[George Awesome]

Malaclypse, on 26 January 2010 - 04:27 AM, said:

You wonder about time-shuffling regarding Deadhouse Gates and Memories of Ice without having even finished Deadhouse Gates?! Minor spoiler but they deal with roughly the same time period, ie., they are concurrent for the most part There is no shuffling of the order of events.

Not time shuffling (which would be perfectly legitimate): reader-knowledge shuffling - the order in which SE doles out knowledge of the world's workings before telling us what happens.

Memento and Tarantino's movies are relevant because, when they present events but withhold context-altering information, it's a deliberate attempt to affect your viewing experience: in this series, it feels haphazard - with the information I have, I can't do anything but shrug at major plot events, taking notes so I'll be able to reinterpret them later. RAFO is irrelevant to this problem, as is technical, in-universe consistency.

See also:

Cobbles, on 25 January 2010 - 11:54 PM, said:

Now, being halfway through MoI, I think SE got the order of the books wrong. It should've been GotM, then MoI, then DG. I think it would make much more sense and you'd have quite a few answers to certain questions concerning GotM without spoiling DG.

This post has been edited by George Awesome: 26 January 2010 - 04:55 AM

[Malaclypse]

You're what? midway through DG?! Like I said before, the kinds of problems you're having are only going to get worse - at least have the decency to constrain your complaints to books that you've actually read - quoting other noobs as evidence does you no credit. Note the absence of smilies, ambiguous or otherwise.

[George Awesome]

Malaclypse, on 26 January 2010 - 04:56 AM, said:

You're what? midway through DG?! Like I said before, the kinds of problems you're having are only going to get worse - at least have the decency to constrain your complaints to books that you've actually read - quoting other noobs as evidence does you no credit. Note the absence of smilies, ambiguous or otherwise.

I find I actually prefer overt hostility to ambiguous smilies - though I think you're carrying some anger momentum from my rep-misunderstanding (for which I apologise again).

Anyway: I have doubts about the universe's internal consistency - *and* doubts about SE's regard for the reader's ongoing experience, which I find hasn't improved much with this volume. Few loose ends seemed to be tied up by GotM's otherwise entertaining ending, and this book is mostly new threads so far.

If the reasoning behind the order of the first 2 books has yet to be tied up by midway through book 3, you might be going a bit far by calling Cobbles a noob - especially given the sync between his feelings and the apparent hard-drive facts of the matter.

This post has been edited by George Awesome: 26 January 2010 - 05:09 AM

[Illuyankas]

It's a ten book series, some storylines continue past the half way marker. Or the the third of the way marker. Experiences differ, you may not enjoy the journey to the climax of each book but that's not a fault. You'll miss out on his best book and one of his best action setpieces in the middle of that book if you skip MOI, in my opinion, but it is my opinion.

So, the man lost an almost entire script in an accident, and decided to change the order and write something new rather than rehash what he'd just written. I think it works better this way, it's not tired or dull compared to what it could have been.

Still not sure why you'd think about abandoning a series just because of another storyline on a different continent, though. Still, I'd love to see your reaction to book 5.

This post has been edited by Illuyankas: 26 January 2010 - 05:15 AM

[caladanbrood]

Don't worry about Mal, George. He occasionally has some good points but they're mostly hidden in amongst the grumpy




Not much more I can add to what has already been said, but I have to re-iterate what I said in the GotM thread - if you want everything to be explained, this series will confound you - there is so much going on that there are inevitably bits and pieces all over the place that fall through the gaps. They tend to be minor however, and easy to ignore in my opinion.

Memories of Ice and Deadhouse Gates take place more or less simultaneously - this is not a series which is written in strict chronological order, and there are very often important cross-references between the books which make the understanding much better. Parts of House of Chains, for example, give some very important insights into some sections of Deadhouse Gates.

[George Awesome]

Anybody up for rearranging the text into a fan-edit?

George Awesome, on 26 January 2010 - 04:47 AM, said:

Memento and Tarantino's movies are relevant because, when they present events but withhold context-altering information, it's a deliberate attempt to affect your viewing experience: in this series, it feels haphazard - with the information I have, I can't do anything but shrug at major plot events, taking notes so I'll be able to reinterpret them later. RAFO is irrelevant to this problem, as is technical, in-universe consistency.

