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Just finished TCG. Ending spoilers below. I really cannot overstate how happy I was that Fiddler made it through. I spent most of the book getting ready to cry like a baby at what I thought would be an inevitable death for him (especially once the body count started to rise. Gesler and Stormy, Mappo  .) "DUD!" was probably the most relaxing line I have ever read in this series.Also, Apsalar and Crokus 
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Mar 3, 2011 23:24
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I think one of my favorite Fiddler moments in the series is at the end of Deadhouse Gates, when Shadowthrone is granting his group's requests. Shadowthrone mocks the hell out of every single one of them, but when it comes to Fiddler's he makes it a point to tell him that his request in the only one he won't mock. Did Shadowthrone ever extend that courtesy to anyone else?
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Mar 16, 2011 23:26
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Rereading TCG since I blitzed through it, and I really can't believe I expected a happy end for Mappo. Not after he actually bargained away those children to Olar Ethil. The first time I read this part my general thought process was "Come on, someone stand up for them! Please! gently caress. At least Torrent's going with them ". Reading it again, it's just completely heartbreaking to me, solely due to Mappo.
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Mar 28, 2011 07:10
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Weaponized Cum posted:Redmask question. I basically considered it one last way to poo poo on the Awl - the person leading them to extinction not even being one of them
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Apr 4, 2011 08:02
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Tagging for safety: Self-preservation. He's pretty sure that if he keeps going along with them he's going to die, and he's not particularly wrong in thinking so: Envy, her Seguleh, and Tool can't protect him and themselves at the same time considering the numbers they're fighting against. He had more faith in his ability to blend in with the Dominion, and since he was a Claw I don't really fault him for that. This does make me wish we'd gotten more Envy in the series. Almost every scene she's in or reference to her is hilarious. Oh Snapple! fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Apr 5, 2011 |
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Apr 5, 2011 22:18
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Kjoery posted:Memories of ice trip report: First in, last out 
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Apr 12, 2011 22:59
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And I thought the children of the Dead Seed thing was hosed up. Jesus christ 
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Apr 14, 2011 22:31
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The Tiste Edur are worth dealing with solely because without them we don't have Trull Sanger. And that would be a travesty.
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May 3, 2011 05:41
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Togg's balls disagree.
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May 30, 2011 02:46
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Toll the Hounds is a book I enjoyed much more on a reread because I already knew where it was headed. The first time through, though? Complete slog.
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Jun 9, 2011 22:16
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The Kharkanas trilogy is basically the "Anomander Rake: Fightin' 'Round the World" story, isn't it? I know he was going to do some stuff focusing on Rake's younger days, I just can't remember if Kharkanas was it. Honestly, I'd kill just for a book full of short stories about Rake's adventures (especially if it means more Envy and Spite).
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Jul 6, 2011 20:32
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hello clarice posted:
I don't really get this. I'm not gonna argue with your comments about those particular women, but I always felt that Erikson handled women extremely well. Tavore, Faradan Sort, Lostara Yil (hell, let's just say every female in the Malazan army), Envy, Spite, Apsalar, Yan Tovis...poo poo, I'm probably forgetting a lot more. All extremely capable, and miles ahead of women in other novels who tend to be capable despite being women than just being capable on their own. Hell, most of those would probably be men elsewhere.
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Jul 30, 2011 02:17
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Wallet posted:At least two dudes get raped, too, and that has to count for something. Hell, the (minor as hell MoI spoiler but I always prefer safety) Children of the Dead Seed concept is based around men getting getting raped, even.
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Aug 7, 2011 06:48
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Don't forget Lady Envy and Fisher I think they're still there, at least.
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Sep 10, 2011 17:30
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Nimander is great and I wish people would stop putting him down 
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Oct 4, 2011 22:56
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Get House of Chains. It finishes up some important plots and expands on others, and introduces some very important and awesome characters. Midnight Tides is great, but it starts off a completely different plot.
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Jan 27, 2012 03:20
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Biggest thing regarding rape in Malazan compared to ASOIAF is that women in the Malazan universe don't exist solely to be raped to show how completely gritty this place is or how bad this person is, and the use of it tends to gravitate more toward the way it effects the victim as a character instead of the pure shock value it's used for in ASOIAF. Hell, the one time I can remember where it IS used for real shock value to set up grittiness has men as the victims. Though I suppose that is really a different subject. Personally, the way Erikson writes his females compared to other authors is part of why I enjoy this series so much more than others 
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Jan 28, 2012 01:20
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Conduit for Sale! posted:There's a few more. Erikson does like his glottal stops, that's for sure. I just don't understand why it's a problem. Do some people just fly into a rage whenever they see or hear a glottal stop? The better hope they never find themselves in the company of people who speak Arabic, then. One thing I've noticed since I started the series a couple of years ago here and elsewhere is that when people have poor, kneejerk reactions to the series, it's typically over one of two things: 1. Apostrophes. 2. The fact that it's actually fantasy, with mages, gods, dragons (that actually do poo poo), etc. Really just the fact that magic plays a large role in the series at all. This alienates people faster than anything and I have no idea why (I also typically see "ANIME" thrown around when this is being complained about). Yet the second point is why I love the series and partly why it's at the top of the genre for me, and I honestly don't get the appeal of low fantasy. I found ASoIaF incredibly boring, from a world, character, and storytelling perspective (say what you want about Erikson, but at least he understands the concepts of proper story and character arcs, plotting, build-up, and climax), yet even the biggest slogs of Malazan (Toll the Hounds ) typically at least kept me wanting to read further because it always leads somewhere incredible (Toll the Hounds  ).
