[Mob]

I've just completed my first re-read of Blood and Bone.

First, the good:

[1] ICE is successful at evoking the jungle of Himitan. His depiction of the book's setting is rich and atmospheric. ICE has been good at this before - Malaz City in NoK, evoking the creepy presence of the Lady in STW, and Spawn in OST. It's one of his best traits as a writer.

[2] The horrendously bad and annoying, not to mention badly written, POV inner monologues of OST were corrected here. The characters were far less aggravating; ICE was able to write without making everyone be a fool/think of themselves as a fool 24/7.

And the bad:

[1] Plot-wise, this was easily the weakest book in the whole Malazan series. There is, quite simply, almost no point to the story. Some of the more interesting elements - Kallor, Osserc - could easily have been slotted into other stories. I don't know what ICE and his publishers were thinking. Nothing much happened. ICE seemed to have treated this novel as a way to make some money rather than tell a worthwhile story. Not encouraging for the future of the Malazan series.

[2] In a world as huge and epic as this, why is ICE choosing to be a prisoner of SE's Crippled God plot? Can he not devise a central story of his own to link his novels together? This is a huge problem. B&B came across as glorified fan fiction. In fact it reminds me of The Bourne Legacy with Jeremy Renner. The plot of that movie occurs at the same time as the second and third Bourne films starring Matt Damon, and the movie makes constant mention of Jason Bourne, to the point that it's plot hinges on him - but the problem is that the main action is occurring off-screen (and the main character never appears). This was a monumental weakness in the aforementioned movie, and is a similar problem here.

[3] The book is a travelogue. Though he evokes the setting well, by midway through I was bored rigid of the long descriptive sections about the jungle with nothing happening. The extensive description was extremely tiresome to read. I realise that ICE has a love of 19th century travel fiction from Asia, but this was preposterous. The text could have easily been 300 pages shorter. It would also have been tighter, sharper and a better book for it. There were hints of this in OST - far too many sections of wandering around in the dark inside the Spawn, with absolutely nothing happening other than being told how dark it was. ICE went nuclear with the descriptive/narrative meandering here.

[4] Once again, ICE cannot secure the reader's investment in any of his characters being ultimate bad asses. He badly botched the Riders in STW (we never saw them kick any ass or be remotely threatening; in fact, quite the opposite - we saw them lose every single exchange, yet were still forced to buy ICE's assertions that they were super-dangerous in order for the plot to function). Here, Skinner is explicitly evoked as the Guard's answer to Daseem Ultor. Yet though ICE continually relates how bad ass Skinner is, the reader never actually feels/sees/experiences it. If your story needs readers to accept that characters are super-powerful, you have to earn that respect/investment. ICE is unable to do this and, worryingly, doesn't even try. How hard would it have been to have the Riders whip some serious ass, or re-eingineer the plot to see Skinner do some epic deeds? The books would have been more convincing. And then Skinner was eaten by some coin-sized spiders. Great. The Thaumaturgs are similarly neglected.

[5] The Crimson Guard come across as a bunch of whiny, dull, meandering characters. Not particularly interesting - in fact, their sections were simply boring. Nothing happened, until the very end. Their continuing plot (whilst intriguing in terms of where it is obviously headed) just fails to make much of a connection for me. And these are supposed to be central figures in the whole Malazan world.

[6] What is going on with Osserc? ICE is too ambiguous on this, as is his wont.

[7] Once again, ICE cannot handle characters well. He can't consistently earn our emotional investment, instead requiring the reader to accept his assertions about them rather than feel it for themselves; many of his characters are indistinguishable in POVs and 'speak' with precisely the same voice; and most of the recurring characters he creates are profoundly dull.

[8] Of the plots that made up this story, I found none - zero - of them to be rewarding/interesting/enjoyable. Kallor and Osserc provided some minor distraction, but otherwise each of the plots felt boring and meaningless, and the characters were not engaging. How did ICE construct this text? How did he and his publishers not recognise the need to rewrite it?

I read the book early last year and was unimpressed. Having read it again, I was even less so. Sad to say, ICE is just making money off of SE's achievements here. Must try harder.

[Studlock]

Mob, on 17 January 2015 - 10:14 PM, said:

I read the book early last year and was unimpressed. Having read it again, I was even less so. Sad to say, ICE is just making money off of SE's achievements here. Must try harder.

