Last year when I finished Stonewielder I complained that Esslemont and Erikson were bad story tellers. Not bad writers per say, for from it in fact, but they, Esslemont particularly, can't seem to tell a story properly. Or rather, maybe, it is that they are telling each other a story and us the readers are left standing by the way side oblivious to all the secret events and truths that they omit from their narrative. What ever, the point is that this book was meandering, vague and lacked any willingness to commit to what it promises. This was yet another convergence that fizzled out and turned into what I would now describe as the patented "Malazan blue balls of unexpected story turns".
It is like the writers have a dogma that they have to abide by when writing the story.
Rule nr. 1 - First rule of Malazan storytelling club is that you never ever tell the reader anything important. Do not under any circumstances let them know what is actually going on in the story. Give them all kinds of POVs but never tell them anything.
Rule nr. 2 - Second rule is the same as the first only spelled in capital letters like Brad Pitt was shouting them.
Rule nr. 3 - Have some kind of philosophical or political point you want to make, use new characters POV to do so.
Rule nr. 4 - Introduce at least 5 known power houses into the story. Imply that they will destroy EVERYTHING any minute now. Have them do fuck all.
Rule nr. 5 - Spend 900 pages implying how dangerous the Big Bad is and how terrible the coming convergence will be, then dismantle everything in a few pages by having quirky side character/ mischievous deus ex malazan pull out a new/old/something borrowed that changes everything and the story is over.
I really liked the set-up of the book but it never went anywhere. The first section with Ebbin was like something out of a HP Lovecraft story, really good. This tyrant had something that all the prior bad guys, perhaps with the exception of MOI, was missing, that being a feeling of "terrible dread". Antsy's preparations for going to the Spawns was also really foreboding. ANYTHING could happen.
Then the book gets going and... nothing is happening. NOTHING. Some mages teleport around the continent being mean. Pointless sections with patented Malazan soldier monologue. Ascendants get constipated. Random b-list characters go about their lives interspersed by brief sections of awesome where the Seguleh fuck up everything.
This is going on for a while and before I realise it there is only a couple hundred pages left AND THE BOOK HAS YET TO GET INTO GEAR, FFFFFFFFFFUUUUU....
Here's my problem with this book, the reason why I will call it boring. The same problem that TTH and DOD has. The book has no escalation of threat. No sense of impending Doom. It has no armies of Mordor marching upon the human kingdoms. It has no James Bond villain with his finger upon the Weapon of Mass Destruction 5 seconds before the world ends. It doesn't even have a Big Bad guy that you would expect to kick every ones ass if they encroach upon his domain. All you have is a mysterious tyrant sitting on a Throne, with a magic dome over his head, with some rather incompetent mages doing his biding. The seguleh were never really that imposing. We always knew munitions would kill them and if that wasn't enough an angry mage or a cloud of d'ivers could have killed them just as easily. Yes, Seguleh are cool, but I think this book demonstrated that Seguleh are cool in small numbers and when they are acting mysteriously, not when they are marching around on the field of battle. Then they are just another army.
The stuff at the Spawns was also tremendously underwhelming. As nice a guy as Antsy is, he's not really strong enough to carry his own story line. And the story he was in was not really that interesting when you realised that this wasn't a dungeon crawl/raiders of the lost arc type of story but more of a cannibal disaster movie. We didn't get nearly enough lore or info dumps and the protagonists and antagonist weren't really enough to keep the story moving. For it to have been really good, an actual Throne of Night would have needed to be there and it should have revealed a lot earlier as the "macguffin". If I hadn't read the blurb on the back of the book I would have been even more at a loss to what the point of that story line was. (was there a point? I suspect the entire thread was just a means of creating Orchid for Eriksons Kharkanas trilogy)
For this book to have been really good, you would have needed scenes where all 12 mages were out and about doing horrible stuff like destroying armies and blowing up cities. Like The Lady's henchmen in the Black Company book for example. Darujistan should be fielding horrible automaton stone soldiers, fanatical brain washed citizen armies and 50,000 undead seguleh arising from the dwelling plain marching upon Pale, Capustan, the Moranth, everything. Setting us up for epic city sieges and lasts stands of deadlocked armies. Meanwhile in Darujistan the Elect should have been busy conjuring up some kind of magical doomsday scenario. Like summoning an ancient warren of OH SHIT or maybe, tying in with this rulership business, he should have been trying to usurp the Deck of Dragons or something like that. Everything should be up in the air. Ascendants should be charging him and getting struck down. Gods should be meddling and making deals. Oponn should be having a field day.
