[uk_unbeliever]

I'm trying to ask a question without reading any spoilers so this post probably won't fit in with the rest of the thread as I've not read much of it! I've read all the main books and all the novella's + Crimson Guard but not The Lee's of Laughter's End. I'm just re-reading MOI as part of a total re-read. My question is related to when I should read stoneweilder as I've just got the book and want to read it now. Reading the little description on the inside cover has left me thinking that I've missed something from what I've read so far as I can't remember much at all about Korel (but read Crimson Guard not so long ago so know a bout about the storm wall) and i'm also struggling to work out where in the general timeline the end of Crimson Guard fits in the main novels!

Is there much from Lee's of Laughter's end that would set up this book? Also, could someone give me a rough timeline- Re-reading the main books and Laseen is still around as far as I can remember- where for example does the Bonehunters going to Letheras fit in with the events of Crimson Guard and Stoneweilder? Many thanks in advance- the one thing with these books is I'm always trying to link them and get annoyed when trying to think back to previous reads and link everything up!

[Manask]

There's is no set up for SW in Lees of Laugther's End.

[Sinisdar Toste]

you may be thinking of blood follows, but the set up for SW there is minimal, and while some may find it contradictory, theft is probably the least insular of all korel lands so i find it less contradictory than those some

[flea]

MTS, on 27 December 2010 - 06:08 PM, said:

Bauchelain the Evil, on 27 December 2010 - 05:50 PM, said:

Yellow, on 27 December 2010 - 09:15 AM, said:

If they're not in there, would the continuity still make sense?

Are there many people who read Erikson but haven't heard about ICE, do you think? The reason I ask is that I'm sure there are lots of people who read the books but don't go on the web to find out more (after all, his sales would be pretty poor if it were just the people on this forum, right?). Do people realise that there's another author writing in this series? If not, will they get confused if Skinner turns up and people find out that he's the King in Chains? I'd be wondering where I missed that.

They would also be under the impression that Laseen is still the Empress.

No they wouldn't it's spelled quite clear in DoD by the EGs that Mallick Rel became Emperor. At that point, those who haven't yet read RotCG would probably go and grab a copy to see how it happened...or just spoil themselves in this forums.

Since there's a mention of the King in Chains in Tiserra's reading in TTH, I expect we may come to see Skinner in the Darujhistan novel yet. He didn't have much trouble getting from Quon Tali to Korel, nor did Kallor from Genabackis to Jacurucku, a jaunt off to Darujhistan shouldn't be beyond him. Nevertheless, it might be that we will hear of how he became to be King in TCG, if the Second catches up to him or he and the Disavowed defend the TCG, which is altogether possible. It may come with the explanation of his armour, and Ardata's supposed involvement there. The feud was introduced in book six, elaborated on in book eight, perhaps a resolution in book ten?

Why not see Skinner in tCG? As the King of House of Chains it would make sense.

I have been waiting for more of Ardata for quite a while. There was the whole spider motif in BH, then Ardata and Skinner, and we even has another damn spider in SW (AWOL in Kartool).

[Yellow]

Ah, completely forgot about any mention of a new Emperor in DoD, fair enough. Still, that must have been a massive WTF for some people.

Does anyone know or have any idea what kind of ratio there is for people who read a series but don't go online to those who read a series and do? (If that made sense). Even if you add up all the big forums out there, it must be a pretty small percentage of the total sales. There must be plenty of lurkers as well, of course, so maybe it's too difficult to assess. I also don't know how many books Erikson tends to sell with each new release.

I have a couple of friends who read fantasy but do not go online looking for more info (both have started Malazan but not caught up with new releases), and neither would have a clue that ICE was writing in the same world without me telling them. Most of my friends actually don't read SFF at all

This post has been edited by Yellow: 31 December 2010 - 08:44 AM

[MTS]

Well, we have almost 7,000 members, and you would think at least that again in people who lurk/have lurked and never posted. IIRC SE has sold at least 250,000 copies of his books, so the online presence is rather miniscule in comparison, even if you count other fora.

Although I can't say it would be all that difficult to figure out about ICE, or vice versa. Generally their books are right next to each other on the book shelf (ER/ES) and are in the same style. I think the recent books even mention the other ones in the 'other books by...' sections in the start of the books (although I'd have to check that to be sure).

