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Chiming in to say how awesome these books are. I somewhat envy those who have just started the series since they have so much ahead of them. I'll also repeat that the second and subsequent books show a marked improvement over the first, and that understanding grows as the books go on so don't worry overmuch if you don't quite get whats going on all the time. Erikson has a remarkable way of turning characters around. At the end of the first book I was basically rolling my eyes every time Rake was mentioned because I thought of him as a stereotypical elf who was old beyond time with a magic sword who was also a super wizard and could turn into a dragon and save the day. Several books later you finally get his perspective and realize how little you actually knew about him and how much depth his character has.
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Mar 3, 2011 04:23
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Finished TCG recently. Very good ending to an amazing series. Although I do feel like it was a little bit too much of a happy ending, especially with Hetan coming back to life without explanation. Also what the hell was with Karsa knowing to kill Fener? Badass and all but I hope it at least gets explained in the Karsa trilogy.
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Mar 18, 2011 23:23
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I totally don't remember that and when I read it I was probably just like Duh of course Karsa will kill a god.
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Mar 19, 2011 02:19
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02-6611-0142-1 posted:Other stuff: (TCG) Whoa. I totally didn't catch that.
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Mar 31, 2011 18:33
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Turpitude posted:This is kind of off topic but I've been playing Assassin's Creed Brotherhood on PC lately and it occurred to me that it would be the perfect game engine for a Gardens of the Moon videogame. Yeah but when you are finally the most badass person in the city and about to ascend Karsa would just show up and crush your whole civilization.
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Apr 1, 2011 01:16
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I generally like the names. Sure some are fairly stupid fantasy names but they are usually less offensive than Drizzt or Dr Raven Darktalon Blood. And I rather like the marines nickname thing even if some of them are stupid. I just imagine that they pissed off their drillmaster and he punished them with a dumb name that will follow them forever. With the names sounding alike and two pearls how many guys named John have you met in your life? And as far as Cutter goes didn't Crokus come up with that himself? Look at the real world when dumb kids name themselves, you get stupid internet names like xXxSephirothxXx. I envisioned that when Crokus was all like "call me Cutter now!" everyone around him was all 
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May 12, 2011 00:58
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bigmcgaffney posted:Just starting book 7 of TCG, and I'd like to say that Yedan Derryg is legendary. Yeah. I really liked how the pinnacle of ancient magic weapons doesn't just give +2 to hit but instead turns the wielder into an all but unstoppable threshing machine. Also kinda makes you  when Shadowthrone (TCG) gives Silchas a Hust sword.
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Jun 6, 2011 10:11
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I haven't read the ICE books so I don't have any sense of Kyle the character but the name sounds out of place compared to the rest of the names in the Malazan world. Erikson did a good job of conveying a sense of culture and ethnicity with the names he uses. Marines have marine names, but almost everyone else has a name that feels connected with other names from the culture they come from. Its not perfect but it's something I noticed and liked about the books. Quick Ben's name kinda sticks out, but so does a lot else about him so that could well be intentional. I haven't heard anything about Kyle that mentions the oddness of Ben so the name is kinda strange. In general I don't have a problem with normal names in fantasy books. But when done poorly or mixed randomly with fantasy names its distracting. It would be weird if the three musketeers were Athos, Porthos, ans Sean, right? Its also kinda weird that it's Greymane, Tayschrenn, and Kyle (I haven't read the books, are the three ever even in the same room?).
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Jul 3, 2011 03:29
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Juaguocio posted:It is pretty odd that the short form of his name is "Ben," since his full name, Adaephon Ben Delat, seems to suggest a Hebrew or Arabic type of patronymic system. If that were the case, his name would mean something like "Adaephon, son of Delat," but since he uses different parts of that name as aliases throughout the series I don't know if that's what Erikson intended. Isn't his full name Ben Adaephon Delat? Thats how it's listed in both wikipedia and the malazan wiki. Does anyone happen to remember how his sister refers to him during the bit of their childhood we see? On a similar subject I find Quick Ben suspicious during the forging of the bridgeburners. Whiskeyjack and one company of soldiers (who aren't yet the legendary bridgeburners) pursue 13 high mages across a wasteland and into Raraku. Despite the having knowledge of the land and probably the best assassin in their country as an infiltrator in the bridgeburners the mages never even try a confrontation. There's no mention of the bridgeburners having any mages with enough power to withstand a serious attack by the likes of Quick Ben (already noted to be a candidate for the Magi of High House Shadow). Even if there were a few who died before GotM Kalam would have been right next to them at the start of an ambush. Even if they expected heavy casualties it still seems like a better deal then all being soul shifted into Quick Ben. What did Quick Ben say or do to make them go along with it?
