[worry]

Your boredom is an honest reaction; it is yours and you own it. But it can be nobody else's responsibility, leastwise an artist with an unshakeable personal vision. I'm sure there are mountains among all human creation out there you would inevitably find boring, and hopefully many that you would not. That is the way of things. My copy of The Crippled God had not a single boring page. I plan to read it several times over before I die, and will consider that time well spent. Hopefully you've been blessed with something like that before, and will be again and again.

[Ulrik]

bluedust, on 02 March 2012 - 03:16 AM, said:

worrywort, on 02 March 2012 - 03:04 AM, said:

With all that time SE was spending with the Bonehunters and some others, he was likely just saying goodbye to many of them. So were readers, whether they know it or not at the time. And they're gone now.

But it was boring as shit for 400 pages. Make a side series and it's cool.

Honestly if DoD wasn't billed as half of the end I probably wouldn't have cared so much. But I ran through DoD, got to tCG and found half of it didn't have anything happen. I loved reading everyone's thoughts, but man.

No, it wasnt.

This post was scanned by Totally Honest IMO Machine.

[Lister of Smeg]

I have to say the only bit of tCG I found boring was the more action-packed Shake storyline, mainly because I hated those characters.

In contrast, the Bonehunters may have done little more than march for most of the book, but I loved every second of it. The whole army felt like a family to me, even bitter old Blistig. And all that time Erikson spent with them made their actions later in the book (Blistig's attempted betrayal, Tavore's forgiving of him, the soldiers fighting so hard for the Adjunct) make a lot more sense to us. I felt like I was with them for every step of their journey across the Glass Desert. I genuinely didn't want any of them to die. If I was to make a Top 10 characters of the series, probably over half would be Bonehunters.

So while it might have felt more epic with massive convergences (not that we didn't get one - come on, we had Jaghut, T'lan Imass, KCCM, Forkrul Assail ...) I'm glad Erikson went with a more "human" feel to his finale.

[Kalahinen]

I have to agree with Bluedust in this matter. I have had growing difficulties reading MBotF for the last two books, and even earlier, with Reaper's Gale. The depressing fact that every character, whether a Malazan soldier or a tribesman, is just another version of the same philosopher made me pageleap the end of DoD and cease reading TCG for half a year. As others have said most Erikson's POV characters are just thinly disguised versions of each other. Still it didn't bother me so much in the earlier books. But where in TCG is the "high adventure"? I had the feeling that Erikson had too much to write and ran out of pages, so he had to compress the end of the story. And thus the lack of thrill and almost no effort to build up the milieu. And the too conscious praise for the heroism of the everyman/everywoman is a noble thought but painful to read. Erikson never was very good at character building (barring certain exceptions), instead he excelled in creating incredible atmospheres and plot twists mixed with delicious pieces of information about history and mythology. And the sudden bursts of not too serious action.

All in all, The Crippled God was a good book, but in my opinion it and Dust of Dreams were the worst in this great series. Still, certain scenes were great and of course it got better in the end when the angst ended and the action started.

[POOPOO MCBUMFACE]

Every time I read people complaining that there are too many "everyman" point of view characters or that there are too many long stretches of nothing happening, I wonder if they really read Toll the Hounds.

Those epic battles we all want - and I'll be the first to agree that the great convergences are some of the best parts of the series - are nothing, nothing at all but fanfiction-level uber-kewl-battlez without the contrast of the man on the ground. That's... us. That's the life we live. That's the battle we fight. I don't understand how someone can take that struggle, that search for meaning that we all share, and... grind it down to some boring base element, like a building block of literary value the only worth of which is to help people towards the epic battles. Those have value too. Every one of those in the series says something, it says a lot. But without contrast... I don't see it.

This isn't meant as an insult. Please, please don't take it as such. But after re-reading the series, the parts I cherish most are those boring, redundant everyman perspectives. I want to know why those are flawed, because this is my favourite series, and I sure as hell know it isn't perfect. More than anything, I'm here to expand my knowledge and understanding

[worry]

And I would suggest they're not even remotely all in the same voice. I don't even know how a reader could error towards that conclusion, unless they just didn't do any heavy lifting themselves. The grunts do tend to share at least one conclusion: war sucks (though not everyone even comes to that particular conclusion *cough*Kindly*cough*Corabb*). But all the different personalities shone through pretty starkly to me, whether through inner monologue or discussions or whatever. Even the newer personalities like the Dal Honese natives we start meeting in Reaper's Gale are distinct from previous Bonehunters we know, and from each other.

