[Not Noto]

Gardens of the moons is far from the best book in MBotF, that's true and I think it's because of lack of information. When you re-read it, it's much better.
It's not easy to explain stuff without spoilers..
I think you underestimate the Imperial High Fist rank. The rank is equal or just below the Imperial High Mage, just different duties. Sure, the high mage possess more arcane knowledge but as ranks they are pretty much equal and are deeply involved in the empress plans and schemes. The only military rank abow Imperial High Fist and High mage is the First Sword and of course, the empress/emperor(and adjunct).
At the moment in GotM the situation is a bit complicated and without spoiling to much. A while back Whiskeyjack out ranked all those people who possess higher ranks in GotM.
Both Dujek and Whiskeyjack knows shit and yes, they have secret agents and allies who knows things. You'll find out more in DG, MoI and later books...


Scroll down and check Rank structure. No spoilers.
https://malazan.fand...alazan_Military

This post has been edited by Not Noto: 02 February 2019 - 11:08 PM

[RACHEL]

It seems like your confusion is due to your lack of understanding the rank of Dujek and Lorn. Not Noto pointed out that Dujek and Lorn are amongst the top dogs of the Malazan military so your gripe that this knowledge is above their rank is just plain wrong. Also you are wrong in thinking that these characters go from "ignorant to all knowing". Just because you did not see them obtaining this information "on screen" it clearly happened and when and how is irrelevant. If you were simply misunderstanding just how high up Dujek and Lorn are then I apologize. If it really bothers you that much that we did not get to "see" who, when, how, and why the information was obtained, then these books may not be your cup of tea. This series involves many incidents that happen "off screen" and many things are never spelled out for you, or just barely hinted at. You mentioned that you were having no problem understanding all the events in the book but clearly that is not true. I'm not picking on you when I say that, because NO ONE is able to read the first book and understand fully all of what's going on. The more you read the more the whole story fills in and just you wait for re-reads. If it bothers you to not have the whole picture 100% spelled out then you might want to skip these books.

[Raz4starr]

I never doubted Lorn's knowledge. I doubted Dujek's (although I know he is high ranked), because with what we know, they should have absolutely kept that knowledge from him. And once again, it's not a problem that we don't see them gaining that knowledge, it's a problem that there is not even the slightest hint on how he could obtain it, in contrast with every other similar situation in this book. If he had his own Circle Breaker for example, and we knew it, I wouldn't even make such a question. What I'm trying to say, is that if this is not answered later, it is not smart storytelling, but juat plain bad storytelling. Not giving everything to the reader is OK, not giving him anything to piece it together is just plain wrong.

I was able to conjure up some answers regarding my other two questions (although not very satisfying), but to this I cannot find the answer.

[Raz4starr]

Oh, and I didn't say I understood everything. I said I understood when something was left open to be interpreted later or was left open for the reader to figure out or decide, based on information given. Perhaps it's a language barrier, since English is not my native language and all, but it seems I cannot communicate to you what I mean. In a sentence, it's OK if something happens off screen, it is not OK when even the slightest hint is not given (or it has been given and I have missed it, which is why I am asking the question, since I have no clue where it could have been and I cannot reread the whole book) and we have to swallow it because 'he is high ranked, so he must know'. This is just lazy.

[Abyss]

You’ve found a bunch of answers, you just don’t like them.
...and that’s totally cool. It’s that kind of series.

[Raz4starr]

But 'he just knows because he's Dujek' is not an answer. Again, this is not just another case where Erikson just leaves it up to you. This seems like an oversight.

[Gorefest]

It might be, it's too long ago for me for those sorts of details to stick. One thing to mention is that GotM was written more than 10 years prior to the rest of the series, so the book does have a few teething problems that get smoothed out as the series progresses. I wouldn't be surprised if Erikson retconned a few of your concerns in later books as well. It shouldn't affect the larger narrative though and SE's writing really improves immensely going forward. So I'd suggest to just accept these few hickups in the assurance that from DG onwards you'll be hard-pressed to find such seeming inconsistencies again. There might be larger narrative or timeline issues in places, but again this doesn't detract from the narrative. SE is far more interested in the overall narrative and character building. Nitpicking becomes rather trivial when you are fully in the flow of the massive epic scale of the story.

