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Malazan Book of the Fallen - Steven Erikson
Dublo7
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Registered User regular
By Hood, it's a "Malazan Book of the Fallen" thread!
I've nearly finished with Memories of Ice, and so far it's fantastic. I just purchased House of Chains today, so hopefully I will start it as soon as I'm done with MoI.
People seem to dislike Erikson's books because of their complexity, but really, that's the reason I like the novels so much. Erikson's vision for the series is freaking gigantic in scope.
So, do we have any other Malazan fans here?
(Please use spoilers here guys, and make sure you label what book it is in regards to, as the series is pretty huge, and I wouldn't like to have it spoiled for me (Neither would others, I imagine.).
wikipedia wrote:Malazan Book of the Fallen is a fantasy series written by Steven Erikson, consisting of six books as of 2006 and projected to be ten books long in total. It is an epic military fantasy, wide in scope and encompassing the stories of a very large cast of characters. Each book tells a different chapter in the ongoing saga of the Malazan Empire and its wars. Each book is self-contained, in that the primary conflict of each novel is resolved within that novel. However, many underlying characters and events are delicately interwoven throughout the works of this highly complex series, binding it together.
The Malazan world was co-created by Erikson and Ian Cameron Esslemont, who in 2005 commenced publishing his own Malazan novels co-developed with Erikson. See Authorship below.
The Malazan series is often compared both to Glen Cook's Black Company, and George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. It is like Song of Ice and Fire in that both are epic-length fantasies consisting of doorstop-sized novels, deal with war and have a large cast of characters. They are also contemporaries, so the comparison is natural enough. It is like the Black Company series in that both are gritty and almost gratuitously violent, sometimes depressingly so. Both also deal with large, faceless military campaigns and one can draw parallels between the Malazan Bridgeburners Company and Cook's Black Company.
Novels in the Series
1. Gardens of the Moon (1999)
2. Deadhouse Gates (2000)
3. Memories of Ice (2001)
4. House of Chains (2002)
5. Midnight Tides (2004)
6. The Bonehunters (2006)
7. Reapers Gale (due for release in 2007)
8. Toll the Hounds (forthcoming, no release date set)
9. Dust of Dreams (forthcoming, no release date set)
10. The Crippled God (forthcoming, no release date set)
I've nearly finished with Memories of Ice, and so far it's fantastic. I just purchased House of Chains today, so hopefully I will start it as soon as I'm done with MoI.
People seem to dislike Erikson's books because of their complexity, but really, that's the reason I like the novels so much. Erikson's vision for the series is freaking gigantic in scope.
So, do we have any other Malazan fans here?
(Please use spoilers here guys, and make sure you label what book it is in regards to, as the series is pretty huge, and I wouldn't like to have it spoiled for me (Neither would others, I imagine.).
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Dublo7 on
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Hah! Just earlier today I was talking about possibly making a Malazan thread.
I work at a fantasy book site which has a so-called "Erikson cult," which I finally succumbed to. Took my time with Gardens of the Moon, then immediately went out and purchased the next two upon completion. After finishing Memories of Ice, I forked up the money to get the next three books at an import shop (only the first three were available at the time in the US - has House of Chains launched here yet?) and reread the first three while waiting for shipping.
I feel that the difficulty is often less the complexity, and more the issue that there is no real exposition - the first two books, especially, thrust you into scenes with character names thrown at you and no explanation of what's going on. The reader is just along for the ride. While this does work to make a more realistic world, since there's no need for the cliched "idiot" character to constantly explain things to so the reader is kept up to speed, it proves REALLY difficult the first time through - I gained a lot from my re-reads of the first two novels.
Favorite book by far is Memories of Ice, which is the book which brought me closest to crying, believe it or not. The last sentence will break your heart.
As for the other books, Ian Esslemont has his first book out (Night of Knives), and Erikson has also released two short stories - Blood Follows and The Healthy Dead, which apparently follow Korbal Broach and Bruchelain. The seventh novel in the core series was finished and sent to the editor for final revision about two weeks ago. I absolutely can't wait.
I'll do my best to avoid spoilers for the later books, but will warn you - the first third of House of Chains is vastly different from the preceding novels. It's completely from one person's point of view, and primarily serves to flesh out one character who up until that point had been exceedingly minor. But it's completely worth it in the end.
And, kinda to pimp the interviews at my site (warning: spoilers) Ian Cameron Esslemont interview, Steven Erikson interview (2003), and he registered at the site to do a Q&A, also in 2003.
He was supposedly going to continue stopping by once a month or so, but that never happened. :P
No idea how anyone who likes the genre can hate Erikson's work, it is simply amazing.
Umm... Epic Military Fantasy. I think.
Anyway, like Jhragghen said, the cool thing about Malazan is the reader is just thrown into a story that has seemed to be unravelling before the reader even began the series. All we have to do is sit back and observe how it unfolds.
And a very stuff you Christmas to you too. I'll seek my information elsewhere.
Sorry if I sounded like a smart-ass earlier
The term "fantasy" embraces many different subgenres - high fantasy, swords and sorcery and modern fantasy, for example, being a few of the broadest. I wanted to know what flavour the series has.
Oh, I see. It's very magic heavy, but there's also plenty of sword battles throughout it.
Hm. That's not as helpful in making my decision as I'd hoped, but I appreciate the effort. I'll stop being lazy and just go find a review.
Well, if it helps, here is a little description of the first novel, Gardens of the Moon;
It's very much more a modern fantasy book than a traditional one.