And it's not even that everyone was a philosopher, plenty of characters weren't (most heavies, for one broad swath of examples), but it's also pretty obvious why the philosophical stuff got more screen time: those were the characters who were reflecting on what was happening to them. Why would SE spend as much time inside the heads of characters with fewer things to say? Not that he eschews even them completely, but proportionally he got the balance pretty darn right. It's all ultimately different strokes, of course, but the time spent with these characters on their long walk was payoff to me, not something I had to wade through just to get to the action. And I'd happily have spent more time with just about all of them.

[Kanese S's]

I agree with McBumface and Worrywort. What's more, I think the trudging pace of DoD and the beginning of TCG partly served to immerse me in the experiences of the characters. The endless march... of course a lot of time is spent on it. How else to establish how it feels for the characters? To share the hopelessness, the despair, and yes, the tedium. Lots of our main characters are just regular grunts in the army. I thought Erikson did a good job in really hammering home the feel for this group of characters. For me it was like I was journeying with them. Long, torturous stretches of exhaustion, punctuated by moments of pure terror.

[blackzoid]

I've had a problem with the number of Bonehunter POV's in Reaper's Gale and in Dust of Dreams I'm afraid. While I love the everyman aspect of the povs and don't want to only read about the "kewl" or "Uber" characters, I have a real problem with what I consider REDUNDANT povs.

For example compare the amount of brideburner and Malazan povs in Memories of Ice with the Bonehunters in RG and DoD. There is no comparison. None. Squad after squad, grunt after grunt all with (on the surface only I grant) similar motivation. Reread the section in RG where SE introduces all those Dal Honese squads. Its absolutely jarring. They come out of nowhere and all their backstories are similar.

I love Toll the Hounds because there are many "lower level" povs who are not all the same archtype: world weary soldier. Difference is what is needed. After Fiddlers squad, Hellians squad, Stormys squad,The AShok regiment, is it really necessary to have more Malazan soldier povs?
What about the average brainwashed Kolansii soldier in TCG? Isn't that everyman enough? Ya we got the Perish, but I would have liked a pov from one of the native Kolansii soldiers forced to fight against his will. That would have been interesting. Nothing from them though.

I'm a huge fan of these books but when people talk about the amount of similar povs they have an excellent point. We didn't need all those Bonehunter squads to tell the story. TCG wasn't that bad I guess but RG and DoD were overloaded with them. I can appreciate new povs in the Malazan regulers that went with Tavore and in Ganoes's Host but adding those Dal Honese povs for example to the already crowded Bonehunter Heavy/Marine pov roster? No.

This post has been edited by blackzoid: 06 March 2012 - 02:10 PM

[Puck]

blackzoid, on 06 March 2012 - 12:25 PM, said:

For example compare the amount of brideburner and Malazan povs in Memories of Ice with the Bonehunters in RG and DoD. There is no comparison. None. Squad after squad, grunt after grunt all with (on the surface only I grant) similar motivation. Reread the section in RG where SE introduces all those Dal Honese squads. Its absolutely jarring. They come out of nowhere and all their backstories are similar.

Huh? Did we even read the same book? Because the Dal Honese soldiers introduced in RG had a completely different and distinct voice from those we had previously encountered. As did every previously known squad differ in it's dynamics from the other squads.

blackzoid, on 06 March 2012 - 12:25 PM, said:

What about the average brainwashed Kolansii soldier in TCG? Isn't that everyman enough? Ya we got the Perish, but I would have liked a pov from one of the native Kolansii soldiers forced to fight against his will. That would have been interesting. Nothing from them though.

Here I agree, it would have been nice to get a Kolansii pov, which is about the only significant criticism I have about tCG.

blackzoid, on 06 March 2012 - 12:25 PM, said:

I'm a huge fan of these books but when people talk about the amount of similar povs they have an excellent point. We didn't need all those Bonehunter squads to tell the story. TCG wasn't that bad I guess but RG and DoD were overloaded with them. I can appreciate new povs in the Malazan regulers that went with Tavore and in Ganoes's Host but adding those Dal Honese povs for example to the already crowded Bonehunter Heavy/Marine pov roster? No.

