[Abyss]

D, on 21 January 2010 - 05:26 PM, said:

...
I don't think he needs to avoid SE-established characters, but based on RotCG I think he may not want to tell things from their perspective. Iron Bars' perspective may have been a bit off, but any of the Old Guards seen from new characters like Jumpy's perspective were spot-on. For the Daru novel it wouldn't be hard for him to have all the established characters appearing from some new citizen's viewpoints.

That too!

- Abyss, agrees.

[Elephant Tamer]

I liked this book. Partially because it held answers to quite a few nagging questions, partially because of the it being the first real glimpse at the crimson guard(whom I have always found intriguing). Also, partially because it was a good book. May not weather a comparison with Erikson at his best (but quite possibly at his worst), but easily outdoes the majority of mainstream fantasy books out there, and does justice to the world of.......Oh yeah, does anyone know if the world actually has a name? As a whole?
Anyway, my gripe with Esslemont is at the middle of the book, I thought "He's bitten off more than he can chew." I felt that he had simply brought too many characters and storylines to the book too fast, making it difficult to make bring it all to a satisfactory conclusion. I think he made it, but barely. The battles were strong but muddled, and I have a feeling they wont stand much scrutiny, which is why I wont re-read them. Some of the characters appearances and disappearances felt like cameos, to give the story a familiar feeling, which was a mixed bag.
Still liked it a lot though

[Sinisdar Toste]

as far as a name for the planet goes, no, there is not an official name. for a while people called it Wu, but that has since ended. its a silly name anyway. world of malaz is pretty standard

[Abyss]

Sinisdar Toste, on 22 January 2010 - 06:03 PM, said:

as far as a name for the planet goes, no, there is not an official name. for a while people called it Wu, but that has since ended. its a silly name anyway. world of malaz is pretty standard

Didn't we call it 'Burn' for a while before the 'Wu' thing?


- Abyss, calls it Win.

[Elephant Tamer]

Yeah, I get that, but It just hit me that I never even wandered about it before. With most fantasy settings, it's one of the earliest things a writer hits you with. I find it curious that Erikson and Esslemont didn't do so, even across the course of so many books, and I didn't even care.

[Benjamin Quick]

Hi all,

registered to post this - I'm sorry this has to be my 1st post because I love the series so much

I started reading MBotF last year and have thoroughly enjoyed it up to Reaper's Gale. With one exception - NoK. I read this just before BH so as to keep reading them in order of publication. Which means that now I am trying to read RCG. Unfortunately I am not enjoying this at all. I am almost half way through but, similarly to NoK, I do not care about the characters at all. I'm not sure why - maybe it's the dialogue, or maybe because they are not mysterious enough (and when they are, it's in a frustrating manner). I am finding it very hard to pick up this book and read it.

Is it a problem if I skip this and move on to TTH? I'm afraid it's putting me off the whole series and I seriously don't want that to happen because this is my favorite fantasy series ever! So.. will I miss out if I do not finish this? Does TTH mention anything that happens in RCG in such a way that I would need to know the details?

Apart from that, I still admire ICE for coming up with such an amazing world along with SE.. I just dont particularly enjoy his writing

[Gothos]

They're quite seperate, and you won't miss much from TTH if you haven't read RCG before it. It does fill the blanks though, and ties up some loose ends from earlier books.

[Salt-Man Z]

TtH has one or two minor spoilers that you won't even realize are spoilers when you read them. So no real issue there.

What RotCG does contain--as you may be already aware, halfway through the book--are major events and serious ramifications for the Malazan Empire as a whole. Though what impact these events have on the rest of Erikson's books remains to be seen. (Be aware that I have yet to read Dust of Dreams.)

[D'rek]

TtH doesn't really *spoil* RotCG, per-say, but some of the crazy-awesome things that happen in the big 400-page-long convergence that is the last third of RotCG will not be as crazy-awesome once you have read TtH. You will not stare in shock and mutter to yourself "How is that even POSSIBLE??!!" if you have already read TtH. But no, they're not really spoilers...

[Benjamin Quick]

I was re reading bits and parts of it to try and understand why it put me off so much.. This passage is an example - I'm not sure why because I am not literary expert, but I do not seem to recall anything similar in any of the 7 SE books I read

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Quote

'For Now'. And he started down the forested slope. Ereko followed, sighing his irritation. Oh Goddess, why did you speak to me of this most difficult of men? Why did you bring your silence of centuries to say to me when he appeared dragged out in chains on the Stormwall: this one shall bring your deliverance.

