Malazan Empire: Aptorian - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

The news is going around the internet:

https://www.tor.com/...death-obituary/

No info on the cause yet. He was just 72.

Goodkind, for good or bad, has quite a history on this forum and I'll be damned if he doesn't get a send off thread.

This happened last week and I've been thinking about it ever since.

I went to a baptism last weekend. It's a relatively large church in a suburb of Copenhagen. Your typical generic Danish church, 700ish years old, made out of brick and tile, big open room with arched ceilings, wooden pews, choir in one end and an altar in the other.

It was an awful experience. And more puzzling, I remember visiting the exact same church two years earlier for the big brother's baptism and it was just the same.

The room was not even a quarter full but there was a cacophony of children wailing and fidgeting, people coughing or murmuring to one another, loud echoes from people's feet on the wooden floor, etc. To drown this out the church had installed small speakers down the sides of the walls. But the sound wasn't loud enough and the mic quality wasn't sharp, so you couldn't understand half of what the priest was saying, nor could you tell what the choir was singing but that's mainly because of the archaic way these people sing these terribly outdated songs in a giant open room with bad accoustics.

On top of that the Priest seemed pretty pissed and didn't want to be there. He started out berating the audience because everyone didn't stand up when he and the parents entered. Then he had all these acerbic remarks in between the ceremony parts, saying things like "You'd think the birth of a child would be a cause of celebration" or "People think the birth of their child will bring them happiness. But what really does bring people happiness now a days and did some bit on materialism or something like that. And he ended the whole thing with something like either him or we not really caring and let's just end it here and then he just stood there looking at us for a second and started walking down the isle, with the family scrambling after him.

It was a thoroughly weird experience. I'd have been pissed if I'd paid money for the ceremony.

Which made me think about what churches really are about now a days. Now, of course, your milage may vary from church to church, priest to priest but it just felt like such an antiquated experience.

Terrible service where the priest and helper dude was clearly dissatisfied with the heathens in their church who were unfamiliar with the churches traditions and didn't share their reverence for a crumbling religious institution.

And a facility that just feels utterly unsuitable for the purpose it's used for.

As a person who's studied service design and customer user experience, there's so many things about that experience that could have been optimised. A smaller room, better sound isolation, more comfortable seating, better speakers, preferably a bunch of large TVs hanging around the room with instructions, like what the days program is, what song or sermon is next, maybe some scrolling text or lyrics so you don't have to frantically flip through a book with a thousand songs most don't know how to sing.

And just a more understanding form of addressing a crowd that doesn't hinge on the frustration that the general public in Denmark doesn't give two shits about Church ceremonies.

And maybe this is just me but some kind of epic light show on the baby fountain, maybe with some dry ice smoke and some Dolby Surround sound angel choir when the kid gets dunked in the water would also be cool.

2020 MALAZAN RE-READ: STONEWIELDER

Book description for Stonewielder:

Quote

January 1st 2020 we began the re-read of the main series of the Malazan books. The plan being to read one book a month. We've now added additional Erikson and Esslemont publications to the schedule, to be read roughly according to the publication order.

Quote

You can read our thoughts from earlier months in these threads:

2020 Malazan Re-read: Gardens of the Moon

2020 Malazan Re-read: Deadhouse Gates

2020 Malazan Re-read: Memories of Ice

2020 Malazan Re-read: House of Chains

2020 Malazan Re-read: Midnight Tides

2020 Malazan Re-read: Night of Knives

2020 Malazan Re-read: Bonehunters

2020 Malazan Re-read: Return of the Crimson Guard

2020 Malazan Re-read: Reaper's Gale

September 1st we begin the re-read of Stonewielder, the 2nd book of the Empire series.

There will be spoilers for all published books. So beware. Spoiler blocks are not mandatory but if people want to use boxes for the latest Kharkanas books or the Path to Ascendance books for example, I'd personally appreciate it.

Are you ready? What do you remember about Stonewielder?

I remember next to nothing about this one.

There was this wall.

And some kind of Crippled Goddess thing with some crippled chunks doing bad stuff.

Oh and Ipshank and Manask! I loved those two. I want Esslemont to write a series of books just like the Bauchelain and Korbald Broach stories. MANASK! THE STEALTHIEST OF THIEVES!

