[Anaximander]

I've finally gotten around to picking up this first novel, and I just finished the prologue and "Book One: Pale". I suppose what follows will have spoilers for those first chapters.

My reactions:

First, reading this novel is a little like reading a college algebra text. Every few pages, you feel like your brain is being stretched by another layer of complexity. As things stand, I think I've at least got a hold of the basic plot...but there's plenty that's going over my head.

Second, it's clear that I've only understood the tip of the iceberg--and that's kind of a good feeling of promising things to come. The scenes at Pale have this feeling like there's a convergence of so many factors that it will be impossible to appreciate them all until a reread. So far...we have:

Spoiler

(a) the Malazan army (with assorted allies) attacking a free city (with its assorted allies); ( Anomander Rake and the Moon's Spawn, where Anomander is some mysterious legend in his own right; © Whiskeyjack, Dujek, et all, with all their history; (d) Tayschrenn, with mysterious motives all his own; (e) Tattersail, who is old enough to be the former lover of Mock, and so who witnessed the rise to power of both the first emperor and Laseen; (f) Hairlock, who is in the body of a freaking puppet, and who seems to be torn between vengeance against Tayschrenn and chasing down members of High House Shadow; (g) the members of said House Shadow, complete with their armies of Hounds, and who seem to be the Emperor and Dancer reincarnate; (h) Sorry, who is not only controlled by Shadowthrone (or whomever) but also by that Rigga chick (lest we forget the candle witch, who seems to have been forgotten in all of this); (i) Laseen and her Adjunct Lorn, with their own goals/ends; (j) the gates of death itself (or Hoods gate), with some underling of Hood (was he the Mason in the Tattersail's Deck?); (k) Oponn, with his/her/their own motives; (l) Paran, with his own confused aims, and who is willing to play sets of gods against each other (and, just for good measure, his memories are now being rearranged by someone)...and now at long last we get a scene change!!

Good Lord--you can forgive a guy for being confused. But something tells me this will all be golden on the reread...

Third, good Lord, it's dark. Maybe there's something to the old trope of hobbits and farm boys after all. The benefit of the farm boy cliche is that you can at least get a sense of what there is worth fighting for. Here, we get plenty of carnage and no sense *at all* of what it's all for. On the other hand...maybe that's a pretty good depiction of warfare after all. I've heard that guys on the front lines don't give a shit about back home--they're fighting for *each other,* not the oblivious American moron wasting away on his couch.

Fourth, it's all very enticing. I look forward to it--but only with healthy breaks in between to try to regain my faith in humanity.

[Solidsnape]

Anaximander, on 09 December 2013 - 07:00 PM, said:

I've finally gotten around to picking up this first novel, and I just finished the prologue and "Book One: Pale". I suppose what follows will have spoilers for those first chapters.

My reactions:

First, reading this novel is a little like reading a college algebra text. Every few pages, you feel like your brain is being stretched by another layer of complexity. As things stand, I think I've at least got a hold of the basic plot...but there's plenty that's going over my head.

Second, it's clear that I've only understood the tip of the iceberg--and that's kind of a good feeling of promising things to come. The scenes at Pale have this feeling like there's a convergence of so many factors that it will be impossible to appreciate them all until a reread. So far...we have:

Spoiler

(a) the Malazan army (with assorted allies) attacking a free city (with its assorted allies); ( Anomander Rake and the Moon's Spawn, where Anomander is some mysterious legend in his own right; © Whiskeyjack, Dujek, et all, with all their history; (d) Tayschrenn, with mysterious motives all his own; (e) Tattersail, who is old enough to be the former lover of Mock, and so who witnessed the rise to power of both the first emperor and Laseen; (f) Hairlock, who is in the body of a freaking puppet, and who seems to be torn between vengeance against Tayschrenn and chasing down members of High House Shadow; (g) the members of said House Shadow, complete with their armies of Hounds, and who seem to be the Emperor and Dancer reincarnate; (h) Sorry, who is not only controlled by Shadowthrone (or whomever) but also by that Rigga chick (lest we forget the candle witch, who seems to have been forgotten in all of this); (i) Laseen and her Adjunct Lorn, with their own goals/ends; (j) the gates of death itself (or Hoods gate), with some underling of Hood (was he the Mason in the Tattersail's Deck?); (k) Oponn, with his/her/their own motives; (l) Paran, with his own confused aims, and who is willing to play sets of gods against each other (and, just for good measure, his memories are now being rearranged by someone)...and now at long last we get a scene change!!