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Jul 4, 2011 06:36
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Electronico6 posted:I think the mages were afraid of them, and opted to run than fight. But why were they afraid of them? 70 soldiers from the dregs of the army vs 12 high mages + kalam. I figure Quick Ben tricked them so he would come out on top but how did he pull that off? The other 11 should have been able to tell that they outgunned their pursuers even if they didn't know about Kalam. And how did Quick Ben get them to agree to go into Raraku when they would all know they were too old and decrepit to make it out the other side?
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Jul 4, 2011 07:01
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Masonity posted:Kruppe, Tehol, Pust, Whiskeyjack, Fiddler and Rake all speak with the same voice? o.O They have one hell of a vocal range then. There are very good characters that I found both distinctive and engaging. But there are also characters that were pretty flat and you wouldn't notice much if they were shuffled around except for the names. It kinda comes with the territory of a vast story and world that you see from so many points of view. I think Erikson is a great writer and I love his work, but he wasn't quite good enough to pull off so many points of view distinctly. He probably would have done better if he cut the lesser points of view and focused on developing the weaker remaining ones more. This would have also cut the sprawl that popped up in the latter books which would have made it tighter overall.
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Jul 4, 2011 08:58
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Masonity posted:I'm either misunderstanding your claim, or it's totally bogus from my perspective. Well I'm not the one who said they were all the same, I rather like a lot of the characters. Especially Rake and Kallor after you get to really see them. Erikson really blew my hair back with Rake considering I finished the first book thinking of him as a generic tormented badass dark elf. I do think there are pretty weak characters who blend together. Marines especially tend to suffer from this. They tend to be rather shallow; reluctant soldiers who come to realize they survive by luck as much as by their own skill, fighting for a commander/land/empire that seems resentful of them and only keep going out of respect for their fellow soldiers. Most don't change too much over the series or add deeply to the story, but for some reason they get almost as much screen time as the real gems. Kruppe couldn't have lead the bridgeburners but Coltaine/Rake/Brys Beddict/and maybe Onos T'oolan or a late series Ganoes wouldn't have been too out of place. There are a lot of noble soldiers with unreasonable burdens to carry. There are also a lot of tribal villagers who are faced with a changing world they are helpless to prevent. And considering assassinations don't happen very often there sure are a lot of assassins with hearts of gold. Not to mention exceptionally powerful people hiding in plain sight to escape a troubled past. Fiddler says there were plenty of bridgeburners who were assholes and let the legend go to their heads, but we don't much see them. And where are the soldiers who don't much care about the reason why but just want to kill and plunder. We seen some, but they mostly come off as comical. Why aren't there many commanders who fall somewhere between the pinnacle of human spirit and maliciousness or overwhelming incompetence? I think that part of the reason I love the chain of dogs arc is because it doesn't fall into the traps other parts of the series do but still touches on most of the themes. A big part of this is heavy emphasis on Duiker's point of view. We don't see endless soldiers mulling over why they fight or Coltaine nobly carry his burden for others or lots of philosophy about progress vs tradition or civilization vs nature or the gods trying to play mortals for their own gain. But all of those things are going on. Duiker takes up arms despite being free not too, Coltaine has an impossible burden that he completes, the whole war is a conflict of progress vs tradition. The soldiers don't know why the gently caress the natives are rebelling when the Malazans brought peace, prosperity, and stability to the seven cities. And as much as the anything else in the series its a conflict by the gods for their own ends.
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Jul 5, 2011 01:11
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It makes me rather sad that everyone loves ASoIaF and says its the greatest fantasy epic of all time and it gets an HBO series and piles of money for GRRM, but nobody notices MBotF. I have enjoyed ASoIaF but I think MBotF is just way better. There's no justice in the world. Also there are a ton of scenes I would love to see HBOified. Pretty much every scene with Karsa being Karsa would be great. Everything about the chain of dogs and everyone thought Ned in Game of Thrones was a twist, imagine the end of the chain of dogs. Tehol and Bugg would be amazing if they pulled it off. Mappo and Icarium. And so many more.
