[Sinisdar Toste]

felesins sister had her shackled and sent on a slave ship to a mine. that'll fuck ya up right there

[fluteboy]

Hi George,
I don't generally weigh in on many discussions in these forums as I simply don't have the time. But I feel a need to write a defense of SE's work from the point of view of someone that had essentially the same original reactions to the books as you are having now. Considering I have transformed into a fan that literally thinks about and obsesses over this series EVERY SINGLE DAY, I hope you will read this.
I am a long time fan of fantasy, and specifically good fantasy. I like my fantasy dark and gritty, with inventive and innovative takes on the genre and ambiguous characters who may be bad but have good motivation for their actions or may be good but have flaws. Real people, who just happen to live in a place where magic works (sometimes). I refuse to read most of the absolute drivel that appears as "epic" fantasy these days. I try to be selective. After reading "A Song of Ice and Fire" and "The Prince of Nothing" series, I decided to try MBotF because I had had it recommended to me as more of the same high-level, literary fantasy. When I started GotM, I was flabbergasted. I couldn't tell if it was just plain stupid or incredibly brilliant. In fact, it sometimes seemed like both at the same damn time! I had no clue what was going on, no idea why specific events were supposed to be momentous, no idea what anything meant or who anyone was, why any characters did anything and if the plot and writing were any better than a bad D&D fanfic. After finishing the book, I wasn't even sure if I liked it or not. However, I did feel that certain elements of SE's style and world gave me the shivers (in a good way) and I have always loved that epic feeling I get when I started to realize that small events in the present will have major ramifications in later events, and I wanted to see how he might develop those. I pressed on to DHG. Again, though I was prepared for the chaos and felt the writing style had tightened considerably, I still couldn't tell if I liked it, and the mad infodump and seeming inconsistencies had me questioning nearly every sentence for meaning. How could some characters be so cartoon-like and others be written with such skill and emotion. Was I reading a British comedy or a gritty speculative fiction novel? Why was I frustrated at some turns of events and getting goosebumps at the implications that others were raising? And how did anything even work in this world!? By reading these boards, I had gleaned two things: 1). Gardens of the Moon was basically the prologue to the rest of the series, and 2). Memories of Ice was generally held to be amazing. So I decided to give it one last try.
I know it is often ridiculous when someone states that something changed their life, but by the end of MoI, I was changed. I was in tears due to the emotional wallop packed into that book. When I finished Dust of Dreams last month, I literally had to sit and stare into silence for a long time, digesting all I had read, reeling from the loss of some characters and from the stunning impact of each new revelation. I could not read anything for days because nothing else held the same meaning and realism for me. The end of MoI was like that, too. I finally had an inkling of just what SE was trying to do and how amazing the journey was becoming. After finishing Reaper's Gale, I went back and read the series again. I was astounded at how much I had missed the first time around and how much I understood, now that I knew much of the context. I loved the first two books the second time around and saw so much more detail than I had been aware of before and I began to really appreciate how ingenious SE was at hiding clues pointing to future events. It all begins to tie together in ways that some fantasy series (I won't name names) can only dream about. It was like one of those Magic Eye pictures where suddenly you see the sailboat after hours of squinting and everything becomes 3D.
MBotF has been compared to LOST numerous times, but I always feel it is a succinct analogy. There are motives and back story hidden beneath smokescreen and plots. Much of what you think you know is not even close to the truth. And you have not even met most of the best characters! SE himself has stated that the Malazan books are meant to be devious. They are also meant to reflect human nature. Humans routinely do stupid things, act in ways both heavenly and hellishly towards one another, and no two people see the same events exactly the same way. Is MBotF perfect? No. It is a delicious, crazy, amorphous, chaotic mess. But it is so much fun, and whatever its shortcomings, its strengths make up the difference a thousandfold. Trust me when I say that the revelations to some of your questions will blow your mind.
I will give you a general example of what represents (to me, anyway) some of SE's innovation. The Magic system. Seems confusing and complicated and contradictory, right? It is. But consider our own world: how many world religions are there? How many different systems of folk magic and belief? Now, what if all of them were true? That gives you a sense of the Malazan world: numerous magics and religions and races, all with their own rules, all jockeying for position. In fact (and mods, please forgive me, but I truly believe this is not a major spoiler as no specifics are revealed) there is a place in the Malazan world where the advancement of magic itself was suspended for eons, and it is far more primitive than what is used in the books you have seen so far. Got that? Magic that actually evolves alongside sentient races, that often is symbiotic to those races and cultures. Perhaps I am wrong, but that is a concept of coolness I have never encountered anywhere else, and to such a developed level. And that is only a tiny fraction of the sheer awesomeness you have in store if you keep reading. And consider the fact that all of this intense discussion and critiquing came about because of a fantasy book. This series makes, nay, forces you to think and consider it. In fact, I have never encountered a fantasy series that causes me to re-think it so often. It is part of the charm of the books, for me. Much has to be worked out by the reader as so much information is imparted in very subtle ways. But it IS there, and when you find it, it gives tremendous pleasure and satisfaction.
In closing, I can give only two pieces of advice:
1. Don't use a point in DHG as a deciding point for whether you will keep reading or not. If you can do it, read to the end and then read MoI. If by the end of the third book you are not sold, you never will be. But that was when it all began to make sense to me and having the context of the first two books made it all the more powerful.
2. George, I say this in the nicest possible way, I mean that: Get off the board, stop posting and reading posts and get back to reading the book! You will not find the answers you seek on these boards, at least, not in any satisfying way. The only way to get those answers is to keep reading and find out for yourself. Then you can argue your take incessantly on here with the rest of us. Don't allow early conceptions or views on the board spoil the journey for you early on. There will still be questions even after the later books, but I think you will have a much clearer (and I hope more enjoyable) picture of this incredible series. All the best and good luck!