Good Lord--you can forgive a guy for being confused. But something tells me this will all be golden on the reread...

Third, good Lord, it's dark. Maybe there's something to the old trope of hobbits and farm boys after all. The benefit of the farm boy cliche is that you can at least get a sense of what there is worth fighting for. Here, we get plenty of carnage and no sense *at all* of what it's all for. On the other hand...maybe that's a pretty good depiction of warfare after all. I've heard that guys on the front lines don't give a shit about back home--they're fighting for *each other,* not the oblivious American moron wasting away on his couch.

Fourth, it's all very enticing. I look forward to it--but only with healthy breaks in between to try to regain my faith in humanity.

You seem to have understood it pretty well. So far...
Haha.
As far as the tropes go, it's one of the major selling points for me. It's more a case of having human themes in a fantasy backdrop rather than fantasy themes in a fantasy backdrop. If that makes sense.
Makes it more real to me and gives the characters more viability.
If you're enjoying it so far, it's only going to get better for you.

[Abyss]

Looks like you've got the basics straight, and more than a few that stump some new readers.


Part of the beauty of this series, and esp GotM, is you aren't supposed to know or understand 'everything' at the outset. You're stepping into a story with a few thousand thousand years of events before you got there and the author simply refuses to spoon feed it to you, which is largely part of the glorious fun of it all.

Enjoy!

..and if you're confused, frustrated, whatever, we're here, even if only to laugh evilly and tell you to keep reading and all will be explained made clear worse you're screwed.

[Anaximander]

Solidsnape, on 09 December 2013 - 07:32 PM, said:

You seem to have understood it pretty well. So far...
Haha.
As far as the tropes go, it's one of the major selling points for me. It's more a case of having human themes in a fantasy backdrop rather than fantasy themes in a fantasy backdrop. If that makes sense.
Makes it more real to me and gives the characters more viability.
If you're enjoying it so far, it's only going to get better for you.

Yeah--I'd be curious to see how a combat veteran would view the book, or at any rate, the book's characters and the tone. Sounds all very realistic to me...

Incidentally, Solidsnape, thanks very much for the Brown Ale. It's one of my favorites! (Now, if only your football team can get in the top 4...)

[Solidsnape]

Anaximander, on 09 December 2013 - 08:11 PM, said:

Solidsnape, on 09 December 2013 - 07:32 PM, said:

You seem to have understood it pretty well. So far...
Haha.
As far as the tropes go, it's one of the major selling points for me. It's more a case of having human themes in a fantasy backdrop rather than fantasy themes in a fantasy backdrop. If that makes sense.
Makes it more real to me and gives the characters more viability.
If you're enjoying it so far, it's only going to get better for you.

Yeah--I'd be curious to see how a combat veteran would view the book, or at any rate, the book's characters and the tone. Sounds all very realistic to me...

Incidentally, Solidsnape, thanks very much for the Brown Ale. It's one of my favorites! (Now, if only your football team can get in the top 4...)

Brown ale eh? Nasty stuff.
And, we beat Man U?!? Not saying much now though eh? Haha.

[Anaximander]

Oh, I suppose I should add one more of my initial reactions:

This book (so far) is rife with some wild imagery--kind of like a cross between Dante and a horror movie (Childsplay comes to mind). I don't *think* I've been taking shrooms recently...

[Kanese S's]

You seem to have a far better grasp of what's going on than I did when I first read this book.

Spoiler

Though, I'm not sure I'd characterize the Hounds of Shadow as an army...

[Abyss]

Kanese S, on 09 December 2013 - 10:18 PM, said:

You seem to have a far better grasp of what's going on than I did when I first read this book.

Spoiler

Though, I'm not sure I'd characterize the Hounds of Shadow as an army...

I can't recall whether those first four chapters state how many there were, but since they ATE an army, it's a fair characterization.

