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Karsa coming first?

#1 User is offline   worry 

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Posted 25 October 2017 - 09:54 PM

According to the new and seemingly official SE Facebook account, SE has put Walk in Shadow on hold in order to work on the first Karsa trilogy book.
https://www.facebook...886880691464232

I take that to mean: inspiration has struck.

Also, the third (and final) Willful Child is almost done.

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#2 User is offline   Andorion 

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Posted 26 October 2017 - 01:08 AM

View Postworry, on 25 October 2017 - 09:54 PM, said:

According to the new and seemingly official SE Facebook account, SE has put Walk in Shadow on hold in order to work on the first Karsa trilogy book.
https://www.facebook...886880691464232

I take that to mean: inspiration has struck.

Also, the third (and final) Willful Child is almost done.

Wacky!


I would have preferred Walk in Shadow first, but I am most definitely not complaining. If we get Karsa first, so be it. Also SE's writing pace never ceases to amaze me.
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#3 User is offline   Salt-Man Z 

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Posted 26 October 2017 - 04:00 AM

SE's explanation (link to FB comment):

Quote

Hmm, okay. I've made a point of never dissembling to my readers so why start now? The reasons for this decision (delaying Walk in Shadow) are varied: the basic situation is as follows. For reasons unknown to me, my agent or my publishers, DoD and FoL have tanked in terms of sales. I wasn't even aware of that until we started marketing the First Contact novel, RKH, but when the details came out it took the wind out of my sails (putting it mildly). Now, if it was a matter of the style I employed for the Kharkanas trilogy turning readers off, then the sales of FoD should have been decent, only to then fall off for FoL. But that wasn't the case. Strangely, the Book of the Fallen series remains strong in terms of sales. Was it because it was a prequel? Possibly. Did FoD come too soon after TCG? Maybe. Or is there some kind of reader-fatigue going on? Could be. One theory I've been considering is a more general wariness among fantasy fans regarding trilogies and series -- having been burned by other authors waiting for books, are readers just holding back until the trilogy is done, before buying in? But then, Dancer's Lament sold brilliantly (and it too is a prequel). Anyway, the upshot is, given what we perceive as considerable enthusiasm for the Karsa trilogy, we decided to jump right in. The story picks up four or five years after the ten book series, so there'll be plenty of room to explore the fall-out, and room for favourite characters to make an appearance beyond Karsa himself. I do remain committed to writing Walk in Shadow and humbly apologize for you (few?) readers eagerly awaiting that novel.

"Here is light. You will say that it is not a living entity, but you miss the point that it is more, not less. Without occupying space, it fills the universe. It nourishes everything, yet itself feeds upon destruction. We claim to control it, but does it not perhaps cultivate us as a source of food? May it not be that all wood grows so that it can be set ablaze, and that men and women are born to kindle fires?"
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#4 User is offline   Andorion 

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Posted 26 October 2017 - 04:47 AM

I am not very surprised that Kharkanas did not sell as well as the original series. The writing style is entirely different. I do feel bad for SE that he go so discouraged though.
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Posted 26 October 2017 - 05:03 AM

Yah, that's really disappointing to hear. These books are fantasy masterworks. But SE's gotta pay the bills and his decision is probably the right one.
Hopefully it's Karsa 1, WiS, K2, K3, all before the apocalypse.
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Posted 26 October 2017 - 05:20 AM

It is deeply disappointing. Was really looking forward to "Walk In Shadow". I totally enjoyed FoD and FoL. The language was sublime and the unfolding of the Malazan mythology was really good.

i believe there are three main problems with the series.
First, the Liosan were totally unbalanced. Every single Liosan leader is deranged.
Second, too much preaching in terms of civilization messing up pristine nature (even if the language is beautiful :-)
Finally, for some reason SE decided to give us POV's of several deranged people. Maybe this is an experiment he did to break away from the traditional fantasy and force the readers to think from different points of view.
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Posted 26 October 2017 - 05:57 AM

Interesting. I wonder whether we'll ever get WiS.
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#8 User is offline   Andorion 

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Posted 26 October 2017 - 06:19 AM

View PostAbyss, on 26 October 2017 - 05:57 AM, said:

Interesting. I wonder whether we'll ever get WiS.