[dktorode]

George Awesome, on 28 January 2010 - 03:30 AM, said:

Iconik, on 27 January 2010 - 09:31 PM, said:

Are we really talking about Bloodfly repellant here? Move along folks. Nothing to see here.

I guess they don't show up much later, but Felisin squeezing maggots out of pockets of dead flesh was one of the grossest things I've read in a book in a while: looking back to it, her feeling "a chill" at the possibility of going blind or deaf, and immediate understanding of the hideous disfigurement that just happened to her ("I've seen those (pockmarked people). Locals. Slaves. Here and there -") coupled with her absolute non-response to hearing about it (she laughs, shivers) - followed by her immediate, obviously-not-in-shock response to news of Beneth's death: "a flood of pain rising up within her, an anguish more thorough in shattering her than anything she'd yet suffered. She staggered back a step," seems weirder than it did the first time: I would have thought that you're either freaked out that bugs just turned you into Freddy Krueger by filling you with maggots, or you're in shock and nothing freaks you out.

And Heboric's comments on them: before they swarmed: "Bloodflies! Drawn, then driven, by the fires" and afterwards: "normally, bloodflies don't swarm. It must have been the flames." That's a much wordier and calmer reaction than mine would have been upon sighting, and then escaping, a cloud of AIDS carrying mosquitoes (in fact, it almost sounds like an author shoehorning in an explanation as to why this doesn't happen all the time, then forgetting and doing it again - but I'm just guessing, and that's kind of harsh): I think I would have been more screaming terrified profanities, maybe laughing about how I was okay then feeling bad that she wasn't, and thinking about stuffing my backpack with mud in case they came back.

If you don't care enough about your life to be a little freaked out when it's saved from a horrible threat as a total surprise to you (Felisin suggests Fener helped him out: "I can make no sense of it (... he sighs) but it seems you're right."), why bother trekking across a desert to save it? I'm not actually asking, just expressing my reaction as I was reading - which was roughly "what's wrong with these people? Do they know what's happening to them? Do they care?"