See also:

Cobbles, on 25 January 2010 - 11:54 PM, said:

Now, being halfway through MoI, I think SE got the order of the books wrong. It should've been GotM, then MoI, then DG. I think it would make much more sense and you'd have quite a few answers to certain questions concerning GotM without spoiling DG.

caladanbrood, on 26 January 2010 - 05:12 AM, said:

Parts of House of Chains, for example, give some very important insights into some sections of Deadhouse Gates.

This post has been edited by George Awesome: 26 January 2010 - 05:23 AM

[Malaclypse]

George Awesome, on 26 January 2010 - 05:05 AM, said:

Malaclypse, on 26 January 2010 - 04:56 AM, said:

You're what? midway through DG?! Like I said before, the kinds of problems you're having are only going to get worse - at least have the decency to constrain your complaints to books that you've actually read - quoting other noobs as evidence does you no credit. Note the absence of smilies, ambiguous or otherwise.

I find I actually prefer overt hostility to ambiguous smilies - though I think you're carrying some anger momentum from my rep-misunderstanding (for which I apologise again).

Anyway: I have doubts about the universe's internal consistency - *and* doubts about SE's regard for the reader's ongoing experience, which I find hasn't improved much with this volume. Few loose ends seemed to be tied up by GotM's otherwise entertaining ending, and this book is mostly new threads so far.

If the first 2 books' threads have yet to be tied up by book 3, you might be going a bit far by calling Cobbles a noob.

If you prefer overt hostility my friend, then we're going to get along great, cuz that's my specialty I've been extremely mild thusfar and I'm unaccountably proud of that fact, to be honest

The internal consistency of the Malazan universe is something I've battled with for a few years now and yes, it is problematic to say the least. A person could write a raft of academic papers about SE and his contribution to speculative fiction from an anthropological perspective; the perspective most suited to dealing with the time-depths often mobilized in works of fantasy I might add. Frustrating? Ambiguous? Contradictory? Yes, SE's approach is all of these things and I assure you, nobody knows this better then me. Contrast this with actual history and you will find a similar ambiguity, a difference of opinion as to how to interpret the works of some ancient scholar, a simliar uncertainty as to what actually occurred and when. The things they tell you in Middle School Social Studies notwithstanding. Internal consistency is not one of SE's priorities

[Illuyankas]

Genabackis | Book 1 - Book 3 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Book 8


Seven Cities | - - - - Book 2 - Book 4 - - - - Book 6


Continent 3 | - - - - - - - - - - - - (Book 5) - - - - - - Book 7 - - Book 9 - Book 10

Here is a very rough outline of which books are mostly set on which continent and in which order they occur chronologically (with the exception of book 5, which is set on Continent 3 timewise before Book 1 but should be read after Book 4). All of them contain information regarding events all over the shop, from before and later in the series, all of them are rather good (I'm not the biggest fan of GOTM, granted, but it's still pretty good even though it's my least favourite). Characters from one continent's book arc go to the others and vice versa fairly often.

All I can really suggest is keep reading, and if you're really struggling with DG, then try out the characters you remember in MOI. It's a fairly safe one to jump to if you can't digest book 2, with only the epilogue spoiling an important part of DG, and if you don't like either book then you probably aren't going to like the series as a whole. I'd just recommend not moving past MOI onto House of Chains until after you finish DG, because the ending is great and you shouldn't spoil it yet.

[George Awesome]

Malaclypse, on 26 January 2010 - 05:20 AM, said:

George Awesome, on 26 January 2010 - 05:05 AM, said:

Malaclypse, on 26 January 2010 - 04:56 AM, said:

You're what? midway through DG?! Like I said before, the kinds of problems you're having are only going to get worse - at least have the decency to constrain your complaints to books that you've actually read - quoting other noobs as evidence does you no credit. Note the absence of smilies, ambiguous or otherwise.

I find I actually prefer overt hostility to ambiguous smilies - though I think you're carrying some anger momentum from my rep-misunderstanding (for which I apologise again).

Anyway: I have doubts about the universe's internal consistency - *and* doubts about SE's regard for the reader's ongoing experience, which I find hasn't improved much with this volume. Few loose ends seemed to be tied up by GotM's otherwise entertaining ending, and this book is mostly new threads so far.

