The Malazan Book of the Fallen: Too many wor'ds.

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The Malazan Book of the Fallen: Too many wor'ds.

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

I was recently at the International Conference in the Fantastic in the Arts to receive a prize ( :smug:

), and while I knew Steve Erikson was there, I couldn't for the life of me find him (plus I was too busy being bros with Connie Willis, who is the coolest person.)

When I was up making my acceptance speech at the awards banquet I concluded by informing the crowd that I'd burn my beard for a chance to talk to Steve Erikson, and he promptly stood up about ten feet away and waved. So I spent a while chatting with him at the afterparty, along with his awesome wife and his top professional fan, an incredibly dapper Irishman literary critic.

Now I've never actually read anything by Erikson, but I am a huge fan of Scott Bakker's fantasy work, and the two are constantly compared. I talked to Steve about his general creative process, which was awesome:

1) apparently he developed the Malazan setting over many years by roleplaying it out with his best friend.

2) (probably obvious) he's an archaeologist, so a lot of his goals for the setting involved avoiding stupid errors in other fantasy settings, like cities not having enough farmland, or rivers forking - he was very insistent that rivers don't fork.

3) he talked about how and why he'd constructed a setting with an even balance of power between the sexes. 'Magic,' said he, 'is open to anyone - it's not heritable - and so anyone can achieve power if they work. Magic is efficacious; it means that women only need to have two children, instead of spitting out ten and hoping one survives. Therefore I needed to write language that didn't have a gender preference. But I didn't want to signpost that, to say 'I'm writing an egalitarian setting', because then I've started commenting on the real world, and that breaks the narrative.'

4) he talked a bit about the difference between his writing and Scott Bakker's, which is probably only of interst to those who are fans of both.

5) apparently he is pals with awesome people like Peter Hamilton and Richard Morgan. He told me to go buy Crysis 2 because Richard Morgan wrote it.

His wife is the funniest person. also he's kind of handsome and well-dressed :allears:

# ¿ Mar 24, 2011 15:45

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# ¿ Apr 20, 2024 01:39

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Calde posted:

I'm interested! Hearing Malazan compared to Bakker's books is the reason I read this thread.

savinhill posted:

I'm interested too.

Well, he talked a bit about how Bakker had a background in philosophy (duh) and therefore had a big philosophical point to make, whereas he (Erikson) was more interested in creating a world that made sense, and then telling a story in it where the characters were independent actors.

He likes Scott Bakker but really hated Neuropath (a feeling I shared, intensely). He commented on their different approaches to battle scenes, where he likes to get down in the trenches and Bakker likes to zoom out and do this epic Iliad stuff with the great champions meeting and the lines clashing.

He seemed...not exactly critical, but disinterested in Bakker's tendency to use fiction to comment on the real. For example he talked about how the Three Seas setting is basically a transposition of Medieval Europe/Asia, with magic and an (awesome) ubermenace, whereas the Malazan stuff is built from the ground up to account for the differences that egalitarian magic would bring to the social order.

I love Bakker but I didn't sense more than a friendly rivalry here. I'm glad we have both of them.

His chief critic-fan, the handsome dapper Irishman, was more blunt, saying 'I like Scott Bakker's work, but Erik's stuff is just better', and commenting on his distaste for how broad the narrative strokes in Bakker's work could be - specifically he cited the deaths of thousands in The Warrior-Prophet as feeling insignificant because of the total size of the Holy War.

General Battuta fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Mar 30, 2011

# ¿ Mar 30, 2011 04:15

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

the periodic fable posted:

you should read Richard Morgan's Market Forces instead, it's v. good. it's scifi though.

Altered Carbon was way way better. :colbert:

Also I strongly recommend The Prince of Nothing (Darkness that Comes Before, blah blah, R. Scott Bakker) to people who have not read them. Even if you hate PoN with the burning of a thousand stars it'll probably be an interesting kind of hate.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2011 16:20

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Christ yes, read Bakker if you liked Malazan. His stuff is amazing. Except Neuropath, never even look at that horrible piece of poo poo.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2011 16:53

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

No it was definitely for a thematic and literary reason. I mean Blood Meridian (a huge pillar of 'regular' literature which gets tons of respect) ends with a giant hairless man raping the main character and murdering him in an outhouse, it's not that different. Though I guess the ending of Blood Meridian is kind of done offscreen and does not involve black cum.