I am sitting here wondering how the hell you read anything at all with any kind of enjoyment as you seem to get irritated every time someone reacts in a manner that counters how you believe they should be reacting. Actually it seems that if they are not acting the way YOU would...then its stupid? These characters are NOT you
Even in our world people react very differently in certain situations....you would probably scream like a girl and run to the hills if you found you where suddenly being attacked by blood flies, while some one like Bear Grylls on the other hand might be thinking "LUNCH"

You cant seriously question a writer on that level at every turn and expect to enjoy anything especially in a work of fiction where people are not going to act the way you think they should every time.
Are other authors just more run of the mill in their character development and use of psychiatric/psychotic responses?

[dktorode]

Sinisdar Toste, on 28 January 2010 - 06:20 AM, said:

felesins sister had her shackled and sent on a slave ship to a mine. that'll fuck ya up right there

Exactly...she didnt even have time pack her blood fly ointment, never mind her bikini...

[amphibian]

dktorode, on 28 January 2010 - 09:14 AM, said:

I am sitting here wondering how the hell you read anything at all with any kind of enjoyment as you seem to get irritated every time someone reacts in a manner that counters how you believe they should be reacting. Actually it seems that if they are not acting the way YOU would...then its stupid? These characters are NOT you
Even in our world people react very differently in certain situations....you would probably scream like a girl and run to the hills if you found you where suddenly being attacked by blood flies, while some one like Bear Grylls on the other hand might be thinking "LUNCH"

I think he's young, which explains the reluctance to deal with things that are different from expectations, and still mired in what I call the "cursory genius" fallacy. Basically, a cursory genius looks something over once, assumes he's got the whole of it and moves on, believing he's an expert on the thing. There's a vanishingly small group of people who can do something even approximating that, and most of them have immortal names in history. Some never get called out on our shallow proficiency or never notice the depth of knowledge and skill others possess and go on believing they're experts.

George Awesome said he's never reread a book. Either he's not telling the truth, reading some truly not-complex books or he's a cursory genius. Going back over things repeatedly and drilling the knowledge and skills are what allows us to develop true mastery. It's why Ph.Ds and Masters take so long to get their degrees. True expertise takes time and effort on a scale that few are willing to put in. It's why black belts in Brazilian jiu-jitsu take on average eight to ten years to achieve. The basic movements can be taught to someone within a month, but to notice and internalize the intricacies and figure out why things work they way they do takes much, much more time and effort.

The Malazan books are not unique in this, but the complexity and scale rewards those who put in the time and effort to reread and contemplate things. You can read all of the books once and never come back to them, but you'll miss what inspires such hardcore devotion, analysis, criticism and exegesis from some very intelligent, educated, experienced and interesting people.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 28 January 2010 - 04:49 PM

[George Awesome]

fluteboy, on 28 January 2010 - 06:37 AM, said:

It was like one of those Magic Eye pictures where suddenly you see the sailboat after hours of squinting and everything becomes 3D.

An interesting prospect, but I'm not sure how it squares with some of the attempted explanations using stuff I've already heard. I do appreciate your note though, it seemed very sincere and thoughtful.

Still reading the book as of now.

amphibian, on 28 January 2010 - 04:48 PM, said:

True expertise takes time and effort on a scale that few are willing to put in.

... unless assured of reward, hence my threads here. I kept coming back (probably too much) because I like discussing things, and am compulsively defensive.

Example:

amphibian, on 28 January 2010 - 04:48 PM, said:

George Awesome said he's never reread a book. Either he's not telling the truth, reading some truly not-complex books or he's a cursory genius.

Exact quote: "I don't think I've ever read a book I'd want to read again" - as in, from start to finish. Certainly not a multi-volumed one.

I've rechecked on bits of books as I go, sure, and reread individually well-written paragraphs/chapters.

It's probably more that I'm willing to let full-reread-level subtleties pass me by than that I get everything I theoretically could with one pass, but you may have a point overall.

This post has been edited by George Awesome: 28 January 2010 - 06:19 PM

[dktorode]

Rereading the series is not absolutely necessary. However it is a whole lot more rewarding if you do.
I have only read up till HoC twice in preparation for Midnight tides and boy was i disappoint (but thats not relative here),
I just dont have the time for rereads these days. I usually just read discussions here on the latest books and that fills up allot of info i might have missed.
But i do intend to MAKE time and do an entire series reread before the final book.