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Aug 10, 2011 08:04
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Levitate posted:
One thing I just put together over the weekend about Draconus (TCG spoilers) was what the christ his new sword was, where he got it, and how he was so loving powerful with it that he killed Kilamandaros an elder goddess like it weren't no thing. Aeons ago chaos was besieging Kurald Galain, the realm of Mother Dark. Draconus was her consort and if chaos breached Kurald Galain Mother Dark would die or lose all her power or something horrible. With the dual purpose of saving Mother Dark and punishing her for taking father light over himself Draconus forged dragnipur to contain the gate of Kurald Galain and draw chaos eternally after it, happily keeping all the other warrens safe from chaos as well. The gate itself is the bone shatteringly cold void at the heart of dragnipur that Ganoes could hardly approach for fear of its power. Eventually Anomander sacrifices himself freeing the gate, earning the forgiveness of mother dark, ending dragnipur and freeing those that survived chaos. When Draconus returns he freezes the area as completely as Omtose Phellack and has a sword that bleeds darkness. While Mother Dark allows the tiste andii to return to Kurald Galain by placing the gate in black coral she either willingly or not yields the power of it to Draconus which he fashions into a sword to replace the one he lost ages ago to Anomander. No wonder everyone is so loving afraid of him.
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Aug 23, 2011 23:49
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Infinite Karma posted:It seems like Draconus turned Mother Dark (or imprisoned her to power it) INTO Dragnipur. So when all the Andii think she turned away, she really was just locked up without warning them. And Anomander was complicit in betraying her for his big grand plan. I'm pretty sure Silchas Ruin says that Draconus didn't make dragnipur/fight anomander until after mother dark had left them. And wasn't mother dark acting through Aranatha for a while before Nimander realized it in TtH? Also the Anomander part doesn't make much sense to me. He's spent millennia trying to keep his people from succumbing to ennui, fighting wars for causes that were not their own to keep his followers from crumbling under the weight of the pointlessness of existence. It seems a bit of a stretch that he would wait hundreds of thousands of years setting up the plan to free mother dark. I guess he could have done everything to atone for it and taken so long to accept what he had to do but I got the feeling that he had always been mostly that way.
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Aug 24, 2011 04:52
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Levitate posted:I dunno, that assumes Rake had this overwhelming motivation to go kill a bunch of Gods and Ascendants for no good reason and so planned out this entire thing. Yeah. The only time rake ever seems to actually want power was when he drank tiam's blood and I got the impression that was related to mother dark turning away. My interpretation of drinking the blood was that it was so devastating to rake, both in its actual effects on him and in repercussions on the tiste andii, that it was enough to put him off trying to further increase his power for the vast span of the rest of his life. Rake's actions in TtH were an excellent way of dealing with all those he killed over the centuries, but it seems like circular reasoning that he helped make the sword so he could kill gods/ascendants/dragons so he could break the sword. He also had the other sword that Andarist eventually got and described as unbeatable if wielded by rake.
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Aug 24, 2011 17:34
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Junk Science posted:He changed it from a sword that would annihilate to one that would imprison. Seems pretty clear to me. That was my take too. If I was gonna be trapped inside my creation for a hundred thousand years I would totally have made it imprison those slain in a hedonistic paradise, but I guess elder gods have different priorities from me.
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Aug 26, 2011 01:38
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Memories of Ice takes place at the same time as Deadhouse Gates so there's no direct overlap. You might get confused about some of the things that get explained in Deadhouse Gates like details of the warrens or Azath or the like but you will still be able to follow the plot. Definitely wait to read Deadhouse Gates before House of Chains.
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Sep 11, 2011 22:08
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Masonity posted:FULL SERIES SPOILER. DO NOT READ UNTIL DONE! With the rampant speculation: what if quick Ben isn't a soletaken but a d'ivers and the Ben we know is the veered form of a greater whole? It explains why he is always hiding, there are more of him around and he doesn't want anyone important noticing he was in two places at once. And it explains his death at the end of DoD and how he got to Kolanse, one of him did die and another was already in the Kolanse area. And it explains how he knows so much, he's all over the place poking his noses in things. But what would his sembled form be?
