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By my brother. I was looking for something new, so he gave them to me to read. I think he's still struggling through Toll The Hounds at the moment. It was right before Midnight Tides came out, so I was something like 13-14 at the time. I hadn't gravitated past Eddings and Harry Potter at that stage, so it was quite revelatory in comparison. I was hooked from the first page, pretty much, and blitzed through the next three. Thinking about it now, that was probably the moment I really started to get into fantasy. Thanks bro.
2) What brought you to Malazan Empire forums?
What brings most people here probably. A plethora of questions, and a desire to talk with others about it, as I had no one to talk about it with - my brother wasn't half as excited about it as I was, and my friends were sick of me trying to get them to read it. Probably wanted to know when the next book came out too, as I think Reaper's Gale came out not long after I joined.
3) Are you a member of many other forums?
I'm a member of a fantasy football forum that a couple of my friends own and operate. That's Australian Rules football by the way - real football. It's a SuperCoach one for the Aussies out there. Other than that I'm not a member of any other forums. I signed up to Westeros a couple of years ago after I read ASOIAF for the first time, but I don't think I ever posted. I don't think I'm sufficiently passionate about anything else that requires a forum to post on - most forms of entertainment/sport are discussed here anyway lol.
4) Do you remember your first post? What was it and who responded?
I do remember my first post. It was in a thread about (spoilers just in case)
Spoiler
The thread was something like 10 pages long when I jumped in and shared my thoughts. I got the 'somebody said that two pages ago, read the fucking thread n00b' treatment I'm fairly sure. Can't remember who said it. I think my second post was completely ignored too. That didn't deter me though, and I'm still here almost four years later.
5) Which members do you feel a special connection with?
Well, most recently there's Dag, for our (well, her) morning chats, and snake, for being a funny bastard in the chat. Then there's also the Mafia crew and the Trickster regulars. I have a lot of fun talking about stuff in the book forums with D'rek, Sinisdar, Abyss and all the others too.
6) So…a traveling sack. Was this a fit of cleverness, or is there something more behind your name? And why the change to the shorter “MTS”?
I dunno if it was cleverness, but it was certainly a fit of some kind. My first choice was taken actually, but I can't remember what name I originally chose. I don't think there was any particular reason I chose it. It was probably spurred on by having read Bonehunters recently, and I do like Mappo as a character.
As for the shortening, it always bothered me that because it was so long the forum didn't show the whole thing, and so when HD shortened his from HoosierDaddy, I decided to follow suit. Maybe SB calling me 'the Sack' for a while played a role too.
I've never really liked it as a name either, and despite the acronym being linked to various transit and telecom companies, numerous diseases and even means STD in French, I haven't been bothered to change it.
7) What fantasy series would be your second choice behind (obviously) MBotF?
That's tough. If I were to choose, it would be one of Feist/Wurts' Empire trilogy (which I've probably re-read 5+ times), Butcher's Dresden Files and GGK's Sarantine Mosaic.
8) Can you hold your drink, and what's your drink of choice?
I like to think I can hold my drink, for my size anyway. Drink of choice depends on where I am. Generally a nice cold lager is my drink of choice, but occasionally I'll break out the goon (otherwise known as a $10 bag of cask wine) if money's tight or we have a rotating clothesline to play Goon of Fortune on, and I do like my rum/vodka and cokes in between skittle shots and jager bombs when I'm at a club. I've never been a fan of whiskey, bourbon or any other dark spirits though. Blasphemy, I know.
9) What members would you particularly like to meet in real life (who you have not met previously)?
I've only met Sindriss so far, so there really isn't anyone I wouldn't like to meet. Hoping to make my way across to Europe sometime in the near future, so I'd get plenty of opportunity then. I doubt any of you would be worse guides than I was to Sindriss.
10) So, what exactly are you doing with your life?
I'm going to uni in Canberra, doing a regular Arts degree, majoring in English and Classics. So a lot of people would say 'nothing' at the moment, and they wouldn't be totally off-base either. In my third year, so my last year of undergrad. Hoping to do an Honours year next year. Haven't really thought any further than that really. I'm also working casual in a local supermarket, as well as working the bar at the local indoor soccer place, which is great fun.
11) If you were stranded on a desert island with only one MBotF, which one is it?
Ooh, this is even tougher than the second favourite series question. I'll say Toll The Hounds, as it's definitely the most beautifully written of them all, and I do have a soft spot for great prose. I could re-read that book a hundred times and still be blown away by the writing.
Besides, worst comes to worst I could use it as a raft.
12) If you met Steven Erikson and you could only ask one question, what would it be?
WHY MAPPO?! WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
13) Who is you favorite character from the series?
I'm going to be very boring and say Shadowthrone. Everything about him is brilliant though. Brings down walls with earthquakes, fakes his own death, wily as hell, annoys and confounds every god in the pantheon, commands undead armies, is certifiably insane, had a demon for a bouncer, an assassin god for a companion, steals every scene he's in and best of all, he's one of the few people who manage to remain badass with a cane.
Not that you asked, but least favourite character? The Errant. Bastard.
14) You can travel around the world with your own Mappo’s Traveling Sack. What 5 items would we find stuffed in there?
Certainly not the mangled corpses of Tairy, Stephenie Meyer, Justin Bieber, a certain lazy asshat at work and my iPod for some good tunage...
15) Who wins?
*rocks back and forth, hugging self*
What is happening to me...?
16) What are your music preferences? Do you play an instrument?
Pretty much anything with a guitar I'm likely to love. My tastes range from all kinds of metal, screamo, alternative, psychedelic and 'indie' rock. I even like some electropop, like Passion Pit and Owl City. I really only stay away from mass-produced auto-tune garbage, rap and techno. Anything else I've got a fair chance of liking.
I used to play drums for a while. I stopped a couple of years ago, mainly because I had nowhere to practice and my drum kit was a piece of shit. Not being very good didn't help either.
17) Do you do any creative writing yourself?
I'm not nearly creative enough for that. I used to back in high school though. Wrote a few short stories, and one poem, before realising I'm utterly horrible at writing poetry. It gave me a great admiration for what others can do with a few words though, so there's that.
18) When not reading MBotF, what are you typically curling up with?
Fantasy, mostly. Not a lot of sci-fi though. I generally make my way through the recommendations that people make on here, so my TRP is pretty long. Top of the list right now is John Scalzi's Old Man's War, Lukyanenko's Night Watch, Patrick Lee's Ghost Country and Wise Man's Fear.
As an English student I also end up reading a lot of 'literature' as well. Recently I had to read Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Phillip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. They were for a novel vs. film course too, so I got to watch Apocalypse Now and Blade Runner on top of that. Awesome.
19) Do you keep a personal library, or do the books just cycle through your possession?
Not really. I have a decent-size collection (maybe 50-60?), but that was amassed when I had parents that would buy me stuff. Now I buy the occasional book if I want it badly enough, but apart from SE I still wait for a bit before I do so. Nowadays the library is my best friend for reading material.
20) Please bare one random little known fact about yourself for the peanut gallery please.
I accidentally drove a motorbike through a picket fence when I was 15. Didn't break anything luckily, but I've got a nice little scar on my chest about 6-7 cm long from clipping a protruding nail on the way through though. Suffice it to say, my uncle's never let me near one of his motorbikes again.
This post has been edited by Shinrei: 20 September 2011 - 06:17 AM
' smiley there, it was half in jest. But oh, what a terrible other half... 
