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Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




anilEhilated posted:

Metaphorically and literally. Gruntle is one of my favorite characters.

That whole trio of caravan guards is pretty great.

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Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Finished Midnight Tides. I honestly think that male authors should stop writing about rape. The city stuff was also really jarring, you have Trull going on about how war is hell before we cut to wacky hijinks with Bugg and Tehol.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Lunchmeat Larry posted:

Seran Pedac's rape is probably the worst in the series for just feeling so gratuitous (the fact that it has competition for that is also a slight problem!). He deals with it quite well at times (imo) so it sucks even more when he misses the mark

Its telling that its not even the worst one In the same book. Mayen is raped just so that Fear can get how hosed up Rhulad is.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




I liked Shurq though. Mainly because she was one of the few characters that realized what a shitshow everything was and got the hell out. Oh well, onto Bonehunters.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




I liked how the Letherii empire was portrayed as this hyper-capitalistic monstrosity. The only thing that matters to them is how much coin you can get out of it. I would've liked it more if Erikson also hadn't said "actually communism sucks too:smug:"

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




I really enjoyed the malazan books because the setting is egalitarian. There's female soldiers, officers, heads of state. There's people of color that's not portrayed as victims or villains and people are queer without anyone giving poo poo. So that's why it's extra disappointing when Seren Pedac and Mayen is raped and it is so shittily handled.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




BlindSite posted:

And I'm saying just because some authors suck at it, it doesn't make it a fair criticism of someone who doesn't.

But the rapes in Midnight Tides was used for plot movement or characterization. In Mayen's case is especially bad because it done so the male characters in the book could get some characterization.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Strom Cuzewon posted:



But then I guess I should just be happy that there's a fantasy author that isn't either a monarchist or a cryptofacist, so, baby steps.


Pratchett and Mieville are two examples of fantasy authors who can get very political in their books.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Infinite Karma posted:

Stonny Menackis had a whole character arc and big section of multiple books dealing with the terrible effects of rape, I feel like it was shown to be horrific without looking away (or being lewd), and then showed the broken lives that result from something so terrible.

That doesn't make what he did in Midnight Tides better.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Infinite Karma posted:

It doesn't make MT better, but it makes me think that Erikson gets it. So I can dislike Midnight Tides for having pointless torture without disliking Erikson, I guess?

That's pretty much what I'm been saying. I generally like that malazan series so far, but there's some things in Midnight Tides that feels like a misstep.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Yeah, when I started reading the books I thougth it was neat how women and men were more or less equal and no one made a big deal out of it. So its extra disappointing when regressive poo poo happens in his books too.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




So all In all Midnight Tides is the worst malazan book so far. Not only because og these issues but it certainly didn't help.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Reading Bonehunters and so far there's a lot of shrugging.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




The Bonehunters: I'm past Leoman blowing Y'Ghatan the gently caress up, the escape underground, Balm coming face to face to every single god of his pantheon and Bottle accidentally starting a new religion around his pet rat. Good stuff.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Just finished the Bonehunters. I enjoyed this more than Midnight Tides, mainly because Erikson is really good at writing about soldiers and how they interact with each other. I also liked how he portrayed that this was a multicultural army and that just because you were born in the Malazan empire didn't mean that you're malazan. The battle of Y'Ghatan was also really good. Both the buildup, the actual battle and the escape.

But..there was another rape scene that's solely there to make the male character feel really bad about himself.

Alhazred fucked around with this message at 08:36 on Jul 31, 2019

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Habibi posted:

I'll start: Kruppe is D&D.

Cutter is E/N.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




I really enjoyed how much of a gently caress up Crump was in Bonehunters. He blows up the malazan army at Y'Ghatan, pisses on a god's altar causing it to break and then :wave: at an edur boat not realizing that they're the enemy combatants.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




So far it seems like the 14th army is the type of army that can only perform under extreme circumstances but given enough leisure time they disintegrate completely.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Andrigaar posted:

It's probably been said a hundred times, but I seriously wish I had an ebook copy so I could search for how many times " chain" shows up as a text string. It's probably not as many times as it seemed.

One thing I just can't unsee (unread?) when I read the books. the characters shrug a lot. And that site seems to confirm it.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Reaper's Gale

I really liked this one, mainly because of the giant clusterfuck that is the Leetheri Empire. The edur doesn't know what do once they're the ruling class. the leether uses this confusion to try and colonize everyone that hugely backfires, Tehol is working towards ruining the empire and then the malazans arrive. Then you have the group of Slichasm Udinaas, Fear and Seren where everyone hates each other, constantly tries to kill or at least hurt each other and it all ends as well as you could expect.

