[lamatath]

Not so much a problem with his writing but: Maps!

Maps are the best thing about any fantasy book they're awesome you can keep flicking to the front and shit to see where people are and where they come from and where they're going and to get a sense of the world and all that frickkin sweet stuff. But wtf fobbed off with a copy-pasted Quon map from TBh screw that its a p mediocre map at that; there's not even a city map of Heng!?. Best thing about a new book in the series used to be seeing more maps of different places hell yeah, utter massive crushing disapointment with RotCG's maps.

Also TtH's maps were pretty shite, cloned Darujistan map form Gardens, pfft screw that. -NO good maps since Reapers Gale, for real.

P.S. I liked the style of NoK's maps but they were practically unreadable in parts, where the hell's your quality control?!

/map rant



(also Kyle, southpark is not the right inspiration for fantasy names, sorry)

[Lather]

hmmmm. haven't logged on for a bit so missed the OP. well thought out criticism but oddly, as i seem to be in the minority, i really liked the book. i had no problems with the writing. no one seemed 2 dimensional to me. but frankly, i haven't been reading anything else for the last year except erikson and esselmont so i could be biased. i do think erikson is the better writer but nothing in NoK or RotCG was jarringly awful or inconsistant to me.

still, have enjoyed reading this discussioin.

[Use Of Weapons]

Maps. Never seen the point myself. I normally skip them completely. Don't care where stuff happens, or how long it takes to get from A to B, so long as A and B are interesting locations.

[Eispeis]

I completely agree with OP on this one.

The first 400 pages of the book were excruciating to read as it jumped back and forth without really explaining any storylines along the way. I started to enjoy the book for a couple of hundred pages (around Nait's (nee Corporal Jumpy) storyline and the start of Ryllandaras' reign of terror), but then the last 100 pages spiraled down (or up heh) into a craptacular confused conflagration of mediocrity.

Tayschrenn disappearing - don't really care
Laseen dying - couldn't give a crap as it has been obvious that Mallick Rel would do something for quite a while
Korbolo Dom being betrayed and (presumably) imprisoned was so hastily done that it didn't really give any satisfaction
Kyle/The Lost Brothers/Ereko/Traveller (in this book) are all one big "MEH" as far as I'm concerned.
(Re-)Introducing Kiska for a tenth of a second seemed irellevant.

This book may simply function as a station on the way to something bigger (as it seems many feel is the case for HoC and RG), but it was still a disappointment.

The only two characters I ended up liking at all were Nait and to some degree Hurl.

Bah!

Edit: Also how is it possible to write so spectacularly boring about the Crimson Guard... seriously.

This post has been edited by Eispeis: 17 September 2009 - 03:19 PM

[RACHEL]

On the first page of this thread Foolio mentioned that he was surprised that Laseen turned out to be a badass killer. Why are you surprised that the leader and person who started the claw is a kickass fighter.

[Fredimus]

I agree and disagree with lots that was writen here.

I loved NoK, thought that RotCG was good but not great. My main beef with this book is that it should have been 2 books of approx. 700 pages instead of one of 1000. Too many points of story crammed into one book.

[Holsety]

Lather, on 09 July 2009 - 05:08 PM, said:

hmmmm. haven't logged on for a bit so missed the OP. well thought out criticism but oddly, as i seem to be in the minority, i really liked the book. i had no problems with the writing. no one seemed 2 dimensional to me. but frankly, i haven't been reading anything else for the last year except erikson and esselmont so i could be biased. i do think erikson is the better writer but nothing in NoK or RotCG was jarringly awful or inconsistant to me.

still, have enjoyed reading this discussioin. <img src="http://forum.malazanempire.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" />

I pretty much agree with you. I thought the Li Heng story was excellent, and I thought most of the other arcs were good enough. I do, however, think that Kyle and co. were remarkably boring characters, and the book would have been a lot better w/out them. Some have said that Kyle's position is similar to Crokus' in GotM. I see where those people are coming from, in that both have a fairly small idea of the forces surrounding them. But Crokus, to me, was at least an interesting depiction of a "low level" character trying to come to grips with a serious turn of events which actually involves his own city, and having a cast of older characters with whom his plot is interwoven helps a lot. Kyle is mostly "off on his own" with a bunch of other characters we are never given any reason to care about.