If the first 2 books' threads have yet to be tied up by book 3, you might be going a bit far by calling Cobbles a noob.

If you prefer overt hostility my friend, then we're going to get along great, cuz that's my specialty I've been extremely mild thusfar and I'm unaccountably proud of that fact, to be honest

The internal consistency of the Malazan universe is something I've battled with for a few years now and yes, it is problematic to say the least. A person could write a raft of academic papers about SE and his contribution to speculative fiction from an anthropological perspective; the perspective most suited to dealing with the time-depths often mobilized in works of fantasy I might add. Frustrating? Ambiguous? Contradictory? Yes, SE's approach is all of these things and I assure you, nobody knows this better then me. Contrast this with actual history and you will find a similar ambiguity, a difference of opinion as to how to interpret the works of some ancient scholar, a simliar uncertainty as to what actually occurred and when. The things they tell you in Middle School Social Studies notwithstanding. Internal consistency is not one of SE's priorities

Okay, I'm just gonna assume we're friends now, cuz I've got no idea how to interpret those.

Moving on: while the study of actual history is respectably highbrow, the texts comprising our record of actual history are a series of happenstance reports piled on each other - an effect which is fairly easy to imitate.

Erikson used to be an anthropologist (note: his real name is "Rune"? Why would a fantasy author change that?), his fantasy world is interesting, and he does some good stuff - but I come down on the skeptical side of interpretations of why he presents events in the order he does.

This post has been edited by George Awesome: 26 January 2010 - 05:43 AM

[caladanbrood]

Which events exactly are in the wrong order?

[George Awesome]

caladanbrood, on 26 January 2010 - 05:47 AM, said:

Which events exactly are in the wrong order?

It's not that events are presented in non-chronological order (which would be fine): it's that it seems to me events are just tossed into the book, like random newspaper clippings, leaving the reader with no response beyond shrugging and making a note in the hopes that it will mean something/make sense later.

I suspect this is party a result of SE's background as an anthropologist.

Mal interprets this as a contribution to the medium, I'm less convinced.

See also: http://forum.malazan...ndpost&p=722987

This post has been edited by George Awesome: 26 January 2010 - 05:53 AM

[Malaclypse]

George Awesome, on 26 January 2010 - 05:41 AM, said:

Malaclypse, on 26 January 2010 - 05:20 AM, said:

George Awesome, on 26 January 2010 - 05:05 AM, said:

Malaclypse, on 26 January 2010 - 04:56 AM, said:

You're what? midway through DG?! Like I said before, the kinds of problems you're having are only going to get worse - at least have the decency to constrain your complaints to books that you've actually read - quoting other noobs as evidence does you no credit. Note the absence of smilies, ambiguous or otherwise.

I find I actually prefer overt hostility to ambiguous smilies - though I think you're carrying some anger momentum from my rep-misunderstanding (for which I apologise again).

Anyway: I have doubts about the universe's internal consistency - *and* doubts about SE's regard for the reader's ongoing experience, which I find hasn't improved much with this volume. Few loose ends seemed to be tied up by GotM's otherwise entertaining ending, and this book is mostly new threads so far.

If the first 2 books' threads have yet to be tied up by book 3, you might be going a bit far by calling Cobbles a noob.

If you prefer overt hostility my friend, then we're going to get along great, cuz that's my specialty I've been extremely mild thusfar and I'm unaccountably proud of that fact, to be honest

The internal consistency of the Malazan universe is something I've battled with for a few years now and yes, it is problematic to say the least. A person could write a raft of academic papers about SE and his contribution to speculative fiction from an anthropological perspective; the perspective most suited to dealing with the time-depths often mobilized in works of fantasy I might add. Frustrating? Ambiguous? Contradictory? Yes, SE's approach is all of these things and I assure you, nobody knows this better then me. Contrast this with actual history and you will find a similar ambiguity, a difference of opinion as to how to interpret the works of some ancient scholar, a simliar uncertainty as to what actually occurred and when. The things they tell you in Middle School Social Studies notwithstanding. Internal consistency is not one of SE's priorities

Okay, I'm just gonna assume we're friends now, cuz I've got no idea how to interpret those.

Moving on: while the study of actual history is respectably highbrow, the texts comprising our record of actual history are a series of happenstance reports piled on each other - an effect which is fairly easy to imitate.

