[shovelbum]

Just finished Midnight Tides. It sounds like it's best appreciated after reading some or all of the books that follow. I can respect that (especially as part of an enormous multi-volume tale), but, in and of itself, I didn't like Midnight Tides. Here's why:

• The OP mentioned that Midnight Tides was hard to understand. I think I know what the OP means, but I think hard to value is how I would describe it. The book is basically Trull's backstory. Why are we reading about Trull? Presumably he's important, but House of Chains didn't even make that clear. So I read Midnight Tides with the faith that there would be a pay off...and there isn't. The dots of Trull's shorning are never connected. I have read the author's explanation that the omission is intentional, that the shorning should be viewed as inevitable based on the events leading up to it. But instead I wonder why was Trull shorn and not executed? After all, his brother Fear nearly killed him and threatened him several times. Anyway, Trull's importance remains ambiguous even at the end of the book, and that is not fun after such a long read.
• Unlike Deadhouse Gates and House of Chains which were anchored by the reader's rooting interest in Bridgeburners Fiddler and Kalam, Midnight is anchored by Trull and the Crippled God. Meh.
• As much as I like Iron Bars and am intrigued by his Avowed status, there are only so many demi-badasses I have capacity for until they all just sort of glom together.
• Can someone please explain what happened to Seren Pedac? It seemed like she was raped in all of one sloppy drunken paragraph. I am tired of authors arbitrarily using rape to build or harden female characters. It sort of made sense with Felisin. But between the genital mutilation in House of Chains and Seren Pedac's treatment in Midnight, I start to think that the author forgot that he can write a female character, like Tattersail, and not subject them to sexual abuse.
• I know Tehol and Bugg are very popular, and that Midnight is generally enjoyed for its funny parts. But unlike Kruppe who seemed to produce new and clever and significant dialogue for every situation, Tehol and Bugg and their associates seem to get stuck in the same insignificant jokes: sex, rancid food, the irony of the master-servant relationship. It gets boring when I can predict their dialogue.
• Erikson doesn't craft the best sentences. He abused adverbs in Gardens but seemed to grow out of it. He has some tense problems here and there. He employs certain words, like redolent and desultory awkwardly and entirely too frequently. I can look past a lot of grammar and idiomatic mistakes, and I can try to forgive a lot of it because of the volume of work, but the overuse of dramatic sentence fragments in Midnight is chronic and glaring. Frankly. Awful. Dan Brown awful.
  

Anyway, the net effect is that I think Midnight Tides is, for me, the weakest book so far. I would not be inclined to read it again, slog that it already was.

This post has been edited by shovelbum: 25 January 2016 - 04:39 PM

[Kanese S's]

Midnight Tides is better on reread.

Also, shorning is ritual banishment from Edur society. Quite a few societies have used exile as the worst punishment (it's worth keeping in mind that in a tribal/forager society, exile usually meant a slow death due to starvation, injury, or any number of ways in which not having communal support would be lethal).

[Gorefest]

You seem to focus quite heavily on MT being Trull's backstory, but it isnt really. Hoe could Trull even know 80% of the stuff that happens in MT? The use of Trull to introduce the change of scenery/continent from books 1-4 to book 5 is more of a narrative 'trick' to give SE a segue into this new set of dramatis personae that will make up the final part of the grand tale, before everything starts coming together. MT is the backstory of the Tiste Edur as a peoples, it pulls together lots of unexplained events and setups in previous novels, and it sets the stage for lots of stuff to come.

Trull and his shorning is actually still lots of RAFO. MT is not anchored by Trull and the tCG, it is anchored by the Tehols and the Sengars. Two families with as many parrallels as differences.

Regarding Seren's rape, You can argue whether the theme of rape is overused, but really there is a thematic case to be made here that lifts it above a mere 'toughening up' of the character. Seren is wrestling throughout the book with the concept of rape, but in a more mental/metaphysical sense, as in abuse. She feels she abused/raped Hull by using his morals for her own betterment. She appears to be an adept of Mockra, which is mind invasion, spying on people's thoughts, i.e. mental 'rape'. These themes will be explored further in later books.