I also have begun to enjoy the 14th more than the bridgeburners, mainly because of how dysfunctional they are. Bottle may be a good mage but he's also one goony motherfucker, Hellion is constantly drunk and only succeed because of her fellow soldiers helping her (yet she is the only one who figures out how to get the civilians on their side), Tavore is basically an automaton badly disguised as a human and Smiles::::stare:

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Strom Cuzewon posted:

Is it RG or tBH where Bottle massively fails to seduce Kisswhere, immediately followed by Kisswhere massively failing to seduce Bottle?

Reaper's Gale is where Smiles thinks that Deathskull is gay and plan to turn him, Deathskull believes that Hellian is a queen and wants to gently caress her while Hellian can't even remember his name.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




anilEhilated posted:

Yeah. I like MT a lot but the book could easily have done without Ublala and whatsherface the undead thief.

Shurq was cool because she realized that she was caught up In a huge clusterfuck and decided to be a pirate instead. Also one of the few female characters that hasn't been raped yet.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Toll the Hounds
So far my least favorite book of series. The problem is that there isn't much plot here. The assassins plot just fizzles out and some of the politicians scheme but it has little to none consequences. I've also read how people in this thread praises how Stonny is written, but I have to say that she was really poorly handled here. We never get to see things from her perspective and every time she interacts with someone the focus is on how bad of a mother she has been to Harrlo. She also remains passive during this entire plot, it's the men who drives the plot forward.
I wish Apsal'ara had been given more time and character development, it was kinda fun how she's so obsessed with her own image that she 's constantly driven to do more and more stupid stuff.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




anilEhilated posted:

The parts of TtH not related to the Andii and Coral blow, though.

That blows too. Just a bunch of guys wallowing in their self pity.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




The Harllo bit kinda bug me. When he gets abducted it seems like he's been gone a couple of days at most, but when we cut to him it seems like he's been in the mines a long time.

Alhazred fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Oct 28, 2019

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Hocus Pocus posted:


One thing I found myself thinking about afterwards was something one of the Bonehunters had a line about. Whether Adjunct Tavore was a military genius or not. If she should be historically considered alongside Dujek, Coltaine etc. And I was thinking about it, and in a lot of ways I think she is the embodiment of Cold Iron, especially in respect to Malazan military doctrine. She is always listening to those around her. She is calculated and unemotional on the surface, but inspires incredible loyalty. We know from earlier books that she was a very serious student of Malazan military history and strategy, so I don't think the success of using the marines to invade Lethera was a fluke. Its commented on several times that that is what Kellanved established them for, and Tavore knew that the Bonehunters had been hardened by Y'Ghatan, and knew she had some extremely competent sergeants in Fiddler, Hellian, etc. At the end of the day she is still very young, with now two campaigns under her belt, so no she may not be a Dassem or Nok... yet, but just give it a little more time and I bet she'll be mentioned alongside all those old guard commanders.

Tavore invaded a country she didn't know for a reason she got wrong. This lead to things like the troops attacking two retired demons who lived peacefully on a farm. The reason she was successful was not her own but that the Edur didn't have the ability or interest to keep the Lether empire together.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




OneSizeFitsAll posted:

I love how Hellian is listed in Hocus Pocus's post as a "competent" sergeant, and how even though she is barely ever not utterly piss drunk, hardly ever seems to know exactly where she is or what's going on, or even is able to distinguish between her two corporals or ascertain that there actually are two, that is still an accurate description of her.

Hellian was the one who figured out how to get the people of Lether on the malazans' side. She also seems competent because her squad have to fight that much harder because they're lead by a drunken idiot.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Just finished Dust of Dreams and....the part with Hetan is just loving vile. First of all it's extremely gratuitous (Hetan isn't just raped, she's crippled, raped by two dozen men and turned into the tribe's sex slave). What makes it even worse is that it follows the pattern of Midnight Tides, a woman is raped so the male characters can get upset about it and swear revenge while the rape victim just wanders off and die without any agency. Steven Erikson tries to justify it with making it about patriarchy but that just feels wildly out of place, this is a book about armies of velociraptors and undead cro magnon men, not the Handmaid's Tale. It's an absolute low point of the entire series.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




ulmont posted:

That's not really how Erikson justifies that scene; his commentary can be found here: https://www.tor.com/2014/03/26/mala...#comment-427360


That justifaction only makes it worse. If you're trying day something about the horrors of torture or subvert the noble savage myth then maybe not wrote something that seems like its taken from Cannibal Holocaust.

Alhazred fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Dec 12, 2019

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Strom Cuzewon posted:

Similarly is Stonnys rape. I get the intention - that trauma can lead you to shut people out, that accepting help and compassion can feel like weakness - but I don't think the narrative supports it. Especially as in MoI her rape is mostly a motivation for Gruntle, and it takes 5 more books before we see her take on it.

