[Fist Gamet]

Hey, this is terrific! RM drops by to say hello. As an aspiring writer myself (yes, another one, and a Scot ) I found your responses fascinating. We spend a lot of time compiling threads and batting opinions back and forth to one another, and it's great fun. To actually have the author pop in and answer some comments and so freely explain some of his thinking is refreshing and insightful. I guess it is kinda brave too, as I imagine trawling through fansites can expose you to a lot of negative feedback and, frankly, rubbish. Anyhoo, thanks for taking the time.

PS - Altered Carbon remains one of my favourite books.

[Cougar]

I think if I were an authour I would avoid the internet like the plague, never in the history of mankind have so many people had the opportunity to express ill-thought-out, inadequately considered opinions without fear of meaningful retribution or censure. It must be very difficult to read some of the unconstructive tripe that spews from these and other forums disguised as literary criticism and I appreciate any authour who is kind enough to brave the bullshit and give us a little insight.

I can only imagine how monumentally infuriating it is to be compared to someone like Erikson and then insulted as writer because your style doesn't appeal to someone who is confusing thier taste and opinion with an objective assessment of quality.

[Aptorian]

It is quite thrilling when a real live author actually pops in.

I'll add my two cents and as advice I'd say that no-one should read TTH right after Deadhouse Gates. Not only is there a massive gap in the events that have taken place and the amount of old storylines converging in that book, in my opinion... TTH isn't one of Eriksons greatest. Oh, sure in the sense of fullfilling us fans long awaited expectations it's great, but it is a diamond in the rough. There is a lot of weird angles, sloooow moving build-up and quite strange choices in storyline developments.

I'd recommend Memories of Ice or Midnight Tides instead.

I have to get around to reading some of Mr. Morgans work.

[Dr Trouble]

 Aptorian, on Nov 14 2008, 08:45 PM, said:

I have to get around to reading some of Mr. Morgans work.

Whoa, Apt ... You've never read a Richard Morgan book? Shame on you!

[polishgenius]

 conduit 4 sael!, on Nov 12 2008, 05:28 PM, said:

I just felt that, for Archeth, it felt tagged on - of her outsider status came from her race, and I don't think I'd have felt differently about that if she hadn't been lesbian.

yah but her race didn't have the same social constraints/danger tho. it also kind of makes a neat contrast the open deviation from the hidden one for her character. i don't really understand not getting this. to a certain extent i just don't think it worked but i think its weird to feel like y'know it was superflous.

I get it (especially what with RM being nice enough to drop by and respond to the point without shouting at me, >_>), I just didn't get the feeling that anyone particularly cared which rather marred the sense of constraint that was meant to be happening. Perhaps it was an effect for me of the smaller part Archeth has in the book compared to Ringil, who had time for much more development (every flashback Archeth has is to do with her race, if I recall correctly, and those were important for the development to me). Perhaps I'll change my opinion on rereading, it's been known to happen, or upon reading more about her in the next book.

[Aztiel]

He's achieved always read status for me. I'll read anything the guy prints, until he proves me wrong.

I'm kind of surprised to see people's reactions to Ringil's sexuality. Morgan's always had pretty descriptive sex in his books. Who cares what sex people are? At least they aren't bug, like in Mieville.

That out of the way, I'm sad to see he isn't planning to go back to Kovacs. I ended up liking that place more than I did in Black Man, or Thirteen or whatever its called. Marsalis was alright, but I found him more like a less interesting Takashi Kovacs.

[Tremolo]

Finally got around to reading it. Loved the style, the plot and the characters. Loved the way I was shocked by the explicitly adult scenes.

Only problem is - I feel a bit uncomfortable pluggin the book to my friends. Perhaps I am just overthinking it.

[Lisheo]

Wow, good to see you here, richard m! I've glanced through your stuff, and its on my to-read list after A Feast For Crows.

