[Hume]

^^

Talon me thinks.

[Set'alahd Crool]

Hetan said:

anyone else notice the bit about Jaghut coming from another world?

I'd like to know how many others have sat on the Throne of Shadow too...

I thought it was the stormriders that came from aother world. Edgewalker(gotta love that guy) said it was rumoured they came to the malazan world when the Jaghut wrought their sorcery too powerfully.

As for other rulers of shadow, Jhedel is intriguing. What is he? Who deposed him? Edgewalker(gotta love that guy) was about to tell him but he wanted to remember himself....

On the Temper-as-guardian issue, I got the impression that he took over the role(s) left by Faro and Trenech. He did say he thought he'd be staying in the Hanged Man for quite some time. It sounded like he knew what he was talking about.
Maybe when an azath's chief guardian is a prisoner(unlike Moby who chose to enter) the house will choose another, outside, to help keep them a prisoner. So if Gothos tries to escape Temper will be there....

Or not, I suppose.

[Set'alahd Crool]

@Hetan
I don't think Edgewalker was talking about shadowhouse as being alien either. He pointed at a distant green(I think) smudge on the horizon that was somehow connected to the stormriders' approach.

Edgewalker probably could have prevented Kel & Dancer from entering shadow, but he was busy denying Jhena. By the time he was finished with that the two boys were already in. I recall Kiska asking him to stop them but he said there were more pressing matters demanding his attention.

[Danyah]

Could somebody remind me which soldier of the mercenary company/ex-bridgeburners also starred in HoC? And exactly what did he do in HoC?

tnx

[Dolorous Menhir]

Aardvark;189279 said:

Could somebody remind me which soldier of the mercenary company/ex-bridgeburners also starred in HoC? And exactly what did he do in HoC?

tnx

He appears among the dead Bridgeburners at Raraku. Kalam is shocked to see him. He has a burned face, can't remember if he is identified by name. Don't think he says anything, but Kalam takes the opportunity to think that all the Bridgeburners coming back means the return of some unsavoury characters.

edit: and it was the leader of the group in NoK who appeared in HoC.

[Danyah]

Yup, tnx, that would be Ash then.

[Falco]

So I'm like desperately out of date (as per usual), but got NOK last week. Read it. Read it again. Verdict: underwhelmed.

Look I get that ICE and SE are two different writers sharing an universe. Comparisons between them are, however, unavoidable. And reading NoK was like reading a children's book in comparison. The imagery was unsophisticated, the dialogue was drab, the characters were thin. Only the plot (such as it were) stood up to be counted. I can't remember, for example, the last time I read an adult book where an exclamation mark was used outside of dialogue for emphasis. That is just weak.


Here's hoping things pick up in Crimson Guard book.

[Tabris]

Is the new version available in the UK yet?

[Dancer+]

It is, it's been available since the 4th of June.

[Harbinger]

Don't think it is has been mentioned yet, but just regarding the speculation over Kiska's identity in the main series:

The Bonehunters, p.75 (from Kalam's PoV)
"Flanking Tayschrenn were two bodyguards, one an aged Seti with a waxed moustache - vaguely familiar in some distant way, as if Kalam had perhaps seen him once before, long ago. The other was a woman somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five, lithe and athletic beneath tight silks. The eyes were soft and dark brown, watchful; her hair was cut short in the imperial sashion around her heart-shaped face."

The Bonehunters, p.77 (from Pearl's PoV)
"Anyway, the bald one's Tayschrenn, with Hattar and Kiska this time, meaning he's serious about the risks."

So she is still acting as one of Tayschrenn's bodyguards.

[Harbinger]

Don't think it is has been mentioned yet, but just regarding the speculation over Kiska's identity in the main series:

The Bonehunters, p.75 (from Kalam's PoV)
"Flanking Tayschrenn were two bodyguards, one an aged Seti with a waxed moustache - vaguely familiar in some distant way, as if Kalam had perhaps seen him once before, long ago. The other was a woman somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five, lithe and athletic beneath tight silks. The eyes were soft and dark brown, watchful; her hair was cut short in the imperial sashion around her heart-shaped face."

The Bonehunters, p.77 (from Pearl's PoV)
"Anyway, the bald one's Tayschrenn, with Hattar and Kiska this time, meaning he's serious about the risks."

So she is still acting as one of Tayschrenn's bodyguards.

[Abyss]

It has, but worth pointing out anyways. I was rather surpised at the number of NoK refs that showed up in TB - pretty much all the new (ie: not previously seen in SE books) main and supporting characters - Kiska, Temper, Hatar, Agayla, Obo, the Hunchback, Edgewalker - made appearances, some (like Edgewalker) actually significant.

- Abyss, feels all elitist and stuff.

