Edge, Hilt, Point, Quillion. Kellanved sent them against enemy champions to raise morale on the battlefield, because they hosed poo poo up and they did it very publically, waving flags so they could be seen from anywhere on the battlefield. After Laseen took over, she used them as a lightning rod to attract champions away from important areas of the battlefield, and eventually she started trying to get them killed because she thought that the idea of one on one combat was outdated and absurd. Finally there was a battle that went badly, she sent claws to try and kill the survivors while they were wounded, and a few of them escaped and went incognito. Oh and this book also had an interesting tidbit about Shadow: Edgewalker used to be its king, or at least he tried and failed to take the throne. Most of the reason this book sucked was Kiska. She's so bad. They say she's a claw, but she is young and bad at fighting and naive and squeamish about killing people and doesn't know anything about anything. She's supposed to be Tayschrenn's bodyguard, but she doesn't understand how magic works and spends the whole book being dumbfounded by it. Her existence is absurd.
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Dec 28, 2014 02:06
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I really enjoy Bakker's world building and magic system but am completely enraged by his POV characters. The early chapter from Kellhus' point of view was great reading, Cnaiur was kind of interesting, every other character (especially Achamian) made the books a chore to read because they were so loving intolerable.
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Jan 10, 2015 13:20
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NmareBfly posted:Already answered, but I want to point out that you should feel free to post about who you ARE rooting for at any given point, plus what you think might happen or IS actually happening. The only correct person to root for in any given situation is Karsa regardless of whether or not he appears in the book. I gave up on trying to summarize the ICE books when I realized that I couldn't remember 90% of RotCG, by the way. Sorry about that.
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Jan 14, 2015 04:19
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Oh yeah, Laseen gets a thrill out of running around the battlefield in disguise beating Avowed to death with her hands and feet, that was cool. (until Vorcan's daughter, who works for Mallick Rel, assassinates her) If we just crowdsource all the books like this we can write up better summaries later.
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Jan 14, 2015 07:55
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Hand Row posted:Ambercrombie is fine but his worlds tend to be generic and he is writing a YA series right now. It owns so far though. Really concise writing. I thought "gently caress, that's a really good sentence" about once a page for the entire thing.
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Jan 19, 2015 23:48
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Jose posted:Since I'm currently drawing a blank I've questions on 2 characters who appear in the main series and if they appeared at all in FoD or they're as yet unexplained or I just forgot which is all possible. Have Fisher Kel Tath's and Edgewalker's identities been revealed? I've not read any of ICE's stuff if thats important And Edgewalker is some ancient king who tried to take over Kurald Emurlahn but he failed and it enslaved him. Basically a failed Shadowthrone.
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Jan 21, 2015 00:51
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It's never explained in detail, he's some kind of exception, but I'm not sure why.NoK posted:Jhedel looked Edgewalker up and down. ‘Not from where I’m sitting. Poor Edgewalker. Moaning his enslavement. Yet here you were long before the ones I slew to take the Throne. And here you remain after those who bound me in turn are long gone and forgotten. I’ve heard things about you . . . rumours.’ NoK posted:‘What of a ruler? If this is Shadow then does it have a throne?’ edit: theorycraft: maybe he's the one who shattered it, so his punishment is more severe? 02-6611-0142-1 fucked around with this message at 02:24 on Jan 21, 2015 |
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Jan 21, 2015 02:21
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Race: Tiste Andii Racial passive: Ennui +1 to Wisdom -1 to Charisma
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Jan 23, 2015 12:48
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mallamp posted:I know there's lots of cool poo poo in the series that really makes me want to finish it one day. Help please? A good story doesn't have to explain everything that's going on to you. If things were clearly and concisely explained every page it would make a really boring story. And I'm not just talking about these books, I'm talking about stories in general. Good stories are about denying you information as much as giving you information, and these books are kind of built on that idea. Every book has a couple of surface stories that are easy to follow, but then there are some other stories lurking beneath the surface that you probably won't pick up until later books, or until you reread them. If you find a word or character that you don't recognize, just keep reading and forget about it. It drifts together over time. 02-6611-0142-1 fucked around with this message at 12:48 on Jan 28, 2015 |
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Jan 28, 2015 12:45
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You should read Gene Wolfe, it will destroy you
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Feb 8, 2015 01:33
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I've been reading Glen Cook's The Black Company books lately and thoroughly enjoying them. They were one of Erikson's main influences on the series, and it shows.
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Mar 26, 2015 11:07
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Man, I don't remember Forge of Darkness at all. Who are all these assholes and why are they all mad at each other? don't answer this
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May 17, 2016 03:09
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Maybe the Tiste were made wrong on purpose, like some cruel god spawned a race that are particularly vulnerable to Seasonal Affective Disorder as a joke
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May 17, 2016 03:10
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