[Gabriel Chase]

^ Perhaps because (s)he thinks the other books might be different and more easily accessible?

[Overactive Imagination]

Gardens was definitely my least favourite book of the series on first read (I thought it was just OK....) but on a re-read it was amazing!

Deadhouse Gates was the one that really got me hooked. By the end of that I was like yeah this is the best series ever and I'm buying all of the books immediately.

And Memories of Ice was even better.

One thing I find interesting is how some people say the characterization in Gardens is really weak and all of the characters seem the same, while others say the characterization is excellent and is the best part of the book.

[nonamebutvaguelydescribedclothes]

I loved GotM! I got hooked with fantasy literature after seeing HBOs first GoT trailer. After this I read all of Asoiaf, the Kingkiller Chronicles, some The Witcher (Gerald) novels and each one of Shannara and Dragonlance which I didn't like. I also discarded The Dark Tower after the second book and then finally started the Malazan Books of the Fallen....

I have read plenty of warnings on amazon how complicated it should be, that there is no connection to the characters and so on and on..... In my opinion it is all nonsense. There is so much pretty cool stuff in this book... this constant change in perspective. You can't really figure out if this empire is good or bad. An elite squad of soldiers with the opinion that the empire wants to geht rid of them, but that does their job nonetheless (just without the getting rid part). The sound of the spinning coin!!! I can't explain it properly, what I like about this spinning coin exactly, but it was just awesome. This feeling, that everything can happen, just because oponn is spinning his coin.. I was a bit disappointed in the end, because I found the azath house rather random and the whole oponn intervention as well as the whole crokus story felt a bit ineffectual... but the azath and oponn make sense in the long term. only crokus I am still not sure what to make of....

But what I wanted to say: I loved GotM as a standalone book and I was overwhelmed when I realized in the following books, what kind of epic stories and underlying conflicts had been described, started and foreshadowed in this book!

edit: the names also got me hooked from the beginning. sgt. whiskeyjack, anomander rake, rallick nom, shadowthrone, the rope, also that everyone seems to have more than one name and changing ones name is like becoming a new person, the names of titles like claw and fist... this is just plenty of awesome stuff that exactly hits my nerve (I don't know if this expression is common in english, but I think you can figure it out nonetheless )

This post has been edited by nonamebutvaguelydescribedclothes: 11 March 2014 - 09:48 AM

[Nabirius]

I can actually kind of relate to the OP, I enjoyed the book but several things pissed me right off. For one while appreciate not being spoon-fed information like an idiot, that is no excuse to not using proper exposition. Simply throwing a billion terms at the reader with no explantation and a glossary in the back. Also the general lack of physical description makes it hard for me to understand what's going on. Cutting away from Anomander vs the demon lord after it was hyped to much wasn't cool. And the author needs to find a better way to characterize people than having another character look into their eyes and see their character traits, or worse look into their eyes and see their character traits but not inform the reader what they saw. Also Ganoes Paran seems to form loyalties (or animosity, like with Topper) super quickly, and then is willing to risk way to much for those loyalties that he just formed, like there were all of 2 conversations between Ganoes and Tattersail before Ganoes decided that he needed to avenge her death.

But all in all I still liked the book, and I was told that it gets better so I'm gonna keep going.

[worry]

There is no excuse because there doesn't need to be an excuse. There's no such thing as proper exposition. There's no reason for characters to define words to each other as if they know a reader is listening in on their conversation.

I agree about the looking into the eyes thing. I see that in all kinds of fiction, but maybe fantasy the most often. Weirds me out every time.

Ganoes does form loyalties/animosities relatively quickly, and he does risk a lot for them, but then again he is a young soldier finding his place in the world. If anything, it would be unnatural for him to have wholly rational reasons for the things he does.

[Nabirius]

upworthywort, on 11 July 2014 - 09:24 PM, said:

There is no excuse because there doesn't need to be an excuse. There's no such thing as proper exposition. There's no reason for characters to define words to each other as if they know a reader is listening in on their conversation.

