[worry]

He does improve in that regard, but it's gradual.

[Vaddon Ra]

I actually really enjoyed this book. I know it wasn't as grandiose as the others but for what it was I thoroughly enjoyed it I loved the quick pace

[Ruthan Good]

My main disappointment with nok was that to expected so much more, and that I would get a good glimpse on pre-godhood kell and Dancer, which I didn't get much of. I know that SE isn't planning on it, but I'm hoping to see a formation of Malazan Empire books at some point. Some people might say that they are needed, and it is up to us to fill in the blanks... well I need it, cos there are far too many blanks for me )).

[Seren's sister]

I have just read NOK and found it as interesting and engaging as SE's series, which I have recently finished. The only thing which threw me was reading about the Malazan Empire in a different font. I may be in the minority, but I liked Kiska in that he shows truly the self-importance and determination of talented youth. Temper, Edgewalker and the Stormriders were revelations.

[NefaraisBredd]

Strangely enoughthis is one.of my favorite books in the series. I prefer SE's writing but I gotta say, I love NoK! Temper rules!

[Stormcat]

I loved it! I was skeptical at first since it was a different writer. (I wasn't even aware of ES until I found this forum) I am so glad I read it. It gave a great backstory and gave some depth to Tayschrenn that I really needed.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Night of Knives, The Return of the Crimson Guard and Stonewielder were birthday gifts from my partner (all that fangirling paid off! ) and I've just finished Night of Knives. I was really wary of starting to read ICE's work as it's always been sold to me as the lesser brother of Erikson's books but I've just re-read TMBotF and Forge of Darkness so it was time for something new.

Honestly? I thoroughly enjoyed it! Kiska was a little bit wet as the audience surrogate but it was great to have Temper in full view and although dubious about a 500 page covering a timeline of only one night it wasn't a problem at all.

On I go with Return of the Crimson Guard. ICE my doubts are assuaged, apologies!

[Saitama]

I'm halfway through the book, but so far I find it extremely disappointing. Which is funny, because I wasn't really expecting much. I've heard opinions that ICE's first book is boring and definitely not on SE's level, so I prepared myself for it. In fact, I decided to forgive ICE almost anything, because lets face it, Steven Erikson is essentialy the First Sword of the Writing Empire, you can't expect anybody to match that. So I didn't. But NoK still managed to catch me off guard by being so generic. Seriously, it reads almost like a fanfiction.

Character motivation? Nonexistent or weak at best. The story needs Temper and Kiska to be at a certain place, so they go, ignoring their self-preservation instinct. I still don't know what Temper's motivation to go out into the deadly night is, besides 'I'm gonna repeatedly risk my life because I want to see what happens' which is jarring considering his earlier 'I wanna keep a low profile' attitude. But at least he is a (retired) soldier. Kiska, on the other hand, is clearly planning on commiting a suicide by proxy, despite having a Plot Armor so thick it could halt enraged Icarium.

Well, maybe the second part of the book will fix everything, but I honestly doubt it. However, I am still going to read all of ICE's books - no amount of mortal danger or bad writing can stop a Bridgeburner

[Jaime Lannister]

I can't say I had very high expectations going in, so I wasn't entirely taken aback. I did find the book to be intensely mediocre and on more than one occasion to be so unconscionably plodding that I wanted to put it down and start up Reaper's Gale immediately.

I managed to complete the whole book within a day, admittedly with a really fast - borderline skimming - pace. The worst areas for me were the ones where we follow Kiska making a solitary trek through any location, I found those scenes to be mindlessly tedious. The only parts I truly enjoyed were the Dassem flashback and some of the scenes with Tays, Surly etc.

The writing was pellucid, but so much so as to make it prosaic. I've heard ICE's book get successively better, and I certainly hope that's true. I don't think I can trudge through another one of these again.

[K'Chain Bull'shite]

so my last post was deleted because it was a personal attack; allow me to rephrase:

'intensely mediocre' - honestly, please define for me what this is supposed to mean for starters.

'unconscionably plodding' - look, I like to intimidate people with big words but this is a bit over the top don't you think?

'mindlessly tedious' - now on this point I totally disagree, there was nothing about NoK that was 'mindlessly tedious' for me. Please expand.

And 'pellucid', the piece de resistance of your post - according to the online dictionary that I use, pellucid means 'allowing the maximum passage of light, as glass; translucent.' so what in the fuck are you trying to get at with this word? I'm genuinely curious.

[Jaime Lannister]

K, on 11 October 2014 - 01:36 PM, said:

so my last post was deleted because it was a personal attack; allow me to rephrase:

You don't happen to still have that post do you? Seeing how aggressive and pugnacious this one is, I can't help but wonder about it.

Quote

'intensely mediocre' - honestly, please define for me what this is supposed to mean for starters.

