Malazan Empire: Message from Steve - Malazan Empire

Jump to content

  • 6 Pages +
  • « First
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • You cannot start a new topic
  • You cannot reply to this topic

Message from Steve

#101 User is offline   SSOCB 

  • Recruit
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 3
  • Joined: 05-June 08

Posted 08 June 2008 - 09:37 AM

I've noticed 'bout the two camps thing and I know where I land, but I can understand that that it bothers some poeple. If timelines are your private paradice the descrepancies most be like a dripping tap. You know it is not significant, but if still irretates you to hell and gone. So for the sake of the timeline fanatics I really hope the discrepancies do get fixed in later edditions. It looks like it would make a lot of people very happy.
0

#102 User is offline   Danyah 

  • Fist
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 246
  • Joined: 21-May 07

Posted 08 June 2008 - 10:30 AM

SSOCB;325168 said:

I've noticed 'bout the two camps thing and I know where I land, but I can understand that that it bothers some poeple. If timelines are your private paradice the descrepancies most be like a dripping tap. You know it is not significant, but if still irretates you to hell and gone. So for the sake of the timeline fanatics I really hope the discrepancies do get fixed in later edditions. It looks like it would make a lot of people very happy.


Maybe, but I think that would be too complicated a matter. I don't know any fantasy writers who have created such a complex world like SE did. To combine the creation and the history of a multi-planar world, and almost all it's factions and interest groups with the small stories of individual characters with the coherence he already has achieved is an immense task IMO.

If you know any, feel free to mention them...
0

#103 User is offline   Jorram 

  • High Fist
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 383
  • Joined: 07-June 04

Posted 08 June 2008 - 10:33 AM

To me it's not a question of fanatism, but rather something indispensable..

If the events don't fall into place neatly, I have troubles imagining the whole story and feeling it true. The suspension of disbelief stops to work. And i'm not talking about not-so-important issues like the Empire founders being 100 years old or such. I'm talking about events that are supposed to happen at the same time but due to their relation to other events they actually can't happen at the same time.

At one point, when you realize this and get hold of all the storylines, instead of the nice 'click' you should feel when everything is finally understood, clear and satisfying, you get a bunch of 'wtf' and nothing is clear and satisfying.
0

#104 User is offline   Quick~ 

  • Fist
  • Group: Malazan Artist
  • Posts: 257
  • Joined: 16-January 08

Posted 08 June 2008 - 10:35 AM

Xander;325038 said:

Even though he doesn't seem to care, I wonder if he'll end up going back and fixing these issues after all is said and done. Like when a batch of new editions of each book is released. Doesn't bother me really.


Doesn't really bother me either, what might be nice would be to include some kind of revised timeline in the encyclopedia malazica if he and cam do release it once the series is over.
0

#105 User is offline   eekwibble 

  • Only...
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 193
  • Joined: 21-March 08
  • Location:Manchestoh
  • Interests:West Haaaaaaaaaaam!!!!!

Posted 08 June 2008 - 01:47 PM

It's not 'indispensible' but it's certainly annoying if that's your focus.
My feeling is that if SE wasn't going to put too much stock in his own timelines then he probably shouldn't have put the dates in, but f**k it, he did, knowing it would grate on some people yet still having the 'nads to do it. Fair play to him!
Personally though, I'm in the 'couldn't give a flying f**k' category. There's just so much more to get involved with and focus on (and DISCUSS!!!). :o

Sorry, Pedantic Bear and Skeptical Cougar do still make me laugh! :o

http://www.malazanempire.com/forums/showth...314878#poststop
QUOTE (amphibian @ Nov 11 2008) <Rake himself was a huge weight inside Draconus and he didn't go in with an army.>
0

#106 User is offline   dktorode 

  • Luck is my middle name, Mind you, my first name is Bad."
  • Group: High House Mafia
  • Posts: 2,188
  • Joined: 03-September 05

Posted 19 August 2008 - 02:02 PM

And the mysterious third person at the fire was?....

Fisher?
...┌∩┐(◣_◢)┌∩┐...

Why dont they make the whole plane out of that black box stuff?
0

#107 User is offline   Zanth13 

  • We are not the same
  • Group: Kings of Drink
  • Posts: 1,697
  • Joined: 23-August 06
  • Location:Right Behind You

Posted 19 August 2008 - 04:11 PM

dktorode;371566 said:

And the mysterious third person at the fire was?....

Fisher?