From what i have reread though, i found to be even more enjoyable the second time around, Gardens was a completely new book when i read it the second time taking into context all i had read after... and i really enjoyed it the first time so i got some bang for my buck.
I dont reread books easily... but these I find it to be a totally different/rewarding experience compared to any other author i have ever attempted reread.
I reckon if mr. Awesome can just try not to question the authors motives at every turn and forget about silly things like "why is she reacting like this" and just enjoy the book for what it is, he might actually do his very first reread one day...

Some people do after all need to be bullied into carrying on reading in order to eventually see the light.

[alt146]

Some replies to various points in the thread.

First I dont agree with the statement that rereading the series is necessary to enjoy it. I've only reread the first two books and while they are definitely better the second time round, they're still awesome the first time. If you pay attention (which you're maybe doing a little too much), you'll get a lot of 'oh snap' moments where everything slides into place and believe me, they are awesome. They continue to happen throughout the series and seeing the effects before discovering the cause often makes it all the more poignant.

As people have said, mages aren't that common and to be honest aren't all that powerful. You'll see many examples throughout the series why some insanely powerful mage hasn't just taken over the world. Magic users do use their skills to make their lives better and grab a little power, but they have to be very careful about it - the Cabal in the first book is a very good example of how mages tend to act. With regards to the economic prospects - magic is hard, dangerous and not very well understood, even by mages. Why risk your life to make bloodfly ointment?

I dont think the violence in the series ever feels out of place - the malazan world is not a nice one and that's important to understand. The violence is far from gratuitous, there's very little description of the violence itself and it's put there as part of a bigger picture.

In a way reading these books is a lot like life. You meet all the people that you know nothing about. Some of them come and go, remaining at best acquaintances, others stick around and slowly you start to understand their history and motivations better. That in itself is probably one of the best part of the series - you start off lost, surrounded by people and things you dont understand, and as time goes by you learn more and understand better. The fact that you had to work to get there makes it even better. You aren't told who to like, you aren't given infodumps on characters - you have to get to know them, which makes them much more real.

As you said, your main problem is that you were expecting things to be resolved and were promised that things would become clearer in this book and they haven't. A third of the way into the book is maybe a little early to be having a problem along those lines. My advice would be to just go with it for the rest of this book. You've said you have a problem doing so and if it's that grating then maybe this isnt the series for you. A couple of other people have said it before - this book has one of the most gutwrenchingly intense endings you will ever read, and a lot of cool and interesting things happen along the way. Enjoy it at face value and you'll suddenly find yourself thinking back and realising how much more sense earlier events make. Or at least that's how it worked for me.

What you should be expecting from the books is the following:

Some of the best military scenes you will ever read. The midpoint of MoI has been mentioned before - it is amazingly kickass.
Devastingly intense finales. If you're not deeply affected by the end of this book then you probably wont like any of what comes after.
Incredibly complex races and individuals, with their own history that slowly becomes apparent over time.
Character you will love, and love to hate on a level that I haven't experienced with any other series.

What you shouldn't expect is:

Nicely laid out explanations. (most) Things are explained, but it happens in drips and drabbles. If you can't get over small continuity errors, or not knowing exactly what was going on in someone's head when they did something, you're going to have a problem.
Neatly resolved plots. The world just doesnt work that way. There's always an after - sometimes you learn about it, sometimes you don't. Sometimes characters reappear, sometimes they just ride off into the sunset. There are no happily ever afters.

At the end of the day you seems like you really want to enjoy these books, but can't quite seem to get into them. Unfortunately they aren't everyone's cup of tea and maybe you'll just have to write the series off as a loss and go grab some recommendations from the other lit forum. As abyss says, give it a little more time. It picks up speed in a big way in a couple of chapters and if you just enjoy the scenery instead of paying attention to the driver you'll discover it's one hell of a ride.

[Use Of Weapons]

My single point of contribution to this thread (having read it for the first time today) is to say that Memories of Ice (still my favourite) is perhaps still the best book at delivering a complete story in one volume, while still having threads leading back and forth to other volumes. It is, again, a slow build (one of my complaints with SE is that this structure is so unvarying). But the denoument is so heart-staggeringly awesome, it really _deserves_ all the praise it has got in this thread. And in that last sentence, I use 'awe' in its original sense.