I echo everyone's sentiments, its probably best if you read MoI and GotM before TtH, otherwise your missing out on most of the events that make up TtH. Also, one of the main characters will be absolutely alien to you, which is never good!

[stone monkey]

Oh ffs!

I leave a thread alone for a bit and the author (one of my favourite authors, no less) only goes and bloody shows up on it... And does so on my birthday, no less.

It's like the universe is taking the piss!

[mocker]

as if Richard Morgan was here. legend

i'm just in the middle of reading Altered Carbon

fantastic read so far

the steel remains is next, then its off to start some lucius shepard coz i've never read any of his stuff and i'm strangely intrigued

i'm a big fan Mr Morgan, black man was ace, carbons even better, so lookin forward to TSR

[Abyss]

 Tremolo, on Dec 23 2008, 10:24 AM, said:

...Only problem is - I feel a bit uncomfortable pluggin the book to my friends. Perhaps I am just overthinking it.

Oh, go for it. What's the worse that can happen? They curse you for not warning them that one of the protags is gay? Your response is "Oh, i'm so sorry, i didn't know you had a problem with that." and then watch as they sink into the floor.

- Abyss, confrontationista.

[Aptorian]

Bought and finished the book over christmas.

Not having a clue what the book was about before I opened the book , I can now say that I am both impressed and disappointed.

Ringil was a completely AWESOME character. Probably one of the most interesting and entertaining fantasy personas I've read, the only person I can conjure up with a bigger chip on his shoulder is probably Butcher's Harry Dresden. The charactarization of Ringil was amazing and complex. Some of the stuff that guy's witnessed or felt on his own body makes you shake your head. At the same time I thought it was perhaps a bit too much. Like Harry Dresden, sometimes Ringils attitude seemed a bit too extreme. I can not imagine why he hasn't been stabbed to death long ago in a back ally acting like such a prick.

Egar and Archetch were completely useless characters and I don't understand why they've even been included. Their passages didn't really go anywhere and lacked the pull of Ringils chapters.

Egar was just a violent dandy barbarian who couldn't manage the simple task as leader of the Tribe. When the brothers came to kill him, I couldn't blame them, he was a failure as a leader of men. At least from what little we see. He has to share his chapters with that pervert shaman, which wouldn't be so bad, only the conspiracy of those two gods that want to both kill and save Egar goes nowhere. I do not think that it's acceptable that the author begins a story arc like that and then just leaves it to die out.

Archeth was interesting but her chapters were so boring. The knifefights and her knowledge of elf... sorry, kiriath technology were cool enough, but her visits at the palace and that destroyed harbour bored me to tears. NOTHING HAPPENS!!! And I don't understand why two out of the three main characters need to be gay, it's not a problem, it's just so... well... I didn't know I was reading the L Word in a fantasy setting.

Now to the main story: I did not like it at all. Some kind of godlings that are not really gods but some kind of quantum elves living between space and time. If Morgan had stayed with the concept of godlike beings manipulating men into a war I could have accepted it, but having them be average elves in spacesuits that are no different than a human beings, doing some kind of straight forward invasion... well, that's just stupid. Yes, STUPID! The authors badguys go from terrifying, unkillable, space-time defying demi-gods to simple alien beings who mistakenly think they can just conquer mankind with out even knowing shit. You know what the endings fight in the village reminded me off? M. Night Shame's "Signs". You're expecting something terrible and you find out it's just a bunch of idiots drudging through a swamp. Or maybe comparing the Dwenda to the predators and Ringil to Arnold Schwarzenegger is a better analogy

Like mentioned above I found it disappointing that the Dwenda and Kiriath were little more than High Elves and Dark Elves... or would the Kiriath be dwarves?

I felt that the story could have used some fleshing out of the plot. I didn't like the shif from the developing story in the city to the "grey places" travel into the swamps. It was just such a random switch of setting that the author lost me, and like I mentioned above, the Arc and Egar chapters weren't doing anything for me.