There is in fact such a thing as proper exposition, and it doesn't always require characters expositing to each other things they both already know. For instance in the scene at Moon's Spawn Tattersail's lover uses his magic to defend her. It is mentioned several times that his warren is Mockra, which is the warren of the mind a fact that goes completely unmentioned except in the glossary. Their could have been a line about him reaching into her mind to help her bolster he defenses. Which would have provided exposition as to the the function of Mockra.

I admit that this is a bad example, because what Mockra does is completely incidental to the plot. Seriously, Mockra could have been the warren of defending Tattersail, and it would have made 0 difference in this book. But this doesn't apply to other important aspects of the setting.

I like that Erikson lets us peace together the big mysteries of the setting and leaving the past a mysterious era where all kinds of things happened. But world basics need to be shown to the audience.

[worry]

I wish someone had told James Joyce that!

[Aertheron]

Mr Knightmare, on 06 January 2014 - 12:21 PM, said:

Sorry for the well really ruff title but I just don't know how to say it otherwise.

Ok so let me start by saying why I started to read GoTM and my experience with it. First off I am a massive epic fantasy fan, Middle Earth and Wheel of Time being my favourite book series. I have a 3000 point Lizardmen army in Warhammer, I constantly play DnD with my friends, Berserk is my favourite comic/manga of all rime and I generally live and breathe epic fantasy.

So a few weeks ago when me and a few epic fantasy loving friends went to see Hobbit 2 I came into an argument that I personally find Middle Earth to be the best, biggest, richest and most amazing epic fantasy world ever made (don't try to change my mind, nothing will ever change that) and one of my friends said that he thinks that the Malazan series is much better and that it's the most complex and well tough out series and world ever made. In fact he was so convinced that he went ahead and bought me GoTM and DHG Christmas.

I just finished GoTM and I have to agree. This is big, epic, complex and I hated everything about it.

First off let's start by saying that I loathe the writing style of the author. I can get behind different POV's seeing how I really liked when GRRM does it but this is just so bizarre it constantly jumps from one character to another in span of few pages, it's completely annoying the fact that you have almost NEVER a concrete idea of the character which are currently in the scene because it's always written so that when a character is talking to a different character that he doesn't know the narration never mentions his or her's name even tough said character is known to the reader. And because there is almost ZERO descriptions of character there is often times no way to figure out who is who and who's talking to who in a scene. And to make things worse it's also almost never clear as to WHERE the scenes are taking place. it's not like the author just gives you a hint about how a place or a character looks like and makes you imagination run wild like Tolkien does no this author gives you SQUAT and suspects that you can somehow run with it.


Other thing is the fact that everything is so jumpy constantly jumping from one place to the other often glossing over the thing that I would found interesting, in favor of the more boring stuff that I don't care about.

The characters are however the biggest problem of the book. I don't care about about ANY of them. I don't know about any of them, they have zero personalities, they are all doing something that I don't understand for the sake of something that I don't understand while talking about things that I don't understand while being incredibly bland boring and unmoving at the same time. I didn't are when Toc died, I didn't care about Wiskeyjack I didn't care about Paran or the fat mage or Dudjek or Quick Ben or the overpowered God Mode Dark Elf or any of them, they were just a bunch of people doing random unrelated shit.

But even then I kept on reading because I figured that all of the "seemingly" unrelated random shit will somehow end up connecting in the finale. But it doesn't. Jaghut tyrant is hyped up as the destroyer of worlds that will fight with the God Mode Dark Elf but all he does it fight some random dragons that appear out of no where, then gets trapped in dream which I seriously have no idea how the fuck that happened, then he takes the body of an old dude that I don't care about and basically gets one shoted by Quick Ben and dragged away by the the McGuffin trees or something, all the while Paran is fighting some random Tree monster while The God Mode Elf is fighting a random demon that appeared out f nowhere, while other major plot points are finished up by the Crimson Guard who again randomly appear out of nowhere and the whole explosive thing that was a major plot thread throughout the book is just left there forgotten.