But we don't really see her take on it. In Toll the Hounds it's mainly the male characters who talk about Stonny and even then they mostly talk about how she shouldn't be so sad and be a better mother.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




pile of brown posted:

You're missing one part of the characterization I this scene, which is extremely horrible in every way, in that it is also a deconstruction of the entire Barghast culture, not just "patriarchy" as the "ancient culture Noble savage." I loving hated reading it though.

But we allready know that their culture is a macho cesspit, we also know beforehand that they practice "hobbling" and that everyone else despises them for it. There is no deconstruction.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




There is just too much goddamed rape In this series.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Guyver posted:

I'm sure everyone gets why it's there especially after the Tor interview but Erikson really didn't need to go into the detail he did.
I don't really care why its there. My point is how poorly the scene is handled. If you're gonna have depiction of rape In your book (and that's a big loving if) you should be very careful about how you do it. It should not, for example, primarily act as motivation for the male characters.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




turboraton posted:

Gee. I wouldn't hide Malazan at all, I still recommend it to every single person I can.

But maybe also give them a heads up about the content.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




I am on page 1000 of the Crippled God and yet there is somehow almost 200 pages left:byodood:

Alhazred fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Jan 21, 2020

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Alhazred posted:

I am on page 1000 of the Crippled God and yet there is somehow almost 200 pages left:byodood:


Things I liked about Malazan Book of the Fallen:
The Chain of Dogs. I also liked how characters in-universe realized how big of a deal this was and various myths of the event and Coltaine would began to spread.
"Worm says gently caress you, Assail!":black101:
The books are really diverse. People are queer, have different skin color, women are in the army and no one makes a big deal out of it. I don't know if it was intentional but it reminded me of the roman armies that were also really diverse.
There's really no evil race, except the fuckerall. In the start it's easy to get the impression that the jaghuts or K'Chain Che'Malle are the designated bad guys but later on it turns out that any bad guys within that group are outliers.
Erikson is really good at humanizing the otherwise faceless fantasy army. The best of parts of the books are usually soldiers sitting together having a chat.
The Bone Hunters, I liked them better than the Bridge Burners. I just really liked the idea of a bunch of incompetent assholes thrown together.
The idea of a bunch of different species arriving at a place at different times in history without anyone really knowing how or why was also neat.
I also actually really liked Gardens of the Moon and it was that book that made me read all the others.
The Paran family. It's a family that barely functions and yet it's the one that makes the biggest impact on malazan universe.
Shurq Elalle, the only character to realize how hosed everything is and that the best option is to try and escape from the plot.

Things I didn't liked about Malazan Book of the Fallen:
Toll the Hounds. It's badly written, featuring dull characters and little of no consequence happens.
Erikson is only able to make a few characters stand out. Smiles, Bottle, the dal honese sisters and Fid stands out, but it's almost impossible to tell the other characters apart. Theoretical characters like Balm, Cuttle and Deathsmell are different character but not in practice.
The Shore could easily been excised, it is not connected to the main plot and seems only to be there to make the page count higher.
I've said it before in this thread but Erikson is really bad at writing about rape. Like, really bad.
The characterization of the Crippled God isn't really good. In some books he's mustache twirling bad guy, in others he's a messiah like character.
Erikson's is clumsy at writing about political stuff, this is especially a problem with the books set in Lether were political intrigue is the main part of the plot.
All the comedic characters like Kruppe, Tehol and Bugg does not work. Every section where they are the main character was a chore to get through.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




latinotwink1997 posted:

I don’t think I can respect any of your opinions with a comment like this.

Its like a reading a section written by someone who knows that things are funny but not why.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Jaxyon posted:

I thought this was intentional. That he's supposed to be a (relatively) benign god who is trapped by a bunch of assholes for selfish reasons, tortured, split into pieces, drained of power, and just generally poo poo on for thousands or hundreds of thousands of years and this makes him mad at everyone and a nihilist.

In the end he was never supposed to be there, so he only real answer was to kick him out so the planet could heal.

I get that, but I thought it was poorly done. There is no transition between him being the malazan skeletor and being the malazan messiah.

Ethiser posted:

The Shore was needed because it was the culminations of the Tiste Andii’s journey. Also the last stand of the Shake and the “This time humans are dying for you” speech are some of my favorite parts of the book.

I actually liked the Shore bit. It was full of fun things (like the Shake army beginning to chant "not yours" and Sharl) but it's in a book that's already buckling under it's weight of the plot and it would be better if it was in another book so it could've been allowed to be it's own thing.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Jan posted:

I think that lack of transition is precisely what makes it so impactful. Erikson is intentionally ambiguous about many things from different character point of views, so suddenly finding out that Tavore is out to help the Crippled God makes you second guess whether there are things you're not aware of. (Which, it turns out, is very much the case.)

Skipping the character development of a character is just lazy writing IMO.

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Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




I really liked in the battle at the spire when Fener gets killed, everybody gets mortal and Tool realizing how hosed they are

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