I think we will, but it might be quite delayed. What I am wondering is whether this was a joint decision from SE and his publisher. If SE is doing Karsa simply because he wants a break from Walk in Shadow, I think we will definitely get the book later. If the publisher doesn't want to go ahead with it, that's another story.
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Posted 26 October 2017 - 06:38 AM

View PostSalt-Man Z, on 26 October 2017 - 04:00 AM, said:

SE's explanation (link to FB comment):

Quote

Hmm, okay. I've made a point of never dissembling to my readers so why start now? The reasons for this decision (delaying Walk in Shadow) are varied: the basic situation is as follows. For reasons unknown to me, my agent or my publishers, DoD and FoL have tanked in terms of sales. I wasn't even aware of that until we started marketing the First Contact novel, RKH, but when the details came out it took the wind out of my sails (putting it mildly). Now, if it was a matter of the style I employed for the Kharkanas trilogy turning readers off, then the sales of FoD should have been decent, only to then fall off for FoL. But that wasn't the case. Strangely, the Book of the Fallen series remains strong in terms of sales. Was it because it was a prequel? Possibly. Did FoD come too soon after TCG? Maybe. Or is there some kind of reader-fatigue going on? Could be. One theory I've been considering is a more general wariness among fantasy fans regarding trilogies and series -- having been burned by other authors waiting for books, are readers just holding back until the trilogy is done, before buying in? But then, Dancer's Lament sold brilliantly (and it too is a prequel). Anyway, the upshot is, given what we perceive as considerable enthusiasm for the Karsa trilogy, we decided to jump right in. The story picks up four or five years after the ten book series, so there'll be plenty of room to explore the fall-out, and room for favourite characters to make an appearance beyond Karsa himself. I do remain committed to writing Walk in Shadow and humbly apologize for you (few?) readers eagerly awaiting that novel.



This doesn't really sound encouraging.

On the other side that Dancer's Lament sold brilliantly is a good sign for the other current trilogy
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Posted 26 October 2017 - 08:24 AM

I'm sad after reading this.

First of all, I'm totally against market laws conditioning artists' work. Yes, the writer has to eat and I respect that. This is an industry and the publisher has all the power, and I acknowledge that. But it is wrong, wrong, and wrong. Poor Kafka had to earn his living with a job he hated because of that. A lot of literary gods (or, at least Ascendants) can't see their works published because they are not expected to sell. And now an author who is a master of his craft and has an stablished fanbase has to delay the deliver of a work because it has not been a bestseller! I am outraged. I feel personally outraged. Is that today's publishers have not the patience for a longseller? Because it is what Erikson is giving us: a longseller, a classic and a genius work, and not any fifty shades of Kurald Emurlahn.

This post has been edited by Morgan Lefay: 26 October 2017 - 08:26 AM

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Posted 26 October 2017 - 09:49 AM

Though I didn't like either FoD or FoL nor am I eagerly waiting for WiS (All this because I hate the writing style), I wouldn't have hoped for it to turn out like this. If Erikson goes back to his old, non-philosophical, writing style, the Karsa books will very likely be great. Even so I would gladly have waited for him to finish WiS first as leaving the trilogy unfinished feels wrong.
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Posted 26 October 2017 - 09:54 AM

I feel gutted for SE but I'm one of those fans who will benefit more from this move.

I have genuine excitement for the Karsa series…

Where as with the prequel series I didn’t…

Why? I’m finding it hard to explain but…

I think I was first put on alert by SE himself when he stated that he will be writing in a different style… I connected with the Malazan series more than I connected to any other series out there and to hear that he is going for a different voice was jarring… though I could understand the move and still had faith, I wasn’t going to let that fully put me off…

When FoD was first released I dived in release day… It’s SE afterall… what can go wrong? I wanted to learn about a young Anomander, a young QB and Draconus but I ultimately struggled to finish it, in the end it took me months and I haven’t bothered with FoL yet. I mentioned elsewhere, I was waiting to see if WiS was a good read before picking up FoL…

I think it was partly my own fault. I went into the book with a preconceived perception of what I was going to read and when I never got that, it took me out of the experience…

I just got zero enjoyment out of it. Yes, some of the reveals were great but it was also missing something… I felt it was too much of a downer… there felt like little hope… It was all just too… dark?

Basically for me it felt like watching an episode of The Walking Dead – just doom and gloom - and it made me not want to pick up the next one – I wanted to see what the members reaction was here to FoL… and when it was fairly negative… I decided to wait.

This might not make sense but it’s the best I can explain.

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#13 User is offline   Nevyn 

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Posted 26 October 2017 - 01:09 PM

Kinda torn on this one.

on one hand, I'd MUCH rather read a Karsa book.

On the other, all the character connections he has been hinting at in the Kharkanas Trilogy now go indefinitely unanswered, which means I've suffered through hundreds of pages of mopey Tiste and now I don't get the payoff.