Is this how it's always going to be? Random Deus ExMachina stuff appearing out of nowhere and finishing half the plot points with zero satisfaction while the other half is just dropped?

The only things that I liked about this is the fact that Gods are major players in the world of mortals and that they come down and do stuff as it gives the world a sort of "war on two fronts" but even then the gods are just so uninteresting. The Oppon make no sense and Shadowthrone just seems…boring. K'rul is the only one I liked and cared and the only one who seems interesting for but he was barely in it.

Sorry that I come out so negative and harsh but for a series that was promised to me as the the most amazing High Fantasy series ever I found GoTM to be probably the most dreadful 600 pages I ever read so I must ask…is there a point continuing? I don't like the setting, I don't like the characters and I don't like the writing style so really does it really get that much better or does it continue to be nothing more than thousands of pages of unsympathetic characters doing random unrelated things in a convoluted overly and pointlessly complex world that only the writer understands?

Without spoiling anything, what normal writers do with each book, work towards an end, this writer does with an entire series.
By Book 10, you will still be reeling with things you don't understand, but you will understand the world and the Characters (the character building actually goes very deep).
I think the problem you are having is that the Scope of the world is so big, and the writer doesn't take you by the hand as others do to explore it, I would say, press on, and judge if you like it or not after you read book 3.
If you still don't like it, well fine, you have tried, if you did like it, you'll probably be hooked and want to read the other 7 aswell.

BTW for me it helped to do some light, simple reading between the books. Example the books by George R. R. Martin, or The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan

[Aertheron]

Morgan Lefay, on 07 February 2014 - 05:14 PM, said:

I understand why the OP didn´t like at first sight GotM, and there is no problem. If you can´t buy magic at such a big size, a lot of demi-god characters and a lack of physical descriptions, these books are not for you. I understand why the OP has posted here, because when I do not like a book I´ve expected to like I want to hear another people who already have enjoy it and see what they think. What I don´t understand is why the OP wants to continue a series whose first book has been a torture for him.

And I wonder who the God Mod Dark Elf The King of Mary Sues could be. This die-hard fan of Rake has no idea.

Honestly, if you only read book 1, Rake does kinda come across as God mode.

[khan1241]

As a new reader of the series I can see what Knightmare meant to say before he/she went off and lost my respect by all the negativity and anger. I didn't care for the first 200 pages or so. The series gives you almost no details and launches you right in the middle of a series. But as most of you have said it does improve and a light appears at the end of the tunnel. Not going to lie I did look up the ending to see if it was even continuing the book midway through.


I still have no emotion about any of the characters, other series ASoFaI comes to mind where I do care about characters. In this book in particular I felt nothing about any of the characters, if they lived or died.

[Andorion]

khan1241, on 22 August 2014 - 12:41 PM, said:

As a new reader of the series I can see what Knightmare meant to say before he/she went off and lost my respect by all the negativity and anger. I didn't care for the first 200 pages or so. The series gives you almost no details and launches you right in the middle of a series. But as most of you have said it does improve and a light appears at the end of the tunnel. Not going to lie I did look up the ending to see if it was even continuing the book midway through.


I still have no emotion about any of the characters, other series ASoFaI comes to mind where I do care about characters. In this book in particular I felt nothing about any of the characters, if they lived or died.

If you continue with the series, and I strongly,strongly recommend you do, then by the time you are finishing book 2 Deadhouse Gates, I think emotion wont be a problem anymore.
Also I get what you are saying about the first reading experience, in general it was the same for me, and I didn't even discover this site until later. This series throws you into the deep end but thats part of its appeal. You will have to think, to try to understand, to ask question etc etc. Thats also what this place is for, so if you do decide to go ahead, and I again I urge you to, then you are covered.