Erikson used to be an anthropologist (note: his real name is "Rune"? Why would a fantasy author change that?), his fantasy world is interesting, and he does some good stuff - but I come down on the skeptical side of interpretations of why he presents events in the order he does.

First of all, his middle name is Rune, which may or may not affect your apparent opinion that he ought to have used it for the purposes of publishing in the SF genre.

Fairly easy to imitate? Explain. What is your academic background that you feel justified in making such a statement?

Nobody 'used to be' an anthropolgist - an anthropologist studies culture and that's not something you just stop doing

And you still worry at the bone of the order of events, lacking the faintest clue of how the story actually progresses

[caladanbrood]

George Awesome, on 26 January 2010 - 05:51 AM, said:

caladanbrood, on 26 January 2010 - 05:47 AM, said:

Which events exactly are in the wrong order?

It's not that events are presented in non-chronological order (which would be fine): it's that it seems to me events are just tossed into the book, like random newspaper clippings, leaving the reader with no response beyond shrugging and making a note in the hopes that it will mean something/make sense later.

But that's not what you said in your previous post, so I'm kinda confused as to what your issue is here. Any one of the first four books, for example, cannot really be fully appreciated until you've read all of them (and not really even then, but it's the most obvious pause point before the introduction of yet another entirely new set of characters). They are not standalone novels. Any attempt to compartmentalize the books is doomed to failure, simply because they are very long strings of inter-linking events, and you can't read one scene, move on and never think about it again, because that's not how the books work. If you're looking for a series like the Wheel of Time, where one thing happens, it's all explained and they move on for another thing to happen so you can forget where they've been because all that matters is where they currently are, then... well, go read the Wheel of Time.


The future books are not going to change your opinion too much, I doubt - Erikson's writing evolves somewhat towards the later half of the series, but the things you perceive as problems still mostly remain. I hope you do read them, because your views are very interesting and refreshing, but I suspect you're looking for the wrong thing in these books, what you yourself would write maybe, and not what they are actually presenting.







And you keep quoting that post about Tarantino and it is still unclear why... we've been telling you that you will have to go back and re-evaluate events that happen in earlier books having read later ones. If you want to use that as a reason to not enjoy the story, then that is a shame, but your prerogative - personally I enjoy reading something and suddenly realising how it impacts on something else I read two books earlier, and looking forward to piecing even more of the puzzle together in future. Which is still going, incidentally, after 14 books (depending on which ones you count).

[Abyss]

I don't know if jumping to MOI and coming back to DG later would really change anything, tho it does follow more closely on the major plotlines of GotM. Still, Fid/Crokus/Apsalar and kalam's storylines all flow from there too...

The running theme here is it seems GAwesome wants to understand things that are solidly in the RAFO category, and often in terms of books, not chapters.

- Abyss, also notes that the timeline is not important, the timelines is not important, the timeline is NOT...

[George Awesome]

Malaclypse, on 26 January 2010 - 06:01 AM, said:

First of all, his middle name is Rune, which may or may not affect your apparent opinion that he ought to have used it for the purposes of publishing in the SF genre.

Fairly easy to imitate? Explain. What is your academic background that you feel justified in making such a statement?

Nobody 'used to be' an anthropolgist - an anthropologist studies culture and that's not something you just stop doing

And you still worry at the bone of the order of events, lacking the faintest clue of how the story actually progresses

Re: Rune: I just think it sounds good - genre appropriate.


Re: imitating history: history wasn't assembled in any way, it's just reports piled on each other, an effect which is easy to imitate and not in itself impressive. Why would the respect accorded students of history trickle down to fiction writers who imitate history's non-existent "style"?

To turn it around: why are you impressed by internally inconsistent, contradictory fiction? I'm not being sarcastic: it seems you've found something you like, I just see little evidence of it so far.

And if you insist, "SE used to draw paychecks for anthropological work."

This post has been edited by George Awesome: 26 January 2010 - 06:53 AM

[George Awesome]

caladanbrood, on 26 January 2010 - 06:09 AM, said:

Any one of the first four books, for example, cannot really be fully appreciated until you've read all of them (and not really even then, but it's the most obvious pause point before the introduction of yet another entirely new set of characters).

The future books are not going to change your opinion too much, I doubt

I suspect you're looking for the wrong thing in these books, what you yourself would write maybe, and not what they are actually presenting.