Ah well.
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Posted 26 October 2017 - 02:08 PM

Certainly i preferred MBF over KT, but i still enjoyed KT.
I'll be flat out disappointed if we don't get WiS. I really, really wanted to see the explanation for the massive changes to the characters between the end of the trilo and the start of the MBF.
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Posted 26 October 2017 - 03:27 PM

Guys, come on, the last thing he says is, "I do remain committed to writing Walk in Shadow". And I have to imagine his contract was to write/publish the two trilogies. So it's just a matter of when, not if.
"Here is light. You will say that it is not a living entity, but you miss the point that it is more, not less. Without occupying space, it fills the universe. It nourishes everything, yet itself feeds upon destruction. We claim to control it, but does it not perhaps cultivate us as a source of food? May it not be that all wood grows so that it can be set ablaze, and that men and women are born to kindle fires?"
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Posted 26 October 2017 - 03:53 PM

View PostMorgan Lefay, on 26 October 2017 - 08:24 AM, said:

I'm sad after reading this.

First of all, I'm totally against market laws conditioning artists' work. Yes, the writer has to eat and I respect that. This is an industry and the publisher has all the power, and I acknowledge that. But it is wrong, wrong, and wrong. Poor Kafka had to earn his living with a job he hated because of that. A lot of literary gods (or, at least Ascendants) can't see their works published because they are not expected to sell. And now an author who is a master of his craft and has an stablished fanbase has to delay the deliver of a work because it has not been a bestseller! I am outraged. I feel personally outraged. Is that today's publishers have not the patience for a longseller? Because it is what Erikson is giving us: a longseller, a classic and a genius work, and not any fifty shades of Kurald Emurlahn.


Note he didn't say his publisher forced him to wait or refused to publish WiS.

He said the bad sales took the wind out of his sails. That still sounds like his choice.

As for long suffering of 'literary gods', it is important to remember what this is. This is Erikson not able to sell as much of his new trilogy as he could of his old series to the same audience. It isn't great literature without an audience. It is about a writer who has found his audience failing to bring them along for a significant departure from his main work that attracted them in the first place.
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When Venge's turn comes, he will get a yes from Mess, Dolmen, Nevyn and Venge but a no from the 3 fascists and me. **** with my Government, and i'll **** with yours
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#17 User is offline   Andorion 

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Posted 26 October 2017 - 04:07 PM

View Postchamp, on 26 October 2017 - 09:54 AM, said:

I feel gutted for SE but I'm one of those fans who will benefit more from this move.

I have genuine excitement for the Karsa series…

Where as with the prequel series I didn't…

Why? I'm finding it hard to explain but…

I think I was first put on alert by SE himself when he stated that he will be writing in a different style… I connected with the Malazan series more than I connected to any other series out there and to hear that he is going for a different voice was jarring… though I could understand the move and still had faith, I wasn't going to let that fully put me off…

When FoD was first released I dived in release day… It's SE afterall… what can go wrong? I wanted to learn about a young Anomander, a young QB and Draconus but I ultimately struggled to finish it, in the end it took me months and I haven't bothered with FoL yet. I mentioned elsewhere, I was waiting to see if WiS was a good read before picking up FoL…

I think it was partly my own fault. I went into the book with a preconceived perception of what I was going to read and when I never got that, it took me out of the experience…

I just got zero enjoyment out of it. Yes, some of the reveals were great but it was also missing something… I felt it was too much of a downer… there felt like little hope… It was all just too… dark?

Basically for me it felt like watching an episode of The Walking Dead – just doom and gloom - and it made me not want to pick up the next one – I wanted to see what the members reaction was here to FoL… and when it was fairly negative… I decided to wait.

This might not make sense but it's the best I can explain.


But if you think about it, it was always going to be doom and gloom. Kharkanas is the story of the downfall of the Tiste.

What do we see the Tiste doing in the main series? The Andii are morbidly depressed and Rake has to literally find wars for them to get involved in so they have something to live for. The Liosan are a bunch of delusional, xenophobic genocidal fanatics. The Edur have been reduced to tribal barbarity and have lost their history completely. Kurald Galain is sealed, Mother Dark is gone. This is an utterly shitty situation. Kharkanas is the story of how that came to be. So by definition, there cannot be hope. It is a story of disaster. It is a tale of the end of a world, the collapse of a civilisation.


