[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Illuyankas said:

Markets, looting, what else... erm, a pot goddess? Actually, that's not a bad idea :ehh:

Anybody feel like drawing on the warren of pot?

[Dolorous Menhir]

I don't think that's a widespread opinion, I like to think the Karsa-bashers are a vocal minority among fans. I loved his extended sequence, it was a pleasant shift from the skipping narrative used everywhere else.

And MT wasn't just about Rhulad. It was really about Trull, and to a lesser extent Tehol, Withal, Mael, Udinaas and many other minor characters who have figured already in BH and will no doubt be important later.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

I don't think you're supposed to like Karsa through most of HoC. He's ignorant, a bully, a murderer, and a rapist, and is intentionally pretty one dimensional. It's the development and change of the character that is most interesting about him. I think by the end he will be a pretty likeable guy, but of course will still have a one track mind and unflappable confidence in himself. I think Karsa will be one of the most changed people from beginning to end, although there are plenty of other people going through significant changes.

[Dolorous Menhir]

Ha, I thought all that rocked. The idea of Karsa and his two buddies taking on an entire Malazan town really appealed to me, I was rooting for him all the way. And even in his younger, more naive, form he still displayed some flashes of brilliance and character that appealed. And can't get enough of the "Witness!" thing.

[Morgoth]

and the fact that in tBH, becoming wiser and more experienced with the world have turned Karsa back to the way he was in the begining

I love his character development myself.. Don't really see your point about Rhulad at all I might add

[Abyss]

I'm often unclear, when people post their 'hate' for a character, whether they mean that they disliked reading about them, or that they disliked the character in that they are evil and a bad guy and want to see him get kebabed by the good guy in suitably.

By example, i found the chapters on the Mhybe in MoI to be often tedious to read, and tended to skim them on the reread - i found her to be whiny and most of her later segments amounts to 'waaah, i'm old... and now i'm dreaming... and now i'm running away from something... spirits, my life sucks'.

But Felisin in DG, an easy to dislike character for how she acts and treats others, was still interesting to read about.

- Abyss, thinks they should have just shoved the Mhybe in the ground in the first chapter.

[dktorode]

Well the reason you cant make Karsa change in a short time as you suggested is becuase people dont just change over night...its a process wich takes "pages"
and SE obviously wanted to portray that..there are many other tedious things/characters he could have wasted "pages" on which are far worse than karsa kicking ass and learnig from his mistakes IMHO... as Abyss said....Mybhe..pffft

as for MT being soley about Rhulud and everything else coming secondary....you might be right about the stories arc being that way inclined but those secondary characters as you put it, are what make the Book so good...innit

[Wry]

I enjoy these books alot, and love that i can reread continually and still find something new. I am in awe of the scope... which brings me to.

Maybe he's bitten off more than he can chew? The books are trying to cover so much that little inaccuracies creep in... just niggling little things like he's forgotten something he said two books ago ( don't ask for examples they are never anything big). I'm not talking about GoTMisms either (though they bug me too).

Also, because he has so many characters i found in TBH that it jumped WAY too much. It's the same way Jordan got in his later books, giving a page or two of a character, then switch, repeat, repeat, reapeat.

That said, i love the series.

[4092]

I hate the desert trudging lol..

[Brys]

I wouldn't have said this before the Bonehunters, but now I have a few big criticisms:
1) Not letting characters die (or bringing them back to life). This is something that really irritates me, but he cheapens their sacrifice when they come back - eg Hedge talking to Paran as if nothing had happened. Duiker at the end of the Chain of Dogs was another one. Sometimes he also does the deaths badly - Dujek's death was wasted as powerful because we hadn't really seen Dujek since MoI, and Kalam's death didn't work because he was taken to the Deadhouse. It wasn't a big problem pre-Bonehunters, but now it's starting to become irritating.

2) Over-the-top situations. Don't mistake me, I'm all for high magic and gods intervening etc that are commonplace in Erikson's world. But the idea that three people (Kalam, Tavore and T'amber) can kill hundreds of assassins without dying themselves just wasn't remotely believable to me.

3) Generic soldiers - the Bridgeburners were mainly pretty unique and quite interesting. But the soldiers of the 14th on the whole were worthless and interchangeable. There were a couple of interesting ones, but until you saw the name it was often impossible to work out which one was which, because they were all so similar.

4) Occasional deus ex machina - rare, but they still exist and it's another thing that annoys me about the series.