[Salt-Man Z]

Kyle was interesting in the beginning, when he was the reader's window into the the thick of the action, getting to meet the Crimson Guard, interacting with Greymane, and being betrayed by Skinner. After he was separated from the rest of the Guard, though, it felt like he'd outlived his usefulness to the author. (Though obviously--perhaps unfortunately--the author didn't see it that way.)

[Hinter]

Salt-Man Z, on 25 September 2009 - 03:53 PM, said:

Kyle was interesting in the beginning, when he was the reader's window into the the thick of the action, getting to meet the Crimson Guard, interacting with Greymane, and being betrayed by Skinner. After he was separated from the rest of the Guard, though, it felt like he'd outlived his usefulness to the author. (Though obviously--perhaps unfortunately--the author didn't see it that way.)

Spot on! The opening few Kyle chapters were excellent in giving us a window into the Crimson Guard. Then Kyle did a runner and sort of lost his usefuleness - I wanted to stay with the CG, flaws and all, because they were interesting (and quite important bearing in mind the title of the book!)

I did thoroughly enjoy this book though. To me Toll the Hounds was a bit of a struggle, and dare I say it, I'm 100 pages into Dust of Dreams and not feeling it yet. RotCG was a return to the good old action-packed stuff of MoI and tBH.

[Wampyry]

[quote name='Hinter' date='25 September 2009 - 12:29 PM' timestamp='1253896169' post='681209']


[quote]To me Toll the Hounds was a bit of a struggle, and dare I say it, I'm 100 pages into Dust of Dreams and not feeling it yet. RotCG was a return to the good old action-packed stuff of MoI and tBH.
[/quote]

I had a miserable time with the first 700 pages of TTH. I did enjoy the first hundred pages of DOD, then it slowed down a bit. I can almost guarantee that you will be floored by the revealations in this book. The mind reels

This post has been edited by Wampyry: 26 September 2009 - 12:16 AM

[RACHEL]

I liked RotCG. ICE and SE came up with this world and its characters together, so I'm going to assume that before, during, and after writing each book they meet up and compare notes. I'm sure SE reads ICE's rough draft and vice versa. I find it hard to believe that SE didn't get to go through RotCG before it was published, and because of that I must believe that he agreed with the direction ICE took some of the characters.

[Amaunet]

Perhaps it is a failure on my part, but after reading RotCG, I am now dreading having to read his next book. The exercise will be reduced to a data mining operation since I derived no pleasure in reading either of IE's books. All I could think the entire time while reading RotCG was that old saw: "Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach." All the Lit. doctorates in the world won't make you a good writer - the gift of storytelling is in-born, as all gifts are.
SE's books are like taking a trip on a wide, deep, twisty river. There's fast bits and slow bits, fun bits and scary bits, sparkling bits and (yes) boggy bits. But it's always interesting, and like the best kinds of trip it's the journey to the destination that is the best part. With IE it's like being on a shallow straight river. It gets you to where your going, but it's a pretty boring trip, and you're impatient for the end after the first half hour.
But then again I'm one of the people who thoroughly enjoyed TtH - I was quite mesmerized by Kruppe's dance. It's all in the journey.

[Paran]

I do agree with the OP to an extent. There was so much great stuff here that just went to waste. The perfect illustration of this is the Urko from HoC - strong, silent, thoughtful but insanely quick to anger and takes zero shit from anyone. Here he's a cardboard cutout of that guy. It's like having SE rated at R 18+ and then viewing ICE's M 15+... the depth just wasn't there.

