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I finally got around to reading TCG (and catching up on 25 pages of ths thread) and it's been such a wild ride. Fantastic series. I agree with some of the posters earlier on in the thread, I felt that Erikson had written in a bit too many plot lines in the earlier books. Made things a bit more messier to clean up. I only wished that he would have alluded to the Forkrul Assail being a major power within the Malazan world. I mean all the other elder races had lost their nations and were basically nomads. The FA have basically ruled over the entire eastern portion of the Letherii continent and he only reveals this to us in the last book. Makes the "ultimate bad guys" seem little more than canon fodder. Then again, the story is not about who they're fighting, but who they're trying to free. I still loved the book though and made me look forward to the upcoming spinoffs. So TCG does manage to chain the otaral dragon right? What happened to the other dragons, did Silchas murder them all? What exactly did the hust sword do for him? One thing that amused me was throughout the entire series everyone regards Sinn as some sort of monster and as a reader you feel bad for her, but in the end she really was a monster. It's just something you don't usually see in fantasy books. Lyer fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Aug 10, 2011 |
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Aug 10, 2011 18:13
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zokie posted:Draconus and Dragnipur: There are also several hints that Draconus, because of Kallor's curse, let himself get taken out by Dragnipur since he thought it would be broken eventually. Hints that I take as he planned for it to happen I thought the curse on Draconus was being taken by his own sword.
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Aug 25, 2011 17:25
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LtSmash posted: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. 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?)
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Sep 28, 2011 19:18
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Habibi posted:I see so many people complaining about this last bit - the amount of badasses everywhere - and I might too, if it wasn't tempered by the fact that even the strongest badass can (and has) been brought down by a weak mortal with very little badass about him. I love how in most of the books, there's always a character or two that's built up to be some hardass, only to get the poo poo stomped out of them pretty easily.
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Sep 29, 2011 20:19
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uh zip zoom posted: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? I think the "main" series is just about this specific group of Malazans and their story, not so much about the universe that it's set in. Especially when "The Malazan Book Of The Fallen" is written by TCG. It fits in with the theme of the series, you are unceremoniously dropped in the middle of poo poo and then dropped out of it.
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Sep 30, 2011 22:19
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Kekekela posted:Nah man, you're fine. Don't get too hung up on remembering every little thing, poo poo will start to come together. Hell, some of the poo poo doesn't come together until near the end and some of it doesn't even at all. Kind of off topic, but is there any other series that's similar to Malazan in terms of "world building"? I didn't particularly think that the characterization in this series was great, but I thought the backstory and lore was fantastic.
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Oct 18, 2011 17:46
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Yarrbossa posted:Might as well chime in. I finished Gardens of the Moon a month or so ago then picked up Deadhouse Gates, and I'm probably 1/4 through it. While the first book was badass, the second book is even more badass, and I expect it will probably just continue. You know, I did the same exact thing you're doing. WoT is a great "palette cleanser" because it was so easy to see what was going on (relatively speaking). I ended up stopping after 3 or so books and just burned through the rest of the Malazan series because I just wanted to know what would happen next. Yeah, you don't go read another series once you've read Memories of Ice, it's just impossible to stop at that point.
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Oct 20, 2011 17:12
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WeWereSchizo posted:There will be more Karsa. 1/3rd of a book isn't enough for him, he needs his own trilogy.  I was browsing through some Malazan wiki's, but is Olar Ethil really Burn?
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Oct 24, 2011 03:56
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Juaguocio posted:On Hood (whole series spoilers): Hood fully expected the undead Jaghut to take vengeance on him when he came back in DoD, and admitted that he was wrong about... whatever it was that he did to end the Jaghut war against death. There are many hints that he betrayed his race somehow, and while I don't believe he was a true Tyrant, I think he may have been looking out for number one when he originally took the throne of Death. I was under the impression that he didn't intend to take the throne and that he was surprised to find out that by defeating "death" he had to take its place. It's been a while, so I could be wrong.
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Oct 27, 2011 22:46
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Conduit for Sale! posted:Plus it was weird that the book was building up to a fight with the Jaghut Tyrant, but he is defeated unceremoniously. It's a common theme in all his books.
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Dec 28, 2011 18:27
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Benson Cunningham posted:So I just finished TCG. I think I have a million questions now. I think the series ends the way it started; unceremoniously dropped off with a whole bunch of questions. We basically see a segment of an overall story and while some threads get answered, others do continue on without us ever knowing. What's interesting is we see the Bridge Burners effectively getting destroyed in GOTM and we have no idea why they're so special. During the course of the series, we see the growth of the Bonehunters and as the last book ends, the BH effectively become just as badass as the Bridgeburners. It's kind of like that I feel. Lyer fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Jan 30, 2012 |
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Jan 30, 2012 19:32
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all the spoilers are full series spoilers
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If any series needs an encyclopedia published, it's this one.
