|
the periodic fable posted:you should spoilertag that but oh jesus you're right and i remember why i made myself forget about it too iirc only one of the wolf gods died and for real this time which means that one of them is doomed to spend ANOTHER ETERNITY without its mate and i guess my poor heart couldn't bear contemplating it too much I'm not sure if it's the case, but it seemed to me like the gods of war had either died (Fener, Trake?, one of the Wolves) or been rendered powerless if they still lived by the end of the series. There was a lot of philosophizing about how mortals had perfected war beyond what the 'animal' war gods had ever managed, so it definitely fit thematically. I was expecting Stormy and Gesler to ascend with all the talk about them being on the edge of ascension and become the new face of war, but I guess not... HeroOfTheRevolution fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Mar 26, 2011 |
#
¿
Mar 25, 2011 18:52
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 23, 2024 21:42 |
|
|
Cervixalot posted:Might want to check those spoiler tags. Duh. Jesus, I'm dumb. Hope no one read that!
|
|
#
¿
Mar 26, 2011 05:02
|
|
|
Juaguocio posted:I interpreted Grub to be partly a manifestation of the Chain of Dogs, not Coltaine in particular. Grub is another example of that idea I mentioned, that mortals have eclipsed gods as the 'gods of war.' Coltaine himself appears reincarnated in... RotCG, I believe?
|
|
#
¿
Mar 27, 2011 00:33
|
|
|
icking fudiot posted:Finished TCG, my feelings on the book and the series in retrospect: This is how I felt, more or less. Don't get me wrong, I loved the series, but I had just finished The First Law when I got The Crippled God and it just seemed so bloated and the characters so lifeless due to their sheer number in comparison. Even the major characters of Erikson aren't exactly characterized real well. People mention Whiskeyjack or some others as their favorite character but they really didn't get enough face time to create any sort of resonance. I got the feeling Erikson assumed we cared a lot more about his characters than we actually did.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 1, 2011 12:53
|
|
|
I do like the maybe not so big reveal that Shadowthrone was ICE's character and Cotillion is Erikson's. I think phrasing it as 'post-modern fantasy' is a little much, though. Edit: also this quote:epic fantasy literature is the spine of genre (SRD went on to say that in fact it’s the spine of Western Literature) ahahahahaha  Erikson sounds a little up his own rear end, to tell you the truth. HeroOfTheRevolution fucked around with this message at 08:19 on Apr 9, 2011 |
|
#
¿
Apr 9, 2011 08:15
|
|
|
Decius posted:I don't think he (Donaldson - it wasn't Erikson who said it) is that far off. Look how much of the literature "canon" has fantastical elements in it, some bordering outright into Epic High Fantasy. And things like the Gilgamesh epos, Homer etc. is pretty much the foundation of much of our literature. When I think of epic fantasy, I think Lord of the Rings, not the Iliad. While mythology is a hugely important part of Western literature, it's not 'epic fantasy.' Drizzt books and Malazan books are not the newest wave in the foundation of Western literary tradition. Also Gilgamesh isn't Western.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 9, 2011 11:49
|
|
|
Not really. Mythology still has some basis in fact and is important as a cultural outlet. The Iliad depicts a historical war between two real places at its heart, even if it uses mythical elements to do so, and also depicts the way people of Classical Greece lived. The Malazan world is complete fiction, and I think that is the line between 'fantasy' and 'epic poem.' I think that's the big difference, and why I'd be incredibly hesitant to imply that 'epic high fantasy' is core to Western literary tradition.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 9, 2011 16:59
|
|
|
Self-insert characters aren't exactly groundbreaking in the fantasy genre.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 10, 2011 09:42
|
|
|
bigmcgaffney posted:It's still terrible. Only if you have no appreciation for its contribution to feminism and as a harsh criticism of the rigid class structure of the 19th century.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 10, 2011 20:56
|
|
|
Abalieno posted:The meta-narrative he refers to is mostly thematic. So himself as a character is just a small aspect (and there are more than one meta-character). Honestly, I never got that. Where's the line between self-insert character and 'meta' then in fantasy? Is it just a well-done self-insert character, as I'll admit Shadowthrone and Cotillion are? It seems like Erikson and certain readers want to ascribe some sort of literary value to the Malazan series when it's simply a good, really long fantasy series. There's really not much I'd consider even vaguely postmodern about it.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 11, 2011 07:32
