[Tatterdemalion]

Ah, thanks you! It's been a while since TtH.

And yes, I'll also admit that your 'and then' notice trickled into my mind as well. I also felt that ICE allowed for a much greater epilogue for each character (before and in the physical epilogue), whereas Erikson would always tell you what you needed to know and leave you wanting more, more, MORE! I prefer a combination of both, I suppose. ICE kind of felt like the reader languished in the presence of coolness for too long after, to give each their own goodbye, whereas SE sometimes made me go, "But what about Onrack?" or some-such.

[Silencer]

That's probably because SE has a really solid idea of where those characters will turn up again. ICE I think is winging it a bit more, though he too probably has a solid outline, just maybe not as detailed as SE's is.

Plus, SE is also leaving stuff for ICE to play with, in which case 'wrapping up' a character wouldn't be appropriate.

The other thing? Kallor in TTH? Epic win. Kallor in RotCG? Not so much.

[Sinisdar Toste]

Silencer, on 03 December 2009 - 06:48 AM, said:

That's probably because SE has a really solid idea of where those characters will turn up again. ICE I think is winging it a bit more, though he too probably has a solid outline, just maybe not as detailed as SE's is.

Plus, SE is also leaving stuff for ICE to play with, in which case 'wrapping up' a character wouldn't be appropriate.

The other thing? Kallor in TTH? Epic win. Kallor in RotCG? Not so much.

heh heh, well kallor in RotCG was just tying up a loose end from a few millennia back, and then arrogantly picked a fight with the most badass swordwielder in the human race. i still call his little "i appear not to have fled" line, classic high king though

[Salt-Man Z]

Sinisdar Toste, on 03 December 2009 - 04:35 PM, said:

i still call his little "i appear not to have fled" line, classic high king though

That line was brilliant. I'm pretty sure I LOLed.

[Silencer]

Yeah! Actually was just reading that bit the other day, and it was perfect, I have to admit that.

[BornSlippy]

I'm not so sure Kallor realized who he was messing with though - I mean, he wouldn't care about titles and things but he certainly would care about the sword that Traveller is carrying.

I signed up for an account here on the forum to make this post saying I think this is a great thread and I'm glad I read it. It had the effect of both making me feel more incensed at the book, due to lots of people supporting my negative opinions, but also made me a bit calmer reading the "But remember that..." posts. I put the book down two hours ago and I was pretty disappointed. Some great stuff but a huge boatload of bad - compared to Steven Erikson or not doesn't matter. I've read tons and tons of books, particularly fantasy, and RotCG just doesn't cut it. It's not a bad book, and it certainly holds promise for the future...

Edit: After writing this post I read "Abyss just finished it and ARGH!" and I have to say that RotCG is, in fact, quite a good book. /edit

Earlier there was a post saying that this book was ICE trying to be SE. I completely agree, and it's a huge botch in that regard. NoK had the feeling of ICE writing as ICE and I wish he had continued with that in RotCG. It's hard to say exactly what the problem was. I don't think it was connected to scope per se, but rather focus and direction, as was touched on earlier in the thread. It felt a lot like ICE lost control over the amount of angles he was using to approach the campaign on Quon Tali, not necessarily because his skills as a writer are bad but because his prepwork and ongoing editing, whoever was responsible for that, was a combined crash and burn. Some of the things he did stank of namedropping - I don't think it was necessary at all, for example, to explain what Tayschrenn was doing on the field at the end, or why he was there, because SE has already taught us that powers converge. Obviously the nearest available powerful magic user with an invested interest in the survival of the Malazan Empire (and the world) is going to do *something* if a rift to Chaos opens on Quon Tali! The same goes for the entire Otataral mines business - completely pointless compared to the importance of focusing on Kyle, Traveller and the return of K'azz, a storyline that would have been endlessly much better if ICE took some time to tell us more about the Crimson Guard's history from the PoV of the CG. Focus and direction. It felt a lot like ICE in the middle of the book was like "Oh shit" and instead of tightening stuff up, let the book run out of control and flood the pages with too much stuff and too little real content.

I have hopes for his next book because it's already focused on a specific geographical area and group of people, similar to NoK. Obviously ICE is not capable of focusing himself (yet), neither does he has people working with him who can help him do that, so perhaps it's best for everyone if he continues with books that are pre-determined to be narrower. In time, we will see. I think RotCG could have been totally awesome - I sensed it when I read it; there is potential. He just needs to relax (not try to be SE) and make a whole lot more preperation before he starts writing, to know where he's going with everything.