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Sep 14, 2011 02:05
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Sir Bruce posted:In actual discussion, I finished Toll the Hounds and didn't quite follow the ending. I didn't get what Dragnipur actually was. Was it bottled Kurald Galain? Was it just a portal to it? Was the portal on the wagon and had to flee from the chaos used to bind it? That's my best guess but who knows. And what did Rake actually do there? He died to merge with the portal freeing everyone? Well its somewhat dependent on how much you believe of the various racial histories of how the universe works. My interpretation is Draconus is probably our most reliable source. He says chaos has always assailed darkness, but I think he really means order and darkness is one case, where the worlds/warrens are veins of order in the chaotic ether (Its mentioned a few times that Chaos lies between the warrens). Draconus says that in the beginning darkness was strong enough to hold chaos back; but as light and then shadow came some power was lost and chaos advanced. Draconus believed that the next weakening would allow chaos to overtake the gate of Kurald Galain which would break Mother Dark's power and shatter the elder warren of darkness, and Draconus presumed the rest of the worlds as well. To prevent the essence of darkness being overrun by the next advance of chaos Draconus forged Dragnipur and its warren and contained the Gate of Kurald Galain within it. But because of the wandering nature of Kurald Galain, Dragnipur is both a fortress to repel chaos and also a cage to keep darkness contained. The power of the souls slain by Dragnipur simultaneously hold off chaos and restrain darkness. Kurald Galain itself is not in Dragnipur but the Gate is the heart of it. When Rake died he didn't merge with the portal but with the new god that was created from the bodies on the wagon. Combined he was able to free the Gate and return it to Mother Dark instead of allowing chaos to overrun it by simply not providing more souls, or strengthening the binding keeping the Gate in place if he had used Dragnipur more. My theorycrafting is that Dragnipur was not needed at all to keep the Gate safe. The weakening of darkness that Draconus saw was not darkness giving its power to allow new realms like light and shadow to be made, but the loss of order when Kurald Galain connected with the other realms that already existed, such as Kurald Thyrllan for Light. Kurald Galain was less isolated and this opened the way for chaos to seep in. When Draconus made Dragnipur the worlds were still migratory, they had not settled down into holds or houses. So he thought the next change would allow chaos to overtake the Gate and destroy Kurald Galain. But the next change wasn't less order but more. The contact of the many realms each could more clearly define itself as separate from others. The migratory natures of the realms became a fixed nature as the holds came into being which made them more ordered and preserved them from more intrusions of chaos. Because the holds were more ordered people were able to make more orderly gates between them so further connections didn't bleed chaos. Eventually the holds became further refined into houses which allows for more stable magic that is less wild. Part of the reason its so hard to reach Kurald Galain is because Dragnipur prevented the settling of the hold of darkness so only the most raw gates can be opened to it. Since the holds and houses have come around few beings are even able to use the kind of wild magic needed to open a gate to Kurald Galain. It would be as much more unrefined compared to the magic the Letheri use as that is to the Malazan magic. Wow that ended up as a bit of a wall of text.
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Sep 15, 2011 22:25
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Sir Bruce posted:Ok, so I was most of the way there. One problem with your theorycraft bit is that Anomander (or maybe Hood) distinctly calls the wagon within the sword a hold. So the sword must have been created after holds came to be. The wagon embodies some fundamental power that Draconus stored there to help Dragnipur operate. This is why I got to thinking Kurald Galain was actually embodied within, but the gate to it makes more sense with everything else. Well if you just finished TtH you probably remember it better than I do. Looking at the Dragnipur page on encyclopediamalazica (which only has references up to TtH so it won't spoil you) I'm not sure. I don't have an ebook so trying to find it is a pain. Draconus doesn't seem to mention the hold at all. All he talks about is the Gate to Kurald Galain and the sword containing it. I don't know about Rake/Hood. Notably in MoI Paran and Silverfox discuss Dragnipur a fair bit. And when Silverfox says that she has been thinking for a long time she likely means it in the thousands of years sense considering Nightchill was cursed at the same time as Draconus. There is a bigger quote I linked but some relevant bits Silverfox: "So it must be an ancient place, a Hold, or perhaps something that came before Holds themselves. A focus for the gate into Kurald Galain ... undiscovered, hidden, the First Wound, with a soul trapped in its maw, thus sealing it." and Paran: "Before Houses there were Holds ... Both fixed, both stationary. Settled. Before settlement...there was wandering. House from Hold, Hold from...a gate in motion, ceaseless motion ...A wagon, burdened beneath the countless souls sealing the gate into Dark" Thinking a bit more it makes sense that the souls in Dragnipur also seal the gate with my order/chaos theory. The gate would predate the holds or houses so it would be the old kind of wild chaos leaking portal. We know from plenty of other sources that some, especially old and powerful, portals need souls to seal them like the rent at Morn. So Dragnipur and the souls in it do 3 things: Contain the Gate of Kurald Galain to keep it from wandering, Seal the Gate so chaos doesn't corrupt Dragnipur, and keep chaos eternally chasing but never reaching the Gate.
