[nerds_feather]

Hi Everyone...here's a link to an interview with Ian Esslemont on Blood and Bone, gritty fantasy, the challenges of collaborative world-building, etc. Enjoy!

[nacht]

nerds_feather, on 24 May 2013 - 08:27 PM, said:

Hi Everyone...here's a link to an interview with Ian Esslemont on Blood and Bone, gritty fantasy, the challenges of collaborative world-building, etc. Enjoy!

Great interview. Thanks for posting the link.

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ICE: That is reassuring to hear. Steve and I believe firmly that any violence must be accompanied by its consequences, the way effect follows cause. Darkness and violence for its own sake is shallow and immature. I hope that if the Malazan world conveys anything, it is that a violent world is a scary place, and not to be desired. If there is violence, then it is the violence of the Eddas, or the Elizabethan stage, with all its stabbings, beheadings, battles, duels, poisonings, regicide and fratricide. As well as all its exploration of justice, morality, and the depths of the human soul.

In my opinion this attitude is what is great about this series and why it is much much better that GRMM's works (which is a paean to the violence/sex soap opera)

Quote

ICE: I hope that so far I, and we, have struck this balance. I suppose it’s up to each reader; some have a higher tolerance for mystery and for actively digging things up, others less. So far, my instinct has been to hand the reader very little.

and this is what a lot of us find frustrating about ICE (I guess we just have to learn to live with his style)

[Jemmy]

nacht, on 24 May 2013 - 09:23 PM, said:

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ICE: I hope that so far I, and we, have struck this balance. I suppose it's up to each reader; some have a higher tolerance for mystery and for actively digging things up, others less. So far, my instinct has been to hand the reader very little.

and this is what a lot of us find frustrating about ICE (I guess we just have to learn to live with his style)

Exactly. I have only read Blood and Bone, but I found it many times more frustrating than any book in the Erikson series, at least in this regard.

It is difficult to strike a good balance... I complain often about authors info dumping. Esslemont has the opposite problem. He plays his cards too close to his chest.

[worry]

I couldn't disagree more with you on GRRM. Well, actually I could since on sex I do agree with you, but I think his abhorrence for violence is just as stark as the Malazan guys. In fact I'd describe both series as critiques of the might-makes-right POV. None of these guys are hippies (and SE/ICE's professed love of Vietnam war fiction is highly evident), but I might even put GRRM even higher on the obvious peacenik scale than these guys, if just by a smidge.

But back to the interview: I might agree that SE has a better general grip on the Jaghut in the all-encompassing sense, but ICE did great with Gothos IMO and his persecuted island Jhaggy/humans in RotCG were a pretty cool interlude. Jhenna was prettty decent too, but not a huge standout. Kinda surprised he said T'lan Imass, as I don't actually remember any major ICE Imass characters off the top of my head, but I could just be blanking...or it's a nod to what he's doing in Assail. I think both authors seem to really enjoy writing the various gods, at least it comes off that way...they're almost always fun scenes at least. Too bad he didn't slip and say something like "I love writing Forkrul Assail/Jaghut hybrid Tyrants" or something like that though.