Thats what I thought,

pretty sure it is...

looks like Fisher is a bad ass
You can't find me because I'm lost in the music
0

#108 User is offline   Gem Windcaster 

  • Bequeathed Overmind
  • Group: LHTEC
  • Posts: 1,844
  • Joined: 26-June 06
  • Location:Sweden

Posted 10 October 2008 - 10:24 PM

About that, didn't SE say at some point that we never would see fisher in the books? Man, I'm gonna take everything SE says on those questions as he's saying the opposite of the truth from now on.
_ In the dark I play the night, like a tune vividly fright_
So light it blows, at lark it goes _
invisible indifferent sight_
0

#109 User is offline   Danyah 

  • Fist
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 246
  • Joined: 21-May 07

Posted 13 October 2008 - 10:06 PM

He did. We also wouldn't see Whiskeyjack again...

This is a gathering place for rabid fans. Don't worry. We probably know and remember everything better than SE does.

This post has been edited by Danyah: 13 October 2008 - 10:07 PM

0

#110 User is offline   mountainkit 

  • Recruit
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 20
  • Joined: 04-December 07

Posted 19 December 2008 - 06:18 PM

Hey Steve

thanks for all the great writings.

i have written an albums worth of songs from your poems at the beginnings of chapters. i posted a couple on youtube, most recently caged bird.
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=ip-yyGN_fQ8
I want to make sure your okay with all this, and if you would be interested in hearing an album made...

cheers
Kit


View PostHetan, on Mar 12 2008, 11:51 PM, said:

Steve has asked for this to be posted :-

Quote

Hello everyone,

Normally I don't step in, especially this early in the game with Toll the Hounds still a few months from being released, but it occurs to me you might find it useful if I toss in a few comments to assist you in your discussions. This is all pretty random, but here goes:

The two dead characters in the prologue are not related to anyone seen in the books; in fact, they are generic and won't be seen again -- no need to speculate on their identities. At the end of that sequence, when she says: 'oh here comes my carriage,' this is simply the product of being exceptionally brainless on her part, and highborn to boot. Trust me when I say that what's on its way ain't her carriage. That section, with the two corpses, needs to be read through to a deeper level than what's on the surface.

You've not yet met the third member in Kruppe's little gathering. By the novel's end you will know precisely who the man is.

The line regarding 'two women' in the daughters section missed my editing eye -- I will correct before publication.

Sundry other comments: Timeline. Well, yes, I can see how this fascinates everyone. I recall speaking with Malaclypse over the phone a few months back and numbing his ear with a run-through of how the events fit in my head, the key being to disregard all noted years (which is where I consistently screw up -- while things remain in the form of a blurred cause and effect sequence in my head, it all makes sense. To me, at least.). He mulled on it for a while and then said 'yeah, that almost fits.' Friends, 'almost' is good enough for me. I used to be scared of inconsistencies. Not any more. Well, make of that what you will. With respect to the Nascent and time going strange there, and to those who have noted that detail: yes, some basics laws are very much awry in the Nascent. The reasons will come clear.

I noted some curiosity as to the music I listen to while writing. Some people have suggested that it's all personal and private and I'd never tell. Nah, sure I'll tell. You are welcome to know what music I listen to and even argue with each other over it. What remains personal, as with each and every one of us, is how that music affects us. Not only is that personal, it's probably ineffable. What stirs my imagination in a song can sometimes being as little as a single phrase (a lone line about 'hyenas' in Roger Waters' Amused to Death that set most of the Chain of Dogs afire in my brain); or a spectacularly evocative guitar lick with stunning lyrics (Bruce Cockburn's last song on the Charity of Night album -- Strange Waters? that spoke to me about the price of displacement).

Over the past couple years I have been listening to, in no particular order:

Bob Dylan (and covers by other artists)
Bonnie Rait
Leonard Cohen (and covers by other artists)
Bruce Cockburn
Roger Waters & Floyd
Ferron
Talking Heads
David Byrne

and for the most ecelctic collection imaginable, try this:

lyle lovett, sinatra, crowded house, led zepplin, neil halsted, joni mitchell, hootie and the blowfish, planet p, chris rea, van morrison, neil young, nick cave and the bad seeds, annie lennox, etc.

Betrays my generation? Maybe. Uncool? Probably. Whatever I listen to while writing, it needs lyrics, and generally good lyrics (the exception to the latter being led zepplin, which flaunts terrible lyrics, but the sound!). Stunned and appalled by 'sinatra'? Ah, you younglings -- want the best the-world-is-fucked-and-we're-all-going-to-die song? Try old blue eyes and 'Let's face the music and dance.' See what I mean about private head-space? It's a mystery, all right, but one with a big wide grin.

Anyway, thanks for your patience on the prologue; I hope the wait was worth it.