This post has been edited by BornSlippy: 12 December 2009 - 11:31 PM

[waydoug]

I finally finished TtH and then picked up RotCG, have to admit it I'm not that impressed yet. I've put it down and haven't picked it up for 4 days yet, and counting. Maybe I should pick up something else for a quick read in between.
Any suggestions?

[Gimli's love child]

I have always had a problem with ICE. He seems to have just high jacked SEs characters and twisted them towards his own unimaginative uninspired needs. Many posters comment that this world was co-created by ICE and SE and therefore ICE is jusitifed in writing about characters that have already been beefed out which I feel is very generous toward ICE.

They may have come up with the idea together but SE was the one that made it work. Can you imagine ICE writting the MBoTF series instead of SE? I doubt he would have the skill to write GoTM. This guy leeches off the back of SE fans. Why else the ridiculous price set on his books? I read this book and I would never have done so but for the existing works of SE. How could you not want to read more about Dassem Ultor? Even a shit watered down version.

ICE came along only when the series was established and successful, what a coward. If he co-created the world then why not start when SE did? Why stand back and wait so long to throw in?

Completely discusted at the brutal rape of SE's work.

I know this comes across as very harsh but for me this guy has ruined parts of MBoTF.

Phew! rant over. Maybe I need a couch to lie down on for a while...

[Kurt Montandon]

I'm about 4/5ths of the way through RotCG, and I'm having a hard time caring about finishing.

The characters are completely unmotivated - they just do stuff that's convenient to a somewhat incoherent plot. Like pieces on a board game, they just get moved around.

And when ICE uses characters that have primarily thus far been written by Erikson, they don't even seem to be the same people. Iron Bars would be a strong example - he's nothing like the Iron Bars of MT. (I'm still trying to figure out how someone who's been a well-traveled mercenary for a century doesn't know who the Seguleh are).

This book is very thinly written, passionless, and doesn't fit in at all with the Malazan universe - flaws that go way, way past just a differing writing style and lesser experience than Erikson. I just feel like I'm reading how someone played out a card-paper/board-based RPG.

[Pig Iron]

I'm re-reading ROTCG and feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone when seeing some posts on this thread: it's great for f* sake. It's amazing how consistent the Malazan world is between the two authors, the scope is epic and there are lots of great characters and scenes. As far as style is concerned, ICE is lighter for sure where SE is heavy; but that's just a nice change of pace between books. What he attempts to describe through a huge number of POVs is no less than a civil war with gods and ascendants thrown in (kind of like a mini-MBOTF arc). The grammar is a bit weird in places, but I have the limited edition with typos so that might be the reason. ICE manages to do the same thing SE does, where I can basically open one of his books at a random page and start reading with great interest. SE is the master for sure, he is literary and artistic in a way that ICE probably does not even aspire to be. But it's as if you love great wine/whisky/beer/bacon whatever and can only enjoy the most extreme quality. I like both quality and quantity ...

Sorry, had to get that out of my system. Everyone's entitled to have an opinion.

[Epiph]

I'm pretty sure ICE aspires to the literary. He has an MFA in Creative Writing, and when I had some correspondence with his wife, she mentioned that he goes off about the crap state of pulp fantasy.

[Pig Iron]

Epiph, on 07 January 2010 - 08:52 PM, said:

I'm pretty sure ICE aspires to the literary. He has an MFA in Creative Writing, and when I had some correspondence with his wife, she mentioned that he goes off about the crap state of pulp fantasy.

Pretty sure of it too. Just not in the SE-league. SE experiments heavily with voice, subtext, mood, philosophy, social commentary, poetry, you name it. And that's my point, they're very different authors that write in very different ways about the same world - and it works brilliantly. It's not ICE's fault his partner is a genius and a truly great author, that doesn't make ROTCG less.

OK I can see my posts are not great literature, that's for sure

[Ulrik]

 

Gimli, on 06 January 2010 - 11:30 PM, said:

This guy leeches off the back of SE fans. Why else the ridiculous price set on his books? I read this book and I would never have done so but for the existing works of SE.  How could you not want to read more about Dassem Ultor?  Even a shit watered down version.  

ICE came along only when the series was established and successful, what a coward.  If he co-created the world then why not start when SE did?  Why stand back and wait so long to throw in?

Completely discusted at the brutal rape of SE's work.