I found the book good, and I'll read the next one, I'm just disappointed that there wasn't more to the story.

EDIT: Also how the hell do you pronounce Archeth? What is it with english fantasy writting and all those ch's and th's in names? They're everywhere...

[Illuyankas]

Arch... Eth. It's not rocket surgery.

[Tapper]

I can see where you come from, Apt.

On the bigger level, I agree: there's simply not enough info in the book to sketch the scope of the conflict and where the sky travellers of the barbarians tie in with the Dwenda (if they do, and if not, what their plan is), which is a pity for the first part in a series.

Regarding the dwenda turning out to be 'dumb' invaders of a place they know nothing about anymore: on some level, we've seen the same in history. In a few ways, look at how Israel was created in the aftermath of WW2. It's the promised land, but all actual ties have been cut throughout ages of diaspora except for longing, faith and ritual... and the fact that there are new inhabitants who left their mark is regarded as an unfortunate inconvenience by the planmakers. Colonization by the various European nations throughout the scramble for africa can't have been much different... going in, knowing very little about the land and playing out tribes against each other, relying on superior firepower and fear to compensate for numerical inferiority. Not all that farfetched, imho.
For me, it's the sky gods of Egar's tribe that puzzle me. Puppetmasters, scheming, cruel, powerful, but apparently with a very limited scope if you take the goddess, and a very wide one if you take the leatherman, but why?

Regarding Ringil: Awesome character indeed - although I think much of what he does and what should have gotten him knifed according to you is posturing by a man who knows he's going to leave sometime soon and is utterly confident in his ability to stand alone against all odds. I'm still not sure what his comments to the soldiers and Seethlaw were: covering up his feelings for the dwenda or just showing off that he slept with the guy as his plan B while he was captured. I personally think its the first.

Archeth for me was all about the games she is forced to play with the Emperor, and the way she and the Helmsmen are left to whither away in a world that's not theirs. Jhiral is awesome in his manipulations and mix of nastiness and honesty... he's an 'evil' Emperor done well compared to Ikurei Whatever that Bakker presents as his degenerate byzantian leader. She herself isn't going nowhere - I didn't understand the compassion she felt for the old lady apart from her also being forced away from the places she loved - just like Archeth... but if so, she should run an orphanage.

I liked Egar. He's far more educated than he seems and that is his problem. He tries to emerse himself into the tribelife and makes a mess out of it because he can't be bothered anymore deep inside and is thus distracted by every nice girl that passes by, but at the same time when he is in civilized company again, he acts the dumb barbarian. Complex stuff... and hard to write well. I can see him either becoming comic relief (which would be sad) or a great character in future novels, but in this one, I liked him.

[Aptorian]

I think what irks me about the story is that it felt like it was building up to a longer story (which it also will be) but then suddenly, with the grey space travel, takes a turn for a showdown in the swamps and is abruptly ended. I think the book sufferes from having a good start but a way to abrupt ending. The way the story ends, I would then have liked more padding on the rest of the novel. Stretched over a couple a hundred more pages, so you got more info on the barbarian deities, what happened after Egar left the tribe, some mor staging in the swamps. More development of the Emperor and Archeths business. Archeth doing some Kiriath/Dwenda discovery in the swamps instead of just bumping into Ringil.

I liked the story, I just think it could have led to so much more.