[Noncreative-Name]

Anaximander, on 09 December 2013 - 08:11 PM, said:

Solidsnape, on 09 December 2013 - 07:32 PM, said:

You seem to have understood it pretty well. So far...
Haha.
As far as the tropes go, it's one of the major selling points for me. It's more a case of having human themes in a fantasy backdrop rather than fantasy themes in a fantasy backdrop. If that makes sense.
Makes it more real to me and gives the characters more viability.
If you're enjoying it so far, it's only going to get better for you.

Yeah--I'd be curious to see how a combat veteran would view the book, or at any rate, the book's characters and the tone. Sounds all very realistic to me...

Incidentally, Solidsnape, thanks very much for the Brown Ale. It's one of my favorites! (Now, if only your football team can get in the top 4...)

United States Marine Corps combat veteran here (and new user/reader currently half way through Deadhouse Gates)

At first the whole idea of a Empire was not something I was familiar with. It took a long time to visualize the size and strength of it all, but it eventually clicked. As far as the overall tone of the war goes it is pretty accurate. Everyone is caught up in the "fog of war", tired, thirsty, hungry. The mood sets it as dark, smoke filled, air with a constant scent of death and dirt, which is exactly how Afghanistan felt. In the heart of combat people are dying left and right and all you can do is carry on, just as the people in the book do. Everyone is dirty and sometimes injured, but there is no pause or rest. Constant devastation and an attempt to remain aware of their surroundings, but falling victim to complacency.

Overall the mood and atmosphere is fairly accurate. Combat obviously has changed with modern times, but the idea of war is still the same. The ruthlessness of commanders is an exaggeration, but the hardness of the solders personality is accurate. Whiskeyjacks squad is very similar to how Marine Corps squads are. Close-knit and respectful unit all looking up to a leader whom has both the success of mission and welfare of comrades in mind and heart.

[worry]

The Hounds are more like a Navy than an Army to me.

Spoiler

You know, what with the submarines and all.

[Anaximander]

Noncreative-Name, on 10 December 2013 - 07:00 PM, said:

Anaximander, on 09 December 2013 - 08:11 PM, said:

Solidsnape, on 09 December 2013 - 07:32 PM, said:

You seem to have understood it pretty well. So far...
Haha.
As far as the tropes go, it's one of the major selling points for me. It's more a case of having human themes in a fantasy backdrop rather than fantasy themes in a fantasy backdrop. If that makes sense.
Makes it more real to me and gives the characters more viability.
If you're enjoying it so far, it's only going to get better for you.

Yeah--I'd be curious to see how a combat veteran would view the book, or at any rate, the book's characters and the tone. Sounds all very realistic to me...

Incidentally, Solidsnape, thanks very much for the Brown Ale. It's one of my favorites! (Now, if only your football team can get in the top 4...)

United States Marine Corps combat veteran here (and new user/reader currently half way through Deadhouse Gates)

At first the whole idea of a Empire was not something I was familiar with. It took a long time to visualize the size and strength of it all, but it eventually clicked. As far as the overall tone of the war goes it is pretty accurate. Everyone is caught up in the "fog of war", tired, thirsty, hungry. The mood sets it as dark, smoke filled, air with a constant scent of death and dirt, which is exactly how Afghanistan felt. In the heart of combat people are dying left and right and all you can do is carry on, just as the people in the book do. Everyone is dirty and sometimes injured, but there is no pause or rest. Constant devastation and an attempt to remain aware of their surroundings, but falling victim to complacency.

Overall the mood and atmosphere is fairly accurate. Combat obviously has changed with modern times, but the idea of war is still the same. The ruthlessness of commanders is an exaggeration, but the hardness of the solders personality is accurate. Whiskeyjacks squad is very similar to how Marine Corps squads are. Close-knit and respectful unit all looking up to a leader whom has both the success of mission and welfare of comrades in mind and heart.

Excellent--thanks for the perspective. And (more importantly) thank you for your service. (I learned that I'd be a terrible soldier when I had to step out of the theater and stand over a toilet during the first half hour of Saving Private Ryan. So I have nothing but respect for people who have endured it themselves.)

[Noncreative-Name]

I'm glad I could provide some insight and I (and all service members) am extremely grateful for your support.

[Anaximander]

Okay, for what it's worth...here are a few more reactions, now that I'm through chapter 10, i.e., through Book Three: The Mission.

