Malazan Book Of The Fallen

Deathwing

Deathwing

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Yeah, that makes sense for Whiteblade. Not terribly excited, boring name and boring character.

As for your other spoiler:

I assume it contradicts the main plot because in The Crippled God, you see the jade statues returning to whence they came immediately after Dancer kills the crippled god. Erikson doesn't outright say it, but he pretty heavily implies that the jade statues were there for their god. Draconus mentioned that he's a Shield Anvil where he's from.

In B&B, the jade statues rescind after the climactic business at the temple of light. Again, implying that the statues were there because the Thaumaturgs were summoning them. If it's one or the other(Thaumaturgs or Crippled God), it's a contradiction. If the Thaumaturgs were just taking advantage of the jade statues(that just happened to be there when Kallor shows up?), that's coincidence. Either way, it's bad writing. Keep in mind, the jade statues would cause planet-wide calamity no matter where they landed. Look what they did to the moon.
 
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groovy_and_sl

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Deathwing_sl said:
Yeah, that makes sense for Whiteblade. Not terribly excited, boring name and boring character.

As for your other spoiler:

I assume it contradicts the main plot because in The Crippled God, you see the jade statues returning to whence they came immediately after Dancer kills the crippled god. Erikson doesn't outright say it, but he pretty heavily implies that the jade statues were there for their god. Draconus mentioned that he's a Shield Anvil where he's from.

In B&B, the jade statues rescind after the climactic business at the temple of light. Again, implying that the statues were there because the Thaumaturgs were summoning them. If it's one or the other(Thaumaturgs or Crippled God), it's a contradiction. If the Thaumaturgs were just taking advantage of the jade statues(that just happened to be there when Kallor shows up?), that's coincidence. Either way, it's bad writing. Keep in mind, the jade statues would cause planet-wide calamity no matter where they landed. Look what they did to the moon.
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Yeah agree about the bad writing part. It's always been pretty convoluted, and I'm probably putting too much emphasis on the earlier books, which is always an issue in this series. I totally forgot about Draconus' comments and the other specifics of TCG regarding the crippled god. It's been a while since I read DoD and TCG, and unlike the rest of the series, I only read those two once. Fucking snake nonsense. I got used to new characters being introduced every book, but it was extremely frustrating to have the trend continue up to and including the final book.
 
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Chrisd_sl

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I've not read the Malazan series (past a third of the garden of the moon) and am currently reading the forge of darkness. I am enjoying it very much, so much so that I intend to try getting into the main series again. I have only really one complaint, but it's pretty big, I am not enjoying the 20 or so different POVs all giving their own multipage accounts of the meaning (or lack of) of life. Does the main series do this too? Because I don't want to read 10 books of it.
 
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Achtung

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I've read basically every major fantasy epic series ever...except this one. It's about time, based on the positive comments here, which seem to mirror the positive comments everywhere else!
 
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Chrisd_sl

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Nebuchadnezzar_sl said:
Oh yeah. If you don't like multi-POV stuff then stay away from Malazan.
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I've no problem with multiple POVs, what bothers me is almost all the povs in the forge of darkness seem to be part time philosophers, and their abstract theories on life has taken up about half the book so far. Well probably not but it feels like it.
 
Hatorade

Hatorade

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Bought the first book couple weeks ago, started reading it, immediately ordered 1-4 in hardcover. Fuck yeah.
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

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Chrisd, I'm honestly surprised you were able to start at Forge of Darkness. I had assumed the book was written with the assumption that the reader had read at least some of the main series.

As for the philosophizing, this seems to be a trait Erikson picked up later on. Toll the Hounds(book 8 of the main series) is probably where it surfaces most obviously, and it doesn't go away. But, don't let that scare you away. I think books 2 and 3 are something everyone should read even if you don't intend to finish the series.
 
Slaythe

Slaythe

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Deathwing_sl said:
I think books 2 and 3 are something everyone should read even if you don't intend to finish the series.
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Definitely. And honestly to me this is the worst thing about the series. I enjoyed everything that followed, but it just didn't compare. I walked away from my first Malazan read thinking Deadhouse Gates is probably my favorite book of all time. There are arcs and scale in these two that just go unmatched in the rest.
 
Intrinsic

Intrinsic

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Would definitely agree with Deathwing. Erikson seemed to really get deeper and deeper in to the philosophizing about life and the meaning of everything towards the end of the series. TtH is probably as good a place as any to draw the line, and honestly it only gets worse from there. Well, worse if you hate it, probably more accurate to just say it gets more intense.

Still at the top of my favorite fantasy series ever though and yeah 2 and 3 are phenomenal. If you can browse through the thread to get some history about how the series was written and where Esselmont's books fall in the time line it may be helpful.

Starting with Forge would seem really strange to me after having read everything. But I don't guess you'd be any more confused going that direction than the other way. From our point of view all these Gods, Demigods, Ascendants and what not just existed. From yours you'll read about them before all that crap so starting with BotF you'll know the "history." Would be an interesting thing to compare. Of course you'd have to wait for the next two books to be released before starting BotF.
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

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Oh, one thing I forgot to add. The Malazan marine squad. You won't get this from his current trilogy obviously. But Erikson is the first author I can remember where I was excited not to read about a character(not to say there aren't some good ones in this series) but a group of characters. Chapters with the Malazan military, especially considering how imperialistic they were, were almost always my favorite. Maybe only Karsa or Bugg/Tehol chapters were as good. Characters already marines don't count in this comparison.
 