[D'rek]

George Awesome, on 28 January 2010 - 03:30 AM, said:

Iconik, on 27 January 2010 - 09:31 PM, said:

Are we really talking about Bloodfly repellant here? Move along folks. Nothing to see here.

I guess they don't show up much later, but Felisin squeezing maggots out of pockets of dead flesh was one of the grossest things I've read in a book in a while: looking back to it, her feeling "a chill" at the possibility of going blind or deaf, and immediate understanding of the hideous disfigurement that just happened to her ("I've seen those (pockmarked people). Locals. Slaves. Here and there -") coupled with her absolute non-response to hearing about it (she laughs, shivers) - followed by her immediate, obviously-not-in-shock response to news of Beneth's death: "a flood of pain rising up within her, an anguish more thorough in shattering her than anything she'd yet suffered. She staggered back a step," seems weirder than it did the first time: I would have thought that you're either freaked out that bugs just turned you into Freddy Krueger by filling you with maggots, or you're in shock and nothing freaks you out.

And Heboric's comments on them: before they swarmed: "Bloodflies! Drawn, then driven, by the fires" and afterwards: "normally, bloodflies don't swarm. It must have been the flames." That's a much wordier and calmer reaction than mine would have been upon sighting, and then escaping, a cloud of AIDS carrying mosquitoes (in fact, it almost sounds like an author shoehorning in an explanation as to why this doesn't happen all the time, then forgetting and doing it again - but I'm just guessing, and that's kind of harsh): I think I would have been more screaming terrified profanities, maybe laughing about how I was okay then feeling bad that she wasn't, and thinking about stuffing my backpack with mud in case they came back.

If you don't care enough about your life to be a little freaked out when it's saved from a horrible threat as a total surprise to you (Felisin suggests Fener helped him out: "I can make no sense of it (... he sighs) but it seems you're right."), why bother trekking across a desert to save it? I'm not actually asking, just expressing my reaction as I was reading - which was roughly "what's wrong with these people? Do they know what's happening to them? Do they care?"

Just because bloodflies don't show up later in the series doesn't mean they weren't first presented as a horror-movie-monster threat, only defusable by nearby mud, and against which no precautions seem to have been even considered.

You can't expect people to react "normal" because they are not "normal" people. Felisin is a young formerly sheltered teenager who suddenly had her parents die, her sister sell her into slavery and is now daily being abused by her pimp and sporting a massive drug habit. The whole point of her character is that now she's numb. The entire personal plot for her throughout all of DG is her indulging in her numbness, then beginning to strike out in anger and eventually regaining some actual composure, eventually focusing entirely against her sister.

Heboric, meanwhile, has had HIS FREAKING HANDS SEVERED. Living with that, not to mention being sundered from his god unjustly, is a pretty good way to be tempered. If he's pretty calm and stoic most of the time, well he has every reason to. When we first meet him in the prologue he reacts very calmly to the fly-priest-manifestation-of-Hood, while everyone else (including the not-completely-numb-yet-Felisin) panics. So from the get-go Heboric has been reacting this way, and you find it surprising that he keeps at it?

Really, if you're going to super-analyze the characters' motivations, do it right!

As for Kalam, his reasoning for taking the book and igniting the Whirlwind is not really that hard to figure out, especially considering his words right after he leaves Sha'ik, but if you can't figure it then the ending of DG should explain it pretty thoroughly for you.

[Elephant Tamer]

D, on 29 January 2010 - 02:44 PM, said:

You can't expect people to react "normal" because they are not "normal" people. Felisin is a young formerly sheltered teenager who suddenly had her parents die, her sister sell her into slavery and is now daily being abused by her pimp and sporting a massive drug habit. The whole point of her character is that now she's numb. The entire personal plot for her throughout all of DG is her indulging in her numbness, then beginning to strike out in anger and eventually regaining some actual composure, eventually focusing entirely against her sister.