View PostSalt-Man Z, on 26 October 2017 - 03:27 PM, said:

Guys, come on, the last thing he says is, "I do remain committed to writing Walk in Shadow". And I have to imagine his contract was to write/publish the two trilogies. So it's just a matter of when, not if.


This is the sense I got as well. It has to be quite depressing for him to realize that Malazan readers love the main series, love the new ICE books, but won't pick up Kharkanas.
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Posted 26 October 2017 - 05:18 PM

View PostAndorion, on 26 October 2017 - 04:07 PM, said:

View Postchamp, on 26 October 2017 - 09:54 AM, said:

I feel gutted for SE but I'm one of those fans who will benefit more from this move.

I have genuine excitement for the Karsa series…

Where as with the prequel series I didn't…

Why? I'm finding it hard to explain but…

I think I was first put on alert by SE himself when he stated that he will be writing in a different style… I connected with the Malazan series more than I connected to any other series out there and to hear that he is going for a different voice was jarring… though I could understand the move and still had faith, I wasn't going to let that fully put me off…

When FoD was first released I dived in release day… It's SE afterall… what can go wrong? I wanted to learn about a young Anomander, a young QB and Draconus but I ultimately struggled to finish it, in the end it took me months and I haven't bothered with FoL yet. I mentioned elsewhere, I was waiting to see if WiS was a good read before picking up FoL…

I think it was partly my own fault. I went into the book with a preconceived perception of what I was going to read and when I never got that, it took me out of the experience…

I just got zero enjoyment out of it. Yes, some of the reveals were great but it was also missing something… I felt it was too much of a downer… there felt like little hope… It was all just too… dark?

Basically for me it felt like watching an episode of The Walking Dead – just doom and gloom - and it made me not want to pick up the next one – I wanted to see what the members reaction was here to FoL… and when it was fairly negative… I decided to wait.

This might not make sense but it's the best I can explain.


But if you think about it, it was always going to be doom and gloom. Kharkanas is the story of the downfall of the Tiste.

What do we see the Tiste doing in the main series? The Andii are morbidly depressed and Rake has to literally find wars for them to get involved in so they have something to live for. The Liosan are a bunch of delusional, xenophobic genocidal fanatics. The Edur have been reduced to tribal barbarity and have lost their history completely. Kurald Galain is sealed, Mother Dark is gone. This is an utterly shitty situation. Kharkanas is the story of how that came to be. So by definition, there cannot be hope. It is a story of disaster. It is a tale of the end of a world, the collapse of a civilisation.


True and very well put by the way...

But, there was always going to be a but...

For me, the problem was the way that all of that was wrote... so far anyway.

I can read bleak, one of my favourite books is a forum favourite, Blade of Tyshalle - customary fuck - that gives you brutal knock after brutal knock, it just keeps coming but it does it in a way that keeps you wanting to read and it gives you such a pay off that all that bleakness was worth reading... with FoD I didn't get that... I got the knocks but towards the end I concluded there was going to be no payoff, what pay off could there be as you said... that was why I started to struggle with finishing it...

(I know they are very different books but it was the first book that came to mind that was brutal bleak but worked...)

Also I do have to note that my mood state at the time could have effected my reading experience...

But anyway, more light humour Jaghut might have saved it for me but it was crowded out in the end.

Thats just my thoughts.

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#19 User is offline   Egwene 

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Posted 26 October 2017 - 05:32 PM

I can see that SE would be disappointed with low sales figures/lukewarm reception but there was always the likelihood of problems due to the change in writing style. Existing fans are fans of the existing style and might not make the change. Brand-new, potential trilogy fans might be put off by the idea that the trilogy is a prequel to another series which upon investigation they either, might consider reading first (taking the average reader years to catch-up) or, which might decide them not to get involved at all as they might be put off by the differing style of that series. Then there are those who never buy trilogies unless completed...

Editing the Wiki has meant that I keep dipping into FoD and FoL and they have grown on me in the process. Those visits, looking at specific details, have made me aware of a lot of subtle stuff that I missed in the initial read - more so than happened with GotM and subsequently, I have begun to value Kharkanas more. However, initially... I don't think it was the style - I love introspection and philosophy... probably more a lack of characters to identify with and the general bleakness which Andorion referred to. In some ways, the Tiste are just 'too grand'... whereas the Malazan series is about the foot soldier at the core and politics as seen from the bottom the trilogy is about ruling houses and politics from the top down. Add to that grand names and readers trying to overlay what they know of the same people thousands of years later... it becomes heavy going.