|
|
|
Abalieno posted:Then the problem seems to be about you putting a genre not in the same league of what you consider "literature". That's fair, because I think fantasy isn't very literary. But if you're going to somehow argue that ST+C make Malazan 'meta' and thus 'postmodern fantasy,' didn't Dragonlance and Death Gate do that with Fizban/Zifnab 20 years prior? Like I said, it's not exactly groundbreaking stuff.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 11, 2011 12:26
|
|
|
coyo7e posted:And I'm sure that, say, Samuel Clemens never had any self-insertion in his novels, either..? I'm not sure what you're getting at. Self-insert has been a staple of storytelling since the beginning of time. Abalieno posted:As I said the meta-narrative is not limited to two RPG characters, but it is thematic, about structure, use of point of view and so on. It's done on multiple levels and has a number of layers. Could you explain this more? I don't really see this at all.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 12, 2011 15:04
|
|
|
I think most people who enjoy Malazan would probably enjoy The First Law, but it doesn't necessarily work in reverse.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 14, 2011 18:14
|
|
|
Take Dragonlance and throw in some Raistlin rape scenes and have Tanis and Flint talk like autistic philosophers and suddenly it's a whole new take on the genre. Maybe you should make each book three times as long, just to make sure. You can, uh, fill that space with your bad poetry I guess.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 15, 2011 08:49
|
|
|
Phummus posted:At the risk of feeding the trolls, I have to ask why you even bother to post here? You've almost nothing positive to say and you seem to get off on criticizing people for what they like, or criticizing what they like directly. Why bother posting in the thread at all? If you don't like it, ignore it. Nobody is strapping you down and forcing you to read Erickson's stuff. I have a lot of posts in this thread (and the last one) and not all of them are negative? In fact, the only negative ones have been in the last few days when a couple posters have said that Erikson's writing is groundbreaking and has value as literature. I'm probably coming off as overly negative about the entire series due to the recent debate on that particular issue, but I really did enjoy it. It's not a series I'd recommend to casual readers and I do take a bit of exception to people (including Erikson himself) calling it literary or revolutionary or 'postmodern' (if only for its implications. I can understand Abalieno's viewpoint but I think the idea is marginally realized if at all there) but I did like the series for what it is. With some reservations, of course, but I think you'll find that's the case with everyone here. Taste is all subjective after all! Compared to some of the debates about whether ICE should be allowed to breathe that happened in the last thread, I think this one is pretty tame! The Dragonlance thing was supposed to be funny, maybe it came off more bitter than it was intended. 
HeroOfTheRevolution fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Apr 15, 2011 |
|
#
¿
Apr 15, 2011 18:44
|
|
|
Bizob posted:Nothing like a bit of dragon rape to bring out the worst in people. Oddly enough, he's mentioned towards the middle of TCG as 'part of the group,' but doesn't appear in TCG. Presumably he died in the battle with the Short-tails, though his death doesn't happen 'on-screen.' He definitely didn't survive to the end, at least.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 15, 2011 19:21
|
|
|
coyo7e posted:Also, who the gently caress ARE Gesler and Stormy and Truth and those guys, what's their history? I've read through like 7 of the Malazan books at least once, the first 3 I read at least 3 or four times now. Who were they? Also, is that dude in the tower with the fossilized dinosaurs Urko or possibly his brother? Gesler and Stormy's backstory is basically that they're (I think this is revealed in DoD) old-time members of the Malazan army. I think both were, like Whiskeyjack, on their way to Fist or possibly already Fist or some other high rank before the Laseen takeover, after which they were bumped down to corporal or adjutant and set to boring guard duty somewhere in Seven Cities. Truth is the young recruit who ends up in the Marine squad with them. Everything else happens during the series. And yeah, you got the identity of the tower guy correct (the one in the spoiler).