I hope that he improves with the next book, but he needs to up his game a fair bit.

[senu]

to angel and all the rest can you honestly say se dosn't leave you with more questions than answers,and did you think that the vetarns would be anything more than human,didn't you all complain about fairy tales!sounds as if you all pining for a glorious return to the good old days and thay all live happilly ever after fairy tale rubbish! remember there are kyle's in the world he parralles paran anyway,laseen and tay are cool thay come to life(ha) with ice insted of so remote in alot of se's books, the whole plant scene with kiska explains laseens attitude to her enemies in all books in malazan world,seeing who comes out of the woodwork to poke at the dying thing that is apparently the empire,or its rulers, its in all the books one way or another. not an excuse to put in a cameo
the jumping around is to fit time lines of players involved, it was a bit to broken due to so many people,up to you,
and you cant forget its a TALE OF THE FALLEN, not many rise up in any of the malazan books. dold guard gone or assimilated new era for the empire, progress!
other players will grow in future books plenty of ways to go,you should all try to write one of the characters stories further see how you all go
stop whinging and be patient im sure all will be revealled or most of it,wouldn't be intersting if it was would it

[Mallet]

Ahem.

First, a statement of intent: I, Mallet, hereby do intend to vent feelings, misgivings, vexations and annoyances in this medium for the express purpose of the alleviation of personal angst. The thoughts herein are for no other purpose than to satisfy my own urge for stress reduction and to finally expound on what has been building up inside me for a very long time. While there will be a little repartee to various other posts I will admit that while reading some, I merely scanned others. Therefore, as I hardly read some threads, I could not expect, nor would recommend anyone to pay much attention to this. Read at your risk with the warning that this will be nothing if not convoluted, emotional with mixtures of Erikson-hero-worship thrown in for good measure. I will admit this. Erikson, for me, can do no wrong, no matter how hard he tries (and yes, I admit I got the feeling he was trying in TTH, but that is a dead horse that needs no beating). In stating this I hope to eliminate the arguement that I dislike this book for the sole purpose that it is different than Erikson's work and that Esslemont is trying to explore his own world. I reject this notion and later on you will (should you embark on this journey with me) soon see.