[ansible]

MTS, on 06 January 2011 - 01:16 PM, said:

Well, we have almost 7,000 members, and you would think at least that again in people who lurk/have lurked and never posted. IIRC SE has sold at least 250,000 copies of his books, so the online presence is rather miniscule in comparison, even if you count other fora.

Although I can't say it would be all that difficult to figure out about ICE, or vice versa. Generally their books are right next to each other on the book shelf (ER/ES) and are in the same style. I think the recent books even mention the other ones in the 'other books by...' sections in the start of the books (although I'd have to check that to be sure).

I agree that it should be easy to see ICE's books next to SE's and realize they are related, but I confess I had no clue that ICE was even writing Malazan books till I came to this forum.

Also, I don't see how SE's comment about how SW should be read before tCG would be relevant unless something in SW was going to show up in the final book. I mean, it could be something as broad as "the Stormwall has fallen", but I would but that it's more along the lines of Skinner and Kiska showing up, as others have said.

As a side note, I found the comment in DoD about Mallick becoming Emperor pretty obscure. I don't think I had read RotCG at the time and it simply didn't click that Laseen wasn't in charge any more (let alone that she was dead). So on a few levels I think ICE's books are really crucial to understanding the main plot.

[Salt-Man Z]

ansible, on 06 January 2011 - 04:29 PM, said:

So on a few levels I think ICE's books are really crucial to understanding the main plot.

Except, by Bonehunters at very latest, the goings-on of the Malazan Empire aren't really part of the "main" plot anymore.

This post has been edited by Salt-Man Z: 08 February 2011 - 04:27 PM

[Jorram]

Seems like I'm a little late to the party and didn't wanna start a new topic (they seem to be a bunch), so here is my take on some of the most debated points for this book.

Overall

SW is certainly worth the read though mostly for the world-building of Korel and the small bunch of important events at the end, rather than any particularly impressive narrative or writing skills. I've seen a lot of threads praising the raise of quality in Esslemont's writing but, well, I can hardly agree. In particular, his peculiar misuse of English continues to astonish me and i'm not even a native speaker. Seriously, how hard can it be to have your sentences agree in tense? And the guy's supposedly doing a PhD in literature!

Anyway, I think we should accept the "Novels of Malaz" for what they really are, i.e. complementing the main series by giving life to characters and places there was never enough space&time to fit into SE's books. As such, I take it for granted that ICE's books are bound to be more disjoint in terms of plot and I mainly value the world-building element. And hands down, we have to give it to him that Korel is far better described than Quon Tali was in ROTCG. One other improvement is that the motivation of characters seems better thought-out, especially compared to the totally nonsensical and pointless "rebellion" the Old Guard led against Lasseen in the last book, just in order to have them all gather together. All in all, SW feels less "fanboyish" and more "serious", though still hardly over the level of any random fantasy out there. Admittedly, motivation agenda is still far from the optimum, what with the seemingly pointless second invasion but more on that later. Some parts of the plot was also way too convenient and not well thought out, e.g. after millennia of fervent worship of the Lady and almost inborn fear of the impending disaster, should the Wall ever break, the population of Korel just like that started to diss her in the epilogue (the episode where the sailors find Greymane under the water). RIGHT. The ending was particularly rushed in that aspect and it really allowed for a lot more of elaboration, granted that ICE spent so much time and entire plotlines (Ivanr) just to build up Korelan societies. It would have served him better to describe in more detail how they reacted to the breaking of the wall.

Anyway. The characters are less of a hit, though still better than ROTCG as well. While K'azz and Toc the Elder were particularly disasterish in ROTCG, here my only complaint would go to Greymane, who is in my opinion a step back compared to what we saw in ROTCG from him. Since this is a new setting with almost no presence of well-known characters, i guess it's been easier for ICE to not disappoint.

Now more onto the plotlines and various musings

The second invasion

As mentioned by a zillion other posters, Kyle has undergone a tremendous positive change in this one, although thats possibly due to the relative lack of his POVs. Greymane, on the other hand, spent too much screen time being paranoid and feverish to leave a good impression. That ICE neglected to tell his story in more detail is unforgivable - thats arguably what we expected the book to be about after all!!!

