[Dolorous Menhir]

KILLERAOC;156705 said:

Lets see, with this book...okay to begin with that "epic" battle between Tattersails band and the MoonSpawn was a huge downer...i remeber actually laughing outloud. I couldnt help but picture myself as one of the Marines, sighing as magic cloud began melting my comrads, "Well f*ck, what the hell am i doing here?".

I suppose it's personal preference, if you don't like mage battles then that's all there is to say really. As for the soldiers, they had to be there. They were still maintaining the seige of the city after all, and had to be ready to assault Pale as soon as Moon's Spawn was out of action.

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What little i learned about Tattersail didnt leave me impressed.....in the army yet soft (physically AND emotionaly). Overall she felt "weak", despite being something like a century old(?) and (supposedly) a master mage. Just my luck she is "reborn" and become "more powerful then you can possibly imagine" - cant stand this type of female character.

I liked Tattersail. You don't. I suppose there's not really much else to say there, except that her storyline is not as simple as it seems.

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I liked Lorn, i'm a sucker for "mere mortals" who can combat powerful magic through artifacts/natural ability/technology...her undead companion Tool was considerably less interesting, as was their mission. Ultimatly, after Paran harped about her enough, i knew she was going to die...bummer

You didn't like Tool?

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I'll accept that women serve in branches of the Empires' military in this sword/sorcery era army...but the idea that a professional sword-era regular army accepts 13 year old girls is stupid to the extreme...and nothing said can change my mind on that. I actually re-read that scene several times thinking i was missing something...but nope...thats what actually happened.

The recruiters had specific instructions. Take anyone with a head, two arms and two legs. The war was going badly enough that he would take anyone capable of swinging a sword, no matter how young.

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Paran was...okay i guess...but i couldnt buy into any of his character "development" seeing as i didnt really buy into his relationship with Tattersail...(oh she meant THAT much to you? Love at first sight? News to me!). We are told little about his relationship with Lorn except that he considered himself "a tool", and is willing to blame her (without any proof) for just about everything he can think of.

Paran gets better later in the series, and, well, it seems you really didn't like any of the characters anyway.

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Bridgeburners - What can i say...I didnt give a **** about these people...who can blame me? Whiskeyjack and Co. arnt given much book time, and he himself appears to be blind to the obvious. If some of your major characters are "faceless warriors in a faceless war", then the reader must establish an emotional connection with at least one of them...(Reading Black Company made me feel like i knew and cared about Croaker...and through him i eagarly learned about the Company and its exploits). Whiskeyjacks portions of the book just made him feel old, tired, and worn-down...yes i KNOW that was the point, but it wasnt presented in a way that made me care about him...or what he did in the past.

I haven't read the Black Company books so I don't know how they compare, but it just seems like you're not that into this book at all so there's not much more to say. I really liked Whiskeyjack in this, for what it's worth.

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Lastly the city scenes....yeah i can honestly say i basically started speed reading...hate characters like the "Foolish Mage" that it often focused around. I wanted him dead the instant he was introduced.

The Foolish Mage? Not sure who you mean. If you're talking about Serrat, she was female, so you obviously weren't reading that closely.

Another thing to note - Erikson uses far more fantasy cliches in this book than in later ones. For example there are no genre staples like the assassin's guild in later books, he takes things in a more original direction.

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I had mixed feelings about the thief Crokus...but as the book went on i quickly realized he was no Garret (from Thief, T2 etc...best damn thief ever). And looking at the novels outcome...his entire story arc felt "tacked-on" to me.

I'll give you this one - Crokus was worthless and his storyline meant almost nothing except for the one scene where he knocks out a high mage with a brick. Which is a bit stupid.

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anyway...rant over...thats all i can think of for now after finishing...ill comeback to it if i remeber more

The only thing to say is that everyone who reads these books agrees that the series only gets better. At this point, with six books out, I would comfortably rank GotM lowest. Deadhouse Gates is wonderful, doesn't concern itself with exactly the same characters as this one, and I think the vast majority of fans would rank it well above GotM.

One last thing - you never mentioned Anomander Rake. You must have liked him, surely.

[KILLERAOC]

I enjoy mage battles to a point. I like it when mages are basically a support/aux role. I dont mind mages throwin around fire and lightning provided steps are taken to ensure they dont appear absurdly overpowered (i.e. reducing several legions of regular troops to cinders in three seconds). That sort of magic would render virtually all other men-at-arms obsolete. No matter how disiplined, any army facing even a single individual with that kind of power would break within seconds. That sort of mage-spawned chaos makes me wonder one would bother supporting/supplying large numbers of troops in the first place.