No, we didn't NEED them indeed, but they are there and there's a reason why they are there. Others, as seen above, have explained the why and what for way better than I ever could, so all I can say is that personally in tCG I found the pay-off I had been looking for. Clearly, your and my expectations simply differed (though I'm still puzzled about how one could expect something else having read the nine previous books).

This post has been edited by Puck: 06 March 2012 - 06:12 PM

[blackzoid]

You have not addressed the thrust of my argument: The increase in Malazan soldier pov's from the earlier books to the later ones.
The amount of Malazan povs in MoI and HoC compared with RG/DoD is not the same. Yes the Dal Honese soldiers have different voices...but not different enough in my opinion to justify their addition. SE did not concentrate on those soldeirs in HoC. The Malazan povs in Memories of Ice were reduced to a few squads only. Thats how (some of) those last nine books worked. So lets not sweep that thought away.

By relating the large amount of Bonehunter pov exploits, he missed an opportunity in DoD for example to have a pov from the KCNR which would have been fantastic. Or a reguler Letherii soldier in the Letheri/Edur army taking on the Malazans when they arrived at Letheras in RG. Or the afore mentioned Kolansii pov. All those Bonehunter povs take up space in the books. Ya, most of them are great but after a while their addition at the expanse of other povs which may add a wider context to the story doesn't strike me as being a good thing.

A single KCNR/Letherii army conscript/Kolansii brainwashed soldier pov, versus the equivalent Bonehunter "background" character pov. More context at the expanse of what I consider a pov which is similar enough anyway to what we have already.

This post has been edited by blackzoid: 06 March 2012 - 06:32 PM

[Kalahinen]

This probably in part comes to differing efforts in imagination and emotional attachment with the characters. I just couldn't familiarize with many of the POV characters, a failing on my part, but hey, an author can't please everyone. And if anyone got the impression that I craved for more "über" characters in action, I didn't. But in many of the earlier books the story elements were, I dare claim, merged more cunningly. The last two books just didn't feel very consistent to me.

Spoiler

Consider the way the Pure Forkrul Assail were discarded. Every one of them somewhat hurriedly, as if there was not enough pages to have them linger longer than that. And they were supposed to be the "main enemy". Also the Tiste Liosan were fast forwarded into a genocide without much thought to their motives. Maybe their story will be told elsewhere, hopefully.

I apologize for the inconsistencies in my own text, I've been a long time away from this forum and my thoughts are more or less random. But as the meaning of the forum is to discuss the books, here are my five cents.

This post has been edited by Kalahinen: 06 March 2012 - 10:01 PM

[Silk]

and that is the crux of the matter... there are still more books to come... albeit not the fallen books, where things will be picked up and in my opinion will probably go into the whys and wheres of what happens in the now when they are set in the past... for example the answer to why the one branch of the Liosian chose to segregate tehmselves fro the others and form a loose co-alition with the FA to get at their historical enemies the Andii...

[Puck]

Another thought: the whole thing's called Tales from the Malazan Book of the Fallen. That kinda implies for the point of the narrative to be the, well, malazan fallen. And fallen they are in every aspect, and to know this, you have to know their minds.

[worry]

Can't address every argument here, but more specifically, I thought the new Dal Honese characters added a nice contrast to the soldiers who had gone into Y'Ghatan, which seemed to be the initial reason for their introduction. They had witnessed the horror from afar, so it affected them in a fairly different way. They had also been in the far ships during the Bonehunters finale, so again they missed the action there too. Their hunger for it drove a lot of the Malazan advance in Reaper's Gale. Not to mention, the moment they are mistaken by the enemies for Tiste Andii was genius and single-handedly legitimized their inclusion from start to finish, if nothing else did.

Re: the missing perspectives, the Kolansii are essentially mindless drones...the FA magic didn't control their bodies against their will, with them trapped inside...it completely dominated their minds...being inside their heads would have been pointless for most of the book. And then we do get into them a little, at the only point that matters, when some of the FA magic is wearing off and the BH marines are laughing before the last stand. Again, a genius scene that alone redeems SE's decision (besides the fact that we've seen the unwilling but still conscious puppet done a bajillion times already). Something similar could be said for the KCNR too...either they were drones, or they were so alien that it wouldn't have been worth exploring their individual psychologies. They worked better as big baddies this way anyway, a semi-anonymous force of destruction.