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Sep 16, 2011 02:51
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Metonymy posted:There's probably something in here about why the theory of omission might be ill-suited to sprawling fantasy epics filled with a bunch of made-up poo poo; I think it may have to do with the fact that most epic fantasy isn't really that relatable to everyday experience, so a fantasy author who relies on omission for creating the illusion of a fully realized world is necessarily expecting their readers to fill in the gaps with tropes, read a ridiculous amount of text, or just enjoy never really knowing what is going on. GotM is kind of weak in some respects and I think its pretty obvious that he developed as a writer between it and the rest of the books so there is that. He doesn't do a lot of setting up the characters and events before they play out and you have to try and figure out the mechanics of the world at the same time. Its not for everybody and he doesn't always pull it off as well as he could. On the bright side if it clicks for you it makes rereads very cool. Another thing that makes it difficult is the series as a whole isn't a traditional narrative. I think the world and its history is as much a character as any of the people. If you can't get into that the series may not be your cup of tea. Fortunately it is very realized and he isn't just bullshitting it and avoiding explaining to cover that up. In general Erikson expects you to fill in the blanks as best you can with tropes and assumptions whether its for how the magic works or about the characters. In real life we do this all the time. When you meet someone new you don't instantly know everything about them, you learn some things and make assumptions about the rest. As you learn more about them you continually reevaluate what you thought you knew. A few of my favorite parts of the series were when a character who had a lot of negative associations with tropes and assumptions got some face time and my conception of them changed dramatically, and it wasn't just all the tropes are reversed! Also magic assassins fighting gods and extra planer dinosaurs.
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Sep 16, 2011 06:18
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The Malazan books are heavily influenced by the postmodern branch of literature. Compare the way Erikson tells a story to how Tolkien tells a story or how Beowulf is told. Tolkien also has the grand world and the lord of the rings is only a slice of the whole, but you get a much clearer beginning middle and end from Tolkien. Its not unique to Erikson and its pervasive in the world today (lots of postmodern themes show up in Fight Club for instance, and if you wiki postmodern literature you will see a lot of ideas you are familiar with) so to someone who doesn't really know about the history of literature it will just feel similar to lots of other current things they have seen or read. Erikson graduated the Iowa Writers' Workshop which is a serious business masters program for writers so he clearly knows the history and is intentionally using it. I think Erikson does a good job and the way he tells the story adds to it. That doesn't mean its 'great art' equal to Hamlet but not everything has to be Hamlet.
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Sep 23, 2011 04:45
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Habibi posted:Didn't the Imass only start poo poo when the Jaghut tyrants arose in the first place, though? I'm pretty sure (whole series spoilers)a bunch of/all Imass got dominated by a Jaghut tyrant and but believed it was a god so willingly submitted to it. The other Jaghut eventually noticed and killed or imprisoned the tyrant since they are totally opposed to that kind of thing. The Imass realized they had been duped and decided nobody would ever be truly free if a tyrant might pop up again. Of course the only way they could be 100% sure no new tyrants would arise was to make sure there were no more Jaghut. So the entire race of Imass decided to go to war with the Jaghut. Of course the Jaghut don't really fight and are tremendously powerful so after the Imass made a nuisance of themselves for a few generations the Jaghut basically told them to gently caress off and caused an ice age and called glaciers and poo poo to keep the Imass from bothering them. The Imass were basically beaten, they couldn't cross the glaciers and their habitats were destroyed. But instead of dying or just making peace they instead invoked the ritual that made them immortal undead so they could wage war forever.
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Sep 28, 2011 01:18
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Vanilla Mint Ice posted:God drat, re-reading all that again made me remember how much of bad asses the Imasses were. That's some cold hard unyielding poo poo right there. Yeah, the Imass are a serious contender for the title of most cold unrelenting hardasses, and there are plenty of other hardasses in the series. (series spoilers) I think in most other fantasy books they would probably qualify as the ancient evil. They chose to start a generations long war of genocide as vengeance for the actions of a few Jaghut who were abhorrent to the rest. Facing defeat, or rather not being able to advance, they turned themselves into immortal undead and resumed their genocide. But not only are they unrelenting dicks to the Jaghut they give no fucks for anyone. Human First Empire messing with the beast ritual? Don't intervene or warn them just kill everyone after the fact (and by there own admission only 'many' humans went mad, not all). Other T'lan Imass damaged too much to keep fighting? No release from immortality, but if their death lead to killing Jaghut they got their skull put somewhere with a view, forever.
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Sep 28, 2011 07:47
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Vanilla Mint Ice posted:(T'lan Imass/series spoilers) Whats even better is arguably the malazans would be the evil empire. Kellanvad was basically a mad wizard who unleashed immortal genocidal undead to conquer nearby kingdoms and then used the subjugated people to build armies to relentlessly expand to everywhere they could. Even when he was mortal he had a reputation of being insane because everything was plots within plots. He was only overthrown because he lusted for more power (warren of shadow + the azath) and allowed his treacherous underlings to consolidate power in his absence. Laseen isn't exactly a kind ruler considering a lot of the mayhem was planned. Of course there are plenty of other groups that are even worse. But Erikson makes us sympathize with them too. The Tiste Edur commit tons of atrocities but you have to be pretty heartless to hate them by the end of it. Hell Kallor burned an entire continent down to spite the gods who would take his kingdom away but who didn't feel differently when you read his parts in the later books?