Oh Snapple! fucked around with this message at 03:53 on Jan 31, 2012 |
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Jan 31, 2012 03:51
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bigmcgaffney posted:
Staying out of the rest of this mess because I have a deep hatred for Martin's series on several levels and don't want to beat on that drum yet again, but I really don't see how anyone can say Malazan's character arcs don't compare to Martin's. Martin never really breaks any new ground in his character arcs (frankly, I find his characters extremely hard to relate to on any meaningful level, though this may be because Martin doesn't write any characters I like to read about). That said, Martin somehow managed to pull something decent out of his rear end with Jaime's to make it into a legitimately good character arc, enough so that I consider it uneven to compare it to Nimander or Crokus (though not by much, and I think the progress Nimander and Crokus go through bests anything else in ASoIaF). If I were to pick one character arc out of Malazan to showcase, it'd have to be either Mappo or Karsa's. Erikson really hit on something wonderful with both of those, enough so that I feel spoiled by them when reading other works.
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Mar 13, 2012 00:27
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I've noticed that as well, mostly because part of Martin's appeal is to people who don't actually like fantasy but like the medieval soap opera aspect of the series. Whenever something fantastical actually does happen in ASoIaF, there's typically a decent amount of bitching about it because the lack of things like that is what got people into the series to begin with. Compare to Malazan where there are mages, gods, dragons, shapeshifters, and basically just ~magic~ everywhere.
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Mar 17, 2012 20:52
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Yeah I read books. posted:Okay, sorry I'm plaguing you guys with questions, but I have a rather specific one about House of Chains that might not be answerable without spoiling stuff - Shadowthrone and Cotillion were just talking on the drifting isle about the guy Traveller, and mentioned he's Dal Honese, and the Aspalar was saying he was someone who was with them at the beginning...I went back to where Admiral Nok was talking to Tavore, and he was bringing up people, and the only one mentioned as being specifically as a Dal Honese is someone named Dassem Ultor. So is that who Traveller is, and if so, who is he and what is his significance? 1. You are in for a treat~ 2. It's one of the Crust brothers. Which precisely completely escapes me, but you are on the right track, yes
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May 14, 2012 07:52
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Juaguocio posted:Antsy's dungeon crawl Welp, this just sold me on it. Gonna need to pick this up.
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May 23, 2012 08:09
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The philosophizing is something I can generally look past in the series. While it does result in some bloat, I'm alright with it because I could always skim when it was getting a bit much. It didn't seem to effect the speed at which Erikson released a book, which he does at a pretty good pace, and I always got the impression that he knew where he wanted to take his story and his characters. Erikson's climaxes are honestly well worth putting up with it, to me at least. Frankly, I'd rather deal with the philosophy  than Erikson be a directionless poo poo with no work ethic like Martin.
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Jun 29, 2012 15:48
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I love his story, personally. He bargained away children to Olar Ethil just for information. Expecting anything good to happen to Mappo after that in this series is not really a thing one should do. Getting to Icarium only to be effortlessly killed by Calm is ultimately him meeting the end his actions bought for him, as heartbreaking as it is given how Mappo started the series off as one of the most genuinely good people we see in the series. But Erikson also isn't that spiteful to his characters, and Mappo does serve to spark a memory within Icarium, making his actual journey to him worthwhile. It was a really wonderful end to that arc to me.
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Jul 15, 2012 17:32
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Chapter two of Forge of Darkness was posted on TOR's site. Enjoyed this one. The end actually got an "oh poo poo" out of me 
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Aug 2, 2012 18:30
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The Shake also gave us Yedan loving Derryg, so I'm cool with them. Though I enjoyed their plotline anyway and viewed it as a good continuation of the events from TtH.
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Aug 3, 2012 03:05
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No, it's a complete, almost perfectly linear series that builds itself up through each book. The thing with Deadhouse Gates and Memories of Ice is that they take place at the same time but in different places, and you can conceivably read those two in any order and not really suffer for it. The only other exception is Midnight Tides, and that's because it introduces completely new characters in a completely different area of the world and focuses on them as to build them up as the main story transitions to that continent.
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Aug 3, 2012 18:18
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I knew I liked Erikson  The overwhelming nihilism that's become popular in fantasy is partly responsible for me falling out of the genre as a whole, which is a shame to me, but I'm glad to see that I'll continue to not have to worry about that with Erikson.