[khan1241]

Andorion, on 22 August 2014 - 05:33 PM, said:

khan1241, on 22 August 2014 - 12:41 PM, said:

As a new reader of the series I can see what Knightmare meant to say before he/she went off and lost my respect by all the negativity and anger. I didn't care for the first 200 pages or so. The series gives you almost no details and launches you right in the middle of a series. But as most of you have said it does improve and a light appears at the end of the tunnel. Not going to lie I did look up the ending to see if it was even continuing the book midway through.


I still have no emotion about any of the characters, other series ASoFaI comes to mind where I do care about characters. In this book in particular I felt nothing about any of the characters, if they lived or died.

If you continue with the series, and I strongly,strongly recommend you do, then by the time you are finishing book 2 Deadhouse Gates, I think emotion wont be a problem anymore.
Also I get what you are saying about the first reading experience, in general it was the same for me, and I didn't even discover this site until later. This series throws you into the deep end but thats part of its appeal. You will have to think, to try to understand, to ask question etc etc. Thats also what this place is for, so if you do decide to go ahead, and I again I urge you to, then you are covered.

I have continued. I am on book 5, Midnight Tides, right now. I barely feel anything for any characters. Not sure what I can post but I can think of only 6 people I like and 2 I want to be tortured to death slowly in graphic detail. One of those is Kruppe who I really dislike.

I have really enjoyed the overall massive plans in the works and seeing how they impact later events. When those plans come together I just want to set in down and take it all in. Thats why I keep reading, not the main book characters if that makes any sense.

[Studlock]

As a total non-content post, this was easily the funniest first post/topic of all time. Who comes to a Malazan dedicated fansites and starts with 'I think I might hate this?!?!?!1'.

You'd think a more general fansite would be more inclusive/objective to this post.

This post has been edited by Studlock: 22 August 2014 - 08:02 PM

[jonny_anonymous]

To this day I'm still baffled why some people don't like GotM. I understood it fine and the parts I was confused about didn't matter in that I was enjoying what was happening anyway.

[worry]

I'm afraid you're wrong, khan. Knightmare's point was never that he didn't like it. It was always -- from the beginning -- "I don't like it, so nobody else should like it either, and here's why..." The first post was the bait around the hook.

[Grumble]

Mr Knightmare, on 06 January 2014 - 12:21 PM, said:

Sorry for the well really ruff title but I just don’t know how to say it otherwise.

Ok so let me start by saying why I started to read GoTM and my experience with it. First off I am a massive epic fantasy fan, Middle Earth and Wheel of Time being my favourite book series. I have a 3000 point Lizardmen army in Warhammer, I constantly play DnD with my friends, Berserk is my favourite comic/manga of all rime and I generally live and breathe epic fantasy.

So a few weeks ago when me and a few epic fantasy loving friends went to see Hobbit 2 I came into an argument that I personally find Middle Earth to be the best, biggest, richest and most amazing epic fantasy world ever made (don’t try to change my mind, nothing will ever change that) and one of my friends said that he thinks that the Malazan series is much better and that it’s the most complex and well tough out series and world ever made. In fact he was so convinced that he went ahead and bought me GoTM and DHG Christmas.

I just finished GoTM and I have to agree. This is big, epic, complex and I hated everything about it.

First off let’s start by saying that I loathe the writing style of the author. I can get behind different POV’s seeing how I really liked when GRRM does it but this is just so bizarre it constantly jumps from one character to another in span of few pages, it's completely annoying the fact that you have almost NEVER a concrete idea of the character which are currently in the scene because it’s always written so that when a character is talking to a different character that he doesn’t know the narration never mentions his or her’s name even tough said character is known to the reader. And because there is almost ZERO descriptions of character there is often times no way to figure out who is who and who’s talking to who in a scene. And to make things worse it's also almost never clear as to WHERE the scenes are taking place. it's not like the author just gives you a hint about how a place or a character looks like and makes you imagination run wild like Tolkien does no this author gives you SQUAT and suspects that you can somehow run with it.


Other thing is the fact that everything is so jumpy constantly jumping from one place to the other often glossing over the thing that I would found interesting, in favor of the more boring stuff that I don’t care about.

