[Axil]

Who gets completely lost when Erikson begins writing about sorcery? The parts of his books with extensive plots about warrens, ghosts, ascendants, father shadow/mother darkness, holds, tiles, azath etc. are very hard to get through. Don't get me wrong, Erikson is a genius when it comes to battles, horrific scenes of gore, and witty dialogue, but it takes me months to get through his books because I struggle so much to read the first 3/4 of his books in order to get to the epic finales or amazing side plots like The Chain of Dogs or Y'Ghatan.

Am I just lacking in reading comprehension or does it seem like Erikson gets lost in his own world sometimes (a lot)?

[King-of-Chains]

Would you like the simple answer or the complicated one? How about both?

Simple: Yes

Complicated: It's not so much that he loses you on purpose, but that he understands the mechanics of his creation so well that he sometimes loses sight that the reader won't always understand what he is talking about no matter how he words it. As I writer I do the same thing all the time. I also share a similar style to Erikson where you either follow me or you don't and if you don't then you lose out. When you're creating you tend to sometimes lose sight of the audience in a general sense and begin to focus on a very narrow set. In these cases Erikson almost shuts everyone out and focusses on Esslemont, his co-creator, so to speak. Writers can see what they're writing in their heads as clear as day, and we're notorious for wording it in ways we understand, but not everyone else. Sure editors are there to stop such things, except they're not perfect and sometimes the words are just clear enough for them that they don't even see the problem.

Anyway, I have no problem following Erikson and his system of magic, I do believe I don't visualize it correctly all the time, however interpretation is up to the reader.

[Sinisdar Toste]

agreed. the mechanics of warrens, holds, who begat whom, and the various dragons delineating the flavours of k'ruls blood and everything is extremely convoluted. and i didn't even mention soletaken and d'ivers, t'iam, otataral, spirit magic and all the rest. usually i find this type of stuff fascinating though.

i do think that it's slightly strange to then go and call the first 3/4 of the books a slog because you don't follow his magic systems. a large portion of those first 3/4s are devoted to character and the build up of tension, not merely talking about metaphysics. though with certain arcs you inevitably run into the fact that this world is 300,000+ years old and that makes for a lot of mysteries that less than a handful of people actually know the truth about. thus increasing the potential for confusion in the reader. but this is what makes the series fun for me!

the elaborate skeleton of existence and magic are amazing, conceptually, and the way they play out in the story make for great reading imo.

[D'iversify]

I didn't have too much difficulty with the Warrens system but when he introduces the Holds system in MT, in particular during Feather Witch's seance, I was baffled to say the least. I came to understand it later as I read further into the series and becamee more accustomed to it. Anyway, I think there might have been an element of deliberate confusion and obfuscation with the seance, as Erikson (a) wanted to show us how different the Holds system is to the Warrens, (he prefers throwing us into the middle of things rather than spoon-feeding the reader - there's an element of his anthropological tendencies here; he tries to create a vivid, 'living' system of magic which we have to learn how to understand through experience and observation rather than being taught how it works by direct tutorial.

This post has been edited by D'iversify: 08 April 2011 - 08:25 AM

[HedgeWalker]

On the whole I don't find sorcery anymore confusing than other areas of the books. Largely it would seem to be due to the POV nature; if the character from who's perspective things are being viewed has no deep understanding of what's happening, you don't have the explanation/details available immediately. Couple that with further perspective or details not being available for considerable time and you have confusion!

I do the "Trust in Erikson" thing when confused, it more often than not pays off as a penny-drops somewhere in the future...