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Sep 28, 2011 19:02
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Lyer posted:I always was under the impression that Kellanved and Cotillion ascended as a means to an end. Or did they just want that power, explored the Azath, figured out what the hell was happening in the world and then decided to do something about it? (Which was basically freeing the crippled god, not for gain, but out of compassion?) Who the gently caress knows with those two. They started out as minor criminals so their first goals were probably to expand in the underworld of Malaz Isle so they needed some power. But who knows when it turned from furthering their own ends to something bigger? When they first went into the deadhouse or in their adventures after that or when they started to expand as a kingdom or when they left the empire in Laseen's hands and really got going with the ascension thing or was that all still just to increase their own power and it was only after they became gods that they figured out the whole crippled god thing? In GotM it still seems like Kellanved/Dancer are working against Laseen, what with possessing Apsalar to use against Laseen. And do we really know that freeing the crippled god was entirely selfless? Knowing Kellanved there are further plans and they needed to prevent the various calamities in TCG so they would have a world to scheme in. Vanilla Mint Ice posted:And yeah they did let themselves get overthrown to hide what they were really up to but the evil emperor getting overthrown by evil underlings would have added to the Malazans being the bad guys in another series. At the very least they knowingly let an incompetent megalomaniac take control of a large part of the world.
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Sep 28, 2011 19:58
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Grammaton posted:A trilogy about Kellanved would be so much more interesting than one about Anomander. I'm not so sure about that. I'm not sure Erikson, or anyone, could pull off a whole book of Kellanved being both true to the character and readable. Second there is a poo poo ton we don't know about Anomander. Remember that the Tiste Andii of malazan verse have had 300,000 years of ennui to get that whiny and in flashbacks young Anomander came off as fairly different from present Anomander. quote:I just finished the last book and would like to know why so many things were left unresolved. And also, what's wrong with me that I want to read through it a second time?
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Oct 1, 2011 00:49
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I'm pretty sure the Tiste Andii were elder jerks before humans even existed. Pretty much ever view we get of their time in Karkanas they are being assholes to someone. All those hostages, war with the other Tiste races, Anomander killing Tiam to prove a point to Mother Dark. The Shake who exist to die on the shore. The emo came afterwards once they realized they shat the bed and had to live hundreds of thousands of years after their god who literally exists cast them out for eternity.pakman posted:Edit:Also, what is the point of the gods getting involved in mortal affairs? Is it a dick-waving contest between them? It's also mentioned that gods can be killed. How is one made into a god? Are the gods that exist now the person that killed the previous god? Is sorry possessed or was she somehow trained by Contillion in what seemed like a very short amount of time before she joined the 2nd as a recruit? What exactly is her purpose? Again I bet all my questions, or at least some of them, will be answered in time and later books. Of course he's insane he's got the body of a puppet! Gods interfere with people for the same reason people interfere with each other. Sometimes they want something our of it, sometimes they want something from a god who is busy interfering with mortals, sometimes its to wave their 100,000 year old dick so people don't forget them (wouldn't you be way more into Thor if he showed up in Libya and threw around lightning bolts because people were ignoring him?), and sometimes gods are just huge jerks and gently caress around because they can. Also people pray to them so at least once in a while people want intervention by as god. Gods are pretty nebulous at that point, you will eventually learn more but basically when someone gets powerful enough and gets worshipers they become a god. Maybe they kill one of the other gods and take their place or maybe they just show off the power and get followers from where ever. Sorry: you will find out more but you are on the right track.
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Oct 4, 2011 04:11
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WeWereSchizo posted:Does somebody have a little brother they can force to read the series from start to finish sitting in front of a webcam, then post a timelapse video of their reactions? I have an older brother that I'm making read them but he only does 'genre fiction' to relax before bed so he's usually a few klonopin in by then and misses a lot. 
