[Mentalist]

meh... Bellurdan's there, but only a tiny bit of him... Besides, we won't see Silverfox till ICE's third (fourth?) book that'll deal with Assail...
I somehow think that will all the hype we're bulding up around Dragipur, it's shattering will be very trivial....

[Optimus Prime]

Yeah....maybe Rake will decide to shatter it.

I forgot about that Kud, I guess we won't see our favorite festively plump triple threat sorceress...

[Aptorian]

In MoI silverfox tells Kruppe that she'll see him again also don't forget, there's more than 3 clans of the T'lan Imass lost in the chaos on Korelri as of MoI.

[Mentalist]

on Korelri?

Are you sure?

We know Bentract (sp?) wiped themselves out in the jaghut war against in the Teblor plateau.

2 clans are dying on Assail... and one is apparently sleeping on Lether.

I don't remember where the olther ones are....

[q21]

I still want someone to steal dragnipur from Rake. Just to see his reaction. Maybe Clip will be up to the task.

[Gem Windcaster]

Clip is one of the most annoying characters I've ever encountered in fiction. It will be interesting to see how much more annoying he can get. And I'll believe he is rake mortal sword when Rake says he is. Not a second before that.

[Optimus Prime]

How can you be mortal sword to someone who rejects outright that he is even a God?

I mean Rake walked away from all that right? Clip is annoying...which means he will kill lots of people and no doubt prosper for sometime...

[Zendog13]

Until he runs headfirst into one of Fid's sharpers...or Karsa.

[Optimus Prime]

I'm really interested to see if he is a complete imposter...or really the first to be born of darkness in millenia like he claims...

And who names their kid Clip?? They must have done the Malaz version of Acid :-D

[Lister of Smeg]

He named himself Clip as some sort of rebellion from the Onyx Order.

[Flawed]

I agree, as i heard his origional name was Git

[Kalahinen]

Zendog13;236584 said:

Until he runs headfirst into one of Fid's sharpers...or Karsa.

Fid's endless supply of explosives is annoying, hopefully Clip meets him when they run out.

[Zendog13]

Well, strictly speaking his supply is not endless...he just rations it well. As for Clip, I doubt he is an impostor, would an impostor be carrying the gateways to darkness with him? Doubt it. He is an annoying, pompous brat as far as I am concerned and I can see him receiving a severe humbling before long. Though that may not come before he inflicts some serious damage.

[Optimus Prime]

Or he is just being annoying as part of his plan...

and he is the Fourth Born of Mother Dark....

[Sinisdar Toste]

is he actually the fourth son of MD? i thought he was just a bluerose andii

[Optimus Prime]

he says something in Reaper's Gale that alludes to this....damnit i wish i could find the quote...but most seem to think he is a complete fraud...i dunno.

We know so little about him...but he does hint that he is the first born in millenia or something along that line..

*calls for the quote gods to answer his plea*

[Lisheo]

He mentions how he was born in "the Dark", the little git, then proceeds to say how much better that makes him to Silchas... Im really praying for either Karsa, or Brys, or maybe Rud Ellale to beat that arrogance out of him.

[Zanth13]

Interview

Quote

've just finished Toll the Hounds, which is the eighth novel in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. At the moment I am working on a co-written novella with Ian C. Esslemont set in the same world, and I confess I've started the prologue to the ninth in the series. As for Toll the Hounds, I guess I can say I'm pleased with the result; that's a statement that needs qualification, however. The novel is about love and grief, and integral to that exploration was my fair share of both this past year, as my father fell ill and in the course of four months withered away and died. There is something mercenary in writers, something that others might view with faint disgust, and that is the terrible desire to feed off one's own circumstances, using genuine emotions (including suffering) to infuse a fictional tale that is, at its core, meaningless. I don't mean that as a disparagement of fiction; as writers we play a game of illusion, pretending to a reality that does not exist, and if we can, we use that false reality to generate real emotion. And that's what can make a normal person understandably uneasy, as the writer guides that person into a very personal world; as, in this instance, I happen to be inviting him or her to share in my grief. Does all this stem from an overblown ego? I'm not sure; I feel pretty humble these days. At the same time there is an undeniable ego to the presumption of being writers: that we actually possess something worth saying, not to mention the conceit that words possess real efficacy (but those are topics for some other time). All that makes the novel sound like a downer, but while there are tragic elements to the tale, there are plenty of lighter ones, too. It's more like a wake. You get laughs, you get tears, and maybe when it's all said and done, you walk away thoughtful, standing in the afternoon light, saying goodbye to someone who is no longer there. As I did.




With each of these novels I work at finding something that sets it apart from the ones that came before, while remaining true to the spirit of the series. In the case of Toll the Hounds, that uniqueness was found in the narrative voice coming directly from a character that readers should know well by now. The risk is that those readers happen to be fairly split on whether they like the bloke or hate him, with equal amounts of passion. To those who happen to hate him, sorry for this, but: tough luck. It is what it is. As the eighth in a ten volume series, some pretty huge events occur by the book's end. According to my advance readers, there will be surprises--things no-one can anticipate (despite all my foreshadowing, which has been going on for seven books now), and for me that remains a measure of success. As to how the novel is received by the majority of my readers, that remains to be seen.

Why havent I seen this before, come on forum, You guys are suppose to keep me up to date on this stuff.... some one posted the last piece but not the whole thing....

Sounds like we are losing another important character....and he decribed TTH as a wake, very interesting....

[Lisheo]

Its a character whose death is gonna hurt... Kruppe? Rake? Thanks for posting this, Xanth rep to you

[Optimus Prime]

Makes me think the character who gets offed may be someone close to his own heart...Kruppe? Karsa? Paran?