The characters are however the biggest problem of the book. I don’t care about about ANY of them. I don’t know about any of them, they have zero personalities, they are all doing something that I don’t understand for the sake of something that I don’t understand while talking about things that I don’t understand while being incredibly bland boring and unmoving at the same time. I didn’t are when Toc died, I didn’t care about Wiskeyjack I didn’t care about Paran or the fat mage or Dudjek or Quick Ben or the overpowered God Mode Dark Elf or any of them, they were just a bunch of people doing random unrelated shit.

But even then I kept on reading because I figured that all of the “seemingly” unrelated random shit will somehow end up connecting in the finale. But it doesn’t. Jaghut tyrant is hyped up as the destroyer of worlds that will fight with the God Mode Dark Elf but all he does it fight some random dragons that appear out of no where, then gets trapped in dream which I seriously have no idea how the fuck that happened, then he takes the body of an old dude that I don’t care about and basically gets one shoted by Quick Ben and dragged away by the the McGuffin trees or something, all the while Paran is fighting some random Tree monster while The God Mode Elf is fighting a random demon that appeared out f nowhere, while other major plot points are finished up by the Crimson Guard who again randomly appear out of nowhere and the whole explosive thing that was a major plot thread throughout the book is just left there forgotten.


Is this how it’s always going to be? Random Deus ExMachina stuff appearing out of nowhere and finishing half the plot points with zero satisfaction while the other half is just dropped?

The only things that I liked about this is the fact that Gods are major players in the world of mortals and that they come down and do stuff as it gives the world a sort of “war on two fronts” but even then the gods are just so uninteresting. The Oppon make no sense and Shadowthrone just seems…boring. K’rul is the only one I liked and cared and the only one who seems interesting for but he was barely in it.

Sorry that I come out so negative and harsh but for a series that was promised to me as the the most amazing High Fantasy series ever I found GoTM to be probably the most dreadful 600 pages I ever read so I must ask…is there a point continuing? I don’t like the setting, I don’t like the characters and I don’t like the writing style so really does it really get that much better or does it continue to be nothing more than thousands of pages of unsympathetic characters doing random unrelated things in a convoluted overly and pointlessly complex world that only the writer understands?

Time for you to give up my friend and get back to conquering the world with your 3000 point Lizardmen army ....... while your at it get them to send out some scouts for the letter T & H from your keyboard as they appear to be missing from a number of words in your posts.

Just a tough .... thought !

This post has been edited by Grumble: 23 August 2014 - 11:39 AM

[Mentalist]

Mr Knightmare, on 06 January 2014 - 12:21 PM, said:

Sorry for the well really ruff title but I just don’t know how to say it otherwise.

Ok so let me start by saying why I started to read GoTM and my experience with it. First off I am a massive epic fantasy fan, Middle Earth and Wheel of Time being my favourite book series. I have a 3000 point Lizardmen army in Warhammer, I constantly play DnD with my friends, Berserk is my favourite comic/manga of all rime and I generally live and breathe epic fantasy.

So a few weeks ago when me and a few epic fantasy loving friends went to see Hobbit 2 I came into an argument that I personally find Middle Earth to be the best, biggest, richest and most amazing epic fantasy world ever made (don’t try to change my mind, nothing will ever change that) and one of my friends said that he thinks that the Malazan series is much better and that it’s the most complex and well tough out series and world ever made. In fact he was so convinced that he went ahead and bought me GoTM and DHG Christmas.

I just finished GoTM and I have to agree. This is big, epic, complex and I hated everything about it.

First off let’s start by saying that I loathe the writing style of the author. I can get behind different POV’s seeing how I really liked when GRRM does it but this is just so bizarre it constantly jumps from one character to another in span of few pages, it's completely annoying the fact that you have almost NEVER a concrete idea of the character which are currently in the scene because it’s always written so that when a character is talking to a different character that he doesn’t know the narration never mentions his or her’s name even tough said character is known to the reader. And because there is almost ZERO descriptions of character there is often times no way to figure out who is who and who’s talking to who in a scene. And to make things worse it's also almost never clear as to WHERE the scenes are taking place. it's not like the author just gives you a hint about how a place or a character looks like and makes you imagination run wild like Tolkien does no this author gives you SQUAT and suspects that you can somehow run with it.