It means exactly what I had written. That I didn't think it was a horrible book but it was mediocre for me, especially relative to what I've read of SE's books up to this point. Intensely was perhaps a superfluous intensifier. Even so, I don't see why you're being so pedantic about it.

Quote

'unconscionably plodding' - look, I like to intimidate people with big words but this is a bit over the top don't you think?

Not at all. It was simply the best two words I could think of it convey my level of boredom with some (a sizable part, really) of the book.

Not to mention I don't think those words are particularly esoteric…

Quote

'mindlessly tedious' - now on this point I totally disagree, there was nothing about NoK that was 'mindlessly tedious' for me. Please expand.

My main gripes with the books were:

It's writing style – which didn't resonate with me.

The characters aside from the ones that SE had already introduced – Some of Kiska's chapters read like a bloated travelogue, she was so lucky that it stretched credibility and in general she her plotline gets repetitive in how she's captured, knocked out, miraculously scrambles to the next event etc. She didn't appear to really learn from her encounters either.

Temper was better, but even he I didn't find too engaging apart from his (regrettably short) recollections of Dassem and the fall of Y'Ghatan. Like Kiska he seemed to have a bit of plot armour going on and I really don't understand his motivations for entering the fray either.

There were a few underdeveloped subplots – how the Stormriders were dealt with off-screen rather anticlimactically.

Quote

And 'pellucid', the piece de resistance of your post - according to the online dictionary that I use, pellucid means 'allowing the maximum passage of light, as glass; translucent.' so what in the fuck are you trying to get at with this word? I'm genuinely curious.

(Literary & Literary Critical Terms) extremely clear in style and meaning

lucid in style or meaning; easily understood

etc.

You'll find similar definitions in most dictionaries.

And by 'pellucid' I meant the writing was so straightforward that it was dull. It had nothing of the subtle, revelatory grace that I had come to enjoy in Malazan books.



Anyways, I apologize if my wording came across as deliberately contentious, that was definitely not my intent. I was only trying to convey how I felt about it as most accurately as I could. I'll allow that some on my dissatisfaction with this book can be ascribed to impatience to return to the present time/RG and being a spoiled fanboy of SE's work.


You need to calm down though.

This post has been edited by Jaime Lannister: 11 October 2014 - 07:39 PM

[Tru]

I think I enjoyed nok more than most. Possibly because I read a ton of books in general, and I can say without reservation that Esslemont is a capable writer. I did not experience a significant drop off as others have mentioned, and if you read today's authors, especially the ones which studio's are making movies and shows from their novels, Esslemont's writing abilities are just fine. In fact, I can say there is one plus side that ICE has over Erikson...he does not wax eloquent for page after page on some philosophical tangent, nor does he exhaust us with page after page of esoteric thought processes of characters who won't appear again in the series...like, at all, or at least for 3 more books, etc. But with that exception, Erikson is a superior writer, just not so far and away as to be frustrated or disappointed in a very competent Esslemont.

Specific to "Night of Knives" though..I was disappointed in one aspect of the book. I felt that the book was written in far too much of an indirect manner. Esslemont limits his pov characters to such as extent that one seemingly significant event after another are seen through the eyes of someone who cannot make any sense of it, nor does the author try to address those events in a more direct manner where we, the readers, can at some point say.."ahh, so that's what happened there..." I'm sure there is a literary term for this style of writing, but I just call it the "fuzzy approach." where we want to know what the hell is going on far more often than we are allowed too know. Erikson does this too of course, especially in "Gardens of the Moon," but not throughout the entire book, nor throughout his epic series, he usually has enough POV's to allow us an inside look at an event or happening that perhaps was eluded too or seen "from afar" 100 pages earlier. I've also been told that "Night of Knives" is Esslemont's weakest effort in his Malazan Empire series, so that is definitely encouraging for me, a person who already liked the first book well enough to keep reading his work.

Ruthan Good, on 28 February 2013 - 04:18 PM, said:

My main disappointment with nok was that to expected so much more, and that I would get a good glimpse on pre-godhood kell and Dancer, which I didn't get much of. I know that SE isn't planning on it, but I'm hoping to see a formation of Malazan Empire books at some point. Some people might say that they are needed, and it is up to us to fill in the blanks... well I need it, cos there are far too many blanks for me )).

It's not a bad idea, I woudl enjoy such a thing, however, there are enough stories sprinkled throughout the 'Fallen' series, especially in the latter books (The Bonehunters for one very good example) to piece together how it all started. In fact there is one story in The Bonehunters that pretty much nutshells the way it all got started. Still, 1000 pages on the topic would be a lot better than 10. I'd read it.

[jonny_anonymous]

Yeah I enjoyed NoK a lot, it's very different from every other Malazan book even ICE's other books but it's very enjoyable for what it is and it gives a lot of cool backstory for some major players in in the Malazan Universe.