Rillish was nice and I thoroughly enjoyed his POVs. By contrast, Suth was probably the worst main POV character ever in the Malazan world and thats saying a lot (we've had Heboric's POVs after all). I agree he grew up a lot during the narrative but it just doesn't compensate for the fact that he was dead boring all the time. He never had any goals, any desires, any thoughts... he was just describing events and people. Totally lifeless. A serious stepback from the analogous soldier-POV in ROTCG - Nate, whom I didn't particularly like either, but who was a lot more fun to read about.

Devaleth was a very welcome addition. I would certainly appreciate it if she features in the rest of the books. She had that Ulrik feeling to her - a modest and unlikely to boast person suddenly turning out to be awesome. I loved her.

The biggest problem with the second invasion plot was the motivation of it all. Bringing the 6th to heel? Really? Devoting all the resources necessary for an invading expedition, losing more than half of the men and ships in the blockade, paying the Moranth, just to punish a renegade Fist? Doesn't particularly sound like a practical and calculating bastard such as Mallick is, does it? Invade Korel? Well, then why draw back afterwards? Securing transport for Greymane to break the wall? Because of... altruism? Mallick?

It was seriously lacking. Thats the only thing I went "Don't go all ROTCG on me again, please" about.

The Stormwall

Awesome on all accounts. This was probably the best part of the book. I only wish we'd seen more of Iron Bars, he was too psycho all the time. The ending with Hiam was particularly good.
The only thing that could go better was the breaking of the wall. It was too long and was supposed to happen in about 2 minutes, yet people were fighting seemingly for hours in the foundations of the wall. No very disasterish.

Bakune and Banith

Serious fail there. The murders plotline was way way way too shallow as a resolution. Bakune himself grew to an annoying character way too quickly to enjoy him at all. The only good point of this storyline was the opening scene with the tribal man and Ipshank.

Ipshank and Manask

Can't wrap my head around what's so funny about Manask. It was nice for comical relief the first 5000 times around, but I could have used the time for a better fill-in of their history together, rather than the next physical joke in the line. Ipshank on the other hand was more than awesome. I seriously hope he features in some of the novellas ICE's said he'd be writing. His confrontation with the lady was probably the best part although I find it quite hard to believe she didn't have the power to smack him around, so I like to pretend she still hoped she could use him like Ussu.

Synod of Stygg

Very underestimated in terms of forum comments and particularly good sub-plot there! Some of the most enjoyable characters and probably the best parts in terms of humor. Carfin's touch of Kurald Galain I really loved. The baby-lady was a bit gross.

Ivanr and the Army of Reform

A lot of people commented on the pointlessness of this plotline. I thought it good for two main reasons. One is the nod back to ROTCG with the priestess. When it clicked that she was a Dessembrae adherent I even felt a bit awed, as in "Wow, so Esslemont CAN puzzle things together". Very nice. Btw to all the people who doubt it was the girl from the Edur ship - remember Dassems said "Go tell them" to her. I think that's as obvious as it gets I also thought for a second she should have been Edur but didn't so much care about it. Even if so, it wouldnt be the first time ICE (and SE for that matter) slipped a bit in terms of continuity.

The second good thing about the Ivanr line and I'd say its entire raison d'etre was IMO to flesh out more parts of Korel. Yes, we didnt see a LOT of Jourilan but it was still welcome to have one more place but Fist and Korel described. I don't think Ivanr served any specific philosophic purpose like proclamation of peace and whatnot. Thats rather cliche. I think world-building was the main thing here, and another nice bit of the puzzle was Martal's motivation, although to tell the truth I'd rather have her be from Stratem. All in all, Ivanr as a character was boring but I liked how his story was a bit tragic and everything went bad whenever it could. It's kind of fitting, what with serving the Lord of Tragedy

Blues/Shell/Lazar/Fingers and the rescue strike team

Good one but too little screen time. For some reason I really like Blues way back from GotM. There's some particular finesse to him. About Shell being less interesting than Shimmer - well, remember she had like five pages of screen time. Shimmer had probably a hundred. The sea-folk were a bit disappointing. ICE could have hinted at a lot more of ancient Korel there. Quite nice it turned out the CG rule (a part of) Stratem.