[Tripps]

To be totally honest I do have moments of "what the hell is this? who the hell is this guy again" but I don't think this detracts from the books in anyway. The world of the Malaz is huge and really really really old and at times very confusing. I doubt there are many, if any, characters in the stories who truly understand everything that is going on.
Part of me thinks that maybe this is also delberate. My favorite movie is the Big Lebowski. The first time you watch it, great. second time you notice something you didn't the first time. That makes you watch it again and this time to REALLY pay attention, and thens when you notice the look on Donny's face the only time he doesn't get a strike and later goes on to die, or the scissors in the painting that the dude is later chased by, etc etc.
So basically I would suggest when your brain begins to melt, carry on as best you can and look forward to the reread because I know there are clues out there in earlier books that you have missed first time around, and when you pick them up 2nd time its gunna be sweeeeet! I cant wait for my reread!

[Abyss]

Axil, on 22 March 2011 - 12:23 AM, said:

[Am I the only one...] Who gets completely lost when Erikson begins writing about sorcery? ...

Yep. Afraid it's just you.

Would you minding going to stand over there with the BELGARIAD re-read people ok thanks buh-bye.



...

Oh okay, fine, it's not just you....

Keep in mind that for the most part SE writes from various POVs, and to various degrees, most of the characters don't understand just what they're doing either.

The reader can connect the dots to a certain extent, but it's far from straightforward.

By limitted example, the whole Holds-Warrens/Holds-Houses thing... these are essentially the 'evolution' of magic, from a raw uncontrolled state, to a more refined, specialized state, also as seen through an attempt to impose order on the massively chaotic forces, aspects and individuals using that magic. And at various points i the series the various stages co-exist (specifically when the warrens follow the Malazans to Leth, where Hold magic is still in use, to say nothing of the Elder stuff and Chaos the Edur were throwing around).

So how clear is evolution? Not very. Disregarding various silly things, science is constantly arguing about which flavour of sardine we all evolved from. Now apply that approach to magic...

Unlike a lot of other books' systems where the Aged Mentor Figure Explains All, here you don't have that kind of empirical rule.

Which is a part of what makes this series so awesome.

[Lousy]

Abyss, on 03 May 2011 - 09:39 PM, said:

Axil, on 22 March 2011 - 12:23 AM, said:

[Am I the only one...] Who gets completely lost when Erikson begins writing about sorcery? ...

Yep. Afraid it's just you.

Would you minding going to stand over there with the BELGARIAD re-read people ok thanks buh-bye.



...

Oh okay, fine, it's not just you....

Hilarious! A Belgariad reference (a series which I will always treasure, btw, because it got me into Fantasy once and for all)... nonetheless, this is what I love about the Malazan-verse and the way SE presents it. Nothing is just explained right away, bits and pieces here and there, you have to work for your room & board... and frankly I'd have it no other way. Keeps the amateurs away....

[Crow Clan Baby]

If you're trying too hard to understand it then you're doing it wrong. Erikson's metaphysics/cosmology is deeply complex, and I get the feeling that it's deliberately presented in this manner to convey the impression that sorcery has on regular grunts. You need to put yourself in the shoes of someone like Fiddler. He's been exposed to sorcery lots of times, he has the basics of concepts and terminology, but he doesn't quite get the full picture and will always be uneasy about it (hell, he's uneasy about his own deck reading talent).

It's also part of the process of upending fantasy cliches. Read most anything else and you're commonly presented with a nice clean and internally self-consistent explanation of how sorcery works. Not so in Erikson. Here it's messy mysterious stuff, you're never fully sure what's going on, and even those who use it are effectively playing with matches.

[BlackMoranthofDoom]

I definitely did have trouble identifying with sorcery early on in the series (warren?, house? hold?) and in some ways even after volumes we still dont have a clear picture of sorcery despite understanding the fundamenta mechanisms.

I think part of the reason might also have to do witht the way ambiguous Erikson writes, he usually doesn't describe magic in detai,l simply using terms like "sorcery was unleashed or a grey wave was forming..."

Like others have said earlier, Erikson doesn't spoon feed his audience, instead relying on us to put the pieces together. Since magic is both highly present in the malazan world and acts as a mysterious characters will either know how it worls thus not explaning it or will speculate instead.