Now.. my problem is with that part in italics. I'm not sure about this - really - but it just strikes me as a weird way to show us the background. The way ICE tries to give us the history between these two characters.. I'm just not a fan of this type of "forced" inner thoughts. Ereko would never think that in his mind. He might think "Why am I following this guy again?" "Curse that point I accepted to follow him" "I hate my life" [ please not I am not trying to keep in the fantasy world setting nor trying any spontaneous writing hehe - just the general idea]... The mystery would still be there and we could uncover it in some conversation further on. I find it too fake that he is replaying the exact things that happened to himself. This kind of background unveiling is used very often by ICE as I seem to remember him doing the same in NoK, and I think it is the single biggest thing that put me off the books.

I'm quite sure I haven't explained myself well. If someone feels the same way and gets what I'm saying maybe s/he can explain this better.

[Harvester]

... but you should have noticed by now that every thought and sentence in a work of literature is artificial and serves a purpose. No real person would ever talk or think exactly like any character in a book.

This post has been edited by Harvester: 06 March 2010 - 11:33 PM

[Happy Shaman]

I guess I can see how some folk wouldn't like RotCG, though I loved it. The beauty about things like books is that your opinion is never wrong...well, usually I can understand why people would have a problem with the 'two-dimensional' characterization, but that was the same thing i was reading about Erikson, after Garden's was released.

Now, both authors are obviously different, but like the case of say Kyle, yes on the surface he seems like you basic 'farm-boy', I mean, when I read his name the first time I thought, "Kyle, that's about as 'Hero's Journey' sounding as the name Luke But, admittedly, I had similar feelings about some characters in GotM, in that they seemed underdeveoloped, all of those characters have since become multifaceted. But Erikson's story and writing gave kept me reading and my faith in the characters and SE was well founded.

And yes, characters in books will do things that don't seem rational, but folk I know in real life do all kinds of things that don't seem rational.

As for Ereko, it seemed to me that he was created just to die. But that's not a bad thing, a constant theme throughout the stories of Malaz has been Tragedy. It's a tragedy that he died and I think we feel that more because its a Tragedy that we don't learn more from him, the same way Dassem or Kyle could have learned from them. In this case, I think what we end up feeling with his death, is close to or exactly what Dassem and Kyle feel.

I thought Dassem was neat-o. After all the off hand comments and quick peeks (and even after the fact that i read TTH first) we got a look at a character that, as someone said before, is plain-stinking nuts! As for him seeking vengeance for the death of his sister and all the lives he takes along the way, well that's just old fashioned irony and maybe its because the Malazan Book of the Fallen has become, at least to the faithful, an exercise in modern fantasy, that some folk are put off by an old standard. Of course, that's the problem with standards, we always hold others to them.

As for Tay, I think there's too much we don't know about him. There are a million reasons why he could be the way he is. I liked the spider-man comparison someone said earlier, that seems Apt.

Anyways, that's my two cents

[Różowy_Słoń]

Problems? Frankly- quite a lot, unfortunately. The biggest one- style, the way this book is written. I'm not saying that Ian is a very poor writer. But, compared to Erikson... I'm afraid he is no match for him. And such comparison is unavoidable, cause they are both writing about Malazan World. The storyline in RotCG has potential, and that'a why I'm so angry at Esselmont... I couldn't restist myself from thinking how Erikson would write this book. I do miss his style, sense of humor, the way he "constructed" dialoques and rapidly changed places of action. Actually, it's funny- I found RotCG more difficult to read than GotM(when I read it for the first time) and far less enjoyable

[Abberon]

Różowy_Słoń, on 29 March 2010 - 08:20 PM, said:

Problems? Frankly- quite a lot, unfortunately. The biggest one- style, the way this book is written. I'm not saying that Ian is a very poor writer. But, compared to Erikson... I'm afraid he is no match for him.

Personally, I'd have to wholeheartedly disagree. While I'd probably agree that Erikson is better at literary rhetoric and prose etc, I find his writing style often to be pompous and self ingratiating. I love his books overall, but I find it's a chore to get through large parts of them. It's his imagination, vision, and his epic endings that I like and not at all his overall writing style and verboseness.

If RotCG was written by Erikson, it would have probably taken 3 books to finish the story. ICE did it in one and at no point did I feel like I was being rushed through it. His character development suffers because of the shorter nature of his story, but there's far more actual story. The other thing you have to realize is that he's writing within the confines of SE's world and thus can't take the same liberties as him.

Other than Deadhouse Gates, I think I enjoyed NoK better than any other MBotF novel.

Each to their own however

[UnknownSoldier]

Just finished reading RotCG (rereading the whole series, including the ICE books I never got around to). Personally I kind of felt like it was similar to MT in that I had to force myself through the first bit of the book, but then it got much better.