[richard m]

Thanks Tapper - you pretty much covered it for me. But to re-iterate a little:

For me, the interest in a character like Egar lies precisely in his failings. If he were doing a fine job of leading his tribe, I wouldn´t have been able to summon the interest to write about him. Further to which, Aptorian, you were quite right to sympathise with his brothers when they came to kill him. You are supposed, at a minimum, to feel that they have a fair point. Whether you think that point justifies brother-slaying becomes more of an individual issue - I´m big on personal loyalty, so I don´t. You maybe value the execution of assumed duties over more human foibles, so you perhaps think otherwise. The point is (for me anyway) it´s not black and white. If it was, it would be dull beyond belief - as, I have to say, I find a lot of more trad fantasy to be for exactly that reason. My brief with TSR was to import as much of the noir sensibility as I could into a fantasy setting - and one massive mainstay of the noir genre is exactly that shades-of-grey moral ambiguity. Real life is not black and white, real human beings do not lead directed and tightly purposed lives. We scrabble about in a corrupt mess, struggle with our own internal demons as much as with any external force, and we live and die for reasons that we ourselves are very often not that clear about. For me, that´s what is missing from a great deal of trad fantasy - no doubt because people want a refuge from exactly that messy truth and seek it in simplified fictional realities and codified heroisms. Well, fair enough, each to their own. But personally I fall asleep trying to read that stuff and would likewise fall asleep trying to write it.

Similarly, the interest for me in the character of Archeth (btw - I think of it as being pronounced Ark Eth, but hey, that´s just me - go with whatever sounds good to you guys) is precisely the static mess she´s wound up in. Not quite at war with the Emperor, not quite committed to her role as imperial consultant either, mostly just pissed off with how her life has wound up and staying afloat on memories, anger and drug abuse. Aptorian, you´re right that not much happens in her thread, but that´s emblematic of the low ebb her life has reached. She´s running on autopilot and a vague sense that the world is out of joint and there´s nothing much she can do about it. In the end, the idea was that when she finally acts and the steel comes out, it´s an explosion of rage and resentment repressed too long.

As to Ringil - yeah, Tapper, you pretty much have him down, he´s supremely confident in his combat skills (for entirely solid reasons of training, experience and of course equipment) and doesn´t have very much to lose in any case. He´s also an arrogant aristo prick, with all the assumed superiority that implies. But where an untried noble younger son might run into trouble he can´t get out of, Ringil is so war-hardened and inured to personal suffering from an early age, most men will step aside instinctively rather than cross him. Was he boasting to the imperials about his conquest of the dwenda? Was he covering for his finer feelings? Or maybe just trying to wind them up? For that matter, did he plan to seduce Seethlaw or was he himself seduced (or both)? Did he have a plan at all or was he just trying to survive the changing circumstances? The truth is even I don´t know the answer to those questions - and as far as I´m concerned, that´s a good thing. I´m proud of that messy ambiguity of motivation, because I think it rings true to life.

TSR was very much a novel of character for me, which is to say the narrative derives from the characters and how they behave, rather than the characters having to fit into a pre-determined narrative pattern. I think this is why a lot of people have come out the other side saying that the book was too short (or too long - I´ve been accused of both!). But what would probably be most accurate to say would be that the narrative is an odd shape. It´s messy, things come to a head rapidly and not a great deal is resolved at the end - which again, I feel echoes real life rather better than a straightforward hero narrative would. Again, noir tenets lean towards the protagonist getting out alive and a few bucks ahead at best, and maybe getting laid somewhere along the way. Ask for more than that, and you´re likely to be disappointed.

Oh, yeah - final word: the gods. Tapper, you´re right to be puzzled - those motherfuckers never make much human sense. Talk to any practising christian about "god´s plan" and see how much sense it makes. Ditto the machinations of the Hindu, Norse, Greek or Roman pantheons. Gods - you can´t trust them any further than a junkie with your wallet, and your best bet is to avoid them like the plague if you can. If you can´t, if they come looking for you, well - prepare to have your life turned upside down and for no reason that makes any sense to you at all. If they do have a plan, they sure as shit aren´t going to be sharing it with you, and if they do start to share, then chances are they´re lying their arses off for shrouded agenda reasons of their own which are unlikely to serve your interests more than obliquely and temporarily. Which, whe you think about it, makes them pretty much a perfect fit for a noirish world!