I dont mind being thrown in the middle of the action with little information. I have read and enjoyed many other novels that employ the same technique. However, when that is done i feel like i need something to anchor me down in the world and make me care.

That "foolish mage" i refered to is named Kruppe...you know the fat guy who refers to himself in the third person

[Dolorous Menhir]

KILLERAOC;158860 said:

I enjoy mage battles to a point. I like it when mages are basically a support/aux role. I dont mind mages throwin around fire and lightning provided steps are taken to ensure they dont appear absurdly overpowered (i.e. reducing several legions of regular troops to cinders in three seconds). That sort of magic would render virtually all other men-at-arms obsolete. No matter how disiplined, any army facing even a single individual with that kind of power would break within seconds. That sort of mage-spawned chaos makes me wonder one would bother supporting/supplying large numbers of troops in the first place.

Mages might be capable of winning battles, but they are not capable of occupying cities and conquering continents. Which is why armies are required.

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I dont mind being thrown in the middle of the action with little information. I have read and enjoyed many other novels that employ the same technique. However, when that is done i feel like i need something to anchor me down in the world and make me care.

That "foolish mage" i refered to is named Kruppe...you know the fat guy who refers to himself in the third person

Sorry, I should've got that reference. Well, I really liked Kruppe too. You just seem to dislike all the characters and storylines in the book, and it's not as if I'm going to be able to argue you into liking them.

I hope you do go on to read Deadhouse Gates. I imagine there are a lot of people out there who've been put off by GotM and didn't go any further. It really is a poor introduction to the series (I'm not saying it's a bad book, but all these people complaining about it are doing so for a reason).

[TheCrippledThrone]

I never had a problem reading GOTM. I never really got confused nor did I think it was slow. I understand that I am one of the few but I also think I was so intrigued by the style that thats what got me hooked. I'm so glad SE didn't spoon feed me the information just to get more readers. Being brought right into the middle of everything just made me want to read more and find out. Though I do understand why people have had problems.

[daftchrome]

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a magic system that seems to make no sense at all

I have to say that I never understood how people didn't get the magic system in the books, possibly it is because I read very little fantasy before the Malazan books, but to me it is very simple with warrens of different types/flavours some older/more powerful than others, almost like characters in their own rights but still it just seems logical. Someone has a talent of "tapping into" the warren for fire and can then cast fireballs etc where as someone with access to shadow has access to things relating to shadows.

Also, on topic, I think this is still one of my favourite books in the series, although I admit to a bias towards the earlier books than some of the latter ones as I find the more Malazanesque characters the ones I like the most.
Although I will admit that I agree with posters above about Crokus, easily one of my top 5 most annoying and pointless characters in the series so far.

[Sindriss]

I really liked Gotm when I first read it and then I just had to advance onwards though the series. So I have a hard time helping people who aren't fond of the first novel

[Elephant Tamer]

I have to say this book, when I first read it, struck a few nerves for me. The first is a nice coincidence, that I had just finished reading some very bad excuses for fantasy (Goodking, anyone?) which made me appreciate it all that much more. In many ways this series is written for 'jaded' fantasy readers, as it revels in breaking conventions, and then goes on to surpass them and excel in its own right.
The second point is a personal quality of mine, and that is I enjoy reading stories in which I have to work out the background on the go. This can be bit of risk though, as the events and histories might turn out to be disappointing, but this is not the case with this book, or the books that came after it.
One of the things I never understood is peoples obsession with 'liking' the characters. Why, oh why must that be an issue? The book is so much about perspective, and the characters as such have to be varied and to as believable as possible. In this sense, it is quite successful. So much hate is thrown towards Crokus mainly -I think- because he is a more typical fantasy character. But since he fits into the world, and the whole book isn't written in his perspective, I think this is unfair.

[daftchrome]

Elephant Tamer, on 26 January 2010 - 10:43 AM, said:

So much hate is thrown towards Crokus mainly -I think- because he is a more typical fantasy character. But since he fits into the world, and the whole book isn't written in his perspective, I think this is unfair.

I think though that I did like him first time through the book, I even relate to some of the things he does in book to myself.