For what it is worth, there are a lot of books in the series and different people have different favourites. I didnt really like MT very much upon my first read and was very relieved to rejoin old friends in the next book. But after rereading I now actually rate it among the best of all the novels. There is so much going on thematically, there is so much setup which on a first read I dismissed as sluggish filler but that was immensely rewarding on a reread, it is one of the best crafted books in the series in my view. I genuinely believe that the main reason this book sees so little love is because it so drastically jumps time and space from the previous works. Upon reread, that feeling is gone because a lot of these MT characters are just as instrumental to the plot as the Fiddlers and Rakes of Wu.

[worry]

Actually the book is largely about a magical feather who becomes a witch, echoing Earth's own fairy tales, but "flipping" the trope of softening them as bedtime stories (since Trull is telling his companions a bedtime story at the end of HoC).

The moral of the tale is gandering at a goose will get you down.

[shovelbum]

worry, on 25 January 2016 - 11:56 PM, said:

Actually the book is largely about a magical feather who becomes a witch, echoing Earth's own fairy tales, but "flipping" the trope of softening them as bedtime stories (since Trull is telling his companions a bedtime story at the end of HoC).

The moral of the tale is gandering at a goose will get you down.

Are you referring to Udinaas' love for Feather Witch or Rhulad coveting Mayen or something else?

[worry]

I leave that to my readers to decide.

[Gorefest]

The chicken came home to roost. Ublala will be pleased.

[shovelbum]

Gorefest, on 25 January 2016 - 11:37 PM, said:

...
Regarding Seren's rape, You can argue whether the theme of rape is overused, but really there is a thematic case to be made here that lifts it above a mere 'toughening up' of the character. Seren is wrestling throughout the book with the concept of rape, but in a more mental/metaphysical sense, as in abuse. She feels she abused/raped Hull by using his morals for her own betterment. She appears to be an adept of Mockra, which is mind invasion, spying on people's thoughts, i.e. mental 'rape'. These themes will be explored further in later books.

For what it is worth, there are a lot of books in the series and different people have different favourites. I didnt really like MT very much upon my first read and was very relieved to rejoin old friends in the next book. But after rereading I now actually rate it among the best of all the novels. There is so much going on thematically, there is so much setup which on a first read I dismissed as sluggish filler but that was immensely rewarding on a reread, it is one of the best crafted books in the series in my view. I genuinely believe that the main reason this book sees so little love is because it so drastically jumps time and space from the previous works. Upon reread, that feeling is gone because a lot of these MT characters are just as instrumental to the plot as the Fiddlers and Rakes of Wu.

Made it through Bonehunters. Generally enjoyed it. Started up Gale...

Spoiler

...and Kettle is raped. 9 year olds, dude.

I understand what you are saying about Seren, but frankly I don't buy it. Might as well say that any form of trespass is analogous to rape. Jeez, even Felesin the Younger is abducted and pressed into a life of gluttony and lust. I don't think it says much good of an author who is compelled to senselessly and sexually damage so many female characters. Let's sodomize Trull with his spear, make him fight with it, and see who enjoys reading about that. There's got to be something thematically and ironically deep there, right?

Gonna let the Book of the Fallen drop for a while. Will probably come back to it. Malazan books 1 through 3 still have my enthusiasm.

This post has been edited by shovelbum: 03 February 2016 - 01:36 PM

[Kanese S's]

shovelbum, on 03 February 2016 - 01:35 PM, said:

Gorefest, on 25 January 2016 - 11:37 PM, said:

...
Regarding Seren's rape, You can argue whether the theme of rape is overused, but really there is a thematic case to be made here that lifts it above a mere 'toughening up' of the character. Seren is wrestling throughout the book with the concept of rape, but in a more mental/metaphysical sense, as in abuse. She feels she abused/raped Hull by using his morals for her own betterment. She appears to be an adept of Mockra, which is mind invasion, spying on people's thoughts, i.e. mental 'rape'. These themes will be explored further in later books.