[Gorefest]

And apologies again for the earlier spoiler. As far as I could discern, that was the first section where Paran learns of the Finnest. So I can only assume that what QB is hinting at about Lorn dropping something off relates to something different, perhaps her 'dropping of'/bringing the Tyrant to Darujistan. Paran probably knew she had some sort of means, or item, to lure him from his barrow to the city. But that is just speculation on my part.

This post has been edited by Gorefest: 05 February 2019 - 02:58 PM

[Nevyn]

 Raz4starr, on 05 February 2019 - 07:41 AM, said:

But 'he just knows because he's Dujek' is not an answer. Again, this is not just another case where Erikson just leaves it up to you. This seems like an oversight.

If you want to believe it is an oversight, believe that.


Just stop prodding, because clearly anything we could tell you relies on knowledge you don't have yet.

[Raz4starr]

 Gorefest, on 05 February 2019 - 02:58 PM, said:

And apologies again for the earlier spoiler. As far as I could discern, that was the first section where Paran learns of the Finnest. So I can only assume that what QB is hinting at about Lorn dropping something off relates to something different, perhaps her 'dropping of'/bringing the Tyrant to Darujistan. Paran probably knew she had some sort of means, or item, to lure him from his barrow to the city. But that is just speculation on my part.

Don't sweat it man...It's alright, I was pretty close anyway...I am currently like 10 pages from finishing the book. Can't wait for DG.

[Raz4starr]

Something completely offtopic, but I don't really want to open another thread. So, the books are not even translated in my native language (Greek), so I am reading them in English. The main problem with that is that the books are not very popular here, so they are not always readily available. As a result, I already have House of Chains, but it will probably be some time before my MoI copy comes. So my question is this: Would it be too bad if I read HoC before MoI? Will there be a lot of spoilers? Because as far as I know these books focus on different characters.

[worry]

Yes it'll be bad. Absolutely do not read any of these books out of order, regardless of what anyone says about storyline/continent-jumping, or how 'standalone' each book is. They work as a piece, in order, one long story.

[Gorefest]

I would strongly advise against reading them out of order as well. Even though HoC mostly follows on from story events in DG and less from MoI, there are a lot of world building and overall story arc events that are explained in MoI which would most likely confound your read of HoC if you don't have that background information. All the books are interlinked, so even if you encounter an entirely different set of characters, most of the events from one book still have a huge resonance on each future novel.

[Abyss]

 Raz4starr, on 06 February 2019 - 05:21 AM, said:

Would it be too bad if I read HoC before MoI?

Y'know all that crap going on with the Greek economy?

Well, in fantasy fan context, that bad.

[Gorefest]

Well, if we are going on a cultural comparison tour, in essence it would be like trying to read Virgil's Aeneid without ever having read any Homer or even heard of Troy. It reads okay as a stand-alone story but you are missing a lot of references.

This post has been edited by Gorefest: 06 February 2019 - 10:57 PM

[Raz4starr]

Woah,that bad?Ok, then I guess I'll go with the e-book or something, although I'm very traditional in anything that has to do with books (I don't really enjoy audiobooks and I find that e-books kind of tire me). Anyway, it might not be necessary. DG is pretty long after all and I don't always have the time to read for long hours.

[worry]

Not to be presumptuous, but just in case this will be a help: www.bookdepository.com ships (free) worldwide, including to Greece, and are very timely.

[Not Noto]

You can order all books online. Try any Amazon in EU. Free delivery in EU if you order from Amazon.de and pay more than 35€

[Raz4starr]

Oh, bookdepository has free shipping, I didn't know that and it is at the exact same price as the english version here in Greece (although a different edition, but no matter). Thanks guys...