Since Bakker is a philosopher everything must be MAKING A POINT :science:

, it's just not always pleasant to read. That scene definitely squicked me out the first time I read it, then I came back and was like 'okay, this makes sense' (because the Consult are literally incarnations of the carnal and vile, they're like, deeply philosophical, man).

Taken out of context it does sound pretty loving offputing, but if you've gotten that far in a Bakker book you've probably either given up in disgust or kinda figured out his argument. He doesn't do stuff for cheap thrills. Except Neuropath, that book had a scene like the aforementioned dragon village rape except it was bad enough to actually make me throw the book in the garbage. Never read that book.

In conclusion Scott Bakker did a ton of drugs but is a really nice guy and Steven Erikson likes him and his books. Except Neuropath, Erikson hates Neuropath just like me, I know because I asked him when he bought me a drink :colbert:

General Battuta fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Apr 14, 2011

# ¿ Apr 14, 2011 23:17

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

bigmcgaffney posted:

It's the culture, the dragon was sociologically pushed into fulfilling that societal role, look at the big picture here.

It wasn't even a dragon man it was a rape alien from before the dawn of time. Okay? :colbert:

# ¿ Apr 14, 2011 23:18

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

^^^^^^^
Yeah basically the first two paragraphs of what he said. The Consult (in Bakker) is kind of...about rape. Rape is the ultimate transgression in our society, more taboo than murder, because reproduction and the sex act are this huge deal for us, right down to our neural hardwiring. And everything the Consult does, from the Inchoroi ability to evoke overwhelming lust, to the way they control their bioengineered constructs, to the No-God and the horrible world-spanning thing it does (cause the miscarriage of all pregnancies as long as it exists), is about transgressing that taboo. It's very psychosexual, and sometimes it's literally sexual.

I don't know how to explain this without sounding like a total creep, but (except in Neuropath) scenes like Systematic Dragon Rape don't feel like they're played for some kind of sicko thrills like in Terry Goodkind. It's genuinely weird and hosed up but if you've got a stiff constitution you can read it without feeling like you're participating in a masturbatory fantasy. Quoting out if context if you've never read it is totally unfair because it robs you of all the time you've spent in the world getting acclimated to how hosed up the place is. By that point in the narrative you already know that the Consult constructs are all manipulated through the sex drive, sex and violence are literally the same thing to them.

Also it's not a dragon, it's more like the alien from Alien. Which was a rape alien, that's what Alien is about, aliens raping you and why that sucks.

I thought the above Bakker sex criticism was right (mostly unnecessary) but I loved Bakker's battles. The big sweeping descriptions really got the tactics across better than 'he fired his exploding crossbow into a window, there was dust everywhere'. Kind of reminded me of the Iliad.

Actually when I was talking to Erikson he discussed how differently he and Scott Bakker approached battle scenes. I will never stop namedropping that night.

God this may be the creepiest sounding thing I've ever committed to words. If someone screenshots my defense of systematic dragon rape I will never have a political career.

edit: Basically I guess the point I should've made is, systematic rape is used as a means of control even today, Bakker's stuff is challenging enough that you'll have to deal with a world where that happens too (and not just by rape aliens). But if you don't want to read that I totally respect it, it really did weird me out my first time through.

General Battuta fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Apr 15, 2011

# ¿ Apr 15, 2011 01:13

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

bigmcgaffney posted:

Some people like books that are enjoyable to read, as well.

But that's a different metric for different people, or even for the same person depending on what kind of mood she's in. It doesn't speak to the quality of a work.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2011 07:15

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

I can't say enough good things about Catherynne Valente as a fantasy writer, but she's totally different from just about anything else in that post, even Mieville.

