[Traveller]

That's what interrupts the flow... if you have to keep checking back to see who's actually doing what's being described, or who is saying a particular line, it's hard to read straight through. The Deadhouse bit was confusing.. not helped by no clear definition who was there. Having to guess, and waiting to find out later isn't always good.

[megaphage]

I think ICE's style is much better for fast paced story like NoK. Erikson can get really bogged down in detailed description and I think he tries to be too clever sometimes. Erikson does the epic really well, undulating between thoughtful moments and fast paced action, but from the evidence of NoK Esslemont is more focused and more direct.

In comparison to Erikson's most recent novels I prefer ICE, but I'm not sure if Esslemont will ever write as well as Erikson did in Deadhouse Gates. Saying that, I'm not sure if Erikson ever will either.

[Quick~]

ICEs style is rather less flowery and instead a bit more to the point, which I think works as a nice compliment to SEs prose. I also think his particular style is going to lend itself well to writing about soldiers and war in general.

The real test will come in RotCG and I think then we'll get some better answers as to just how good a writer he is.

oh and I think he could do with a different editor.

[Terez]

I found ICE's style in this book to be in many ways rather unconvincing. It was similar to the problems I had reading GGK's Ysabel, for those who read my comments on that. He focused mainly on two characters - Kiska and Temper - and neither one of them was really developed well, though the development of Temper's character did improve as the book went along. Kiska remained shallow until the end. There was also a great deal of random, pointless action in the book that, in my opinion, took up a lot of space that could have been used for character development - or at least, the action could have been woven into the plot a little better. As it is, much of it seems arbitrary. Also, Kiska's involvement in the action required too much suspension of disbelief.