I hope that SE will publish the third book eventually, even if only as an e-book but in the meantime, I shall look forward to going back to Seven Cities and hopefully a dose of the familiar mix of action and history, shocking convergences and brilliant humour and everything else which makes me so love this series :rolleyes:
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#20 User is offline   Andorion 

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Posted 26 October 2017 - 05:40 PM

View Postchamp, on 26 October 2017 - 05:18 PM, said:

View PostAndorion, on 26 October 2017 - 04:07 PM, said:

View Postchamp, on 26 October 2017 - 09:54 AM, said:

I feel gutted for SE but I'm one of those fans who will benefit more from this move.

I have genuine excitement for the Karsa series…

Where as with the prequel series I didn't…

Why? I'm finding it hard to explain but…

I think I was first put on alert by SE himself when he stated that he will be writing in a different style… I connected with the Malazan series more than I connected to any other series out there and to hear that he is going for a different voice was jarring… though I could understand the move and still had faith, I wasn't going to let that fully put me off…

When FoD was first released I dived in release day… It's SE afterall… what can go wrong? I wanted to learn about a young Anomander, a young QB and Draconus but I ultimately struggled to finish it, in the end it took me months and I haven't bothered with FoL yet. I mentioned elsewhere, I was waiting to see if WiS was a good read before picking up FoL…

I think it was partly my own fault. I went into the book with a preconceived perception of what I was going to read and when I never got that, it took me out of the experience…

I just got zero enjoyment out of it. Yes, some of the reveals were great but it was also missing something… I felt it was too much of a downer… there felt like little hope… It was all just too… dark?

Basically for me it felt like watching an episode of The Walking Dead – just doom and gloom - and it made me not want to pick up the next one – I wanted to see what the members reaction was here to FoL… and when it was fairly negative… I decided to wait.

This might not make sense but it's the best I can explain.


But if you think about it, it was always going to be doom and gloom. Kharkanas is the story of the downfall of the Tiste.

What do we see the Tiste doing in the main series? The Andii are morbidly depressed and Rake has to literally find wars for them to get involved in so they have something to live for. The Liosan are a bunch of delusional, xenophobic genocidal fanatics. The Edur have been reduced to tribal barbarity and have lost their history completely. Kurald Galain is sealed, Mother Dark is gone. This is an utterly shitty situation. Kharkanas is the story of how that came to be. So by definition, there cannot be hope. It is a story of disaster. It is a tale of the end of a world, the collapse of a civilisation.


True and very well put by the way...

But, there was always going to be a but...

For me, the problem was the way that all of that was wrote... so far anyway.

I can read bleak, one of my favourite books is a forum favourite, Blade of Tyshalle - customary fuck - that gives you brutal knock after brutal knock, it just keeps coming but it does it in a way that keeps you wanting to read and it gives you such a pay off that all that bleakness was worth reading... with FoD I didn't get that... I got the knocks but towards the end I concluded there was going to be no payoff, what pay off could there be as you said... that was why I started to struggle with finishing it...

(I know they are very different books but it was the first book that came to mind that was brutal bleak but worked...)

Also I do have to note that my mood state at the time could have effected my reading experience...

But anyway, more light humour Jaghut might have saved it for me but it was crowded out in the end.

Thats just my thoughts.


Oh I totally get your issues, I had them myself with FoD, then I reread the book. To me, it seems that your problem is more with the tone of the writing than with the content, right?

I get that. It can be quite exasperating at times. I think SE is trying to tell a very different story here. The central theme dictates the tone. SE is telling the story of a civilisation that fell because of some pretty huge cosmic events - mainly the actions of the Azathenai intersected and exploited some of the fundamental flaws of that society. He then takes this opportunity to talk about and highlight certain themes of ecology, history, civilisational dynamics and morality which he considers to be important. I find these elements to be implicit in the original series, but in Kharkanas they became explicit and one of his principal areas of emphasis. And I think this is where he lost a lot of readers, who did not really share his interest in these themes (or at least not as much as he emphasised.)

And this is also why I think Kharkanas is so different from Stover's Caine. I read those books as the story of a man who simply and utterly refuses to surrender, never mind the odds, even when the world is falling around him. That is not the story of Kharkanas. That is the story of Tavore and the regulars aagainstthe FA, the Marines and the Heavies in their last stand, Gesler punching the FA atop the Spire. Kharkanas is about a society whose heroes and leaders have lost that primal urge of Caine. So we get Anomander agonising over a lack of clarity from Mother Dark, Draconus seeing the society under his stewardship fall apart, the Jaghut abandoning the very idea of civlisation. Kharkanas is the story of a defeated society.
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