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Oct 13, 2011 04:28
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A lot of the series is gathering what you can from limited information. Its especially heavy at the start but over the whole series a lot of times things will happen and you will have to try and figure out why or how or what it means. There are almost always clues so once you have the groundwork figured out you stop being totally confused and start to get whats up and suspect the direction things will go. If you are liking the story and world but are feeling hopelessly lost you might try looking at the Malazan Reread of the Fallen for some of the important bits. The posts go: chapter summary, Amanda's response, Bill's response, comments. While the posts as a whole contain spoilers Amanda has not read the books before so her parts are spoiler free (as far as I've gotten at least) and give some interesting things to chew on about the chapters. Bill's posts range from mild spoilers "pay attention to this, we will see more later" to themes about the whole series. The comments afterward can have pretty massive spoilers in them. If you do read the it I suggest you stick to the summaries and Amanda's parts since a lot of the series is information management.
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Oct 18, 2011 06:38
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Leospeare posted:I'm rereading Gardens of the Moon for the first time - so many details and references and groundwork for future story elements that I glazed over the first time, it's unreal. When people mention continuity problems with GotM its usually that things don't always fit with the rest of the series. Tool's anti-magic field for example is a major plot point in GotM but in the other books the closest we get is one line in MoI about how his warren's field is keeping wild animals at bay. Chaos also goes from being a warren (that Quick Ben travels through) to some kind of Æther around the warrens.
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Oct 18, 2011 17:54
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33rd Degree Idiot posted:Quit googling stuff. Think of it as one of those abstract-ish pictures you look at and kind of unfocus your eyes on and a picture appears. It's worth the effort. Its clearly a jaghut riding a mule!
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Oct 19, 2011 05:23
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wellwhoopdedooo posted:The 300,000 years of history that apparently begins at the end of an ice age is a little daunting, and I have no loving clue what's up with the 40 different races of giants and undead and giant undead and evil sorcerous birds and smelly warrens and hot fat sorceresses and some floating city thing and how the gently caress is this empire basically taking over the whole world when as far as I can tell they're just a bunch of schmoes somehow wading through the blood of legends. quote:Mid-book 1 spoiler:
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Oct 22, 2011 01:39
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Metonymy posted:There is no characterization beyond what you would find on a Dungeons & Dragons character sheet (Warren: Onuk 'Tloot'tloot'le, Charisma: 18, Background: Orphan), the world-building is marginal at best (what the heck is a T'lan Imass? why can't I visualize one after spending 1000+ pages in this series?), and the only redeeming feature is the semblance of continuity between the books. The characters don't get big expository introductions but they are mostly pretty solid. For say, Ganoes Paran did you really only get character sheet details (noble born officer, warren: Hounds?, charisma: ?)? Nothing on Toc the younger? Hell Circle Breaker gets more info inside 5 pages than a lot of protagonists get in fantasy books. Especially in GotM there are some pretty flat characters. Anomander Rake is pretty groan inducing (with the exception of explaining to Baruk why he fights because sending his people to die in battle for others at least forces them do something other than wallow in ennui for tens of thousands of years) and Coltaine isn't much more than the perfect general, but neither are the central characters in their stories. And you didn't get any visualization on T'lan Imass? Personally I found "The skin that stretched across the squat man’s robust bones was a shiny nut brown in colour, the texture of leather. Whatever flesh it had once covered had contracted to thin strips the consistency of oak roots – such muscles showed through torn patches here and there. The creature’s face, what Toc could see of it, bore a heavy chinless jawbone, high cheeks and a pronounced brow ridge. The eye sockets were dark holes." (GotM, UK Trade, p.202) to be a pretty clear picture. The names I'll give you but most of the worst ones are nicknames. Is Full Metal Jacket garbage because if features Joker, Pyle, Rafterman, and Lt Touchdown? Or the non-human or incredibly ancient civilizations. Arab or Asian names sure have a bunch of pointless diacritics and have you heard Spanish names? They go on forever. Give me a John Smith any day.
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Oct 27, 2011 00:26
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That he had no idea why Lorn was doing what she was makes me think he was seriously not paying attention. Lots of characters discuss why Lorn was doing it, both in her personal reasons and in the overall plan. That he doesn't understand the motives of the T'lan Imass when Tool gives pretty much the most straight forward explanation of anything in the series about them, or that he didn't notice that Hood and Shadowthrone were different people and called it sloppy inconsistent characterization just says he is only skimming it. Erikson does have problems with weak characterization sometimes. The endless marines have a tendency to blur together and some others aren't very good even when you can tell them apart. But there is a lot of characterization and development and changes even in GotM. Consider where Paran starts and ends. Lorn also gets a fair amount of depth, we see what she is, how she got there, and a great deal of struggle between her and her role. Sir Bruce posted:Good job being a huge rear end in a top hat to someone who wanted to talk about Erikson's (obvious) flaws in writing characters and their motivation. Clip was one of the descendants of Tiste Andii who fled Kurald Galain who weren't with Rake. They settled in Bluerose and lived there as semi-secret priest royalty to avoid the Tiste Edur. The rest of the Bluerose Tiste Andii were killed by the Tiste Edur and their warlocks once they got the crippled god's power and discovered the Tiste Andii. The Bluerose Tiste Andii worshiped Rake and like many worshipers they had a Mortal Sword. Most of the other characters didn't believe he actually was the for reals Mortal Sword though so maybe he was just making it up.