Spoiler

I think it's the irrelevance (so far) of his whole story arc, and how he becomes after half of DG that bothers me

In general with other characters, like and dislike tend to be associated with what the writer makes them say or do, if someone is particularly vindictive or evil in a physical or mental sense you can't help feeling a bit better if they are knocked down or defeated. As for the other side, liking a character is hard to do, I think you really need to connect with them or understand their motives insome way, and that’s what I believe a good writer (like SE) does for you in their books. If you don't feel some emotion to a character, then when they do something you won’t think anything beyond "wow that’s awesome" or "man that sucks" one time and then move on to the chapter.

[Vesper]

Agraba, on 02 December 2006 - 09:00 PM, said:

When I suggest this to people, they always have such a hard time getting into the beginning. Even someone I met in univ. said she tried the beginning, and stopped reading. When reading the beginning of GotM, I kept going on and off, and it took me about a week to get the first chapter or so done.

It's a little slow to get exciting, isn't it? Could SE have been much more famous if he made a more compelling introduction.

Personally, I felt that his introduction was incredibly done. Steven Erikson held such a fine command of drama in the first part of the book that I was compelled to read further and further. I did, however, get frustrated with there being a distinct lack of scale being conveyed (I had to look up Moon's Spawn to find out it's the size of a mountain, not a planetoid) and the absence of explanation of integral details like magic. The friend who loaned me the first book actually debated loaning me Deadhouse Gates first, as it has so much more explanation of magic, which is incredibly central to the entire series.

I actually grew to like the series a lot more after reading extra-text resources that compiled the information for easier understanding. I was on the verge of going back into the book to gather the information myself into a condensed index to help me make connections more easily. Things started to make sense when I had a better grasp of the whole picture (or as much of the whole picture as we are able to get, given the fact that the world is ENORMOUS.

I was also really drawn in by the way that Erikson used anthropological/archaeological elements in his world. Having studied anthropology in university myself I was easily able to follow what he was talking about, and it added so much depth to the world in a way that is absent in so many other fantasy series.

Amusingly, I discovered after reading the first two books that my younger brother (who is in high school and has a considerably limited vocabulary and knowledge of anthropology) had already read further than myself in the series. I borrowed a few books from him when the friend who originally got me into the series had loaned the others to another friend.

Not to discredit my brother's scholarly abilities, but if he can get into it, I am confident that anyone can with a little patience.

[Deren]

I can only come up with a certain drafty coldness of the writing, or crystalline smoothness. Whereas most fantasy writers try to make you feel cozy and warm with the words (even in gritty and cold situations), Steven Erikson's just stream by. It's like drinking water compared to something juicy, sweet or alcoholic. Now I've used up my metaphoric supply. That is to say that I actually find the writing incredibly easy to get into. Just take it as it is (and if there's sarcasm and mystery, well, that's that). I find there are certain pros and cons about this, which is why I haven't read the books in a row.

This post has been edited by Deren: 19 February 2010 - 10:16 AM

[D'rek]

When I got my roommate to read it, his big turn-off was that the names didn't match up: ie Murillio sounded italian and Kruppe sounded germanic and Rallick sounded arabic (to him anyway), and he couldn't stand them all being from the same city and culture. I told him he was nit-picking and an idiot, but the moral of the story is: the more complex the book, the more random things there are that can totally deter someone from reading it, no matter how silly or small a thing that is. The whole MBotF, being very long and complex, has therefore lots and lots of things to turn people off for no apparent understandable reason. Makes it better for the rest of us who do like it, though!

[Crow Clan Baby]

KILLERAOC, on 06 February 2007 - 05:43 AM, said:

I actually just finished this book and i honestly dont know if i even want to begin the next one...

Begin the next one.

It's a different story set in a different part of the world and was written many years after GotM (which is quite a lot older than it's publication date would suggest). The tone is different, the writing is more confident and assured, and it has some of the greatest Crowning Moments of Awesome ever written. I can't promise you'll like it of course (everyone's taste is different), but I would seriously suggest that it's worth a try at least.