Kreugen

Kreugen

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You also have to realize that much of Forge is from the POV of characters who either live for thousands of years or who are essentially ageless. (their lifespan is greatly enhanced by the events of the book but they still have lived for much longer than a human) Their entire way of thinking is meant to be strange and abstract.

Any Azath POV is meant to be confusing. Well, more confusing than the rest of the series.

The fun part about Forge is how practically everything people in the Malazan era thought about the past, gods, and how shit worked was of course completely fucking wrong. And you are hit with mountains of it within the first few chapters. (whatthefuck all these places are on the same continent now? Mother Dark is just a regular Tiste who came to power and not, you know, the literal darkness? and so on..)
 
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Spark

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I'm a huge fan of this series and would highly recommend it to anyone looking to get into epic fantasies. I'm on my 2nd read through and I can honestly say that it's better than the first time I read them just because of all the lore I didn't understand or some key events that I didn't catch onto the first time around. I've also read that more than a few people weren't all that impressed with the first book - Anomander Rake vs. Hounds of Shadow - Rake vs. Tayschrenn and the Bridgeburners mage cadre - Jaghut Tyrant vs. Silanah and a few black dragons - Rake vs. Demonlord to name just a few of the great battles in Gardens of the Moon. WTF is there not to love about that book? Deadhouse Gates was my favorite of the series though.....that book is about as epic as it gets. Memories of Ice is incredible as well but I was not disappointed at all with books 4-10 either. The series isn't perfect - there's a lot of philosophical bullshit but I pretty much skimmed past it all on the 2nd read through.
 
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Ebris_sl

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Deathwing_sl said:
Oh, one thing I forgot to add. The Malazan marine squad. You won't get this from his current trilogy obviously. But Erikson is the first author I can remember where I was excited not to read about a character(not to say there aren't some good ones in this series) but a group of characters. Chapters with the Malazan military, especially considering how imperialistic they were, were almost always my favorite. Maybe only Karsa or Bugg/Tehol chapters were as good. Characters already marines don't count in this comparison.
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Have you read The Black Company? It has a very similar feeling and I think I enjoyed their... banter for lack of a better term than I did the Malazan Army Squads.
 
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Chrisd_sl

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Kreugen_sl said:
You also have to realize that much of Forge is from the POV of characters who either live for thousands of years or who are essentially ageless. (their lifespan is greatly enhanced by the events of the book but they still have lived for much longer than a human) Their entire way of thinking is meant to be strange and abstract.

Any Azath POV is meant to be confusing. Well, more confusing than the rest of the series.

The fun part about Forge is how practically everything people in the Malazan era thought about the past, gods, and how shit worked was of course completely fucking wrong. And you are hit with mountains of it within the first few chapters. (whatthefuck all these places are on the same continent now? Mother Dark is just a regular Tiste who came to power and not, you know, the literal darkness? and so on..)
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Yeah I considered the age thing as a reason for it, also thought maybe he was grounding these characters in their philosophy as that will become their reasons for clashing when they become gods/demigods (which I have some notion of happening as I've read part of the first book and remember names such as Hood and Brood). It thins out half way through the book, perhaps if he spaced it out and didn't hit the reader with it first thing in each POV it'd have been more digestible.

Deathwing I'm finding it far easier to follow and more engaging than when I tried to read the Garden of the Moon. This time coming in I knew Erikson's style so I kept on top of who was married to who and people's titles/positions as characters were introduced expecting it to get all very difficult to follow, but it's not really been hard at all. Only detail I wish was more thoroughly explained is the Tiste's aging process, from what I can tell they age to young adulthood as a human does, and then age slowly over hundreds of years and then dwindle out after a thousand or so years?
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

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Ebris_sl said:
Have you read The Black Company? It has a very similar feeling and I think I enjoyed their... banter for lack of a better term than I did the Malazan Army Squads.
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I have read that series. Shame that he killed off the bongos dude so early.

Chrisd_sl said:
Deathwing I'm finding it far easier to follow and more engaging than when I tried to read the Garden of the Moon. This time coming in I knew Erikson's style so I kept on top of who was married to who and people's titles/positions as characters were introduced expecting it to get all very difficult to follow, but it's not really been hard at all. Only detail I wish was more thoroughly explained is the Tiste's aging process, from what I can tell they age to young adulthood as a human does, and then age slowly over hundreds of years and then dwindle out after a thousand or so years?
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Heh, no one said Gardens was easy to follow. That's a feature for those that enjoy the series. Erikson does that on purpose. He rarely ever explains the history of his settings, it just comes out naturally in conversation/dialogue during the course of the books.
 
Nebuchadnezzar

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Was like, Book 7? Before his fan-base really started expanding, so all the early printings were pretty small. At least we don't have to order all his books from Amazon.ca and Amazon.uk any more...
 
Pemulis

Pemulis

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I attempted to do a full reread leading up to The Crippled God, but I lost the will during Reapers Gale and skipped the rest in between. The highlight of the series for me was Kalam vs the Claw in the Bonehunters
 
Gnomedolf

Gnomedolf

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I read all the books the old fashioned way, but I'm mainly an audiobook guy these days. Audible has the first four, but they seem to have stopped there for some reason.
 
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