I would totally recommend her, just be advised you're getting a whole different sort of prose and story.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2011 17:34

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Abalieno posted:

As with Scott Bakker, these non-fantasy books are much shorter and more incisive. And I'm quite sure that one would be better prepared to read Erikson after clearing away all prejudices. That book would do just that and show more clearly the writer's style and intent.

Really an amazing book.

I couldn't stand Bakker's non-fantasy book(s), to the point where if I'd read them first I would probably never have read any Bakker fantasy at all. Hope the same isn't true of Erikson!

(Steve Erikson also hated Neuropath)

# ¿ Nov 7, 2011 01:49

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Abalieno posted:

Haven't read Neuropath, so I can't say. It's "Disciple of the Dog" that I think is awesome.

I haven't read it, maybe I should try it. I am 100% on board with Bakker's arguments regarding human consciousness, I just really really hated Neuropath. Maybe Disciple will be a better read.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2011 03:05

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

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.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2012 05:09

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Aggro posted:

I just started reading this a couple of weeks ago, and Jesus gently caress is it hard to get through. I haven't really read any high fantasy, so it is unbelievably jarring to be reading a novel in which every character is:

A god
Possessed by a god
In direct contact with a god (or gods)

I actually haven't read Malazan (yet) but this is a pretty decent description of the Iliad. Not that I'm going to make an argument for parity between ancient Homeric myth and modern fantasy but, yeah, a lot of our Western high literary canon is full of this poo poo.

# ¿ May 19, 2012 05:25

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

That actually used to be pretty standard English usage, it's not peculiar to Donaldson.

# ¿ May 29, 2012 20:11

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

He says some stuff in this interview which reminds me of a conversation I had with him about his fellow Canadian fantasy author R. Scott Bakker. I think he has very conflicted feelings, though this is a little harsher than I remember him being in person:

quote:

Authors will subvert that, and many do, and we are left (usually) with unease, with dissatisfaction: we are also left wondering, what was the author�s point here? That we�re all hosed: that life is poo poo; that the bad guys win; that we exist in a nihilistic nightmare? At which point, isn�t it fair to ask: �why did you bother telling me that? I mean, what�s the loving point, rear end in a top hat?� And you know what, you�d have a point (I often ask that after a particularly miserable film�Surveillance comes to mind).

So, I do hold to John Gardiner�s views on this: there is a moral imperative in fiction (perhaps in all art), and more to the point, an author/artist should be prepared to defend their position (as it was presented in their public creation, be it book, film or whatever), and if in the end they can only articulate abject nihilism, well, don�t expect me to just smile and nod, or even hang out in their company.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2012 15:13

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

It's perpetually baffling to me that the Malazan titles get this inane font.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2012 19:14

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Masonity posted:

Well seeing as I came up with around 300 passable books without even trying particularly hard, I'd say there's every chance that 400-500 non lovely fantasy books exist. That's 4-5 years right there. After that long re-reading isn't a huge stretch. Hell, how long could someone actually afford to read 2 books a week every week for? Life eventually catches up and moves you to a 30-50 book a year habit even if you are a big reader.

The genre isn't as bad as some people make out.

It isn't, but it's a lot worse than many habitual genre readers probably realize. Some of your list was legit good, but a lot of it was Drizzt-level stuff like the Dresden Files. There is good fantasy every year, fantasy that can hold up to real thought and offer something in return, but a lot of it is still very commercial and very thin.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2013 15:52

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

wallaka posted:

It's almost like people have different tastes in books. Weird.

Taste is important, but it's not the sole determinant of a book's worth or quality.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2013 17:10

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

snoremac posted:

I'm looking to get back into this series after abandoning it midway through the second book. Could someone link me to a decent plot summary of the first book so I can get up to speed? I'd search myself but I don't want to stumble on any spoilers.