For what it is worth, there are a lot of books in the series and different people have different favourites. I didnt really like MT very much upon my first read and was very relieved to rejoin old friends in the next book. But after rereading I now actually rate it among the best of all the novels. There is so much going on thematically, there is so much setup which on a first read I dismissed as sluggish filler but that was immensely rewarding on a reread, it is one of the best crafted books in the series in my view. I genuinely believe that the main reason this book sees so little love is because it so drastically jumps time and space from the previous works. Upon reread, that feeling is gone because a lot of these MT characters are just as instrumental to the plot as the Fiddlers and Rakes of Wu.

Made it through Bonehunters. Generally enjoyed it. Started up Gale...

Spoiler

...and Kettle is raped. 9 year olds, dude.

I understand what you are saying about Seren, but frankly I don't buy it. Might as well say that any form of trespass is analogous to rape. Jeez, even Felesin the Younger is abducted and pressed into a life of gluttony and lust. I don't think it says much good of an author who is compelled to senselessly and sexually damage so many female characters. Let's sodomize Trull with his spear, make him fight with it, and see who enjoys reading about that. There's got to be something thematically and ironically deep there, right?

Gonna let the Book of the Fallen drop for a while. Will probably come back to it. Malazan books 1 through 3 still have my enthusiasm.

As I recall, it was by the slavers, was it not?

When one talks of slavery, this is often what it meant, for girls and women. When one talks of war, or rioting, sexual violence is often perpetrated against girls and women in such situations. We like to pretend that such things don't happen, but they do. That is what it meant to be a girl/woman who was a slave. That's what it has often meant to be a girl/woman in a war zone. It horrifies you because it should. That's the point. And it has lasting consequences. If this horrifies you to read about, as well it should, as it is meant to be horrifying, you should be horrified in turn at real life society, where rape is all too common and all too frequently a wrong without redress. The horror of violation in the books reflects the horror that occurs every day in real life.... except in the books, the rapists depicted usually get their comeuppance.

I think you're also forgetting that there have been male victims and female rapists in this series, as well. The women of the dead seed were not asking for consent before mounting their dying victims. Menandore is referred to explicitly as having raped Udinaas. Other characters were abused as children.

[shovelbum]

Kanese S, on 03 February 2016 - 02:23 PM, said:

As I recall, it was by the slavers, was it not?

When one talks of slavery, this is often what it meant, for girls and women. When one talks of war, or rioting, sexual violence is often perpetrated against girls and women in such situations. We like to pretend that such things don't happen, but they do. That is what it meant to be a girl/woman who was a slave. That's what it has often meant to be a girl/woman in a war zone. It horrifies you because it should. That's the point. And it has lasting consequences. If this horrifies you to read about, as well it should, as it is meant to be horrifying, you should be horrified in turn at real life society, where rape is all too common and all too frequently a wrong without redress. The horror of violation in the books reflects the horror that occurs every day in real life.... except in the books, the rapists depicted usually get their comeuppance.

I think you're also forgetting that there have been male victims and female rapists in this series, as well. The women of the dead seed were not asking for consent before mounting their dying victims. Menandore is referred to explicitly as having raped Udinaas. Other characters were abused as children.

Spoiler

Yeah, the slavers raped her some time before Ruin got to them. It gets brief mention.

I don't think many people would argue that slavery is anything but a bad system, but I also don't think all historical slave systems have been conducted in the same way. I would need to brush up on it to comment further. Anyway, Erikson has said that fantasy authors must carefully consider what they import from the real world. It is also the author's choice to make the written world as brutal or as mild as he likes. IMO there's no point to raping Kettle. She's a magical formerly undead throat-eating zombie kid now experiencing life. There's really not much point to raping such a character. She wasn't grounded in reality in the first place. I don' think a reader should have to bolster the book with an outside real-world explanation.