Cheers
Steven Erikson


discuss.... :(

0

#111 User is offline   pde 

  • Recruit
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 1
  • Joined: 30-March 09

Posted 30 March 2009 - 12:55 PM

I realize this may not be the right place to bring this up but... I would like to know if or when your books will become available on the kindle?
0

#112 User is offline   Aptorian 

  • How 'bout a hug?
  • Group: The Wheelchairs of War
  • Posts: 24,778
  • Joined: 22-May 06

Posted 30 March 2009 - 01:03 PM

Erikson doesn't reply to the threads on this forum. In any case this would not be a question he could answer, you'd have more luck trying to contact his publishers.
0

#113 User is offline   Ljos 

  • Recruit
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 6
  • Joined: 24-July 09

Posted 24 July 2009 - 02:42 PM

I fint the timeline issues quite problematic. As someone previously said, it makes the whole series a bit harder to believe, and it just doesn't 'click' properly in place.

And with all respect, it wouldnt have cost much to have it all in place before the books were published either. Or... perhaps if he makes up a lot as he goes, it does at that... But anyway, even thought the timelise is a bit messed up, the books are wery good. All creds to the writer :-)
0

#114 User is offline   Thelomen Toblerone 

  • Ascendant
  • Group: Team Handsome
  • Posts: 3,053
  • Joined: 05-September 06
  • Location:London

Posted 24 July 2009 - 10:33 PM

As has been stressed often before:

THE TIMELINE IS NOT IMPORTANT.

It's easy to criticise, but how often have you made a mistake then a minute later gone "oh yeah" and gone back to change it? When something's published, you dont have that luxury. You just have to try and fit it all in with your idea, if it works it does, otherwise you ignore and move on. I cant say I ever read (or remember) the dates listed, and all the rest makes sense, so it's not exactly necessary for the plot.
0

#115 User is offline   Ljos 

  • Recruit
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 6
  • Joined: 24-July 09

Posted 24 July 2009 - 10:43 PM

Well, your correct when you say its not necessary for the plot, but the point It wouldnt hurt either. When I read books where maps and dates are given, I allways try to read them in order to get a better feal of the timeline and distances and such things. They make it all seem more 'probable' (of course it's not probable in a scientific scense, but never mind). Therefor I find it a bit problametic that the timeline is a bit messed up. But it isnt strictly necessary. I still read and enjoy the books immennsly.
0

#116 User is offline   redJAKO 

  • Sergeant
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 89
  • Joined: 02-November 08

Posted 02 August 2009 - 06:25 AM

I don't find the timeline problematic, rather how much of the time between times are NOT noted properly, so I have to figure it out myself..."Huh? Its been three years? Oh, no wonder the Grey Swords are half a world away now and trained" etc.
0

#117 User is offline   Salt-Man Z 

  • My pen halts, though I do not
  • View gallery
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 4,159
  • Joined: 07-February 08
  • Location:Apple Valley, MN

Posted 06 August 2009 - 04:58 PM

I've always thought this "THE TIMELINE IS NOT IMPORTANT" nonsense to be a cop-out. It's a gaping flaw in an otherwise masterful series. I love the books to death, so I'm able to look the other way; but I can definitely see how it would be a deal-breaker to someone else.
"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?"
―Gene Wolfe, The Citadel of the Autarch
0

#118 User is offline   Hinter 

  • First Sword
  • Group: High House Mafia
  • Posts: 504
  • Joined: 02-October 08

Posted 06 August 2009 - 05:04 PM

I've never had a problem with the timeline. In fact, until joining this forum I'd never really taken much notice of it. It certainly doesn't detract at all from my enjoyment of the series.
0

#119 User is offline   D'rek 

  • Consort of High House Mafia
  • Group: Super Moderators
  • Posts: 14,599
  • Joined: 08-August 07
  • Location::

Posted 07 August 2009 - 11:55 AM

View PostSalt-Man Z, on Aug 6 2009, 12:58 PM, said:

I've always thought this "THE TIMELINE IS NOT IMPORTANT" nonsense to be a cop-out. It's a gaping flaw in an otherwise masterful series. I love the books to death, so I'm able to look the other way; but I can definitely see how it would be a deal-breaker to someone else.


Nah, the timeline is just a minor inconvenience, not a deal breaker in any sense. But CHANGING BALGRID'S WARREN???!!! THAT IS UNEXCUSABLE!!!

View Postworrywort, on 14 September 2012 - 08:07 PM, said:

I kinda love it when D'rek unleashes her nerd wrath, as I knew she would here. Sorry innocent bystanders, but someone's gotta be the kindling.
0

Share this topic:


  • 6 Pages +
  • « First
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • You cannot start a new topic
  • You cannot reply to this topic

1 User(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 1 guests, 0 anonymous users