There are so many things that needs to be addressed in the critique of such a potentially good writer that one scarcely knows where to begin. It is for this reason that I will begin broadly and then focus on such little things as needs be resolved.
There is, as any student of the Malazans surely knows, a dichotomy between the writing styles of Erikson and Esslemont. However, I propose that while the writing of Erikson varies little, with exception to the varying degrees of verbosity, the writing style of Esslemont has yet to be established. It has been said that the reason that people find issue with RotCG is that it jumps around too much and jumps around to the extreme. It has also been said that this is not a fault, and if one faults it as such, one may also fault Erikson with the same crime. These are both true. This is because in RotCG Esslemont, instead of finding his own voice, adopts that of Erikson, with little, to no success. Consider the following in regards to this statement.
The story jumps around too much. Erikson's style is unique to this selfsame technique. Then why do we mount SE on a pedestal and kick the poor ICE around when he's down? The answer is description. Erikson's characters are meticulously drawn at least a chapter or so before the character begins to do anything important. Or if they do do something important there is typically a flashback explaining why they do what they do or whatever. Another possibility is that another character reacts to what they've done and the reader understands that what character A has done is important because we are familiar with character B. ICE actually follows this exact model. The pages of RotCG are rife with various mysterious things happening that coax some sort of awe or fear expression from another character followed by another equally cryptic half-explanation of what it was. However, ICE relies on his telling us what is important, rather than letting us KNOW what's important from his description. I had the feeling throughout the novel that I was being told what to feel and rather than have characters with emotions, he created characters with emotion-sticks with which they beat us over the head at various intervals. Almost every poorly recieved character from RotCG could be solved with just spending some time to develop them. Sure some people don't like Cutter, but thats because they think he's a pansy or "emo", not because they don't understand them. I felt that I had more attachement with Murillio than I did with Kyle. At this point in most arguements the caveat is presented of Nait and the Li Heng crew. I would suggest that we like these characters based on the very fact that they are the most similar to characters in the SE novels. Nait and his group of misfits charging the field with stolen munitions was so classicly "sapper-like" that one couldn't help but think it was the spirit of Hedge that guided their throws. And these scenes were absolutley perfect, they flowed nicely, and, because ICE took some time to let us into the head of Nait, we understood why he did what he did. He had more than one emotion and it also didnt hurt that he bore the burden of being the comic relief of the novel. Nait represented, as so many of ICE's characters failed to do, the very essence of being Malazan, a spit in your eye with compassion kind of view. Li Heng was also reminiscent of a number of SE characters, ranging from the marines in DG (the group with Truth, can't remember the others names) and others (its late, my references are suffering). My point, in a nutshell is that we dislike the parts of RotCG where ICE tries to emulate SE and fails, and laud him when he succeeds.
Consider now, the argument that Esslemont tries to evoke the mortality of the "Old Guard". Personally, I would have enjoyed to never actually read of the return of the Old Guard, but some things cannot be changed. I say this because I felt that ICE kidnapped some of SE's characters and smacked them around a little before sending them home to say they fell down the stairs. However, I acknowledge that this is somewhat unfair to ICE as he is "co-creator" of the Malazan world, although sometimes I feel he is the "co-destructor". Mainly I suppose that I don't have a problem with what they did. I just wish I was present for the why they did. Unfortunately, we arrive on the scene with the machinations of war already turning. For a group of old men who are supposed to be dead, I would have thought that we would have heard a hint of it in SE's work, if not a bold reference to it. I also couldn't help but feel that, sure, they're old, but they're still awesome and ICE dashed those thoughts. A smack of reality? or a broad sweep of the murder brush? Considering that they've hidden from the Empire for so long I kind of expected a little bit more from them. The only guy I really liked (I liked all of them from SE's descriptions, just none of them from ICE's) was Temper, and this again falls into the category of I liked him, but because I understood him.
I could go on to several other points, but I feel like I'm pulling an Esslemont and losing coherency. I'm sorry, that's just plain slander on my part but before I wrap this up I feel like Esslemont could have used a little bit of it. I've mentioned already his habit of having this sequence of events : Something happens. Someone's confused. Someone else knows what really happened but won't tell, but will just get kind of nostalgic. Person A looks thoughtfully at person B with some sort of epiphany. The reader has to reread 3 times to understand who is saying what. I wish this was just a formula but this could have also been a direct quote. Again, I understand that magic and warrens are mysterious but you've got to give us something to go on. We can't read a whole book guessing at people's guesses.
Alright, I need to go to bed, I may elucidate more later, but I'm zonked at the moment. In summary, ICE needs to either write like himself (Knight of Knives, which was terrific, if a little rough around the edges) or write like Erikson, only more succinctly and descriptively of his previous effort. We hate hating people for the reason that we don't understand them. The old guard were jipped and kind of just an excuse to toss around some big names. Nait is cool.
One last consideration, look at your copy of Knight of Knives and see the complementary endorsement by Erikson? On my copy of RotCG I see no such endorsement. Does it mean anything? Does it mean something that there is no mention of either of them to eachother after Knight of Knives? Was my copy just missing the endorsement? (Bantam Press, 2008 large soft cover).
Those that read through this, thank you for reading my vent. I realize I lost steam near the end and the Old Guard argument was sorely lacking, even to these tired eyes. This is not for lack of thought or evidence, but due to the inabilities of this author's skill at wordsmithing and perhaps also due to his debilitated mental state. Good evening and, should Esslemont ever read this, though I know he won't, do not get the wrong impression. I think great things can come of you, just please find your voice before too many more RotCGs are written.

