[Shinrei]

Get to know your local Illuyankas


1) How were you introduced to the Malazan series?

About six years ago - damn, time flies - I was looking through my local library, first for good books, then for books that would be interesting to read, and then finally and resignedly for books that weren't written on bark pages held together with string. WHEN SUDDENLY I saw a large orange book that looked pretty cool. There was this funky looking old guy on the cover holding a torch, and a load of other old dudes marching away, and it turned out to be a special edition of Memories of Ice where instead of the normal blurb there was a huge neon sign saying READ ME NOW DAMN IT. So I did. And until I read the last page of the epilogue I had no idea that it was the third in the series. Then I looked into the rest, and found House of Chains was out and Midnight Tides was coming, and Book 4 was actually the first of the series I bought, as it was the only one not in a library somewhere at the time.


2) What brought you to Malazan Empire forums?

I'd only recently got into the forum-going kind of culture, and thought "Hey, I wonder if this series has a forum, cause I have a kicking rad theory I want to see get shot down in moments!" I may have misremembered some portions of that. Googled it, thought 'This colour scheme looks silly,' then signed up using my newly minted standard username, taken from Hittite mythology. Then 4) happened, so go read that and come back. Done? Good. So after that I got distracted with university and computer games and forgot about the forum until The Bonehunters was about to come out, so I came back, thought 'Blue and yellow? I'll never get used to this,' and then stuck around. Like a disease you're too lazy to go to the doctor's about and acts as a conversation piece at parties, especially with all the funny colours.


3) How much did your favorite shirt cost?

Half the light of the world. By which I mean it's 50% as bright as the Sun is from Earth.


4) Do you remember your first post? What was it and who responded?

Of course, it was my kerazy theory about how since Rud Elalle grew up so fast, maybe if Whiskeyjack and Korlat had a kid that child could grow similarly fast and be a potential character. I got promptly kerbstomped by Hetan, of all people, about posting Midnight Tides spoilers in the Memories of Ice forum even though I used spoiler tags, and assumed she was some mad forum tyrant. So I reposted it in the MT forum, and the mass reaction from people was, "Nah." Bastards.


5) Which members do you feel a special connection with?

Define 'special'. Most of the members I've met in person are all awesome, and people I'm proud to call friends, like Dag, Toby, Trem, Hetan, Mal, Cougar, Sexually Transmitted Thursday, Anomander Nick Frost, Tiste, Chaos, Rich the Great, stonkey (shut up it's faster to type), Mezla, Macros, Fid, Paleman, Paleman's wife (honorary mention) and all the other members I've met in person whose names I can't quite remember now and who aren't Brood. Apt I see as Illy Lite, a pale imitation of the real deal, but we can't all be as awesome as me. There are a few of the book forum regulars, past and present, I always enjoyed reading the contributions of; Dolorous Menhir, because he hates EVERYTHING, which is something I can agree with, but Dark Mac and a few others whose names escape me because I haven't seen them post in literal years as well. I really should reread the series, since I used to be quite proud of how well I knew the details but I've let it slip recently. Stupid real life, ruining all my fun. Oh, and all the happy people in the Discussion Board I've had so much fun... discussing... with.


6) Rumor has it that you were going to be in a film somewhere as an extra. What how why and why didnt we see you?

The film was Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland remake, they were filming scenes set outside Wonderland in the area near my city, and they needed various extras for background Victoriany scenes. Being hirsuite, and owning a hair suit, I decided to go for it, and got a gig as a sailor wearing buckled leather shoes, white trousers up to my ribs, a blue jacket down to my ribs, and a rather fetching top hat. I then had to raise a sail and then pull a twomasted sailing ship back into position every take for most of a day. Also I really irritated Tim Burton by being given conflicting instructions and then ruining a take, so the guy who replaced me at the mast ruined the next take even worse because they completely forgot to brief him at all. So Timmy got his own back by editing me out of the finished version, which considering I still got paid and haven't had assassins sent after, I'm pretty happy with. After all, I saw the movie.


7) Football (soccer) or rugby? Which team(s) do you use your glorious chicken-hate to support?

Not actually the biggest sports fan in the world (although handegg is the devil) but when I used to actually give a shit about it it was Arsenal, the best French team in the world, who had my support.


8) Who or what is (currently) the most deserving target of your hate?

The great British public, for refusing to part with 28 pence a day - TWENTY EIGHT PENCE A DAY, YOU MISERABLE CHEAPSKATE SKINFLINT BASTARD FUCKBALLS, YOU SPEND A HUNDRED TIMES THAT ON X FACTOR TIE INS - to save people's lives. Or to keep me in my job. Still, I'm enjoying having time to myself. This target will soon switch to employers, I'm assuming.