[blackzoid]

I'd have to say that I disagree with that reasoning for the lack of KCNR/Kolansii povs Wort. I don't want to put words in your mouth or anything but I cannot get behind the idea that if SE didn't do something, that it wasn't worth doing (correct me if I am mis-representing you here). I think thats a bad position to take.

1: The Kolansii. I think this could have been a great pov. Imagine the idea of a pov where the person cannot control their own body? That they were responsible for the destruction of Kolansii and the driving out of the Snake against their will, helpless to stop themselves. Thats a hell of a lot of good drama right there. You say that they were mindless drones? Where was that mentioned? Their minds were not wiped, just suppressed from what I recall. Ya the scene with SE saying that they admire the Malazan soldeirs is good, but if that had been lead up to with a Kolansii pov struggling to break free, it would have been great. SE wrote that the war was a war of liberation, but we have no native Kolansii to root for. Its less emotional. They are faceless soldiers and people. We needed someone on the lower levels of the enemy side. To have it mean something for Kolanse on the human level.

2: The KCNR. I don't get what would be too alien for SE. He has done KCCM (though I personally found them a small bit too-human like in thought process), Wolf gods,a dragon, that weird Demon Divers thing from TBH and an ox pov. Its about the same in alienness as those. Granted I think its less a dropped ball than the Kolansii idea, its still important to bear in mind that the KCNR were the original victims of the KCCM. That they were the ones in chains before they tried to kill all the KCCM. A nice parallel to the Crippled God/Otatatel dragon. I don't consider them baddies like the FA. Just very misguided. Their pov would have been interesting.

"(besides the fact that we've seen the unwilling but still conscious puppet done a bajillion times already)"
It was never done by SE as I recall? Not in the completely not able to control own body way I think. Sorry when posessed did not get a pov for example. Genoas Paran was able to move independtly of Oponn at the time. Toc was unable to move anyway when smothered by the Matron.

Don't get me wrong I do actually like a lot of the Dal Honese soldiers but its just that in a finite book arc with so many Malazan soldier povs, it seems like there is a lot of povs that don't bring enough different to warrent their inclusion. At least to me.

This post has been edited by blackzoid: 07 March 2012 - 11:32 PM

[worry]

You are putting words in my mouth if that's what you got out of what I said, but that's neither here nor there.

1) It's been a year since I read it, so I could be wrong about the mind-wipe stuff, but that was my impression. Not that they are mind-wiped forever, only that they were essentially blanks/chess-pieces while in the FA grip. Either way, it just doesn't seem like an interesting option to me. To make the liberation mean something on the human level, hopefully the reader is human, and can extrapolate the horror involved themselves. I mean obviously your take was a potential option, but it's just one I didn't feel went missing while I read it, and I still don't miss it. Keep in mind, I do think that since we DID get a few FA points of view, we still should have been let in on some of the horrors they caused in a more explicit way, but that has more to do with the treatment of the FA than the Kolansii. I don't think the FA were total failures as bad guys (literarily speaking), nor nerfed, but still somewhat disappointing in terms of what they got to do on screen.

If I can agree with you anywhere though, it's that a longer book with one more POV in it would certainly not have made me less happy. I'm not saying it would have made it a worse book or anything, only that I didn't miss it, and I don't think it's necessary to have a POV in order to empathize with that people's plight. And if I'm right about the mindless thing, there's that too.

2) I'm not suggesting the KCNR would have been too alien, just the ground troop drones, who were bred as (admittedly tough) fodder. They're essentially automatons, and it would have been like getting The Terminator's POV. Their smarter leaders within the sky keeps are a different matter, of course, but I'm personally glad they were kept at a distance. We already know their motives, after all, and like the FA, it's as black and white as you're gonna get. Plus, I mean, as far as the BHs are concerned, it's a total accident of fate that they run into them, and it's one of the best surprises in the series when we see what our heroes come up against. Threading a KCNR POV into the story would have ruined all of that.