Mallet, out.

[Silencer]

I can certainly agree with many of those points, Mallet.

It is something to be said that we never did see Urko do anything. Temper? A few seconds here and there. This is perhaps not his story like Night of Knives was, same as Kiska, and yet I was almost constantly expecting...something from them.
You see, RotCG had a huge cast. And yet...most of them actually got little to no real time on-stage. No...development. As you say, the ones we got to see inside the heads of were usually well-drawn, entertaining, and of the 'spirit' of Malaz. This, I think, is ICE's problem. He tried to tackle a huge book, when previously he'd only dealt with a small cast of characters - which he did well.
One could say that in NoK, we did not really see a lot of Dancer, Kellanved, or Laseen, but at the same time they were not directly introduced and running around for the entire time, either. And he did that well. That sense of legend, status, power - but always at a distance. In this, he took on a hundred characters, and tried to allude to their abilities and impressiveness while also giving them just too much two dimensional time. Keep them legends, or make them stand out in other ways.
The Guard has huge lists of members placed at the front, and yet unlike in Erikson, we never truly see who these are, or even talk to most of them. We don't get to 'feel' the characters, and so they become somewhat flat - filler content. We dislike Kyle not because he's a cliche character, but because he is never expounded upon, he never develops, or has realistic behaviour. As you say, he tends to be: "Uh, I'm confused." *looks at Stalker. "Oh, I see now!". And all without any...reason. No explanation, no base from which to build.
Many other characters suffer from this, and I never really felt it in Erikson. We all bitch and moan about the annoying characters in the Book of the Fallen who get pages of exposition...but that gives them depth. It lets them interact with the other characters, and it establishes them with personalities. It gives reason for the "sudden revelations" - because it shows they are THINKING, and have an established thought process. Essentially most of the character's thoughts in Erikson are massive Checkhov's Guns designed to set up later events.
I suppose what this boils down to is that Erikson seems to know a lot more where he's going, AND what is going to happen in the middle. Esselmont to me seems to know where he's going, but isn't entirely sure how he's going to get there, or what each character is going to do on the way. He writes that as he goes. Whereas he coped more with NoK because it was compressed - he had a clear progression of events, and he knew almost the entirety of the plot beforehand, just filling in the specific actions and dialogues. This seemed to lack that forethought. Perhaps this is an area they hadn't touched yet, and ICE was writing entirely from a blank canvas. I don't know. But I do know that the characters Erikson gave us were a lot more three dimensional than those we see from ICE. Or at least, those we see indirectly from ICE but close enough that they should be more 'solid', if that makes sense.

Anyway, getting late here too, so I'll leave it at that for the moment.

[Skywalker]

Quote

Something happens. Someone's confused. Someone else knows what really happened but won't tell, but will just get kind of nostalgic. Person A looks thoughtfully at person B with some sort of epiphany. The reader has to reread 3 times to understand who is saying what. I wish this was just a formula but this could have also been a direct quote. Again, I understand that magic and warrens are mysterious but you've got to give us something to go on. We can't read a whole book guessing at people's guesses.

Amen. Rep awarded.

[Edonidd]

Although I agree with a much of whats been mentioned so far, my biggest complaint is the blatent disregard for the established rules of the world he is writing in.

Within about the first 100 or so pages a character loads a sharper onto a normal crossbow and shoots it at somebody... Uhh wait a second did I read that right?

All of the other sappers in SE's books have heard the legends of Fiddler and Hedge, and remember seeing or at least hearing about their "lobbers" and some have even made imitations from what we have heard, although I don't think we ever saw any of them. We also have first hand accounts of just what happens if you were to try and use a regular crossbow to fire off some munitions, and how precise and exact, and special that lobber is. Then we have a whole company of sappers, who all happen to be veterans, and they are going around loading munitions onto crossbow bolts repeatedly throughout the book. It completely took me out of the scene and made me set the book down for a while each time I read it, but especially the first time.