[BellaGrace]

Jaime Lannister, on 11 October 2014 - 10:15 AM, said:

I can't say I had very high expectations going in, so I wasn't entirely taken aback. I did find the book to be intensely mediocre and on more than one occasion to be so unconscionably plodding that I wanted to put it down and start up Reaper's Gale immediately.

I managed to complete the whole book within a day, admittedly with a really fast - borderline skimming - pace. The worst areas for me were the ones where we follow Kiska making a solitary trek through any location, I found those scenes to be mindlessly tedious. The only parts I truly enjoyed were the Dassem flashback and some of the scenes with Tays, Surly etc.

The writing was pellucid, but so much so as to make it prosaic. I've heard ICE's book get successively better, and I certainly hope that's true. I don't think I can trudge through another one of these again.

I agree with you - I was not a fan at all of NoK. I was really looking for more about Kellenved and Dancer and instead got a book that was 40% about some teenage girl who was constantly getting caught by bad guys. I too borderline skimmed through parts of it and also agree that Daseem's backstory was the best part of the book.

I just finished Reaper's Gale and Return of the Crimson Guard is recommended to read before Toll of the Hounds... hopefully it's true that ICE gets better with each book. I didn't hate NoK, but it was only a 3 out of 5 for me.

This post has been edited by BellaGrace: 22 November 2014 - 05:05 PM

[Melnibonean Wanderer]

I enjoyed this one. The horror vibes coming from the deadhouse and the hounds were great.

[melonsparks]

I liked NoK a lot. I read it right after GOTM because I wanted to know more about Kellanved and Dancer's... 'situation.'

I really liked that aspect of it, even though a lot of the detail remains obscure. Even though their, uh, 'alter egos' are basically revealed in GOTM, I was interested in the "how" and "why." YOu get a few interesting details about all that.

One of my favorite scenes in the book is the epilogue when Edgewalker chats a bit with Kellanved and Dancer in the shadow realm. That was awesome, evocative, and interesting. "Don't these people ever wonder why the throne is empty when they show up?" indeed...

But NoK also gave me a bunch of other interesting stuff. Learning that Dassem was alive and "heading west" was really cool, it sets up an anticipation for when/if/how that interacts with the main story.

The Stormrider subplot throughout was really cool with an intriguing twist in the epilogue -- I haven't read any other Esslemont books yet but I am really interested to see what happens with the Stormrider plot. I love the scene where Edgewalker shows up and throws down the Stormrider ice wand/scepter thing and tells the Jaghut warrior chick that her plan to get liberated is a bust. And I thought it was really interesting how it was speculated that maybe the Jaghut somehow accidentally summoned them because of their ice magic was too intense (or something like that).

There was a lot of really great scenes in the book, and it builds on Malazan lore in a lot of cool ways.

The book may have a lot of naysayers but I thought it was awesome.

[shovelbum]

I enjoyed it. I'm not sure if I would have enjoyed it as much if I hadn't read all of the Book of the Fallen novels.

Based on this one book, I don't think ICE writes as well as SE. But SE's writing has improved across books, so I can give ICE the benefit of the doubt. ICE vocab and sentence structure/grammar aren't as developed at this point.

The book was a nice relatively short adventure. Temper was enjoyable, but I sort of feel like SE and ICE can't really do too much new with their soldier characters.

Kiska was all right but seemed suspiciously capable and aware considering the event in which she was meddling. The timeline would probably not work, but I was sort of hoping she turned out to be a young Tattersail or Tattersail's daughter--she commanded Thyr, too, right?

Spoiler

I just started Return of the Crimson Guard. Kyle is seeming a lot like Kiska

This post has been edited by shovelbum: 09 February 2018 - 05:31 PM

[Mako2401]

Loved the book, in some regards even more than Gardens of the Moon. The writing is a bit simpler and more straightforward, but that's a good thing because even as it is, it's still complex and deep . Would love to see what happens to some of the characters in this book, and really appreciated the backstory on some other characters.

[Dernhelm]

I just read it for the first time and I loved it! I was worried for the longest time that I wouldn't like Esslemont's writing style after reading Erikson's but I loved his writing, the story, and everything about it! I don't think I would've been so fond of it if I hadn't read MBotF first though.

I don't understand the naysayers either...

[Gintokian]

Dernhelm, on 13 September 2018 - 02:57 AM, said:

I just read it for the first time and I loved it! I was worried for the longest time that I wouldn't like Esslemont's writing style after reading Erikson's but I loved his writing, the story, and everything about it! I don't think I would've been so fond of it if I hadn't read MBotF first though.

I don't understand the naysayers either...

I agree, I really liked it too. I think people just compare him to SE too much. I think he's gotten better as an author as well from NoK to Path to Ascendancy.