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Oct 27, 2011 04:09
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WeWereSchizo posted:Isn't it also brought up later that the Jaghut relationship with the K'Chain Che'malle was essentially the same as the Imass relationship with the Jaghut? Hmm I don't remember this at all. I recall Tool or one of the other T'lan Imass saying they should have gone to war with them because they hunted the Imass for fun but I can't remember anything between them and the Jaghut. I don't really get the confusion about the Imass going to war. For most of our own history the vast majority of people considered members of other tribes/cultures/countries to be subhuman and thus it was fully justified to kill/rape/enslave them. How do you think history would have gone if there were actually non-human beings out there that occasionally dominated societies and made themselves gods? Although thinking about it weren't the tyrants pretty much actually gods? They were certainly more powerful than most of the current crop of gods. They were worshiped. They intervened in their followers lives which is more than most of the other gods do. The humans didn't choose Hood as the god of death anymore than the Imass chose the tyrants. It seems like the tyrants weren't false at all. Bonus series spoiler question: Was Hood the first or greatest tyrant? He managed to get the whole drat Jaghut race under his thumb and used them to get what he wanted. Makes sense the rest of the Jaghut hate tyrants so loving much after having been used by one.
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Oct 27, 2011 21:10
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WeWereSchizo posted:I agree with Sir Bruce on this one. I don't think Hood was ever a tyrant. He convinced an army of Jaghut to join him, the only time an army of Jaghut was ever raised. The undead Jaghut you meet don't seem to be particularly mad at Hood. Well Gothos (I think) talks about how the Jaghut as a race were broken by Hood's war long before the Imass started fighting them. I don't mean tyrant in the sense of forcibly controlling them the way Raest controlled the Imass or tried to control Ganoes. But more of a Hood wanted power and domination much the way Raest and the other tyrants did. Hood got it not by directly dominating the other Jaghut but by using the normal domination of authority and command, like non-ascended humans do. The other Jaghut were so horrified by being mislead and seeing what could happen that they more or less totally abandoned civilization and became an entire race of hermits hiding from the potential for authority that any community inherently has. The only time they come together beyond their immediate family is when they must in order to overcome a tyrant. Or possibly in (book 9/10 spoiler) Icarias after Icarium built it. There seems to be an inversion there with Icarium's boundless power but total lack of ambition or authority. But that is going down its own rabbit hole.
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Oct 27, 2011 22:30
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Why are some humans jerks? What made Hitler Hitler instead of Gandhi? My reading was that some Jaghut end up wanting power and domination for just the same reason some people do and any explanation beyond that is bound to be clumsy. You can say that he wasn't held enough as a baby or the culture he grew up in twisted his thinking but really nobody can say. And Raest didn't want to kill everything, he wanted to control everything. He wanted complete domination over everything and everyone he came in contact with. GotM explains it when he emerges from the tomb. He started with the animals but they weren't intelligent enough to offer real interest so he tried other Jaghut but they were realized what he was doing and they had the power to either escape or resist to the point where he ended up killing them. The Imass were just right. They were intelligent and interesting but hopelessly overwhelmed by his power. When they finally did realize has was in charge they declared him a god and worshiped him. The division of Tyrants from other Jaghut wasn't just an Imass thing. The other Jaghut reviled the Tyrants, possibly even more than the Imass did. The tyrants were the only thing able to bring the Jaghut back together. In the beginning of MoI the Jaghut had joined with the T'lan Imass against a tyrant but the Jaghut would not help each other once the tyrant was beaten and the T'Lan Imass attacked them.
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Oct 28, 2011 04:08
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Donkey posted:That seems to be why the T'lan Imass we meet at the end of MOI effectively say something like, "We don't care if there are Jaghut left anymore; this whole thing was a big stupid mistake." This makes me think of (book 9+10) what happens to Onos after Hetan is killed. He is entirely consumed by anger (justified considering what happened) and single-mindedly devotes himself to vengeance so intently he fails to notice that he has dragged entire other clans into it. I think there's a clear reflection of the Imass as a whole sacrificing their race for a genocide of the Jaghut.
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Oct 28, 2011 07:00
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