9) What members would you particularly like to meet in real life (who you have not met previously)?

Hmm. Darkwatch and Abyss, to dispel the mystery. Rodeo, Apt, Hoosier, teholbeddict and drinksinbars for a pub crawl and booze competition. Macros can come to that too, but only because we couldn't physically keep him away and he's great at waving to get the bartender's attention. There are a few members, banned or otherwise, I'd like to meet so I can punch them in the dick repeatedly. Oh, and Jewsintanktops, just to answer a question. She knows why.


10) What's with all the hate? Where is the love???

I once knew what it felt like to have love in my heart, but like all things, it couldn't last forever. Or more than fifteen minutes. Damn, that steak was good.


11) If you were stranded on a desert island with only one MBotF, which one is it?

Either 1; all ten books ducttaped together, or 2; the copy of Deadhouse Gates from my local library made out of bark and string, because the trade paperback edition of it is easily raft-sized.

More seriously, it'll probably be Memories of Ice, although Midnight Tides is damn close and I'm withholding my final decision until The Crippled God comes out.


12) If you met Steven Erikson and you could only ask one question, what would it be?

I HAVE MET STEVEN ERIKSON AND I HAVE ASKED HIM MANY QUESTIONS HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA SUCKERS

I'm going with "Which book will have the scene that you said inspired you to think up after I opened Toby's beer and he spilt some of it? My ego demands it!"


13) Who is you favorite character from the series?

Torvald Nom. Next question.
(Kallor, and then Karsa, for 2 and 3)


14) Whilst doing sales, how many people have you converted to MBotF?

I worked in an office with people whose idea of a reward for everyone doing well was tickets to a football match, every time. I spoke to people who were too stupid to comprehend basic maths. I had to deal with an old guy who wet himself while talking to me at the door, an old guy who opened the door wearing a blue shirt and a bandage on his leg AND NOTHING ELSE, and an old guy who kept yelling "WHAT?!" while his dog kept chewing my suit. I'm pleased I even got the two people to look into the series, one of which asked me for advice on a new series after we got talking and the other was too pretty for me to focus on actually selling them anything.


15) Who wins?

I have pissed off Tim Burton, gotten drunk at Steven Erikson, left an Austrian lapdancing club that was part of a skiing resort and then Austria itself without paying while on a school trip, and most importantly of all, am not Brood. I'd say I win.


16) Any pets? Why, why not?

I did have a couple of hamsters a while back. One was a golden hamster called Nibbles, I had while was under the age of ten. It was cute, and would use its front paws to hang from the top of the cage then climb across them monkey bars style. He was boss as fuck. I had one later, a Siberian dwarf hamster call Taz. It killed a dog. We don't like to talk about Taz. I still have nightmares about what he did to that policeman's face, sometimes.

I wouldn't have one now, though, since I've gone from dislike to no strong feelings one way or the other towards dogs, and I'm allergic and indifferent to cats, which naturally means they love me and want to climb in my lap all the time. Furry little shits. Also I'd be tempted to cook anything smaller.


17) Do you do any creative writing yourself?

I used to do quite a bit - I'm still convinced my character would have won the last Ultimate Deathmatch for the Shrimperor, by the way - but there's so many other things getting in the way that I'll have ot put it all on the backburner for the moment. My prose is terrible but apparently I'm quite funny.


18) When not reading MBotF, what are you typically curling up with?

YO MOMMA HA HO HA ok switching off the thirteen year old for a moment

Scifi, mostly, actually. Iain M. Banks, Peter F. Hamilton, Neal Asher, Alastair Reynolds, Richard Morgan, Dan Simmons, there's more too but my memory, she is failing me. As for fantasy, recently I've been nearing the conclusion of my epic struggle with the Wheel of Time. I don't care if you are literally made out of cliches, subverted or not, I don't care if I have to skip every chapter that has an Elayne POV, a Nynaeve POV, 50%+ Aes Sedai, Faile or Cadsuane at all, or is in books 7-10, you are not going to defeat me, damn it! Someone should make a fan edit that's just Rand, Mat, Perrin (well, leave out the 'Faile! ANGST' parts) and the one-off POVs. It'll be fantastic.


19) Do you keep a personal library, or do the books just cycle through your possession?

A personal library. Only 2% bark and string! I used to lend a lot of my books out to people, even after one of my closest friends left HOC and MOI next to an open window during a storm and they came back twice as big, and they buried him half as tall. Now I'm only an ebook reader away from downloading the entire internet to read.


20) Please bare one random little known fact about yourself for the peanut gallery please.

