[End of Disc One]

 You Killed His Dog, on 12 April 2011 - 08:51 AM, said:

I'm also rather bothered by people saying this book lacked an epic feel... I'm sorry but every Dragon in that books Universe turned up to try and kill the Otat one and she left a road of dead dragons behind her. Also a god of war died above one of the largest battles known in the MBOTF and rained his blood down bringing the T'lan Imass back from their undying life.

If that's directed towards me, I thought the feel was very epic as it has been throughout the whole series. I appreciate the epic stuff that did happen, but more often than not, things were shut down before they got too out of hand.

I forgot to mention Icarium and Calm...I really wanted to see Icarium unleashed.

[korik]

Personally I never expected the series to end neatly wrapped up and tied with a bow. The Malazan series always was, from the very first book, dipping into a fully formed world and running with it for a while. The world had a whole history that we will never likely hear in detail from the first person, however much we may want to (e.g. Bridgeburner history, the old emperor's conquests...) and you have to expect that it will have a similar future as well. You just have to enjoy the story that we have and the rest is up to you.....

[You Killed His Dog]

 End of Disc One, on 12 April 2011 - 12:19 PM, said:

 You Killed His Dog, on 12 April 2011 - 08:51 AM, said:

I'm also rather bothered by people saying this book lacked an epic feel... I'm sorry but every Dragon in that books Universe turned up to try and kill the Otat one and she left a road of dead dragons behind her. Also a god of war died above one of the largest battles known in the MBOTF and rained his blood down bringing the T'lan Imass back from their undying life.

If that's directed towards me, I thought the feel was very epic as it has been throughout the whole series. I appreciate the epic stuff that did happen, but more often than not, things were shut down before they got too out of hand.

I forgot to mention Icarium and Calm...I really wanted to see Icarium unleashed.

It may have been directed at you. I'm not to sure. I was rambling pretty heavily.

Yeah I'd like to see Icarium unleashed to but I doubt he can be. He just seems to destroy everything around him and I'm not sure if he can be stopped. If he got unleashed the book would probably end with the description of a crater or something

I'm not sure if he is as destructive as I imagine him to be but I'm pretty sure the damage he did in the main city of Lether was minimal compared to his normal antics.

[worry]

You still drunk?

[Use Of Weapons]

For me, the events were suitably epic, but the text describing them didn't have the same impact as previously in the series.

[jaysen]

I just wanna say that dispite the very short view of the Ganoes-Tavore reunion, I thought that what was there was so powerfull that anymore and I'd have been blubbering like a fool in the student union for all to witness.
I loved the book.

[Crow Clan Baby]

Been thinking, re-reading comments and arguments, digesting stuff, etc. Here's my take which is valid as of now.

Yeah, I was mildly disappointed too. Disappointed that there wasn't more, disappointed that it all had to come to an end, disappointed that a lot of story arcs I was interested in were left hanging.

But.

As a conclusion to the MBotF, The Crippled God worked fine and satisfied me immensely on those terms. TCG is the titular character of the series after all, The Fallen One himself, so one would need to be pretty much asleep to miss the fact that the primary focus of the last book would be what it was.

If that sounds like damning the book with faint praise, and as little more than a convenient vehicle to wind things up with, then it wasn't. There were more than enough Crowning Moments of Awesome throughout the book to put it in the top 3 or 4 of the series (sorry Steve, you still haven't topped Deadhouse Gates yet IMO, but I'm looking forward to seeing - and reading! - what happens when you get there in the future!)

It should be quite obvious to anyone who's read the series that this series was a snapshot of a world that is much much huger in scope - both in space and in time - than the first few books ever hinted at. Throughout that snapshot we saw various stories and characters wander in and out, not all of them relevant to the main story being told. That's a Good Thing - it means that the author(s) is/are no one-trick pony/ponies. There's more good stuff to come from both co-creators, and instead of a simplistic story with a start, middle and end, we've got a huge and vibrant history to dip our toes into and come out feeling refreshed, shaken, awed, shocked, or sometimes all at once.

In other words, passing judgement on the Malazan works based on the telling of one particular part of the story seems a mite short-sighted indeed. This is a colossal story and it's still being told.