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Feb 1, 2012 18:32
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Seriously, I felt the whole Felisin the second arc really has no place since the plot thread didn't go anywhere with it later on.
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Feb 2, 2012 18:31
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Abalieno posted:He's saying that he and Cam developed the series in-character, and so the plans changed and became larger. The same to what happened with ST & Dancer, the more they learned the more they had to readjust and make new plans. This isn't about retconning, it's about planning out and adapting to unexpected developments. Most writers do it, have a plan for a story that changes as the story finds its own direction. Abalieno's right. Spoilers for end of series: At first they go after the throne for shadow for their personal pursuit of power, along the way they discover TCG and what's been happening. They then decide to set things in motion to free TCG. I've been under the impression that their motivations for doing so was simply because it was the right thing to do. Not because they wanted to change the way the warrens worked and/or to stop the various gods from loving with poo poo right? Those things just happened to be a side effect from freeing TCG?
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Feb 8, 2012 01:40
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pakman posted:Midnight Tides: Some people consider MT to be the best book in the series, I personally go with MoI, but it's a very good book once it gets going. The problem is that it starts off with brand new characters and a brand new setting when you've been deeply invested in a whole ton of other characters and continents and want to know what's going on with them. It is a very important book however in the grand scheme of things.
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Mar 7, 2012 19:01
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Yeah, that part was hard to follow for a lot of people in this thread. Just keep chugging on.
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Mar 24, 2012 00:28
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mcustic posted:I'm 45 percent into Bonehunters and it still feels like a prologue. Will this get any better soon? Yeah, it does pick up later. I felt that the rest of the series became more and more of a slog in the beginning, but ended on amazing climaxes. I think TTH is the worst of all of them in this regard, that book took me the longest to get through. E:VVV I didn't mind the scenes nearly as much as the needless internal philosophizing that each tortured character seemed to do, but yeah the damned editor should have tried harder.
Lyer fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Apr 4, 2012 |
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Apr 4, 2012 20:01
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The Ninth Layer posted:TCG spoiler talk: I'm seriously surprised by how many characters ended up making it through. Gesler, Stormy and Mappo dying all hit hard, as did Cuttle and Corabb to a lesser extent, but Fiddler surviving was unexpected and awesome. Draconus ended up being a lot cooler than I was thinking he'd be around TtH, but I was disappointed that he took off after the Errant halfway through the book and never reappeared. I'm hoping we get to find out what happens in a future book. This is my personal take on it, but if you think about it for a bit, Fiddler is the main character of the series. I think Erikson throws you for a loop with Paran being the master of the deck and all, but Paran really doesn't do poo poo the entire series. The earlier books basically setup how awesome the Bridgeburners were and that's Fiddler's backstory, then you get Fiddler helping to lay the foundations of what the Bonehunters will be, etc etc. Then you basically have Fiddler as the last line of defense for TCG when they're holding off the hordes when they're freeing him. That or Erikson had some really lucky dice rolls for that character during his RPing campaigns and he somehow made it through it all.
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May 9, 2012 08:27
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The best part of that is the self philosophizing is easily the worst part out of all the books. The series would actually be better if he didn't try and make them "literary masterpieces".
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May 11, 2012 19:39
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savinhill posted:While Erikson does come off as conceited and rambles too much about the literary concepts of his series in interviews, I don't think it's fair to say that it has no true literary value or isn't art just because it's fantasy. Oh I wouldn't say that it has no value, it obviously does. I just think the series would be held in higher regard if it didn't try to be something it's not.
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May 11, 2012 19:57
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Porkchop Express posted:You know, I really really used to love this series. I loved the first couple of books but then as time went on I started to feel my interest slipping, and finally about 1/3 of the way through Toll the Hounds I finally just gave up. Between not being able to remember what happened from the last book and a pace that seemed really slow to me, I finally just gave up. TTH took me about 7 months to get through, I went through all the book before that in 6 months. I personally feel that the 1st 2/3rds of TTH is probably the worst parts in the entire Malazan series. The story definitely picks up in the last two, although DoD does have its moments where you need to slog through. I don't remember TCG being tedious, I think it was mostly balls to the wall malazan awesomeness.
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May 30, 2012 17:25
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5ive posted:I really should not have read that spoiler If you're not planning on reading the Esslemont books, the most it's talked about in Erikson's books is an off hand comment. Speaking of the authors...which one of them is going to write about what's going on in Assail?
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Jun 4, 2012 17:37
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