As far as complaints, I'll agree with the poster who mentioned how many times "kinky" hair showed up. That and it seemed like ICE never wanted to use the same curse twice. It's like the characters were reading a dictionary and trying out new combinations every time they swore. My only other complaint was the jumping around to characters. In my opinion when SE starts speeding up how often he jumps characters it's to deal with the pace of the book (it happens more often during battles and such). ICE kinda just started that way from the get-go so it didn't have the same impact.

[lobo]

Angel, on 26 January 2009 - 10:01 AM, said:

Hi all,

I'm newly registered but I've watched this forum for a long time, and forgotten my account name and password just as many times.

I've just finished reading RoTCG and must admit that I enjoyed it- in parts. There did, to me at least, appear to be a great deal of problems with the writing in general, characterisation, plot, conflict resolution etc...

Well these are my thoughts anyway:

I think Esslemont's had a twofold problem. One, he switches characters so quickly that it can often be annoying for the reader to follow through- especially when you come across a favourite character, read 2-3 pages then have to wait another 20. That -is- annoying. Sure its a writing techniqiue but it doesn't work in this novel for one simple reason. And that reason is, ICE has yet to <i>define</i> any of his characters. He introduces his main protagonist, Kyle who we follow for intermitently periods for much of the novel, but he really is nothing more than a side character for the development of the plot as a whole. He isn't really that intregral to it, he is just a witness to events that play out around him (except he has of course, a super powerful sword). He is <i>not</i> defined in any way, apart from his near obsession with Father Wind. And herein lies the problem to me, ICE's main focus is characters that he did not write or develop (he may have created them- I can't be sure of that, but he hasn't done the majority of the writing for them). Every character he introduces lacks motivation, justification for their actions and a reality that the other characters have. Kyle, Erecko, the Lost Brothers... they all really are nothing characters. They don't bring anything with them... they're emotionless, faceless things who I couldn't associate with. I've read multiple times that people hate Kyle and I tihnk its just becaues nobody can understand what he was doing, why he was doing it etc... Poorly justified characters are the bane of any writer. Cause ICE was hellbent on switching characters so readily, so quickly and so often, there just wasn't a chance to attach to him, to understand him and to feel some form of empathy towards him.

If you contrast this with the character of Karsa, you realise how long Erikson spent constructing the character in the begining. We begin to understand him, we understand the way he thinks (to a degree- he is Karsa and unpredictable), we know why he does things and it makes sense to us. Contrasting Kyle and Karsa is like sun and moon in terms of brightness... Kyle is a nothing character whilst Karsa is a central pillar in the Malazaan universe. One was given immense book time, the other was shovelled into the background whilst events rolled on around him.

Which brings me to the next problem. Because you can't attach to the characters you cannot understand their actions... a LOT of events happen that make no sense. Ereko dying to Kallor. Kyle's actions... Damn, half the time I didn't understand who was fighting who or why... I had to keep backtracking and reading to try and get my head round it. Now it really shouldn't be that hard- sure it conveys a sense of the mass of political intrigue going on, it conveys a sense of the complexity of the war and how their is constant shifting... but was it too much? Thats a personal question I suppose.

When Tayschrenn and Laseen died I immediately asked the question- jeez, I wonder how Erikson felt about that? Characters he had been developing for a long time, snuffed out at the end of a book <i>very</i> quickly. Not that I understood either characters actions- especially Tay's when he is just sitting there whilst the Crimson Guard walk through the city and Cowl has a chat to him. You cannot keep peddling the excuse that he is saving himself to be Quick's shaved knuckle... again, I am of the opinion that he is a poorly written character, from both Erikson and ICE. He was painted as the villain twice, then became some sort of save the day hero, then sits and does nothing for a long time whilst all goes to hell. It makes little sense, but then, not much did to me.

What irked me more than anything was the way ICE palmed of his own character creations into the backstory and instead just seemed to randomly introduce a mass of characters from Erikson's side. And he did -not- flesh them out in ANY way. Ameron, Choss, Toc, Topper... they all just seem to have appeared- and it just seems like a total joke. Toc the Elder for example just sitting there all along... I'm reading thinking, well what about your son? Don't care? Don't give a damn anymore? It doesn't make sense to just abandon everything. Back to downplaying his own characters, the biggest is obviously Ereko, who did jack all and just died. Yet for some reason, his existence garnered more interest from the enigmatic Queen of Dreams than any book before (excluding perhaps Leoman's defection). And he is old and has seen so much. And then Kallor who appears out of nowhere just cuts him down. Now again I've read people vainly try to justify the actions, some even suggesting that just because we don't know the reasons, doesn't mean it shouldn't happen... Bah- what a joke! You <i>never</i> write something without <i>at least</i> alluding to the reasons why it happens. Thats the problem, there is no allusion at all. It just happens like so many events. Like the busting out at the begining by the Guard, sure that was interesting, but again- totally unjustified, unconnected and just leaves you asking what? why?. I'm all for allusion, even misleading ones, but the complete lack of reasoning behind events points the finger towards a poor writer.