It's not even important, just read Deadhouse Gates like it were the first book.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2013 08:26

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

The scope and depth of Erikson's world is incredible and he's a master at plotting. His thematic ambition is incredible. That said, there are much better crafts(wo)men and character writers in fantasy, so there's plenty of room to explore writers with other strengths.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2013 21:10

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Elyv posted:

I have vague memories of Tay being moderately significant in the climax of Bonehunters, or at least there being a lot of talk about him and how he's the last high priest of Drek, am I making that up?

No.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2013 06:18

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

It will certainly give you that, though you're going to be getting a lot more than 'filling a void'.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2013 07:02

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Habibi posted:

And on the gripping hand

Good lord

# ¿ Sep 25, 2013 02:47

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Habibi posted:

Right?

Even on the scale of Niven/Pournelle right wing space fantasies, Mote was way better :colbert:

# ¿ Sep 25, 2013 04:48

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Huh, interesting. I just started as a writer with Bungie and my boss was the Tor handler (editor?) for the Malazan Book of the Fallen. I suspect that's where the connection comes from.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2014 20:28

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Whoa, weird, I know Ardi and I work for Erikson's old editor at Bungie. Publishing is a small world. Curious how this will turn out.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2014 05:03

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Hand Row posted:

I finished FoD and want more. Any recommendations? I read Abercrombie and Sanderson and the like but they aren't in the same class. Lynch was promising but his series is getting weaker. Gene Wolfe is incredible but I already read the Sun books.

The Scar by China Mieville turns into some really great fantasy, and it feels like it came from a world that never faced the Tolkienesque takeover.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2015 22:58

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Don't need to, don't really gain much by doing so. I haven't tried Iron Council, but The Scar doesn't seem to need any information from Perdido Street Station. Although reading PSS may give you a better sense of why New Crobuzon's government is so avaricious, on second thought...

Both The Scar and PSS suffer from slow openings full of dense moody prose. Push through, it's really worth it.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2015 23:34

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Bakker's worst linguistic fault is that his names don't map clearly to cultures. A linguist in the SF/F thread did a good critique.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2015 02:00

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Bakker's names are ridiculous, but not any more ridiculous than most fantasy names, and some of them do a good job of bearing real mythic weight (Golgotterath is a great name for a really lovely place). The problem is that he doesn't do a good job of sorting them into linguistic groups - you can't look at a given name and easily tell what culture it comes from.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2015 22:54

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Velius posted:

You mean Golgotha?

Yeah, that's why it works.

quote:

I have some degree of tolerance for Fantasy Names (read: I can handle Anomander Purake, First Son Of Darkness and his sword Dragnipur) but "K�ni�ric" is just bananas. I get it, Tolkien was a linguist, so I guess some authors derive fantasy cred from parroting him, but I don't find reading faux fantasy languages particularly satisfying, particularly when there's no real insights to come from them. Compare with, say, 1984's treatment of the linguistics where it has a narrative consequence, instead of 'I made a word that people will need to consult multiple wikipedia pages to try and pronounce, boosh', now let's make one with some other modifiers.

Like I said, Bakker's names are ridiculous and not well done. They're archetypical fantasy names invented by someone who doesn't get linguistics.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2015 00:04

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Bakker is absolutely unparalleled at creating this rumbling deep-bass sense of dread and sick wrongness. There's a lot wrong with Prince of Nothing but they have this texture like the history of the whole world is an HR Giger painting and if you lived there you couldn't escape even by stuffing thermite in your skull.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2015 21:06

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Much like Malazan I just started with the second book.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2015 23:42

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

gardens of the goon

# ¿ Jul 16, 2021 19:20

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Jaxyon posted:

- the plot threads do have a central theme that will eventually tie together by the end, and a few that won't make sense until entire books later. It's one of the reasons poeple say this series is a rewarding re-read

I say this with love and compassion but surely this is the ultimate, apex form of "just stick with it, it gets good by book eight": stick with it, it gets good on the re-read

# ¿ Feb 1, 2023 20:31

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# ¿ Apr 20, 2024 01:39

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

They're Black Company tribute I'm pretty sure.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2023 16:44

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The Malazan Book of the Fallen: Too many wor'ds.