Ussu/Borun/The overlord

As mentioned before, Ussu was one of the best additions to the cast. His contradictory motivations, his camaraderie with Borun and his peculiar love/hate relationship with the Lady added up to a really interesting character, even though his parts started to drag out a little once he turned pure evil.

Kiska/Jheval/Warran

The biggest problem here was the feeling for page-filling. I am OK that this thread was totally disjoint from all the rest. I am also OK that it went totally nowhere and ended with a half-assed cliffhanger. What i'm not OK with are those two things combined together at the same time! As such, it only served as another piece of world-building for Shadow, but (1) it contradicted earlier descriptions, e.g. the demons; (2) there's hardly any point world-building Shadow, seeing that it's different every time we visit upon it. I didn't like the characters either. Kiska's been annoying since NoK and though she grew up a little, her outbursts of feminist stubbornness were equally annoying this time around. Leoman was OK but I felt totally cheated that he ended up like that. We've spent quite a lot of time wondering what happened to him after the QoD took him away and I for one don't really feel satisfied that she just kept him for backup and randomly assigned him to some pointless task of guarding a Claw. DUH.... Warran was also way behind the usual level of awesomeness ST has in the main series, though he had a few hits.

The black monster thing was cool, pity we didn't get to see more of it. Yath wasn't. First of all, continuity. The guy was a Soletaken Quon Talian sent to the Otataral mines. Now he is suddenly a Seven Cities holy mage. Give me a break! The Liosan also sucked though it was quite nice to see antoher Draconean there. Other than that they were bland as ever, but with less comic relief than in HoC. L'oric was particularly bad in terms of characterization. He was a LOT more sophisticated than that in HoC. A LOT.

The ending is probably setting the scene up for TCG (which i havent read yet).

Biggest awesome revelations and half-revelations

Hagen: "South of the ice wastes is Toblakai land, my friend". COOL ^ 2. However, I don't understand how it relates to the CG's kingdoms there. I hope more attention is given to Stratem in the next volumes though I find it a bit unlikely. It seems like an interesting place, what with those descriptions of a "sleeping neighbour" just opening up, the Toblakai reference, the Jheck in the ice wastes and that quote back in MOI about the Kchain chemalle ruins on Stratem.

Ussu and the revelation about the Vow. ARGH we want to know. The reference to Tellann the Jheck made was nice. As somebody pointed out, there is a lot of common between the Ritual and the Vow. Wonder if ICE will touch on that again.

The invaders of Korel in the prologue - Temal says they passed thru Drift Avalii, Malaz Isle, Dal Hon... where are they from? Perish? Shall-morzin? Falar? I remember someone saying the same about Falar - that its original inhabitants weren't all red-headed, but those were actually invaders from somewhere else.

Biggest letdowns

Of course, the Riders. I still have some hopes he will reveal more on them though
I felt quite satisfied with the Lady. Yeah, we never got to understand what she was exactly. But it wasnt as built up from before, as the Riders were. Btw in the prologue Temal says "the local cult of the Goddess which the tribes invoke in protection against us". Thats interesting before just then she offers the invaders help. It's likely that at that time the Riders already sought to pursue her. I think it's hard to say whether she existed before the fall of the CG (more likely) or was just a sentient part of him. The first part of the prologue (the fall of the CG) is vague about it. I also don't know where people got those reference about the ancient korelans and the riders living in peace. There's no single mention of the riders before the Temal episode.

Greymane's story is the other thing ostensibly lacking from the book (which is supposed to be about him). Especially given this part of the cover blurb that I honestly have no idea what it refers to:

"For there is a new Emperor on the throne of Malaz, and he is dwelling on the ignominy that is the Empire's failed invasion of the Korel subcontinent. In the vaults beneath Unta, the Imperial capital, lie the answers to that disaster. And out of this buried history surfaces the name Stonewielder. "

Would have appreciated if more light was shed on Mallick Rel's motivation and Greymane past. The blurb makes it sound as though he really meant to ensure the breaking of the wall and overthrow of the Lady but it never quite got in the book, did it? I seriously hope ICE will answer some questions about the Riders and him at least in a Q&A if not in a book...