2020 MALAZAN RE-READ: TOLL THE HOUNDS

Book description for Toll the Hounds:

Quote

January 1st 2020 we began the re-read of the main series of the Malazan books. The plan being to read one book a month. We've now added additional Erikson and Esslemont publications to the schedule, to be read roughly according to the publication order.

Quote

You can read our thoughts from earlier months in these threads:

2020 Malazan Re-read: Gardens of the Moon

2020 Malazan Re-read: Deadhouse Gates

2020 Malazan Re-read: Memories of Ice

2020 Malazan Re-read: House of Chains

2020 Malazan Re-read: Midnight Tides

2020 Malazan Re-read: Night of Knives

2020 Malazan Re-read: Bonehunters

2020 Malazan Re-read: Return of the Crimson Guard

2020 Malazan Re-read: Reaper's Gale

2020 Malazan Re-read: Stonewielder

October 1st we begin the re-read of Toll the Hounds, the 8th book of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series.

There will be spoilers for all published books. So beware. Spoiler blocks are not mandatory but if people want to use boxes for the latest Kharkanas books or the Path to Ascendance books for example, I'd personally appreciate it.

Are you ready? What do you remember about Toll the Hounds.

I remember this book being a slow burn. A very long run up to an excellent convergence on the last 200 or so pages.

I remember finding the whole Black Oil and puppet god stuff more confusing and weird than satisfying to read about. Why was Bellurdan brought back as a puppet character and not Hairlock?

Kallor was cool in this book. It's the first book where some humanity is introduced to the character and we get a glimpse of the man as more than just a stereotypical bad guy.

I remember finding the whole Hood needs to manifest so Rake can chop him and the commit suicide plot stupid. We've seen plenty other gods manifest in physical form. Or been Dragged into that situation, Quick Ben threatened to do just that to Hood in Memories of Ice. It's also retarded that Rake needed to have Dassem defeat him. Maybe if you believed that Dassem was needed to protect the blade you can see some logic in it, but that doesn't explain what the point of the fight was. I for one believe that Rake controlled that fight and manipulated Dassem into the killing blow. At which point you may ask: Why didn't Hood and Rake just meet in a deserted area, Rake kills Hood, Rake stabs himself. Done.

Was a cool convergence though. "Now turn this wagon around".

2020 MALAZAN RE-READ: REAPER'S GALE

Book description for Reaper's Gale

Quote

January 1st 2020 we began the re-read of the main series of the Malazan books. The plan being to read one book a month. We've now added additional Erikson and Esslemont publications to the schedule, to be read roughly according to the publication order.

Quote

You can read our thoughts from earlier months in these threads:

2020 Malazan Re-read: Gardens of the Moon

2020 Malazan Re-read: Deadhouse Gates

2020 Malazan Re-read: Memories of Ice

2020 Malazan Re-read: House of Chains

2020 Malazan Re-read: Midnight Tides

2020 Malazan Re-read: Night of Knives

2020 Malazan Re-read: Bonehunters

2020 Malazan Re-read: Return of the Crimson Guard

August 1st we begin the re-read of Reaper's Gale, the 7th book of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series.

There will be spoilers for all published books. So beware. Spoiler blocks are not mandatory but if people want to use boxes for the latest Kharkanas books or the Path to Ascendance books for example, I'd personally appreciate it.

Are you ready? What do you remember about Reaper's Gale?

This book was cool and yet I remember the ending feeling tainted. Mainly for the reason that so many convergences didn't properly come to pass. Ruin descends upon the Capital and gets blasted by a Cusser. Icarium and Karsa doesn't fight. Icarium is once again teased as going nuts but it doesn't quite happen. Rhulad is heralded as the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths but he doesn't really have any progression beyond what we knew from Midnight Tides. There's a lot in there that I wish had been given a nudge.

I also don't remember having much love for the Tiste kids or the Shake/Twilight stuff.

But there is a hell of a lot of other cool stuff. We finally get to see why the Malazan marines are so effective. It's some of Erikson's best "war writing". There's Beak's sacrifice. Quick Ben, Trull, Onrack, Hedge. Tehol and Bugg are always awesome, etc.