Heboric, meanwhile, has had HIS FREAKING HANDS SEVERED. Living with that, not to mention being sundered from his god unjustly, is a pretty good way to be tempered. If he's pretty calm and stoic most of the time, well he has every reason to. When we first meet him in the prologue he reacts very calmly to the fly-priest-manifestation-of-Hood, while everyone else (including the not-completely-numb-yet-Felisin) panics. So from the get-go Heboric has been reacting this way, and you find it surprising that he keeps at it?

Really, if you're going to super-analyze the characters' motivations, do it right!

As for Kalam, his reasoning for taking the book and igniting the Whirlwind is not really that hard to figure out, especially considering his words right after he leaves Sha'ik, but if you can't figure it then the ending of DG should explain it pretty thoroughly for you.

Exactly. Although I don't always agree or like Heboric's, Felisin's or Baudin's actions or reactions, I understand them and can see where they are coming from. That isn't to say these were the only choices they could make, or that they are excused because of their circumstances, but they are human choices that aren't just random. There are actually a few interesting points about their journey that are made as it goes on, which you should try and get to.

[George Awesome]

D, on 29 January 2010 - 02:44 PM, said:

George Awesome, on 28 January 2010 - 03:30 AM, said:

Iconik, on 27 January 2010 - 09:31 PM, said:

Are we really talking about Bloodfly repellant here? Move along folks. Nothing to see here.

I guess they don't show up much later, but Felisin squeezing maggots out of pockets of dead flesh was one of the grossest things I've read in a book in a while: looking back to it, her feeling "a chill" at the possibility of going blind or deaf, and immediate understanding of the hideous disfigurement that just happened to her ("I've seen those (pockmarked people). Locals. Slaves. Here and there -") coupled with her absolute non-response to hearing about it (she laughs, shivers) - followed by her immediate, obviously-not-in-shock response to news of Beneth's death: "a flood of pain rising up within her, an anguish more thorough in shattering her than anything she'd yet suffered. She staggered back a step," seems weirder than it did the first time: I would have thought that you're either freaked out that bugs just turned you into Freddy Krueger by filling you with maggots, or you're in shock and nothing freaks you out.

And Heboric's comments on them: before they swarmed: "Bloodflies! Drawn, then driven, by the fires" and afterwards: "normally, bloodflies don't swarm. It must have been the flames." That's a much wordier and calmer reaction than mine would have been upon sighting, and then escaping, a cloud of AIDS carrying mosquitoes (in fact, it almost sounds like an author shoehorning in an explanation as to why this doesn't happen all the time, then forgetting and doing it again - but I'm just guessing, and that's kind of harsh): I think I would have been more screaming terrified profanities, maybe laughing about how I was okay then feeling bad that she wasn't, and thinking about stuffing my backpack with mud in case they came back.

If you don't care enough about your life to be a little freaked out when it's saved from a horrible threat as a total surprise to you (Felisin suggests Fener helped him out: "I can make no sense of it (... he sighs) but it seems you're right."), why bother trekking across a desert to save it? I'm not actually asking, just expressing my reaction as I was reading - which was roughly "what's wrong with these people? Do they know what's happening to them? Do they care?"

Just because bloodflies don't show up later in the series doesn't mean they weren't first presented as a horror-movie-monster threat, only defusable by nearby mud, and against which no precautions seem to have been even considered.

Really, if you're going to super-analyze the characters' motivations, do it right!

Compulsive defensive ... sense ... tingling.

Felisin was concerned about going blind (she felt a chill) and devastated enough to stagger upon hearing about Beneth's death. Those reactions happened immediately before and after her non-reaction to horrible deformity, and don't sound like feelings a "numb" person would have.

Kalam's leaving-Sha'ik reasoning is the part I quoted, right? Seems odd to me, or at least makes him an utter ass.

And Mebra's concern when he realises Kalam's plan to take the book, as well as his telling Tene to stay out of Kalam's sight or he'd destroy the book (that last bit, admittedly, may have been a bluff), suggests that Random Apocalypse Delivery Guy may not have been an inevitable success, and that Kalam could have stopped all that hometown-pride based mass death (but I don't know, maybe Mebra was wrong/lying, or Kalam wrongly assumed inevitability, etc).