[Tatterdemalion]

I agree, Edonidd. I was confused by the use of munitions + crossbow. Bothered even!

Lots of great points thus far, but I want to say something a little different.

In ICE's defense, I really believe the situation he's entering into is one predisposed to judging him with a very critical eye. Though we all must acknowledge his contribution and union to the series, to the common fandom, at this point, he is a 'intruder' absconding with the series. No matter how you cut it, before you even read RotCG, you were already holding him to higher required standards - more critical of flaws, less excited by qualities - because following Malazan at all assumes you love Erikson. So ICE is at a disadvantage from the getgo, and I think it's important to try to fight this bias when reading his latest. This doesn't mean any of the points made aren't valid, but should be tempered with the understanding that many of us picking apart ICE'stake on the series is exactly what we all ought to expect from such a scenario. Of course we'll find things. It's just the nature of being a huge fan of the 'original.'

I just finished RotCG and loved it, though I had many of the same issues as y'all, I could supersede them to just enjoy the sheer awesome and insight. I'll summarize my thoughts (I read all the posts on this topic while at work, and most of an hour later I realized I should sign up tonight, ha):

-I agree on the Talian League seeming unimpressive. I think it's a case of too-many-awesome-tough-warriors-on-the-field-so-they-end-up-looking-like-any-old-captain-or-general. There's only so many 'normies' someone like Urko can kill before you say, "Okay, you're tough, but take on someone REAL."

-I think relating Kyle to Karsa is very ridiculous and random. The only similarities I see are an invested sword and names beginning with K. If Kyle goes on to become Knight of High House Light, or something, I think then we can look back and say, "Man, he had a way lamer intro than Karsa," but until then, he's a one-off recruit with little to offer beyond wide-eyed innosense. At least it allowed ICE to have SOMEONE to go, "WTF?" when stuff was confusing. As someone mentioned earlier, characters always knowing each other or what people are thinking by brief facial expressions and unspoken bonds gets tedious.

-I like ICE's quick pacing, story hopping, and battle detail. All seemed pretty great to me. I noted some proofreading mishaps and a few awkward sentences, but the feeling behind them was legit to me so I just looked past them.

-I liked the massive chaos vortex. Something climactic that wasn't a one-on-one for once.

-One last thing: When Huek had opened the darkness on the hill during the battle, and I think Nait was there, at one point, (I'm pretty foggy on all this) if I recall, someone walked out of the darkness and off onto the battlefield. Nait was super impressed by him, I think Huek slept. Said he had 'almond eyes.' My first thought was 'Anomander?' but this is obviously not right. Who was this? Was this the arrival of Traveller and did I just fug the visual description in my head?

Cheers.

This post has been edited by Tatterdemalion: 03 December 2009 - 03:00 AM

[Silencer]

To answer your question, TTH spoiler:

Spoiler

It was not Anomander, it was Draconus. Yes, timeline-wise it makes no sense, however we are currently assuming the invocation of him allowed a brief manifestation outside the sword. I think.

Other than that, a good first post. Welcome!

I think the reason a lot of us didn't like the vortex, was that it as an added-extra climax. To me, that last scene felt like a hugely forced "And then this happened"-fest. Repeated attempts at: "OMG, this is awesome/new danger/how will they ever survive" doesn't wash well with me. If you consider most of Erikson's works, they build up to one big climax, with many facets. Admittedly, it's once again going in with really high bias, but Esslemont felt more like he was trying to fit all this stuff in - must get Ho/Yath to play a part. Must have Nil and Nether show up. Must have Tay show up. So on, and so forth. Too much "And then", really.

But in any case, I think most of us realise that we're unfairly comparing him to Erikson's style and accomplishments - SE even warned against this in his introduction to NoK. I've said it before, but I really treat RotCG as ICE's GotM. Still end up feeling let down by it, though.