I wasn't horrified by Kettle's rape. It's too glib to be horrifying. I was annoyed and disgusted by the authors nonchalant usage and, imo, bad judgment.

I don't think I would count the women of the dead seed. That did register as horrifying. The rape of the dead/dying and cannibalism made it clear that the army was evil (in contrast to the Apocalyptic forces whose morality is unclear for a while).

[Andorion]

shovelbum, on 04 February 2016 - 07:29 PM, said:

Kanese S, on 03 February 2016 - 02:23 PM, said:

As I recall, it was by the slavers, was it not?

When one talks of slavery, this is often what it meant, for girls and women. When one talks of war, or rioting, sexual violence is often perpetrated against girls and women in such situations. We like to pretend that such things don't happen, but they do. That is what it meant to be a girl/woman who was a slave. That's what it has often meant to be a girl/woman in a war zone. It horrifies you because it should. That's the point. And it has lasting consequences. If this horrifies you to read about, as well it should, as it is meant to be horrifying, you should be horrified in turn at real life society, where rape is all too common and all too frequently a wrong without redress. The horror of violation in the books reflects the horror that occurs every day in real life.... except in the books, the rapists depicted usually get their comeuppance.

I think you're also forgetting that there have been male victims and female rapists in this series, as well. The women of the dead seed were not asking for consent before mounting their dying victims. Menandore is referred to explicitly as having raped Udinaas. Other characters were abused as children.

Spoiler

Yeah, the slavers raped her some time before Ruin got to them. It gets brief mention.

I don't think many people would argue that slavery is anything but a bad system, but I also don't think all historical slave systems have been conducted in the same way. I would need to brush up on it to comment further. Anyway, Erikson has said that fantasy authors must carefully consider what they import from the real world. It is also the author's choice to make the written world as brutal or as mild as he likes. IMO there's no point to raping Kettle. She's a magical formerly undead throat-eating zombie kid now experiencing life. There's really not much point to raping such a character. She wasn't grounded in reality in the first place. I don' think a reader should have to bolster the book with an outside real-world explanation.

I wasn't horrified by Kettle's rape. It's too glib to be horrifying. I was annoyed and disgusted by the authors nonchalant usage and, imo, bad judgment.

I don't think I would count the women of the dead seed. That did register as horrifying. The rape of the dead/dying and cannibalism made it clear that the army was evil (in contrast to the Apocalyptic forces whose morality is unclear for a while).

Spoiler

Consider that the rape of a girl by slavers is the author adding another description to the corrupt and cruel Letheri society

This post has been edited by Andorion: 05 February 2016 - 01:45 AM

[worry]

Consider this is the Midnight Tides forum and none of you should be talking about this.

[shovelbum]

Dumbledude, on 05 February 2016 - 12:23 AM, said:

Consider this is the Midnight Tides forum and none of you should be talking about this.

Sorry just wanted to finish out a thought/conversation that arose with Midnight Tides.

[Andorion]

Dumbledude, on 05 February 2016 - 12:23 AM, said:

Consider this is the Midnight Tides forum and none of you should be talking about this.

It is? Huh I never noticed

[worry]

Classic Dumbledude "Roasting of the Chumps" post.

shovelbum, on 05 February 2016 - 01:45 AM, said:

Dumbledude, on 05 February 2016 - 12:23 AM, said:

Consider this is the Midnight Tides forum and none of you should be talking about this.

Sorry just wanted to finish out a thought/conversation that arose with Midnight Tides.

I understand the impulse, but when it's a thought that is sure to breed discussion, error towards creating a new thread in the right forum anyway. You could even leave a note here saying you're doing just that, w/ a link to the new thread.