I used to do swordfighting, with proper big fuckoff metal claymores and shit like that, though I've never LARPed in my life. I was in the Scouts and even though two of my leaders were arresting for paedophilia and possession of child porn I wasn't molested once, which tells you I was an ugly child. My injury is fully healed, thank you. I saw a little silhouetto of a man, scaramouche, scaramouche, will you do the fandango. I have half a lamp post sitting outside my window, it was a birthday present. I tend to speak or type too many words, rather than too few- oh wait, you said little known facts. Oh, and I am not only the awesomest man on the awesomest forum, I'm also the most modest person in the world, and like I told the Pope yesterday I never lie.

There we go, and I'm guessing 3) and 10) as the Macster's.

[Mentalist]

oh, cool, my question actually made it
also, Illy convert 28 pence into dollars, plz

I'd like to know if our charities were cheaper...

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 29 October 2010 - 02:18 AM

[HoosierDaddy]

The hate... it stings the nostrils!

Good interview!

This post has been edited by H.D.: 29 October 2010 - 02:28 AM

[amphibian]

Illy joined in February 2003. That is more than six years ago - unless he made a joke so fowl that he blinked out of our space-time continuum and back again precisely one year later without knowing it because the universe hated the joke that much.

[RodeoRanch]

Ha, Illy was a Boy Scout.

[Illuyankas]

amphibian, on 29 October 2010 - 03:07 AM, said:

Illy joined in February 2003. That is more than six years ago - unless he made a joke so fowl that he blinked out of our space-time continuum and back again precisely one year later without knowing it because the universe hated the joke that much.

Are you saying my... uh, that mental thing you use to remember thin- memory! That my memory is bad enough to forget when I joined? Even if it's written on all of my posts?

Also cheers Shin, this was pretty fun actually.

This post has been edited by Illuyankas: 29 October 2010 - 05:17 AM

[D'rek]

20 whole questions and only a handful of ALL IN CAPS EXCLAMATIONS?! You must've really been holding yourself back on these, Illy.

Shinrei, on 29 October 2010 - 02:07 AM, said:

9) What members would you particularly like to meet in real life (who you have not met previously)?

Hmm. Darkwatch and Abyss, to dispel the mystery.

Done that - it dispels no mysteries, but rather deepens the mystery so very much more!

This post has been edited by D'rek: 29 October 2010 - 05:48 AM

[amphibian]

Illuyankas, on 29 October 2010 - 05:17 AM, said:

Are you saying my... uh, that mental thing you use to remember thin- memory! That my memory is bad enough to forget when I joined? Even if it's written on all of my posts?

You know what I did? I looked at Shinrei's join date and thought it was you.

This is what you people get for changing your avatars all the damn time. I know RodeoRanch, Pig Iron, Zanth and H.D. on sight. That's it. And whoever had that rocket snail thing a while back.

[RodeoRanch]

I changed the cowboy avatar once and there was much crying and gnashing of teeth. I'm stuck with the old fella forever!

[Shinrei]

Rodeo, hope you have that avatar backed up on at least a dozen different hard drives.

Illy, that's a great interview. Good depth and interestingly written (I love how you make us go read another answer in the midst of a different one).

[Gothos]

Apart from the glaring lack of me in that interview, it's a pretty decent one I guess.

[Dolmen 2.0]

My respect for furious ornothology has deepened...

On a side note when did Illys chicken avatar theme come to an end?
I know I'm on and off the forumns alot but Chicken avatar Illy used
to be one of the few things I could rely on...sigh

[Adjutant Stormy~]

Yay my question(s) [honestly, I can't remember] got on!

I too wonder about the vanishing Chicken Avatar...

[Cougar]

Well done Illy, best one yet I'd say. Consider the 20 Questions bar raised people.

[Abyss]

Sadly, no ref to the chicken of doom.
but otherwise good fun.

- Abyss, ....building the mystery...

[Vengeance]

Good interview... A joy to read although i was a little disappointed with the lack of hate..

[Darkwatch]

Illy delivers as usual, though there is a characteristic lack of hate.
Good to know you pissed off Tim Burton though, you're a folk hero.
Also good to know you're as mad as I am about people not having enough money to help but enough to squander on stupidities.

Quote

Done that - it dispels no mysteries, but rather deepens the mystery so very much more!

I'm not a very coherent person.


@ Abyss

We really should meet up some day and see if the universe collapses.

[Macros]

Wrong illy.
10 was mine, as were 2 others, but 3 is not one of them.
Great interview though

[Abyss]

Darkwatch, on 29 October 2010 - 02:45 PM, said:

...@ Abyss

We really should meet up some day and see if the universe collapses.

probably just a large chunk of the sub sea-level eastern seaboard with resultant tsunamii and maybe a volcano.

Oh, ummm... whoops...

[Mezla PigDog]

Illy! You ..... answered some questions. Well done. We both know your Deathmatch win was a fluke but I'll let you take the glory because I'm a good person like that.