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Aug 14, 2012 15:51
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CrazyLikeAMadDog posted:?Can I ask why you think Erikson doesn't fit this mold? To me, almost all of the books are filled with non-stop nihilism. To throw 5,000 pages of downers and bad things happening because of curses/fate/luck, but wrap up with a 'yay, they were still heroes' doesn't really seem non-nihilistic? Gonna be some spoilers from various books below here. The only real instance where I think Erikson goes into nihilism overdrive is with the Barghest in the later books. I think he even realized this partway through, which is why we got Hetan's rather sudden resurrection. For the rest of the series, I think it's just part of Erikson's formula: He's unafraid to do awful things to his characters, but at the same time he isn't awful to them just for the sake of it. It was my experience throughout the series that when Erikson brought me/the reader down, it was to lift us up again later on with some extremely beautiful actions by his characters, a big one being Itkovian. There's also Anomander's sacrifice to lift the Tiste Andii out of their own depression and ennui and the Otataral Dragon in TCG. What sets Erikson apart is how much weight he puts upon characters taking a particular course of action solely because it's the right thing to do. So much of the series is based upon this and acting with compassion toward others, and Erikson treats such actions with an incredible amount of respect in his writing. Do things always end particularly well for the people who do these things? No, as we see with the Chain of Dogs. But there is always the sense that these actions were still worth it, that these actions mattered, regardless of whether or not the person or people performing them came out particularly healthy. That sense isn't really there with writers like Martin, who seem to act as spitefully as possible to any of their characters that attempt to act with a single iota of selflessness. And you certainly, at least from what I've seen, don't get people calling a character "stupid" for such attempts when it comes to Malazan, unlike what I've seen with ASoIaF.
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Aug 15, 2012 01:10
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Been going through Forge of Darkness today, and drat can Erikson still do it. The death of Orfantal's horse got me  as gently caress.
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Sep 22, 2012 02:17
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Forge of Darkness, not sure whether I should laugh or  over Spite killing Malice, and her and Envy's subsequent murder of pretty much everyone in the house to cover it up/because they feel like it. Maybe some combination of the two would be appropriate, because drat.Also didn't think Erikson could make me despise Olar Ethil more than I already did, but welp.
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Sep 22, 2012 19:29
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the least weasel posted:Great, this again. At least it's not "apostrophes!  "
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Nov 8, 2012 16:17
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If they're legitimately hampering your experience, skim them. It's my experience that the most you'll miss is a lil' bit of characterization or worldbuilding, I don't think he includes anything of earth-shattering importance to the overall plot in them, though I can't promise they don't have anything to do with the overarching themes of the series/a particular book/plot/etc.
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Dec 12, 2012 07:49
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FlyingCowOfDoom posted:Some of the intrespection stuff gets long winded in the later books, with TtH being the chief perpetrator. Dust of Dreams seems like he is back on track and I am pretty enthralled again. It's just a pure coincidence type of thing.
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Dec 13, 2012 18:12
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apophenium posted:
Not entirely sure if it does or not but: It's basically a corpse-puppet trick, if I'm remembering correctly. Laseen isn't stupid enough to actually put herself in the same room as Kalam
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Dec 29, 2012 20:30
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Erikson can get pretty brutal and dark, but there is a tonal difference between Malazan and ASoIaF on that front. With Martin it generally comes off as pandering to me, people buy his books expecting him to treat everyone in them like poo poo and violently kill them just because and he happily obliges. Erikson, as stated, can get equally dark. There have been scenes that left me as basically brought to life. The difference is that Erikson doesn't do those scenes just to do them, and he doesn't come off as spiteful toward his characters when he does it. There tends to be some meaning present, whether it be for a character's development or to serve the particular themes he's working on with that particular arc.But I am heavily, heavily biased because I hate Martin so someone else may be of better help with this.
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Jan 10, 2013 00:40
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Robot Danger posted:I was really far off on my timeline as far as when Midnight Tides took place. I thought it was more of a case of Lether just being so far in the past more than that it just more of a backwater place in the world. Kind of like a long Dark Age period following fall of the First Empire. It didn't seem too strange considering the Tiste races living so long to have Trull in the other books. Don't. It's a plot point that the Nascent fucks hard with Trull's perception of time
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Jan 18, 2013 01:02
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Forge of Darkness is really really good but also really really different because it's structured differently than most Malazan books.
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Jan 19, 2013 00:45
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He does, yes.
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Feb 1, 2013 20:20
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 05:46 |
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Fleshpeg posted:Are you sure you're remembering that right? Tavore is definitely Talon but I don't think Ganoes ever implies anything like that. The actual quote after Lostara sees the talon necklace: "The Adjunct sighed. ‘I am a child of the Emperor – what more is there for you to understand, Lostara Yil?’" Yeah, I'm overdue for a TCG re-read so my memory may be completely jumbled and wrong about this, but from what we see of Tavore's motivations there, she seemed to completely dislike the idea of Ganoes being involved in the army (though I can't remember if it was because of the inherent danger or because she didn't want him to experience the life of a soldier), so I'd find it extremely odd for Ganoes to be a Talon just because such a status would be inconsistent with those feelings. Oh Snapple! fucked around with this message at 08:18 on Feb 18, 2013 |
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Feb 18, 2013 08:11
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