Still reading, anyway.

This post has been edited by George Awesome: 29 January 2010 - 07:07 PM

[D'rek]

George Awesome, on 29 January 2010 - 07:03 PM, said:

D, on 29 January 2010 - 02:44 PM, said:

George Awesome, on 28 January 2010 - 03:30 AM, said:

Iconik, on 27 January 2010 - 09:31 PM, said:

Are we really talking about Bloodfly repellant here? Move along folks. Nothing to see here.

I guess they don't show up much later, but Felisin squeezing maggots out of pockets of dead flesh was one of the grossest things I've read in a book in a while: looking back to it, her feeling "a chill" at the possibility of going blind or deaf, and immediate understanding of the hideous disfigurement that just happened to her ("I've seen those (pockmarked people). Locals. Slaves. Here and there -") coupled with her absolute non-response to hearing about it (she laughs, shivers) - followed by her immediate, obviously-not-in-shock response to news of Beneth's death: "a flood of pain rising up within her, an anguish more thorough in shattering her than anything she'd yet suffered. She staggered back a step," seems weirder than it did the first time: I would have thought that you're either freaked out that bugs just turned you into Freddy Krueger by filling you with maggots, or you're in shock and nothing freaks you out.

And Heboric's comments on them: before they swarmed: "Bloodflies! Drawn, then driven, by the fires" and afterwards: "normally, bloodflies don't swarm. It must have been the flames." That's a much wordier and calmer reaction than mine would have been upon sighting, and then escaping, a cloud of AIDS carrying mosquitoes (in fact, it almost sounds like an author shoehorning in an explanation as to why this doesn't happen all the time, then forgetting and doing it again - but I'm just guessing, and that's kind of harsh): I think I would have been more screaming terrified profanities, maybe laughing about how I was okay then feeling bad that she wasn't, and thinking about stuffing my backpack with mud in case they came back.

If you don't care enough about your life to be a little freaked out when it's saved from a horrible threat as a total surprise to you (Felisin suggests Fener helped him out: "I can make no sense of it (... he sighs) but it seems you're right."), why bother trekking across a desert to save it? I'm not actually asking, just expressing my reaction as I was reading - which was roughly "what's wrong with these people? Do they know what's happening to them? Do they care?"

Just because bloodflies don't show up later in the series doesn't mean they weren't first presented as a horror-movie-monster threat, only defusable by nearby mud, and against which no precautions seem to have been even considered.

Really, if you're going to super-analyze the characters' motivations, do it right!

Compulsive defensive ... sense ... tingling.

Felisin was concerned about going blind (she felt a chill) and devastated enough to stagger upon hearing about Beneth's death. Those reactions happened immediately before and after her non-reaction to horrible deformity, and don't sound like feelings a "numb" person would have.

Kalam's leaving-Sha'ik reasoning is the part I quoted, right? Seems odd to me, or at least makes him an utter ass.

And Mebra's concern when he realises Kalam's plan to take the book, as well as his telling Tene to stay out of Kalam's sight or he'd destroy the book (that last bit, admittedly, may have been a bluff), suggests that Random Apocalypse Delivery Guy may not have been an inevitable success, and that Kalam could have stopped all that hometown-pride based mass death (but I don't know, maybe Mebra was wrong/lying, or Kalam wrongly assumed inevitability, etc).

Still reading, anyway.

I'm sure that Kalam could indeed have stopped it. But why would he want to? Just keep reading.

[Grayghost]

You know, it's kinda funny. I'm dealing with the same thing with my daughter, but from a more postive perspective...meaning she loves the first book, GotM, and wants more, but my God...questions, questions, questions. And I have answers, since I'm now reading Toll the Hounds.

I have to curb my enthusiam at her enthusiasm and not give things away. I'll answer questions that wont spoil anything, or give vague generalities, which frustrates her, but in a good way.

I guess my answer to you is the same I gave her to the confusion she felt at times.