5) Some pacing issues - eg the Mhybe storyline in Memories of Ice, and in the Bonehunters the whole of the second and third books were far too drawn out, while the last book was rushed.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Brys said:

2) Over-the-top situations. Don't mistake me, I'm all for high magic and gods intervening etc that are commonplace in Erikson's world. But the idea that three people (Kalam, Tavore and T'amber) can kill hundreds of assassins without dying themselves just wasn't remotely believable to me.

I believe T'amber did die. PLus, she had otherworldly assistance, which would explain why she did not go sooner than she did. Kalam would have died if not for divine intervention. Also, Apsalar was helping from behind the scenes. Still pretty fantastic, but oh well.

[philospher77]

Potsherds made me post this, which I had put in a different thread.

Does anyone else notice that SE gets fixated on little quirks in each book? Deadhouse Gates had urine splashing everywhere in fights, and Bonehunters seems determined to use sentence fragments as emphasis. I felt like sitting him down and telling him that a good writer can break the grammar rules, but not to the point where it's noticable that he is doing so.

[philospher77]

raymondluxuryyacht said:

carpet. In bonehunters there are potsherds on the freaking roofs! (In Malazan)

If I recall the scene correctly, the broken potsherds on the roofs in Malaz had been put there to try and discourage thieves from climbing on them. Think of it as low-grade razor wire. Then again, I am going entirely from memory, and may be mistaken.

[philospher77]

4092 said:

I hate the desert trudging lol..

I thought that the bit of desert-trudging after Y'ghatan was a little unrealistic. Here you have several people who have just been through a major fire (so at least first degree burns, if not some second/third degrees), with very little clothing and no water, in a desert. Which means that the sun is going to be making all those burns worse, and one thing burns do is weep, which is going to make the lack of water a major issue. I'm still wondering why Quick Ben didn't take pity on them and warren ahead to get some supplies and help them out after he saw the state that they were in.

[philospher77]

tiam said:

Something that annoyed me although not relevant to the feminist comments:) was the sudden expansive vocbulary that every person in the Malazan world under took. The only example i can think of is when through the whole of HoC Fiddlers giving it hoods breath and calling all the woman lasses. Then at the scorpian fight says ''Ok everything equidistant?'' or something like that. It just annoyed me how a common soldier could come out with some thing like that.

Fiddler is a sapper. Knowing geometry would, I think, be an important part of his job. He's got to place charges correctly in order to have the wall come down here and not over there, so it didn't strike me as that odd.

[philospher77]

pennywise said:

My main problem with the novels (and it's been getting worse with each title, though I've yet to read BH) is that Erikson spends way too much time talking about feelings and deeper meanings, and leaving the story out.
Spelling out every single little detail of emotion throws me off. I get bored and start skipping paragraphs.
I love my action of course, and can alawys read through the slower parts of a novel, but Good Lord, the last book was, dare I say it, almost a bore.

While I, on the other hand, love all of that. It's non-stop action and no discussion of the philosophical and emotional elements that will put me off a story.

Ok... now I am all caught up in this thread (after deciding to skip the early bits).

[Pillow-Pants]

Donut said:

Quote:
Originally Posted by pennywise
My main problem with the novels (and it's been getting worse with each title, though I've yet to read BH) is that Erikson spends way too much time talking about feelings and deeper meanings, and leaving the story out.
Spelling out every single little detail of emotion throws me off. I get bored and start skipping paragraphs.
I love my action of course, and can alawys read through the slower parts of a novel, but Good Lord, the last book was, dare I say it, almost a bore.

i personally hate when u have no idea what a character is thinking and feeling, without that some of the story would be lost, and i would be lost without know what the character feels and is going through

[Kage-za]

I know this theme has been touched on before, because it is very characteristic of SE's writing.
I think that as a whole, the common Malazan soldiers we see tend to be divorced from the masses in terms of their behavior and attitudes, in that they are much more tolerant and pragmatic in their behavior. Meanwhile the mobs are unruly and easily incited to violence. Sure Hedge says that most of the ascended Bridgeburners are bastards and not very nice to be with, but the ones we see are generally well-spoken, multi-lingual, witty, and open-minded (if a little neurotic and slow-thinking at times). Otherwise the exceptions to this rule usually come from outside of the Malazan regulars.

The Malazans are supposed to be soldiers with brains--but a few dumb, cruel soldiers have to be in the empire. There are too many dumb and cruel citizens for it to be otherwise. Actually, overall the masses do really poorly: whether they are joining the Wickham Pogrom, the Whirlwind, the Tenescowri, the culls, etc., they are never presented in any sort of positive light. Maybe I'm not enough of a cynic to swallow that.