|
|
#
¿
Apr 15, 2011 19:49
|
|
|
I'm not going to lie, the part where one of Stormy/Gesler remembers the dead mouse in TCG made me tear up. For all of Erikson's tendency towards flat secondary characters who spout long-winded philosophizing drivel (and the problem you see above where I can't really differentiate between Stormy and Gesler), a lot of his 'scenes' are excellent. That one, in particular, was extremely resonant for some reason I can't quite put into words.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 15, 2011 22:40
|
|
|
There's no way to tell, really. (maybe a spoiler, but better safe than sorry) The Azath, Mother Dark, and K'rul are all native to different planes of existence or warrens or what have you, so the timelines of their existence are different to begin with. We had a big conversation about Burn in the older thread, but truthfully there just isn't enough information about her to make any claims. She's almost certainly Elder, since the Thel Akai came from her according to Stonewielder and I believe they're the oldest of mortal races, but her actual nature is almost completely unknown. No clue if she's part of the K'rul/Mael/Errastas/Kilamandaros group of Elders, either.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 15, 2011 23:10
|
|
|
Loving Life Partner posted:Other series stuff: The reincarnation of Coltaine appears in Return of the Crimson Guard, and it is not Grub. Grub existed before Coltaine died, for one thing. It's probably been awhile since you've read Deadhouse Gates, but the explanation for Grub's comment about being there is even far less cryptic than you make it out to be - he was actually, physically there at the walls of Aren. He was rescued by Duiker and adopted by Keneb during and after the Chain of Dogs. The best explanation I can think of for Grub is that he is a new god of war, as he is the manifestation of the violence and suffering of the Chain of Dogs. There's a significant deal made throughout the novels about how war has a thousand names. We see the deaths of the 'bestial' gods of war: Fener is killed by Karsa, one of the Wolves are killed whens it manifests itself, and Trake is either dead or severely crippled when Gruntle dies. There's a lot of philosophizing about how the time for the bestial gods is over because humans do war and violence far better than beasts ever could. The ascended Bridgeburners, Grub, and Nefarious Bredd are all examples of this idea of humans being war's new keepers. We know Grub becomes the First Sword of the Empire at some point in the future, too.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 21, 2011 11:00
|
|
|
Habibi posted:That, and we know that the crows came for him en mass at the end. And the epilogue of DH has a Wickan child being born or conceived (been too long) as crows fly over.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2011 12:18
|
|
|
L.E. Cheetah posted:"Cutter" is a dumb rear end name and Erikson needs to stop trying to convince me otherwise Erikson's names are almost universally really bad.
|
|
#
¿
May 11, 2011 15:42
|
|
|
No, she's Laseen. You see, she changed her name from an adjective to a generic Forgotten Realms fantasy name for no discernible reason. The main problem with the names might be the whole 'GURPS game from 1980s' phenomenon. A lot of the names are just random things Erikson came up with while he was DMing or rolling up characters on the fly and they stuck.
