[Defiance]

Just finished up the last 300 pages of Toll the Hounds today for the second time (so amazing, everything with Mother Dark and Rake brings tears to my eyes) and decided to get a start on Stonewielder. I was a bit worried, as I need to read both this and Dust of Dreams by the 28th. While I enjoy ICE's books, I found that his writing lacks the flow of more accomplished authors, such as Erikson or Martin. Night of Knives was enjoyable and Return of the Crimson Guard was very interesting, but I had trouble getting through the latter (NoK was short enough that I was able to speed through it). I found myself reading the majority of RotCG in 20-50 page sittings, which made my progress very slow. There were some great parts - I loved Nait in particular - but to me it felt like ICE was struggling with his writing. Anyway, my worry was that I would not be able to read Stonewielder at a quick pace, which might leave me with little to no time to read Dust of Dreams before TCG hits the shelves (and there's no way in hell I'm not starting that baby the day it comes out - in the US, that is).

My fears have subsided, though. I'm about sixty pages into Stonewielder, and the writing is leaps and bounds better than any of ICE's previous work. The story is captivating as well - I don't think I'm going to have any trouble putting this one down.

This makes me very excited for the Darujhistan novel (Orb, Scepter, Throne I believe it's called...). I'm very interested in the resolution to the whole business revolving around the Tyrant/Humble Measure/Seguleh, especially since Toll the Hounds spent a good amount of time focusing on it, only to leave us hanging at the end.

Anyway, I kindly ask that you refrain from spoilers in this topic (if you must, I ask that you please use tags), but has anyone else had a similar experience?

[blackzoid]

Definitely. SW is miles better than the disjointed mess that was RoTCG. It flows very well and has some great individual characters.
Its ICE's best by a wide margin and compares well with SE's. If you want to directly compare the authors, I think its a better book than RG. Although ICE has said that NoK and RoTCG were written quite some time ago, and he only recently wrote SW, so there is an explanation for his increase in writing skill.

[D'iversify]

SW is ICE's best, though RotCG is in places very charming in its messiness and NoK is excellent if short (but it admittedly couldn't have been otherwise). Still, SW isn't perfect, and I'd be reluctant to compare ICE's work with Erikson's, although that's also partially because I find them very different writers (ICE is simply more fun at times but he's never been quite able to reach the heights of pathos Erikson achieves).

[End of Disc One]

I loved the epic mess that was RotCG. SW was good and definitely written better, but it didn't blow me away like RotCG.

[Defiance]

About 150 pages in now or so. Really interested in seeing how Greymane's Burn sword (assuming it's hers at this point) and the Stormriders are connected. I'm also wondering if there's a connection between CG and the Stormriders - are they trying to make pilgrimage to one of the "fall" sights? Really have no clue at this point.

Also, Leoman! Awesome.

[Lister of Smeg]

What really annoyed me about SW is how two of the storylines just had little to no impact upon the main crux of the book. I just felt jarred out of the main story every time they appeared.

That and the awful, awful prose in some of his sections. And what's with the random italicisation of whole paragraphs? It would have made sense if it was just for internal thoughts like SE and others do, but that wasn't the case in this book. And the casual dropping of words like "retard" which really didn't fit with this world. If anything I think SW was a step back from RotCG. I'm certainly in no hurry to reread it.

[Traveller]

Not commenting on the content here, but I think Stonewielder is in a different class altogether, writing-wise, to ICE's previous books. This felt far more like a finished article to me - not like an early draft that was good, but really needed work.