[King Bear]

Just finished stonewielder and...




**SPOILERS**




After 50-80 pages that it took to settle into the different POVS, I found myself thoroughly enjoying stonewielder and each of its myriad plotlines. Throughout the first "book" ('The Sea') and the Second ('The Land'), I was hooked. This novel, I thought, while not quite so outstanding as Erikson's efforts could stand proudly alongside them on my book-shelf. But about half-way through the third part of Stonewielder I started to worry. There was not much book left, and to my mind still a lot of ground to cover. I expected revealations and background on the storm-riders and the lady, and some impressive epic sequences to finish it all off and leave me stunned and awed. I didn't get any of this. I learnt pretty much NOTHING about the storm-riders (except they're after the chests, and they're Liosan??) and bugger all about the Lady. Graymane ran off, swung a sword into some rock, and a wall fell down. *Ding!* All done. Why was he given the sword, what exactly was the sword? The lady did nothing more than whinge and throw a temper-tantrum and then apparently blink out of existence. A confrontation was sorely needed with her. The Ivanr and Assessor plotlines seemed to come to very little, though it was nice that they both came out doing well. And after all that the Malazans packed up and went home.

What a disappointing ending to what had been a really enjoyable book. This was the only time I did not feel blown away by the ending to a Malazan novel. I was so underwhelmed I actually put the book down and started fantasising about a better ending. Maybe the lady could have sent someone to stop graymane, or perhaps have acted directly against him herself? I loved the part with Skinner stealing a chest, and would liked to have seen other CG agents turn up for at least one of the other two chests. I assume they were just as important to the CG as the one Skinner took, and it would have knitted in Stonewielder even tighter with TCG, and raised the awesome factor a few notches. Maybe while Kyle and co. were fighting the Stormguard, a disavowed could have gated in and started hacking at everyone. Ah well, I can dream.

This post has been edited by Bombur: 09 February 2011 - 09:22 AM

[Khellendros]

Rest assured, you're not alone in your thoughts on the book. I think probably two-thirds of the posts in this part of the forum cover the exact same lingering questions/complaints.

What got me was finding out that Stonewielder was in a 'finished' state two years before publication. So he wasn't exactly pushed to meet a deadline and thus hadn't had time to properly go over some bits. I don't know, maybe ICE really is leaving the unanswered questions for his other novels, but for some reason I find that hard to believe.

[King Bear]

Khellendros, on 09 February 2011 - 10:17 AM, said:

Rest assured, you're not alone in your thoughts on the book. I think probably two-thirds of the posts in this part of the forum cover the exact same lingering questions/complaints.

What got me was finding out that Stonewielder was in a 'finished' state two years before publication. So he wasn't exactly pushed to meet a deadline and thus hadn't had time to properly go over some bits. I don't know, maybe ICE really is leaving the unanswered questions for his other novels, but for some reason I find that hard to believe.

I find that hard to believe too. The Lady and the Storm-riders were integral to SW and the Koreli continent, and as far as I can tell ONLY the Koreli continent. So not only did it make sense for them to be explained in SW, but I don't see where they would be relevant later on in the series. Unless the Storm-riders are now free to go wherever they like, and so turn up in Jacurucku or Assail.

Even so, keeping info on them from us in SW really hurt the book.

[champ]

We have to remember that SE didn't answer everything to start off with...

SW is only ICE's 3rd book and if SE is anything to go by, we were only ending up further in the mire with MoI and what the hell is going on...

Heck, the 2nd book DG revealed the Jade Giants and we still don't know what they are...

But unfortunately this may be misguided optimism from a Malazan addict... I can only hope ICE picks up his game...

[King Bear]

champooon, on 09 February 2011 - 11:42 AM, said:

We have to remember that SE didn't answer everything to start off with...

SW is only ICE's 3rd book and if SE is anything to go by, we were only ending up further in the mire with MoI and what the hell is going on...

Heck, the 2nd book DG revealed the Jade Giants and we still don't know what they are...

But unfortunately this may be misguided optimism from a Malazan addict... I can only hope ICE picks up his game...

The thing is, I never really felt that lack of info hurt the story in MOI or DG. Maybe it's because SE wisely chose to explain what the plot needed explained. Imagine a situation in MOI similar to what we have in SW, where SE consistently refused to give us information on the Pannions. Or a lack of POVs from the Whirlwind rebels in DG. What I mean is, the Pannions were central to MOI, the Whirlwind to DG. In MOI we learnt a lot about the Pannion domin and became very familiar with it, and the same with the whirlwind in DG. The Lady adn the Storm-riders are crucial to SW, but SW tells us very little about them.

This post has been edited by Bombur: 09 February 2011 - 01:54 PM