|
|
#
¿
May 11, 2011 18:19
|
|
|
the periodic fable posted:what names do you like in other books (that are fantasy) Martin does a good job with names, as does Abercrombie. Their names are 'fantasy' but not so fantastical as to sound like they'd be completely out of place in real life. 'Roose Bolton' isn't a real name but it's not so jarring that it takes over the narrative. Erikson's names were occasionally bad enough to unnecessarily throw me for a loop while reading. It's a matter of preference, and I understood the marines 'callsign' thing even if it didn't seem particularly consistent until about halfway through the series. Abalieno posted:Huh? The names Erikson uses have a lot in common with Dickens, if anything. That's a very obvious influence that he even acknowledged. My favorite part of A Tale of Two Cities is when Khrugava went to the guillotine in place of K'azz D'Avore. I can see maybe some sort of vague Dickens influence in the marine names (see: Artful Dodger), but the vast majority of characters are more Drizzt Do'Urden than anything. Hondo82 posted:Are people really going to say they dont like Sweetlard and Rumjugs? Get the hell out. Just go. The entire New Bridgeburners plot should have probably had an editor's scalpel taken to it because it just didn't go anywhere. I got that it was more comic relief than anything but I thought it was pretty unnecessary. HeroOfTheRevolution fucked around with this message at 08:05 on May 12, 2011 |
|
#
¿
May 12, 2011 08:00
|
|
|
He doesn't say he was influenced by Dickens, just that the underlying reasons for the names are similar. Naming a guy who has red hair 'Red' doesn't require you to be influenced by Dickens. That actually really didn't bother me too much because there was a compelling reason for it in Malazan world, but it also was not always consistently applied. The aforementioned Pearl, for example, is a 'noun/adjective' name and yet the character is a Claw and not a Marine. The Crimson Guard are the worst offenders, alternating between 'noun/adjective' and 'fantasy' names without any rhyme or reason at all, though that's at least partly Esslemont's fault. Again, I think the naming scheme was hurt by the fact that a lot of the characters came from his tabletop RPG campaign and thus he was married to names that he rolled up in the 80s, often probably on the fly. Really, K'azz D'avore. HeroOfTheRevolution fucked around with this message at 17:22 on May 12, 2011 |
|
#
¿
May 12, 2011 17:17
|
|
|
HppyCmpr posted:I highly recommend this series of books; both the ones written by SE and ICE. Good to see your opinion hasn't changed since the last page.
|
|
#
¿
May 16, 2011 16:29
|
|
|
User posted:It's a wonderful trick for escaping his follower's influence, which most ascendents sooner or later have to deal with. Dessembrae almost seems like something Dassem simply discarded. It's pretty clear where all the competence ended up. I think it's mentioned that Traveler is the 'good' part of Dassem and Dessembrae is the 'bad' part that the T'lan Imass worshiped. Of course it's rather obfuscated. A big problem I have with Erikson is that the books seem to be written for himself; he has this grand mythology, much of which is never expounded upon and he seems to take a 'gee whiz, you didn't know that?' view when something comes up. Like the Shake were cool but they're suddenly of ultimate importance despite not even showing up until book 8. Some people might like the idea that the world exists outside of the reader's purview, though.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 20, 2011 16:02
|
|
|
Electronico6 posted:I'm not sure they are talking about anything in particular. Just a legend kinda like the Loch Ness Monster. No there's something about it mentioned in like one throwaway line or possibly in Night of Knives
|
|
#
¿
Jun 20, 2011 17:55
|
|
|
Fargo Fukes posted:This is definitely something that bothered me too. Even the 'cool' characters aren't, well... characters. If you had to describe Fiddler's personality without mentioning that he's a sapper, what do you say? Or talk about Kalam except for the bit how he's an assassin with all these awesome assassin abilities. There's nothing else. Everyone drinks and spits and has mutually affirming relationships with women but there's precious little personality to go round. Everyone speaks with the same voice. Every character feels the same but with a different backstory, and none of them feel developed. You can describe nearly every single character with a five word sentence fragment. The story and setting are wonderful, and it feels like they're the primary characters. The actual characters exist merely to drive the plot in Erikson's voice. All of them feel rather unfortunately like narrators and not characters, which leads to an emotional disattachment. I think the entire series may have been best written from the first-person perspective of a nameless philosophizing soldier, the type of guy Erikson wants every character to be. Erikson has a fantastic knack for story and world, but his characters are unfortunately lifeless. Also I think forums poster Abalieno might be Steven Erikson. He registered back in April and only seems to post in this thread to answer its critics. HeroOfTheRevolution fucked around with this message at 07:33 on Jul 4, 2011 |
|
#
¿
Jul 4, 2011 07:31
|
|