Yeah, you can have your opinion about everything else but this is bullshit. He co-created the world, he's not 'just making money off of SE achievements'--unless of course you think SE solely created world, wrote ICE books for him then simply let his buddy publish it as his own. ICE might not be the same kind of writer as SE, and I personally don't think he's writing in a mode that suits him best, and you can argue he's not as good as a writer as SE but this right here is nonsense painting the man as some kind of money hungry moocher who just wants follow on SEs success negating his own creative process and not only calling into question his own writing ability (which I, and believe SE himself highly disagree with you but that's beside the point) but also his ethics--as well as the ethics of SE. Stop it. It's stupid, gross, and unfair point in a otherwise well argued post.

[nacht]

Yeah Mob. It would be good if you take the last statement out.
It is one thing to criticize the writing as you can back it up with examples of why you think it is so.
But it is wrong to cast aspersions on somebody's intentions without solid proof. For example, if ICE had told you personally that is why he wrote the book, then you can make such a claim.

I personally like BaB very much. In the net that is how I felt. I don't like Assail that much on the other hand.

[Twisty]

I just want to suggest that maybe Mob's point was not that ICE is literally mooching of SE's work - everyone knows he co-created the world, and BaB is his story - but that he's somewhat reliant on the power of SE's work to bring readers (and buyers) to his novels. ICE's contributions are in and of themselves valuable contributions to the world of Malaz, but Mob makes many valid points about the flaws in his writing. I think the series' conclusion with Assail highlights that ICE has the confidence to tell his tales in his style (here I'm thinking of mostly new characters in each book etc), irrespective of what SE has written. However, Mob is right in pointing out that without SE's work, ICE's tales (especially the travelogue style of BaB) wouldn't sell anywhere near as well.

And Mob, I agree the most with point 7 - many of his characters draw little emotional response. From his series all I can recall actually caring about, off the top of my head, is Nait/Jumpy from RotCG, and Rillish Jal Keth. Long term characters like Kiska, Shimmer and Kyle gain my sympathy just for hanging around, while small roles like Murk (BaB), Yusek (OST) and Ivanr (SW) fail to really grab me - they're interesting while reading their PoVs, sure, but easily forgotten.

[Studlock]

Yes but without ICE, SE would have never written Malazan. See how this circle goes?

[Mob]

Yes we all know that ICE co-created the world. That has no relevance for assessment of his books. It's a strange argument to muster in is defence.

For those who were offended by my choice of phrase, I apologise. Let me try again: ICE so neglected the basic elements that have made a story successful for thousands of years as to leave one with the impression that a lack of serious effort went into this text. And customers are entitled to complain when they feel that a product has not been worth their time and money.

Of course Malazan is a money-making venture. Even in his most recent interview, SE sounded less than enthusiastic about his ongoing work in the world and made clear that the emotional imperative to write these stories had been satisfied with TCG. He is contracted to write more books, so will produce them. I can't wait. But money has a lot to do with it.

[worry]

That's one of the weirder views on artist/audience relationships I've ever heard, even in the context of art as 'product'. Storyteller must hit a checklist of basic elements or the story is not 'successful'. Artist must evoke the desired emotions in reader or it breaches the terms of their financial transaction. I'm not arguing, it just strikes me as oddly procedural about art, like it's a matter of return on investment or something.

Anyways, I'm mostly posting about that third paragraph to say that that has never at all struck me as the thrust of anything SE has said about the post-MBotF work. It's clear how important MBotF was to him, but the (relatively) leisurely pace since then has always come off as sheer relief and even enjoyment rather than job obligation.

[Mob]

I argued that my assessment of the book is that it wasn't worth my time/money. You are free to disagree.

But the idea that satisfaction is a strange and novel concept when it comes to artistic products is clearly flawed. Why does product x receive good reviews and is successful? Because it satisfied most people. This shouldn't be novel.

[Mob]

SE has also said that he would have written poetry instead of novels if it was commercially viable. Bills to pay!

[Andorion]

Lets see... what to address first:

Regarding art and satisfaction, there are two sides to the story. From the PoV of the artist he is composing his piece to satisfy his own creative urges. Some artists may have as an additional motive a sense of exposition or expression wher ehe is trying to make a statement to the world through his work. Some other artists may just be vreating art for arts sake and may not even care if the anybody is impacted by it. There are many cases of poets who wrote poetry on occasional scraps of paper and then just scattered the paper away, with his creative urge satisfied, the poetry no longer had any value.

