[Toc]

In scope and vision, Esslemont have proven himself to be something of a master. Every story since Return of the Crimson Guard to Assail have basically involved whole continents at war of some sort, the destruction of the world in the peripheral eye at all time. Every war and every battle is grand in scope, brutally executed and effectively coming to timely ends. Every story knows it's exact destination, for good and bad. It is simply vast, grand, brilliant and awestriking.

However, having just finished Assail, I'm just not sure I really care. And I've had this feeling since Return of the Crimson Guard, which have lingered in every novel by Esslemont since. The reason is the individuals, the characters who actually tell us the story.

Esslemont have made a, quite frankly, great point of every creature being flawed, every creature being afraid, every creature being shocked, every creature being aghast, every creature being appalled, every creature being astonished, every creature being horrified, every creature being [insert random verb that is a synonym to any of theaforementioned]. The problem is that he chooses to always write it out, plainly for anyone to see. The mood of every story stems from the glasses the reader is given, i.e. the POV character, and basically every character in any given story of Esslemont is, in a crude sense, a jumpy adolescent; whether it be a trained assassin of the claw, a simple youth, a seasoned veteran of the Crimson Guard, a sailor who've never seen a battle before, etc., etc.. Every POV character is basically the same, except for a different backstory and a different end – everything in between… meh… Any character's initial reaction is never "kept together", it's always somewhat surprised; everything is new, even to the seasoned and experienced.

The easiest example of this is the character Kyle. Kyle has been essential in order to "tell the tale", how A turned to B, and why X is related to Z. The character Kyle, however, is just a (sorry) ridiculous name without much substance. If Kyle would have died halfway through his vaguely explained but extremely insignificant run to the north of the continent of Assail, I'm fairly sure no one would've cared. The only important thing about him is that he has an important sword, but anyone could've picked that up and continued a similar journey. Kyle himself lacks any sort of depth, and he has been around for the whole series of The Malazan Empire.

If every single sentence said in Assail by Kyle, Cartheron Crust, Jute, Shimmer, Iron Bars, Orosenn and Fisher Kel Tath were switched with one-another, I would personally not notice any difference, because the characters hold no personal characteristics at all, and the words they say are only there to progress the story to its inevitable end.

Now, having said all that, I do enjoy Esslemont. I do,however, not feel attached to it. The stories are great, but I don't really care about any of the characters in them.



Assail is a decent end to a decent series. Brilliant in scope, lacking in characters.

This post has been edited by Toc: 30 April 2016 - 12:06 AM

[RSM616]

i understand where your coming from with this. Eisselmont (sorry for the spelling) had all the ingredients for some great stories. But i feel the way he developed characters just left me uninterested. The Crimson Guard are a prime example. In SE's books they came across as interesting, i genuinely wanted to find out more about Iron Bars, however after reading Eisselmonts books, i quickly stopped caring. The same happened with the Seguleh. I think SE was that good at hinting at their culture and building intrigue but Eisselmont couldn't live up to it in my opinion.

I also feel he dragged things out too far. The ending around what the Crimson guard became obvious from about 2 books earlier