And finally, to who I thought was the worst character of all. Dassem himself. A lot of people speak of how cool he is, how this book really reveals his desire for vengeance. All it revealed was the stupidity of his own actions. He holds Hood accountable for killing his daughter, for taking him from her- yet how many people is he willing to <i>straight out slaughter</i> in the quest for his vengeance. How many fathers, brothers etc? It doesn't reveal his desire, it reveals his hypocrisy and insantiy. He himself is the biggest agent of Hood <i>still- </i>perhaps this is the Tragedy! Surely he has realised now that he cannot meet him the way he keeps doing things. Option B? Kill himself? Sure, he's awesome to read about but again, the justifications are wearing <i>very</i> thin.

Well, thats enough of me biatching about why I didn't like it. In truth I liked a great deal of it- it was intriguing and offered an insight into a great many things. I just wish it could have been written to the SE standard- not the dramatic prose crap that SE offered in TtH, that was terrible, but his traditional style of solid, descriptive writing.

Feel free to argue away with any of this <img src="http://forum.malazanempire.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

[maro]

Interesting reading this whole thread. I've just read all the books back to back (RotCG after TtH) and loved it. It's not written badly at all.

By comparison, I loved Toll but it's even worse than Return for having massive threads hurtling to one fast climax.

I've written it before but it's worth reiterating, ICE pisses all over SE for Battle/Combat scenes. It works well in the framework of the world - SE has set it up and now ICE is putting the details in.

It's also worth noting that ICE did co-develop the world. Do you really imagine SE reading RotCG and going "That's wrong, ICE you idiot!"? They would have corresponded all the way through. They both own the characters.

Personally, I can't wait for Stonewielder - remember Greymane is mentioned in DOD but was fleshed out admirably by ICE.

[The Seguleh 46th]

Have to say i personally loved this book, and enjoy the fact that ICE and SE have two fairly distinct writing styles. SE waxes more poetic, and Esslemont seems to deliver his product in a much more straightforward manner, which is quite refreshing. Was their issues? Of course. Ereko's death seemed so sudden and i felt instant disgust in that he might have been page-filler, but then i remembered that ICE is gonna be writing 3 (or is it 4?) more books. Answers will probably (most likely anyway IMO) come in time. Same with Kyle and the Assail brats. The insane mages subplot and the ensuing massive wound in the sky might have been a bit much, but again, it introduces us to Ho, the only human D'ivers we have met throughout the series. He obviously ain't going away, and he was a character i really want to know more about. Basically i really liked this book, and as with the frustrating, yet very satisfying jumble/mess known as GotM (if anyone says they knew what was going on from the get-go in that one is a liar....or a freakishly intelligent individual!), it's only going get sweeter with age!

This post has been edited by The Seguleh 46th: 28 April 2010 - 03:22 AM

[M'ichael]

I've finished RotCG yesterday, but I've read TtH and DoD before, and I'm glad, because I knew who Traveller was and so his episodes were more interesting. Before, I didn't like Traveller, because all of his scenes were boring and he was boring, but to know who he was, it's just more interesting. And I have to admit, that I like RotCG even more than Toll the Hounds or Dust of Dreams because, there is always something happening, while in the other books, there are soooo many filler and boring characters, while here, nearly every character is at least not boring. Sure in the end there is too much happening, and when the crazy mages crashed with their ship on the battlefield and an evil mage opens a energy firing thing, I've thought that Raymond Feist is writing now straight from Midkemia. But, the whole final battle is maybe the best battlescene in all malazan books

[Ulrik]

M, on 28 April 2010 - 10:45 AM, said:

Before, I didn't like Traveller, because all of his scenes were boring and he was boring, but to know who he was, it's just more interesting.

Booo...

M, on 28 April 2010 - 10:45 AM, said:

I like RotCG even more than Toll the Hounds or Dust of Dreams because, there is always something happening, while in the other books, there are soooo many filler and boring characters

Booooooooo!

M, on 28 April 2010 - 10:45 AM, said:

But, the whole final battle is maybe the best battlescene in all malazan books

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

I dont understand your kung-fu, but my ascendency towards God of Boooing Cows tells its wrong kung-fu!

Take it easy, just boooing around:)