Other thing is the fact that everything is so jumpy constantly jumping from one place to the other often glossing over the thing that I would found interesting, in favor of the more boring stuff that I don’t care about.

The characters are however the biggest problem of the book. I don’t care about about ANY of them. I don’t know about any of them, they have zero personalities, they are all doing something that I don’t understand for the sake of something that I don’t understand while talking about things that I don’t understand while being incredibly bland boring and unmoving at the same time. I didn’t are when Toc died, I didn’t care about Wiskeyjack I didn’t care about Paran or the fat mage or Dudjek or Quick Ben or the overpowered God Mode Dark Elf or any of them, they were just a bunch of people doing random unrelated shit.

But even then I kept on reading because I figured that all of the “seemingly” unrelated random shit will somehow end up connecting in the finale. But it doesn’t. Jaghut tyrant is hyped up as the destroyer of worlds that will fight with the God Mode Dark Elf but all he does it fight some random dragons that appear out of no where, then gets trapped in dream which I seriously have no idea how the fuck that happened, then he takes the body of an old dude that I don’t care about and basically gets one shoted by Quick Ben and dragged away by the the McGuffin trees or something, all the while Paran is fighting some random Tree monster while The God Mode Elf is fighting a random demon that appeared out f nowhere, while other major plot points are finished up by the Crimson Guard who again randomly appear out of nowhere and the whole explosive thing that was a major plot thread throughout the book is just left there forgotten.


Is this how it’s always going to be? Random Deus ExMachina stuff appearing out of nowhere and finishing half the plot points with zero satisfaction while the other half is just dropped?

The only things that I liked about this is the fact that Gods are major players in the world of mortals and that they come down and do stuff as it gives the world a sort of “war on two fronts” but even then the gods are just so uninteresting. The Oppon make no sense and Shadowthrone just seems…boring. K’rul is the only one I liked and cared and the only one who seems interesting for but he was barely in it.

Sorry that I come out so negative and harsh but for a series that was promised to me as the the most amazing High Fantasy series ever I found GoTM to be probably the most dreadful 600 pages I ever read so I must ask…is there a point continuing? I don’t like the setting, I don’t like the characters and I don’t like the writing style so really does it really get that much better or does it continue to be nothing more than thousands of pages of unsympathetic characters doing random unrelated things in a convoluted overly and pointlessly complex world that only the writer understands?

I wouldn't say I hated it, but GotM didn't have much of an effect on me, either.

The part that made me want to give the series another shot was the conversation at the end between Dujek and Whiskeyjack, which hinted at the potential scope of the events yet to come.

I've read Deadhouse Gates. I've read Memories of Ice (all 3 first books were library loans).

Then I went out and bought all 6 Malaz books out at the time, because I couldn't bear to wait the 2 weeks it would take untill House of Cahins was due back in the library.

If you don't love Memories of Ice, then this series just isn't for you. But MoI does arguably the best job in presenting the underlying rules of the world Erikson is crafting.

[prq]

I wonder what would be the reaction if someone started reading MBotF by DG, and then read GotM as a prequel.

[Vengeance]

prq, on 02 September 2014 - 01:06 PM, said:

I wonder what would be the reaction if someone started reading MBotF by DG, and then read GotM as a prequel.

I have actually recommended that to several people. They where able to get into the story pretty well.

[Inane Babble]

You are all totally nuts. GotM had me utterly hooked on Malazan (even though terrilbly confused) before the prologue ended. But then, part of why it's so addictive/amazing is I really love the relentless teasing of not knowing enough that's carefully balanced out by juuusssst enough information fed to me to keep me going. That and the no-hand-holding angle, which makes it rewarding to read and evenually understand and amazing to re-read. Plus the prose SE writes so seemingly effortlessly.