1. Wheels within wheels within wheels... The rate at which new information is added has slowed from the first four chapters, but I don't think you can get through five pages without a new layer to the story. Erikson packs more into 300 pages than a guy like Jordan can fit into 3000.

2. The title "The Mission" for the third book is a bit curious, since it's not like there's one mission involved, but a loose confederacy of more or less independent missions, all of which lead to Darujhistan.

3. One line of criticism: I find that the poetry that opens up the chapters all read pretty much the same way. There isn't much in the way of variation of style across the authors--even though the authors th: emselves are supposed to represent a pretty diverse bunch. (Contrast that with the variation you'd get in the following list of poets: William Carlos Williams, Shakespeare, Walt Whitman, TS Eliot, Emily Dickenson.) On the other hand, some of the poetry is actually pretty good--I'm thinking of the one that opens up chapter five, for instance.

4. Somehow, this stuff makes me think of some of the fragments from the ancient philosopher Heraclitus. Consider:

"War is the father of all and king of all, and some he shows as gods, others as humans; some he makes slaves, others free."

"It is necessary to know that war is common and justice is strife, and that all things happen in accordance with strife and necessity."

"Immortals are mortal, mortals are immortal, living the death of the others and dying their life."

The gist is that the constant in life is war/strife, which is the genesis of all change, and that change is far ranging--making some gods and others less than gods, etc. Erikson reminded me of this guy.

5. Two passages that creep me out:

First: Tattersail observes the methods of the empire in winning over the hearts and minds of their newly conquered subjects: "No matter how benign the original rulers, no matter how generous the nobility, the word of Empire, weighted my might, twisted the past into a tyranny of demons." Small minded human beings will twist their own history

Second: The ancient (almost *unthinkably* ancient) Tool informs the Adjunct that he thinks about futility, and that few Imass think at all, "...Because, Adjunct, it is futile."

I've wondered about this issue a lot lately: A generation of human beings, with its accumulated wisdom, dies out, to be replaced by a generation that emerges from the womb completely ignorant. By the time *that* generation develops a modicum of wisdom, *they* die out...etc. How much of human behavior must look completely asinine and pointless from the perspective of eternity--born out of narrow-minded foolishness?

Anyways...the continued ramblings of a newbie. Very impressed by Erikson so far.

[worry]

I kind of agree with your #3....there is a bit more diversity across the books as a whole, but most poems ultimately do sound like Erikson more or less (many quite good though, I agree). I think he does a much better job of diversifying the voices of historical fragments and other prose openers though. That said -- and I won't be specific at all -- there is eventually one poetic movement mentioned from a particular culture that insists on brevity, even one-line poems, and I found the examples we get pretty delightful.

[The Roaring Bear]

I suppose this is as good a place as any to make my first post as well as state some thoughts on the book so far (roughly 90% through).

So, I'd say everything is pretty straight forward on a first read. It gets frustrating at times when references are made to races/beings that we have no reference guide to. That being said as one reads on its made relatively clear.
I work in Military intelligence, so along with knowing the drudgery that is soldiering I've also always had to be aware of the big picture on everything from a tactical, operational to strategic scale. I'm very impressed with the storytelling and how it is able to represent all the different aspects from seeing what it is like for the boots on the ground to the full scope vision. It is dark I like that, but though war is dark it also has its moments of peace and I wish there was a bit more light in the story.

I know the Malazan idea arose from trying to create a roleplaying game and I wonder, did Erikson ever visit Yahoo! roleplaying chat rooms? I ask because the primary setting in those rooms was a tavern, and I wonder if the Phoenix Inn was inspired by something like that.

[HiddenOne]

Stick with it, there is light to be found if you really want it

My thoughts on the tavern thing are that the Inn, Tavern or what ever name you want to give the public drinking house is a central location in RPGs, both pen&paper and video games. It serves many functions, and is a trope unto itself, I should think.

Anyway, welcome to the forum and be sure to share some insights as you go along. The next book is great, I recommend you have it on hand before you finish GotM.

[Kanese S's]

The Roaring Bear, on 26 December 2013 - 08:58 PM, said:

I suppose this is as good a place as any to make my first post as well as state some thoughts on the book so far (roughly 90% through).