And you keep quoting that post about Tarantino and it is still unclear why... we've been telling you that you will have to go back and re-evaluate events that happen in earlier books having read later ones.

personally I enjoy reading something and suddenly realising how it impacts on something else I read two books earlier, and looking forward to piecing even more of the puzzle together in future. Which is still going, incidentally, after 14 books (depending on which ones you count).

Abyss, on 26 January 2010 - 06:21 AM, said:

The running theme here is it seems GAwesome wants to understand things that are solidly in the RAFO category, and often in terms of books, not chapters.

Re: expecting something other than what the books are: well, that might be it. It's just that I remember being told the series picked up in book 2, whereas now it only seems to begin to explain itself after book 4.

Maybe all my objections dissolve by book 5 - I'm not in a position to prove they don't - but that seems like a long time to have to delay expectations of explanation.

I'm referencing Tarantino/Memento because they seem to me to handle withheld information in such a way that it's fun/entertaining to pick up new pieces: in some cases you even have a preexisting interpretation that gets altered later. You think you have some idea of what's going on, but you don't: or, you know enough about what's going on to have some kind of reaction as it's explained to you, which later gets altered or reversed.

In these books, though, my reaction to almost every event is to shrug and wait for an explanation that's crazily far off, while doubting that there will be one or if I'll just be expected to go with the flow or accept that a Wizard Did It (or that - impressively similarly to history - these books are ambiguous and internally inconsistent). It doesn't help either my patience or my faith in these promised clarifications that I haven't encountered many yet.


Again, every one of my objections may be a RAFO, but ... it's gonna have to be a pretty big, satisfying RAFO to justify all this shruggable confusion.


Maybe it is, I don't know. I expected one in this book and haven't gotten it yet.





If I were enjoying the progress I wouldn't complain. If my lack of enjoyment is unlikely to improve - well, I guess that may be the answer I was looking for by posting on these forums.

This post has been edited by George Awesome: 26 January 2010 - 07:26 AM

[caladanbrood]

 

George Awesome, on 26 January 2010 - 06:59 AM, said:

Re: expecting something other than what the books are: well, that might be it. It's just that I remember being told the series picked up in book 2, whereas now it only seems to begin to explain itself after book 4.


Maybe all my objections dissolve by book 5 - I'm not in a position to prove they don't - but that seems like a long time to have to delay expectations of explanation.

Depends. The books get better, but they don't suddenly start explaining everything - GotM is notorious for its inconsistencies, and DhG and MoI are both better books, but they will still bring up more questions than they answer, I'm afraid. It's the way the series is written.

[George Awesome]

Edit: a while back, I wrote this:

"my post was about doubting his motivations in shuffling the order of events."

I don't mind non-chronological stuff at all: that quote was based on the assumption that book 3 clarified book 2, and was later in the timeline: since it seems neither is true, and the explanation of both is so far off that it doesn't matter which order they're presented in, I take it back, and replace it with post 56.

[dktorode]

if you ask me, one can not be as anal as what you seem george, and enjoy this particular series.
There is just too much that can, and in your case most likely will, grate a you the wrong way.

Especially for someone who finds something as insignificant as peoples REACTIONS to a priest that turns out to be flies as a point that doesnt "fit" in the world and irks you.
You are perfectly fine with the fact that a fly priest was walking around...thats ok because you read Gardens and you know that there are these things that can happen, yet you are confounded by the fact that characters are shocked when they see it?
Do you think all of the characters that appear in DG have there own copy of GoTM? Or should everyone be on the same level of enlightenment as what you are simply because they exist in the same world?

Anyways...Reading this thread i feel you have already made up your mind with regards the this series and writer.
Yet you obviously saw something in Gardens that made you pick up the next one... so i dunno what to make of you?
I would like you to keep reading as you definitely have a Fresh ,if anal, take on things but your tone seems like someone who has already given up...pity.

[George Awesome]

dktorode, on 26 January 2010 - 08:53 AM, said:

Yet you obviously saw something in Gardens that made you pick up the next one... so i dunno what to make of you?

I read reviews from respected sources that said this was great, and I liked the world, but based on comments here it seems it won't cohere in the way I hoped it would.

I guess I thought I saw promise and believed people that what I was hoping for was still forthcoming.