Now to situate this in todays commercial context, expecially in publishing, the artist/author has to strike a balance between commercial and creative urges. Often it is the degree of acuteness of this balance that dictates not only the 'success' of a work but also its excellence. Here the author has to care about the needs of the publisher as well as the reviews and reactions of the reader. Now consider ICE. He may have been contracted to write a certain number of books. but he undoubtedly had a certain idea of what story to tell, both as an overarching arc and in the discrete books.

So now lets get down to the story. If I remember correctly: theres the Crimson Guard travelogue, the Malazan travelogue, the rebel Crimson guard line, the Queen of Dreams line, Spite occasionally popping up, the thaumaturg expedition into Himatan, and the Kallor led war against the thaumaturgs, as well as the kid and her brotrher (name totally forgotten) and Osserc.

Of this the rebel Crimson Guard line serves rather nicely to both tie in to a previous ICE work SW, but also helps to round of the Crippled God storyline. Now you object to ICE dipping into the Crippled God storyline, but lets view the CG events in perspective. They are epochal events for the entire world an literally dictate its future. It would be rather odd if they did not find some resonance outside Kolanse. Also the Crimson Guard and their counterparts are featured heavily in this book. We know Skinner and co. work for the Crippled God. How exactly is that aspect supposed to be avoided? It would be absurd if there was no acknowledgement of this.

You object to the weakness of Skinner. But try to remember this is Malazan. Memory is fickle, history is unreliable. SKnner has been hyped. So what? Lets check our own eyewitness evidence in RotCG. Skinner faces off against Dassem and it soon becomes painfully evident that if not for his armour, Dassem could have skinned, cut and filletted him right there. So when that same chap goes up against the very person who gav ehim the armour, its kind of predictable that he would not make it.

I agree with you and i think this is the general consensus on the forum that Himatan is an awesome creation. The evocation of the jungle with its won power and mystique is wonderfully done and this is why I don't mind the travelogues, which do tend to get a bit slow. Having said that I was surpised that you did not like the Thaumaturg trek through Himatan which I found hilarious.

Regarding the overall plot and importance of the book I don't really see why you are so upset. B&B is very similat to SW. An isolated world in thrall to a divine power is fundmaentally changed/freed. Ardata retracts her influence, the Guard rebellion is broken, a catastrophe to Wu is averted.

As for ICE using ICE characters vs ICE using SE characters I think the story is way more complicated. ICe does some characters really well. Greymane, Kyle, etc. But ICE also does some SE characters really well. I love his Kallor, Dassem, Mallik, Laseen. Then again he makes some characters unbelievably bland and boring: Kiska, and he fouls up some SE characters badly: Kruppe, Tayschrenn etc. Thats just my opinion but I think ICE is just more somfortable with some characters rather than others. I do agree with you that he does not create as much empathy as SE does. I also find most of his convergences, with the exception of SW underwhelming.


As for Osserc, I have my own pet theory. Osserc is a total idiot. This expalins a huge amunt of stuff without any need for deep theories.

[nacht]

Mob, on 18 January 2015 - 11:38 AM, said:

I argued that my assessment of the book is that it wasn't worth my time/money. You are free to disagree.

But the idea that satisfaction is a strange and novel concept when it comes to artistic products is clearly flawed. Why does product x receive good reviews and is successful? Because it satisfied most people. This shouldn't be novel.

You didn't argue "just" this.

Your actual statement was this.

Quote

Sad to say, ICE is just making money off of SE's achievements here. Must try harder.

They are very different.

Your argument breaks down to
I dont like what he wrote. Therefore he must be writing these books just for the sake of making money of what his co-creator created.

This post has been edited by nacht: 18 January 2015 - 07:30 PM

[Mob]

nacht, on 18 January 2015 - 07:30 PM, said:

Mob, on 18 January 2015 - 11:38 AM, said:

I argued that my assessment of the book is that it wasn't worth my time/money. You are free to disagree.

But the idea that satisfaction is a strange and novel concept when it comes to artistic products is clearly flawed. Why does product x receive good reviews and is successful? Because it satisfied most people. This shouldn't be novel.

You didn't argue "just" this.

Your actual statement was this.

Quote

Sad to say, ICE is just making money off of SE's achievements here. Must try harder.

They are very different.