[Red King]

The hardest part about getting into this book came from the fact I was thrown into a war that was already going on for years. Your first intro to the world, is one of seeing a city under siege and this unknown city known as Moon Spawn keeping the city from being seiged and destroyed. It was hard for me because there was no lead up to this, i didn't anticipate that I was going to be put into a war. Ok, so your first real view of the world that isnt some small village is a war being campagined on another continent. Its the absurd amount of vaugness that also threw a curve ball my way. Especially when everything is explain in terms as if you are already suppose to know whats going on. Its only when you finally wrap your head around the story itself and kind of let go of the concept that you'll fully understand what is being shown to you and just kind of go for the ride and try to guess whats gonna happen and maybe get a good laugh out of some of the witty things some of the characters say. Other wise, your in for a world of headaches if you try to figure out what happened before the war before actually reading on to the next books, which explain some of the history and fill in some blanks as you go.

- Ultor

[Mrs Savagely Wishy Washy]

I can understand that the way you get bashed with new terminology, magic, characters, place names and intrigues and all can be disheartening, but fear not- it will be that way all along. You get used to it.

I really enjoyed reading GOTM and all following books in fact from the first page on, exactly because it is so challenging and the information on characters, magic and all is overwhelming in a sense. Not that I understand all of it, but it's greatly rewarding to continue reading and suddenly pieces of information fall into place and one storyline of a character/mythology/magic makes more sense.

I find a lot of the other S&S Fantasy out there so cheesy and predictable, and had given up on it for some time before I picked SE up.

I think he is one of the best authors in general, I like the way he develops characters, his style of writing; I am really in awe about the richness of imagination and depth ofhis books, and I believe that he must be one of the most proliferative contemporary writers: over 10 000 pages in ten years!! That's quite an achievement.

This post has been edited by Miss Savage: 25 March 2010 - 08:51 AM

[Eye Flys]

I think the fact that you only really start piecing things together around the mid part of the book is what turns people off. It's also what makes it a love or hate it series. I've only read the first one so far and I love that aspect of it. Reading this book is so rewarding.

I like and enjoy the fact that SE only gives you the bare minimum information you need leaving a lot to be filled by the reader. It's interesting to read a chapter only to have most of the actions in that chapter explained later on in the book. It's very satisfying.

Unlike a series like ASOIAF which starts very slowly and as you progress through the first book all the building blocks are put together. With SE, the building is already built, reading leads you to understand how it got built and what it means. Is that a good analogy? Probably not.

[Garak]

I can't really say if GotM is a hard entry into the series because I sorta just stumbled into the series and didn't manage to read it in a proper order. I randomly bought Toll the Hounds one day and it took me a week to finish. Try that for a fun entry point into MBotF. It was confusing as hell and half the time I had no idea who was doing what and why. And yet, I couldn't find a single thing I didn't like about it - I loved the whole thing. Gave it to a friend and he failed to get even to the halfway point. He keeps referring to the series as "that thing I couldn't read because it was horrible" while another friend of mine is currently reading Deadhouse Gates and is loving the series(I had Gardens by then so he began in the proper order).

[spiral]

I don't think GotM is a hard entry to the series. I do agree with some above who say its a love it / hate it thing. I enjoyed the book but, like many readers, I had no idea what was going on for about half the book and by the end I didn't know a whole lot more. I found the whole thing intriguing I was curious, I still am. Since reading GotM and over half of DG about 6 months ago I stopped in order to finish reading another series.........I know I'll need time and to pay attention to this monster if a series and I'm really looking forward to it.

[worry]

I have a friend who is going to start reading GotM soon, and I'm wondering if any of you ever "prep" your friends for it or if you just let them get into it the same way you did.

For instance, without giving much away, I was planning to at least explain a little about warrens, because that is what confused me the most initially. So, just out of curiosity, did you "help" any friends or leave it be, and what would you recommend?

[spiral]

It depends on what they like to read, I know a few people who generally don't read fantasy but I think they would enjoy this series, on the other hand I have a few people who would read fantasy and this series would not be their thing. I know this doesn't help at all Sorry but if it were me I would recommend the series and let em decide for themselves.

[Garak]

The first guy I gave the book to, I didn't prep - which was a mistake anyway since the guy has a bit of a short attention span and is bad with names. The second guy I did prep. I answered any questions he had without giving spoilers and basically warned him that the series requires patience - and I hinted at awesome things to come that I knew he would die for. He was hooked the second he saw the level of destruction caused by the Hounds and the magic . Yeah, that fast.

Oh, and I gave Deadhouse Gates to a third friend (forgot about that) without telling him anything. He began reading it mostly because I loaned him the book and he thought it rude to return it unread. By the end he loved it.