|
My biggest issue with Midnight Tides was that it got a little cartoony. Tehol and Bugg danced the line to some extent, but Shurq Elalle and Ublala Pung were just ridiculous, and remained so for the entire series. It was somewhat jarring.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 19, 2011 16:53
|
|
|
Quick Ben is a schizophrenic character who is exactly as powerful and knowledgeable as the narrative requires him to be at any given time. But I still like him, for whatever reason. That's the weird thing about Erikson - his books are highly flawed but still highly likable.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 22, 2011 16:49
|
|
|
Fray posted:SO I just finished Deadhouse Gates. I still don't really understand what the hell Azath are. It's like a house? And also a plant? And they eat people? They're big superdimensional trees that contain warp gates inside them and also can act as prisons. They're a gigantic mystery and even after finishing the series you'll still be clueless.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 23, 2011 04:10
|
|
|
bigmcgaffney posted:I don't ever understand the whole 'Malazan is a postmodern piece of art' stuff It's pretty much just one guy in this thread who thinks that. Everyone else pretty much thinks its an enjoyable if flawed fantasy series.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 23, 2011 03:20
|
|
|
The Ninth Layer posted:I tracked down Book 2 without too much trouble and right now I'm a little over halfway through. One thing I really like about this series is that even when there are three or four groups of characters all doing different things, they're all still a blast to follow and I'm never disappointed that now I'll have to read another chapter of so-and-so. There's always at least one character I really like reading about. This will change when you meet Nimander and co.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 4, 2011 19:28
|
|
|
Imagined quorls looking more like cicadas than dragonflys. Maybe because dragonfly just seemed obvious and a bit lame and overdone.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 19, 2011 06:07
|
|
|
Like kekekela said, Kruppe is probably the most blatant of Erikson's philosophizing characters and as the series goes on every character morphs into a mini-Kruppe so yeah if you can't power through it you should probably just give up.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 6, 2011 06:24
|
|
|
Malazan, like all fantasy novels, has tons of dumb stuff. The fact that literally everyone and everything is an ascendant or god or is nearing that status is one of them, and actually it detracts from one of the core themes of the book that we get a lot of philosophizing on that mortals can challenge gods/ascendants. This is constantly mentioned by Paran, who himself is an ascendant for no particular reason other than random 'chosen by fate' type stuff. Still a good series though.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 16, 2012 17:04
|
|
|
Conduit for Sale! posted:It's never bothered me that much because we're at the center of the story, and there's a reason so many powers are gathering. The only time it ever bothered me is when you'd get random bouts with normal people, like just guys hanging out in a village or whatever. Like that town in the Karsa HoC Prologue. Just some normal people farming and poo poo. You wonder how there are any left when there seems to be a battle every month or two that wipes out entire continents and you trip over a god or a genocidal race that was thought to be extinct every time you walk a step.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 16, 2012 20:21
|
|
|
coyo7e posted:Why do people make such a deal out of how unlikely it is that all these "powers" come together at the climax of every story, every time? It was explained early on and repeatedly, that it's part of how the world works. When you accumulate enough power, it's similar to having a great enough mass and density in space - you pick up your own "gravity." And when you're cruising around the galaxy and cross paths with the gravity well of some other reasonably large body, you'll throw each other off slightly, and if neither of you were moving at a high enough rate, then you would eventually attract each other and collide. The point was less that the powers collide and more that normal people even seem to exist at all in the books, because they're completely exceptions rather than the norm.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 17, 2012 00:52
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 23, 2024 21:42 |
|
|
General Battuta posted:Yeah when I talked to him he spent a long time listing ways in which a lot of normal fantasy worldbuilding makes zero sense -- issues of geography mostly, cities in unsustainable positions, authors failing to account for the changes in terrain that would occur over stated time periods, etc. I wish I could remember all of it because it was really cool. It's cool that he puts in all the effort, but sort of silly in that no readers actually put this much thought into it or really care at all. I mean, his readership probably largely grew up with Dragonlance. HeroOfTheRevolution fucked around with this message at 09:43 on Mar 4, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Mar 4, 2012 09:37
|
|