But nope. Everyone is busy at another disappointing convergence on the other side of the world, so unfortunately only the B-team was available for cameo's that day. And that is a problem. Right here, just making up random scenarios, I've written a more interesting plot than Esslemon wrote over the course of a year.
Erikson at one point stated that he hasn't wanted or hadn't had time to go back and re-read the older books. Maybe Esslemont hasn't either. This is bad for the development of the series because it hit a high note in MOI with a multitude of armies, ascendants and general WTF'edness going on everywhere. For you to continue to meet the expectations of your readers you need to either reach at least the same level of awesome as MOI or try to surpass it. This book isn't even trying.
Which brings me to another problem I have with the book. Where was the normal Malazan tragedies? The heart break? The pointless soul wrenching loss of life? The mindless destruction? Nobody of interest even dies in this book? Maybe I'm forgetting some one important but for the life of me I can't remember a single person of interest dying except that sergent who got blinded, some awesome fist ("least we wounded one of them") and... oh Jan, yeah, now I remember, but who wasn't expecting that guy to die. Coll should have died of a heart attack, Torvalds wife should have died from an errant bomb explosion, Picker or Blend should have been crushed by the automaton, Corien should have died from his wound, Taya should have been falcon punched to death by Topper, Rallick should have been killed by Taya, Baruk should have been mercy killed by Kruppe, Duiker should have died in some stupid sacrifice, Leoman should have walked into the Vir, Karsa should have killed EVERYONE IN THE ENTIRE CITY etc. etc.
I remember a thread a year or two ago complaining that Fiddler was Eriksons Mary Sue (character that never dies) well, you know who this series real Mary Sue is? Fucking Darujistan. WHY IS DARUJISTAN STILL STANDING. FUCKING STUPID CITY. JUST DIE ALREADY. Munitions buried in its streets. A super demon fighting with a draconic ascendant. A Jaghut Tyrant on a rampage. Two ascendant twins having a mage battle. A dozen hounds running amok. A sword fight between Rake and Traveller. A FUCKING BARRAGE OF CUSSERS! WHY WONT YOU DIE, DARUJISTAN!? WHY!? We always hear that when powers converge, ascendants clash, etc. that cities are destoyed, countries fall, continents are lain waste... well? I really thought this time they are actually going to do it.
If this book had wanted to impress me, to actually commit to world changing events, either Brood would have destroyed the city (Not realising the dome was unbreakable) or the Moranth would have destroyed it anyway because [missing doomsday device plot] was still a threat. But no. Kruppe and Scorch and Leff saved the day. GOD DAMMIT.
So I repeat, this book was boring. Nothing of significance happens in this book. NOTHING.
But wait Apt, that's not true you say. Tayschren becomes a god. Dassem becomes the First. Who gives a shit? .... Not me. Those two plot strands were so god damn obvious and telegraphed that you could see them from the moment they got introduced. Oh hey, the 8th is looking for the 7th, Dassem is now a pacifist and the tittle of 1st is open. I really can't guess where Esslemont is going with this. What? Tayschren is immune to the touch of chaos, was remade by a creator of worlds and has lost his memory? I wonder if he is going to regain his conciousness and be completely different. WHAT A TWIST. As much as I liked seeing these two guys again, because lets face it, awesome shit happens every time they take a breath, their sections were predictable, drawn out and in the end amounted to fuck all in the main story line which should have been the important part. Why not time it so that Tay arrived in time to defeat Baruk and that clone of the Limper from the Black Company? Why not time it so that Dassem arrives in time to kill the top Seguleh, because [missing ploy device] had to be stopped before the Elect turned into the State Puff Marshmallow Man?
What's that? It would have been too awesome? Yeah, you're probably right. Better to have Baruk just disappear the last 200 pages. That limper guy crumple for no apparent reason. And Kruppe deus ex machina the Elect with the help of Scorch and Leff. (By the way are those two some kind of ascendants a la the drunks from Lether? Because I think they mainly live off alcohol.)
Again, like last year when I made a thread bitching about the authors story telling, I will say that the book had its moments and Esslemont continues to improve. I just wish the guy had some kind of circle of trusted proof readers that could look at his script and tell him that he needs to turn the awesome all the way up to 11 because the story isn't powerful enough.
This post has been edited by Aptorius: 18 February 2012 - 08:49 PM