[Flawed]

I like Temper best in this book and hope we will see more of him in the next lot of books. I guess that will only happen if we see an Azath war of some kind instigated by ST etc. He'd have to stand his ground then.

Lets hope Obo doesn't get to upset about it. He seems well mental and extremely powerful too.

If he came near me though id flex a Suplex on him.

" BLOW THAT UP! "

[raest]

Do Surly and Tayschrenn know that Kellanved and Dancer survived and made it to the Deadhouse?

When Kiska tells Tayschrenn she saw Kellanved and Dancer enter the Deadhouse, he says something like (I'm going from memory here): "No, you can't have seen them, because Surly and I agreed that they are dead." The way I read it, I got the impression that Surly and Tayschrenn knew, or at least had a suspicion that Kellanved and Dancer somehow survived. Particularly the use of "agreed" got me thinking that Surly and Tayschrenn decided that the official story would be that Kellanved and Dancer are dead.

And in a related note, in the BotF series are we ever told that the Malazans (including Laseen) know that Kellanved and Dancer have ascended and now are Shadowthrone and Cotillion? I've just always assumed that at least all the important people know, eg Quick Ben.

Here's a crazy theory: assuming Surly, Tayschrenn and possibly others of the Old Guard know they've ascended, maybe Kellanved and Dancer cooked up some super sneaky long term scheme and the Old Guard are in on it? I have not basis for this theory other than the knowledge that Shadowthrone and others are all sneaky b**tards and with SE you never know.

[ch'arlz]

raest;207579 said:

Do Surly and Tayschrenn know that Kellanved and Dancer survived and made it to the Deadhouse?

I think the question is really *when* did Surly and Tay know of their ascent. At the time if the Kiska quote as I recall, Surly and Tay believed that Kellanved and Dancer had died. Whether we're clued in to a change in that belief in NoK I don't remember, but certainly it's established for all 'important' people by GotM.

raest;207579 said:

Here's a crazy theory: assuming Surly, Tayschrenn and possibly others of the Old Guard know they've ascended, maybe Kellanved and Dancer cooked up some super sneaky long term scheme and the Old Guard are in on it? I have not basis for this theory other than the knowledge that Shadowthrone and others are all sneaky b**tards and with SE you never know.

Not crazy at all -- there's a lot of evidence scattered throughout the series to support it actually. Of course, there may have been a common scheme devised by Kellanved in the beginning but its fruition will depend on the mental stability and ambitions of the participants, primarily Kellanved.

-ch'arlz

[Abyss]

Actually, Surly and co, pre-end of NoK, seem to think Kel and Dancer are simply not coming back from wherever they went - maybe dead, maybe just missing, who knows...

But it seems the Shadow Moon was the designated time for the return if it was going to happen.


It's suggested in MoI that there are a lot of plans within plans related to Kel/Dancer's ascnesion, Surly taking the throne, WHiskeyjack's demotion, the secret recipe to Colonel Sanders crispy chicken, etc etc.

- Abyss, knows at least 2 of the seven herbs and spices...

[Skywalker]

My reaction to NoK... this seemed as good a place as any to post it.

The Good Stuff

• Temper, Kiska are both great characters.
  
• Loved getting to read about the Night of the Shadow Moon, and Dassem's fall at Y'Ghatan (both events have been referred to so often in the main sequence).
  
• Loved the glimpses of the Stormriders; the 'Why are you killing us?" at the end was spooky good.
  
• Loved the ties to TB - I am sure that book will now be more comprehensible when I reread it.
  
• I liked the way Tayschrenn (finally) got fleshed out in this book. His strategy of 'stand aside, survive' is making sense.
  
• The cameos by Surly/ Laseen, Topper, Aragan, etc. were nice as were the references to the enforcement of edict against magery

The Not-Bad stuff

• Reading ICE is like reading a Reader's Digest Condensed Book version of SE. Nice, but in some things so radically different from the more 'wax-eloquent-philosophy' we are used to
  
• I thought the book should've been longer, possibly with an epilogue to tie it directly to GoTM or TB (the way the Clone Wars cartoons segued into Star Wars Episode 3)

The Complaints

• Too much stuff happens offstage - Edgewalker dealing with the Glacier in Emurlahn, Surly/ Kellanved's confrontation, Tayschrenn/ Agayla/ Obo stopping the Stormriders... In that sense the book clears up some mysteries while posing questions that may never be answered
  
• Did anyone else get the feeling that the 'old-lying-low-mysterious-uber-powerful' archetype was over used? Agayla, Obo (who reminds me of Tom Bombadil for obvious reasons), the Fisherman, the Azath boundary protectors... I mean come on! I buy that Malaz was a hotbed of power, but this is crazy.