So, I'd say everything is pretty straight forward on a first read. It gets frustrating at times when references are made to races/beings that we have no reference guide to. That being said as one reads on its made relatively clear.
I work in Military intelligence, so along with knowing the drudgery that is soldiering I've also always had to be aware of the big picture on everything from a tactical, operational to strategic scale. I'm very impressed with the storytelling and how it is able to represent all the different aspects from seeing what it is like for the boots on the ground to the full scope vision. It is dark I like that, but though war is dark it also has its moments of peace and I wish there was a bit more light in the story.

I know the Malazan idea arose from trying to create a roleplaying game and I wonder, did Erikson ever visit Yahoo! roleplaying chat rooms? I ask because the primary setting in those rooms was a tavern, and I wonder if the Phoenix Inn was inspired by something like that.

There are actually quite a few lighter moments of soldiering in House of Chains, the fourth book. A few in Memories of Ice, too, actually, though not as many.

[Garak]

GotM is still pretty light - Deadhouse gates is pitch black when it comes to the boots on the ground.

Anyway, welcome new readers, glad you're enjoying the book. This thread strikes me as the complete opposite of the more recent hate the book thread (where it seemed the guy missed everything in the book by a hundred miles). You certainly picked up on a lot of the stuff and that's good. And while this series is dark and can wear you down, I found that overall it gave me more faith in humanity than I had before.

[Tattersail_]

I will look forward to hear more of your views and reviews

[Anaximander]

Well, at long last--done. Other commitments have reduced my daily reading time to a pittance, but...that's the current rhythm. (It's certainly not the best rhythm for appreciating everything you're reading, unfortunately!) For what they're worth, here are a few more general reactions:

1. I have no idea why they're called "soletaken" as opposed to "soultaken." Given the number of these things out there, none of them can claim to be the sole taken! But it seems their souls have been taken...

2. I skimmed the other thread that Garak mentioned a week or two ago--I seem to recall that one of the points of criticism was that Erikson's prose was poor. That seems *way* off--the prose here seems about the best I can remember reading from genre fiction for a long time. (Not surprising, considering SE came from the Iowa Writers' Workshop.)

3. On the other hand, there is the question about depth of character. I was chatting about GotM with a colleague of mine, and we agreed that we don't get a lot of character detail from this novel. It's not that we don't get a window into some of the deeper motivations--we get short snippets with many of them (Paran, Tattersail, Lorn, Whiskeyjack, Rallick, Murillio, Crokus, Anomander, and heck, even Circle Breaker come to mind). But since Erikson is juggling an awful lot of balls at one time (if you'll pardon the understatement), we don't get the chance to live and breathe with any one of them long enough to get the feel for them. (Is it strange that *Fiddler*, of all people, is one of my favorite characters?)

4. I will confess that, *if GotM were a one-off book*, I would think the plot structure a bit messy. The reader is confronted with mountains of layers of complexity early on--and it doesn't *really* let up all that much, especially toward the end when the concepts of the Finnest and the Azath are suddenly introduced. I'm vaguely reminded of "calvinball" from the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon, where Calvin adds on hundreds of ad hoc rules to the game as it proceeds. But part of the joy of the novel comes from knowing that it's *not* a one-off, and that these strange rules won't seem so ad hoc in the end.

5. I love the climax of the book. When I saw the title of the final "book" of the novel ("The Fete"), I had my hopes up for

Spoiler

a one day climax with all the characters on the stage--something with the good ol' classic "dramatic unities" that Aristotle loved.

I wasn't disappointed!

6. I mentioned this earlier, but...one of the striking things about the book is that the conflicts of the book seem so pointless. The Empress seems to have no good reason whatsoever for her attempt at conquest. And the gods seem to be playing meaningless games. This seems like one of the trade-offs for abandoning the "farm boy" motif. With the farm boy cliche, you do at least get the feeling that there's something worth fighting for. (Incidentally, I also got this feeling from the original Black Company trilogy by Glen Cook. In fact, it seemed like a deliberate feature of Cook's writing.) This isn't a *criticism* of Erikson--Erikson needs to be Erikson, after all.

7. There's another related thing that this book calls to mind...but I might add a separate thread for that one.

Overall, a great experience. I'll be taking a break for a bit (I've got other projects on the list), but I'll look forward to DG!