Your argument breaks down to
I dont like what he wrote. Therefore he must be writing these books just for the sake of making money of what his co-creator created.

So are you suggesting that B&B is a viable text in its own right? Because I just don't see it. The book lacks all the elements that make for a successful story. I can't imagine it would have been published by a major company if it didn't say 'Malazan' on it. And I certainly can't imagine that anyone reading this on its own, without the rest, would be moved to check out others in the series. Hence, yes, it is able to function commercially because of the series of which it is a member.

And no, sorry, my argument doesn't break down that way. I made a long list of specific things I didn't like about the book and why, in my eyes, it was a monumental failure. You are free to disagree. But saying that my argument is as simplistic as that only makes sense if the Malazan books have the status of holy texts to you.

[worry]

'Artistic products'. Weirder and weirder, man. I'm not trying to change your mind particularly, your argument is just kinda blowing my mind (aside from your first post, mind you, since that is mostly straightforward explanation until that nosedive at the end about money). Whether you liked the book is beside the point; I suppose the crux is this insistence that there's a right way to write a novel, like art is a service industry. It's like reacting to a novel you didn't like the same way you'd react to a pizzeria that gave you toppings you weren't expecting. That's weird (to me) in itself, but you go one step further by saying not only are the toppings unsatisfactory, but as a result, it's not even a pizza. Maybe you're right that it's not a novel approach, I dunno, but it's foreign to me and more than a little off-putting.

[Mob]

Considering that ICE writes books that are yarns - not quite pulp, true, but lacking the depth of other literature - there certainly is a tried-and-tested method to doing so.

I'm not sure how relating quality to satisfaction is 'weirder and weirder' - unless you're living in a socialist commune. How do you think the success or failure of any product - say a movie at the box office - works?

It's fine to disagree, but the notion that this needs to be discussed, let alone explained, is revelatory to me.

Your pizza analogy is also flawed. Nowhere did I say that the book isn't a novel. Of course it is. It isn't a broomstick. The problem is that it lacks the elements that make a novel engaging. Like, for instance, a story, a structure, and significance.

[amphibian]

The problem with what you're saying is that these specific things are apparently true for you, but you're expanding them to be true for everyone.

That's not a valid expansion to make.

Blood and Bone is ICE's best novel in my view and I also believe that Orb, Sceptre, Throne is his weakest. But you don't see me saying that Esslemont is putting out pages without a story, structure or significance. That's... not a judgment you're capable of making - in my view - and none of the posts you're making in response are changing that view.

[worry]

You're right, you didn't explicitly say it wasn't a novel...that was just how I took what you said about a thousands-year-old model for storytelling that ICE eschewed. Perhaps I extrapolated too far, sorry. But if you had a thousands-year-old recipe for pizza and eschewed it, would you still be making a pizza? That said, my point was that pizzas and novels aren't analogous. So even if you weren't still making a pizza, you very well might still be writing a novel ('good' being irrelevant). Perhaps I neglected the thousands-year-old model for making a point.

I live in a socialist hermitage, btw, and I would place B&B in a well-earned 3rd place spot (after SW and Assail) of ICE's six. I think where our opinions most converge though are at your points 4 and 5. I've said it before, but I think ICE should have employed occasional one-off POVs w/ the Guard (post-NoK obv) in the same way SE did with his Heavies or Setoc's older brother for instance, and that would have added a lot of texture to the group. In tandem with the tried-and-true internal-monologue-flashback would have paid dividends.

[Andorion]

Hey , I think its good if somebody eschews 1000 year old models. Makes things interesting. Mob regarding your point about significance, you might want to look at my earlier post.

[Mythodikal]

Mob, on 18 January 2015 - 08:54 AM, said:

Let me try again: ICE so neglected the basic elements that have made a story successful for thousands of years as to leave one with the impression that a lack of serious effort went into this text.

I completely realize I am commenting on a 5 year old post. This really stuck out to me though. "A lack of serious effort"... Call out theme, call out characters, tone, metaphor, insert literary critique here. The idea of someone writing a 600+ page novel with so many layers as a lack of effort... wow!

Being 5 years later this obviously isn't meant to come down on Mob, a lot changes in 5 years. He probably doesn't even post anymore. I just get blown away by the condescension.

Other hilarious part is the ICE prequels outselling SE so much that he has to skip the last book of his trilogy (Tiste trilogy was sooooo boring and repetitive!).

I wonder if anyone will read this. Haha.