Oh, come on! I  have many complains bout RotCG, but this is really too harsh. ICE makes mistakes and isnt at level with SE. But I still find some storylines in RotCG really good. Still I dont like wasting of some themes (Kazz returns), but to call him coward and leech...thats too much for me. Chain your fanboyism my friend

[Baudinsballs]

I may be wrong here, but wasn't there a conscious decision between Erikson and ICE that Erikson would establish the series first and then ICE would publish his own stories in the world as a side quest to the main story, picking up on strands that Erikson wouldn't pick up?

Would you have been happy if he had published his books around the same time? And I've read somewhere that Return of the Crimson Guard is meant to chronicle events before Toll of the Hounds, or something? It would be pretty odd to have it published along side Deadhouse Gates.

I think the disagreement with his writing is the fact that we've read about the characters first with Erikson that of course we would be irked with any other authors take on them.

Also, considering I'm up to Bonehunters, should I bother with ICE, do I need to?

[Sinisdar Toste]

Baudinsballs, on 10 January 2010 - 05:54 PM, said:

I may be wrong here, but wasn't there a conscious decision between Erikson and ICE that Erikson would establish the series first and then ICE would publish his own stories in the world as a side quest to the main story, picking up on strands that Erikson wouldn't pick up?

Would you have been happy if he had published his books around the same time? And I've read somewhere that Return of the Crimson Guard is meant to chronicle events before Toll of the Hounds, or something? It would be pretty odd to have it published along side Deadhouse Gates.

I think the disagreement with his writing is the fact that we've read about the characters first with Erikson that of course we would be irked with any other authors take on them.

Also, considering I'm up to Bonehunters, should I bother with ICE, do I need to?

You should definitely bother with ICE, it's not necessary but he covers a lot of hanging question marks and adds to the mythology of the world as well.

[Paran]

Baudinsballs, on 10 January 2010 - 05:54 PM, said:

I may be wrong here, but wasn't there a conscious decision between Erikson and ICE that Erikson would establish the series first and then ICE would publish his own stories in the world as a side quest to the main story, picking up on strands that Erikson wouldn't pick up?

Also, considering I'm up to Bonehunters, should I bother with ICE, do I need to?

The issue, I believe, was selling ICE's stuff. Shared world writing isn't easy to sell, and SE had to establish himself and the Malazan books as far as quality products as well as commercially successful products before someone would jump in with another author doing his stuff. If SE had failed to establish the market for Malazan books, what would be the point of signing ICE?

I loved the potential of this book, but I feel it needed a lot more editing and more back story - as other have mentioned, a lot of the motivations and actions of the characters are not very well explained. The action was great and the ideas fantastic, but I felt the depth was missing. Ereko, Kyle, Ghelel, all seemed to exist without much inner purpose.

[Tarcanus]

I just finished the book a couple days ago. I have to say that it was a solid book, but I agree with a lot of the negative sentiments about it.

- Ereko and Kyle needed fleshed out. Ereko's death didn't make me feel anything other than wtf? at the whole situation, and Kyle just shrugged off any revelations and failed to have any strong motivations in any way. I liked the idea of Ereko and Kyle, but they both fell flat. I would've rather Stalker was the PoV character who becomes the Soldier of Light. Then he'd have an awesome list of awesome: Assail native(and all the perks that go with), Soldier of Light, Osserc's sword, personal Stoop ghost for insta-communication, 2 loyal badass friends(also from Assail.

- The convergence took too long. Too much happening and not enough background: Why was Temp there? The point of Ho's group? Where the hell did Ryllandaras and Liss go? Is he really part of a D'ivers? The point of Rillish beyond getting laid?(Nil and Nether do all of the important stuff in that storyline, anyway) Some sort of closure on Silk?(dude seemed to use an Elder Light warren, which gave me Liosan tingles)

- While I felt that Ghelel was the most fleshed out of the 'new' characters, her storyline seemed pointless. Her story arc was all characterization and no action aside from running away from something else.

[werewolfv2]

Im about the half way point and so far I dont have any realy issue. It seems to be a large step up on NoK (which I also enjoyed, but saw room for a bunch of improvment).

Heck, it isnt the best book Ive ever read and doesnt have the quality of SE, but its still allot better than a ton of crap out there

[Kurt Montandon]

I think it's best at this point just to think of RotCG as a big info-dump, where we just get a bunch of plotline information, by way of a crappy narrative.

I put it down a couple of weeks ago, about three-quarters of the way through, and still haven't picked it back up.

[amphibian]

Kurt Montandon, on 14 January 2010 - 08:15 PM, said:

I put it down a couple of weeks ago, about three-quarters of the way through, and still haven't picked it back up.

You should finish it. Plow through, if need be.

Trust me on this.