[Ulrik]

Just briefly:

1) Well...yeah, one would be interesting. But many more? "Oh my, Im walking again somewhere...and now I must swing my sword...I dont like it...oh, I got gutted, it hurtsssss..." wouldnt be much fun again and again. Also, maybe, under FA skills, they are just blank minds, walking, fighting...

2) God no! No Nahruk POV! They are best in this style - strange, alien, unstoppable (well, almost) force. Also, their hive mind is simply... not accesible to POV. On drone is dumb as...I wont be rude:) And many of them? They work best as force slaughtering Malazans, Letherii and KCCM... not "We Are Borg...give me some Data to have transalien sex, because we are lonely Nahruk... and we are many".

I would add that there is connection to Kolanse and Nahruk. Both armies are host of individuals withous personality and intelligence, driven by few "hive queens"... they are alien and due to their nature, pretty scary. Because they dont care about surviving.

[blackzoid]

Ok, Wort as I said I didn't mean to misintepret what you originally said. Apologies.

I think we will have to agree to disagree on the KCNR issue though as I think the surprise wasn't really a surprise to me by the time the Bonehunters run into them. I'd guessed it was them killing the Barghast and from what I remember the KCCM Destriant is told by her main KCCM guard that KCNR were hunting them earlier in the book. Its about the time that the Undead Jaghut save them as I recall. I also don't think the KCNR troops are any more automaton-like than the KCCM Kell Hunters and we got Sag-Ruk's (whatever hes called) pov. I know Stormy or Geslar says that they have been "bred down" but I personally don't think that means that they are automatons in the sense of the Terminator. Though perhaps they are closer to the Ve'Gath soldiers than the Kell Hunters in personality. Just stand in a row and charge. (We did have Samars autoposy of one in TBH which did imply something artificial in them. Were they machine-like than? Maybe)

Ulrik. Where exactly does it say that the KCNR are a hive mind? This has been stated before on this baord but no-one has actually quoted the scene that says they are Borg like. Not bashing you, but where in the books is this said for certain?

I guess the FA povs do successfully convey the horror of what was done to the Kolansii and I did feel sympathy for them but it just seemed like a strange omission to me on SE's part to have an entire series of multi-pov charaters from all spectrums of society but not to include any adult pov from a country that is than stated to be liberated in the final book. The Snake don't quite cover that role but they are the closest. I agree that the addition of a pov rather than cutting out any other pov would have been the best way to satisfy both of us.

This post has been edited by blackzoid: 08 March 2012 - 11:43 AM

[Ulrik]

Im simply apllying Quick Bens saying from DoD, bout one drone stupid (my quote fu is weak, really), but... Also, their "breeding" by KCCM and status of mindless servants that came to realizing that they "are" and can kill their creators shows more for my (our) hypothesis. And kill them by mechanical style of thinking, till the last, through millenia... just get work done, no matter who stands in way. Without emotions...well, maybe Iirc, we saw one drone in Icarium´s mind and it was surely automaton.

For Kolanse, it would be great to show them before being enslaved by FA. But, that would steal surprise from revealing against who BH marched.

[blackzoid]

Was that drone in Icarium's mind the drone left nehind in Icariums' skykeep? That was a KCCM drone right? Or are you speaking about another one?
Where does it say that the KCCM actually bred the KCNR to be mindless servants? All I remember from Kallor's explanation in MOI is that the KCNR refused to join their magical power with the Matrons. Don't think Kallor said they were mindless. He said that they were ancient and "more primitive versions" of the KCCM. But he also said that "these new children were not as tractable as the Matrons were conditioned to expect among their brood"
Far from being mindless servants, it implies to me that the KCNR were more individualistic than the reguler KCCM. I don't get where this idea that the KCNR were a hive mind has appeared from. I don't think that was ever said in the books. They may have simply trained themselves to work in phalanxes of soldiers. That doesn't necessarily mean they were all of one mind.


Edit: Ah. I see what you mean. From DoD "then down to the Nah'ruk legions. Monstrous in their implacability - steal one away and it's damned near mindless. Gather them in their thousands, and their will becomes one"
Bit of a shame really. I must have (ironically) blanked this passage from my mind.

This post has been edited by blackzoid: 08 March 2012 - 12:31 PM