Reading these books are like walking into the middle of a conversation of which you know nothing about, and trying to figure it out from the little snippets of informations you get and personal observations, because nobody is going to stop talking to answer your questions about "What the hell is going on?!"

Now you have gotten some very good, bordering great responses above, so I wont go into all the philosphical stuff on you again. All I can say is the the books of the fallen are like nothing I have ever read before, and to say that I've read some fantasy is like saying Mozart wrote a few songs.

I hope that you can come to appreciate what you are partaking of, but as others have said, it may not be your cup of tea. That being said, good luck finishing the book, and I hope you move on to "Memories of Ice".

[Lusipher]

Not to resurrect a month old thread but yeah...

Anyways, let me first state that I remain unconvinced of this series' greatness. I'm about 200 pages into Deadhouse Gates and, while I find this book to be much more fun than Gardens of the Moon, greatness remains elusive. The usual things annoy me: vague descriptions of everything for some unknown purpose, horrible sentence structures and really just shallow characterization. But I'm willing to roll with these, even the sentence structures: I just rearrange them whenever they come about. There's not much I can do for the vague descriptions, so I've come to view what I'm reading as something of a history book, where some things are known and others, just guessed at. In some cases, trying to fill in those blanks is half the fun(is Icarium one of the elders Mappo sees in his flashbacks? Is Servant really Apsalar's dad or might he be Iskaral Pust himself?-for reference, I'm at the part where Fiddler and co. are in the sandstorm and Pust has just finished a Deck reading, etc. etc.); at other times, just annoying (like the somewhat vague workings of Warrens, d'ivers or sole'taken). And characterization seems to be a bit better this time around with both old and new characters, or maybe I just like some of the characters more.

I have been intrigued with the hinted at history of various people(individuals and races), places and things, and so I will continue reading (I love history, real or fake). I actually look forward to Midnight Tides, just from the blurb on
Amazon, since it will cover some of the history of the world(starring Mel Brooks! ). I'd have to say I don't have quite as many hang ups as George or maybe they're not as pronounced. Either that or I've been able to come to terms with them in a less obstructive way. Kalam agreeing to take the Book makes sense if you look at it as a backup plan in case he fails to kill Laseen. Felisin's vapid reactions to the flies could be attributed to the durhang which she took shortly before, as well as all the other things she's endured in order to survive. She even comments on this (surviving) shortly after that, saying, more or less, she doesn't care how she looks as long as she's able to return every hurt to her sister, real and imagined. I do get the feeling that there's a lot of implied inference, or gaps that readers have to take on faith, but such is life.

And that's that. If Icarium really is one of the elders from Mappo's flashbacks or Pust does turn out to be Apsalar's dad, I don't want to know. Also, I've read on the Gardens sub-forum, of people curious about what life is taken to restore Paran's. Could it be possible that Felisin's life is the one taken? Her death is rather figurative, but I found that to be an interesting idea. And now, back to reading and lurking, lalala

This post has been edited by Lusipher: 03 May 2010 - 07:52 PM

[Sinisdar Toste]

Lusipher, on 03 May 2010 - 07:49 PM, said:

There's not much I can do for the vague descriptions, so I've come to view what I'm reading as something of a history book, where some things are known and others, just guessed at.

This. Exactly this.

to paraphrase SE "the MBotF is a history, warts and all."

[Benn Greenbow]

Finished DH and had a little trouble with it, but just started MoI and it's awsome so far, so I'm glad I stuck with it. I think you just have to get used to SE's writing style. I can't wait to read more of book 3

[Cedz]

George from reading this thread I think you might enjoy Jim Butchers The Dresden Files series alot better than MBotF. Its alot more straight forward but still has some rediculously awesome action sequences and a very engaging plot.

Alot of us MBotF fans have attained our depth of enjoyment from this series over years which may skew our viewpoints somewhat compared to a new reader. Anyway my personal opinion is that you just keep reading because really there isn't anything that comes close to Erikson's worldbuilding and writing style in any genre, but it is of course up to you.

This post has been edited by Cedz: 26 July 2010 - 09:17 AM