[Abyss]

 richard m, on Jan 13 2009, 02:05 PM, said:

... final word: the gods. Tapper, you´re right to be puzzled - those motherfuckers never make much human sense. Talk to any practising christian about "god´s plan" and see how much sense it makes. Ditto the machinations of the Hindu, Norse, Greek or Roman pantheons. Gods - you can´t trust them any further than a junkie with your wallet, and your best bet is to avoid them like the plague if you can. If you can´t, if they come looking for you, well - prepare to have your life turned upside down and for no reason that makes any sense to you at all. If they do have a plan, they sure as shit aren´t going to be sharing it with you, and if they do start to share, then chances are they´re lying their arses off for shrouded agenda reasons of their own which are unlikely to serve your interests more than obliquely and temporarily. Which, whe you think about it, makes them pretty much a perfect fit for a noirish world!

This, to me, is something that much fantasy fails at. Leave aside SE's gods, because they are, for the most part, humans or other races who have done something to become a god but at root their motives remain human. 'Gods' SHOULD be mysterious. They should be complicated. They should not make sense unless they explain themselves and even then they are probably lying. I give you HP Lovecraft and his Old / Sleeping / Tentaclepenised Ones - say what we might about HPL, he never really tried to explain why his gods do what they do. He just puts humans in the way and lets them react. I always liked that. Old mythologies basically express gods in human terms, but there is really no good reason not to break from that. All of which is to say the lack of explanation didn't bother me.

- Abyss, ...yes, Tentaclepenised Ones...

[polishgenius]

 Abyss, on Jan 13 2009, 07:32 PM, said:

 richard m, on Jan 13 2009, 02:05 PM, said:

... final word: the gods. Tapper, you´re right to be puzzled - those motherfuckers never make much human sense. Talk to any practising christian about "god´s plan" and see how much sense it makes. Ditto the machinations of the Hindu, Norse, Greek or Roman pantheons. Gods - you can´t trust them any further than a junkie with your wallet, and your best bet is to avoid them like the plague if you can. If you can´t, if they come looking for you, well - prepare to have your life turned upside down and for no reason that makes any sense to you at all. If they do have a plan, they sure as shit aren´t going to be sharing it with you, and if they do start to share, then chances are they´re lying their arses off for shrouded agenda reasons of their own which are unlikely to serve your interests more than obliquely and temporarily. Which, whe you think about it, makes them pretty much a perfect fit for a noirish world!

This, to me, is something that much fantasy fails at. Leave aside SE's gods, because they are, for the most part, humans or other races who have done something to become a god but at root their motives remain human.

Even with this, some of the actions of SE's gods are pretty... well, erratic and mysterious to say the least. With the mos def human Shadowthrone perhaps the most capricious of them all.

Anyway, I completely agree with this sentiment and am glad that there appears to be an increasing tendency to make gods and greater powers in modern fantasy unpredictable forces. And magic in general a fairly wild thing, half-understood at best (the downside of a previous tendency to systemise magic, apart from problems of originality, was that it often made magic feel clinical or worse, safe). That sort of atmosphere was one of my favourite aspects of the book.

[Aztiel]

How cool is the internet!? I had read a lot of differing opinions online about your new one, Richard m, but I picked it up as soon I could and was disappointed. I didn't feel like any of the things discussed in this thread came off as a gimmick - they came off as characters like people that I know, only they have swords and can walk in the shadows with a mystical kind of race. Some of them just happen to be gay, or lesbian. I don't like to be confrontational but I have trouble understanding people who attached too much importance to any of the character's orientations. There was a lot more going on there.

Ah, well, discussion is interesting - and I'm looking forward to whatever you've got in the future. Kovacs and Marsalis made me a fan, and I'm liking this new direction as well.

[Dr Trouble]

 Aztiel, on Jan 15 2009, 12:30 PM, said:

How cool is the internet!? I had read a lot of differing opinions online about your new one, Richard m, but I picked it up as soon I could and was disappointed.

Dude, harsh.