This post has been edited by Jorram: 18 May 2011 - 10:56 AM

[Illuyankas]

Generally I agree with most of that, but aren't you getting Mr. Human Soletaken mixed up with Batshit Crazyman the mage who tried to kill everything at the end of ROTCG, because that's who was there in this book.

[Jorram]

Yyyyyeah... damn.. now that you mentioned it
Thanks (blush)

[Jorram]

Upon rereading the original opening post of the thread I realized I just repeated most of the stuff he said.. oh well

One more thing that is cool - the Ereko protection thing for Kyle. I swear until the very end of the book I never quite realized the connection. The fact that the Lady thought Kyle was protected by the Enchantress I thought to be because he was the Soldier of Life (wasn't he?). Or Soldier of Light? At the end when he said the earth protected him, I thought about Greymane and D'riss. It just never occurred to me about Ereko's amulet until he mentioned it specifically and it kind of explains both... I still think the QoD protects him because he's the Soldier though.

I don't buy the idea that Mallick ordered the second invasion because of trade routes opening up. It just doesn't add up. Besides what I quoted from the cover blurb points otherwise even though it didnt make it into the book (it kind of feels like we need a director's cut of SW special edition )

Interesting, after what happened at the end, is it true what Yeull thought - that the Korelans would curse the Malazans because they (Greymane) broke the wall? Like I said the Korelans in the epilogue seemed to be annoyingly happy with the Lady's demise.

[tiam]

Pretty much agree with what youve said there. Especially the bit about a book about the StormRiders and Greymane should cover these rather than add bits to the mystery that dont really fit with what weve heard before. A frustrating read.

[Kanese S's]

I disagree with the notion that the second invasion lacks motivation or purpose. The Malazan 6th Army has pretty completely turned renegade, in truth. Like any imperial government with at least a modicum of competence, the Malazan Empire cannot just let that stand. As someone else said, they have to stamp that shit out. They can't just have renegade armies sitting around and do nothing about it.

As well, Korel is essentially closed to trade. Empires like to make money. They're often also perfectly willing to invade a place and force a regime change to facilitate making some money if the present regime isn't cooperative enough. Just take the many European military incursions in China in the 19th Century as an example.

Finally, the Korelri campaign was a disaster that has plagued the internal reputation of the Malazan military. They essentially erase that stain, or at least negate it, by going in and crushing the Marese, the renegade 6th Army, and most impressively, essentially eliminating the Stormguard.

Gaining territory is not the only political consideration that might necessitate the use of military force.

[LordofTheFallen]

Jorram, on 18 May 2011 - 04:45 PM, said:

Like I said the Korelans in the epilogue seemed to be annoyingly happy with the Lady's demise.

Well would you not be happy with the death of a tyranical Goddess who melted your brain whenever you use magic? The Lady was not a friendly person, she attacked people without precedent and basically outlawed all magic other than to her chosen people. It would be like living with an occupying army that had a missile silo and frequently bombed places. A lot of people would be happy if that silo blew up wouldn't they?

[tiam]

LordofTheFallen, on 27 July 2011 - 03:05 AM, said:

Jorram, on 18 May 2011 - 04:45 PM, said:

Like I said the Korelans in the epilogue seemed to be annoyingly happy with the Lady's demise.

Well would you not be happy with the death of a tyranical Goddess who melted your brain whenever you use magic? The Lady was not a friendly person, she attacked people without precedent and basically outlawed all magic other than to her chosen people. It would be like living with an occupying army that had a missile silo and frequently bombed places. A lot of people would be happy if that silo blew up wouldn't they?

Also we see that the church and cloister of the Lady did very l;ittle to benefit the commonality. That was one of the pulls for the army of Reform and also Ipshank. They might now be open to other gods.

[Whiskey Bass]

just a few thoughts,

my take on the Lady was that she was probably a water spirit / minor ascendant of Ruse, who grabbed a few unclaimed peices of TCG and used them to keep the Stormriders at bay, while she grew fat with power, off the worship of the people of Fist and the devotion and blood sacrifice of the Stormguard.

also i liked Suth, Ivanr and Bakune, not everybody is a worldshaker and not all investigations are satisfactorily concluded, fumbling mediocrity is the norm.