You won't get any of that sort of stuff in this.
The time period can be viewe as a sort of medieval transitional. While there's obviously sorcery, there is also a substantial naval network, (in isolated cases) sophisticated clockwork, and munitions which can be viewed as almost-modern explosives (sans timers and the sort), but no cannons/guns/etc.
There are a number of races, both "ancient" and modern humanoid. There is two concurrent conflicts going on between the ancient races (All the Tistees, the Jaghut, the (T'lan) Imass, the Forkrul Assail, and K'Chain Che'Malle), as well as a concurrent war involving modern species (humans, Barghast, Moranth, Teblor, Nappan, and a number of other species whose names fail me). Each one has a history and ties into events in the past in some way - many revealed in part, few in whole, some not at all. These separate conflicts overlap one another and run into one another repeatedly. Pretty much every race is roughly humanoid (with varying skin color/tusks/build/height) and while there are some prejudices between them, are all treated on equal standing as far as "biped who can think" levels are concerned. Nothing like gnomes or fairies here.
Additionally, there's a series of individuals who "Ascend" and become higher than the normal planar being - some of whom are Gods, others who are not. They have their own conflict going on, but getting into that dives headfirst into spoilerville.
The gist of the magic system is that there are these "warrens" which certain people can draw energy from, which have affinities to certain elements as well as certain races. Warrens can also be used for quick travel between locations, but can be very dangerous, so it's not an often favored method of travel. Once more, getting any deeper leads to spoilers (and yes, this is important - you find out one particularly nifty tidbit in Book 3, and finally get something resembling a description concerning something Warrens and their predecessors in Book 5).
Other than that, as opposed to focusing on powerful individuals ala WoT and ASoIaF, it tends to focus more on military bodies, so there's a lot of "normal" characters, although that focus blurs as time goes on.
So, concise: blood, war, intrigue, history, magic, and hilarious sounding characters (I'm looking at you, Kruppe), where the author continues to manage throwing curve balls at you, especially if you're not paying attention.
Which is to say, it has layers. Lots, and lots, and lots of layers. In the first book as has already been alluded to, you get alot of names dropped at you and you might hurt your foot because of all the name dropping. But it gets better. And you find out that many of the characters and minor tidibts you found out about them early in the series have alot more too them than that - but your first impressions are still key, and make rereads of GotM especially rewarding.
Whereas in George Martin's books the mysteries are generally political in nature (leaving aside the dragons and Others), such as how Tywin did this or that, or who fathered Jon, etc, in Erikson's novels everything is a mystery.
How does the magic work? You think you know - but then you buy the next book and you find out you were wrong. Who made the magic? Again, you think you know the answer, but you don't. Where do the frequently-mentioned but never seen dragons fit into this? Do they? Again, you think you have all the answers, then bang! And whose side is "X" REALLY on anyways? Good luck figuring that out.
There are political mysteries as well, but against the backdrop of the "greater" mysteries, they seem almost insignificant. You know nothing about the world when you first start reading - every book adds to it, and because of the wide breadth of characters and their various expertise and experiences, you can even learn conflicting information.
It's good reading. The Chain of Dogs is still my favourite sub-plot within a novel though.
I'm personally a fan of the sheer concept of the Tenescwori. And I completely want a Total War-esque game with them in it.
Defenitely a different type of fantasy in my opinion, and my only grief with it is that is just so damn brutal to new readers. When I cracked open Gardens of the Moon, it felt like I was in the middle of a story already. Took a lot of catching up to do, that is for certain. Once I did finally put everything in place and understand all that was going on, the book was pure gold.
Steven is an incredible author, and I believe an archaeologist? It really shows in his story - the man loves incredible timelines. For example, the oldest and most powerful race to have existed in the world of Malazan was the K'Chain Chemalle...who died out about 600,000 years ago. I really enjoy it actually.
Some of the neatest characters are in his stories too. Anomander Rake is a fucking badass. God-killing sword? Check. Turn into a dragon? Check. No sense of mercy? Check.
Looking forward to the next book, and I think it may already be out...I completely forgot. Thanks for reminding me!
And my poor Death Knight that couldn't afford an icon.
I love Anomander Rake. He's just so god damned cool.
[spoiler:53335d93ba]The scene where he killed those 2 hounds of shadow... just awsome stuff.[/spoiler:53335d93ba]
Tides was alright. I might have gotten into it quicker had I read some of the previous novels, but it seemed to do okay on it's own. I liked one line towards the end:
"Do you know why we pray to these gods? We pray for them to stay away..."
Does the military action in this make any sense?
[spoiler:a1f818729f]
Paran made mention of a dimwitted stable boy finding a magic sword. It certainly made me laugh
Midnight Tides is another one of the oddballs of the series - it takes place on a separate continent from all the other books (although seven should be there in part, if memory serves) and is actually all in the past as far as the other books are concerned. The whole book is essentially Trull explaining his story to some other people from the fourth book. I imagine that a lot of the references don't make a whole lot of sense without having read the others though. I honestly think, at this point, that Midnight Tides is my least favorite book, simply because it goes off on its own so much that it's difficult to relate. Hopefully, as mentioned, book 7 fixes that - Erikson has a knack for filling in holes in previous books. Take the revelation in book 6.
Yes for the most part, although not always. Erikson was an archeologist, for what that's worth. His military conflict descriptions are more....vivid than most other fantasy authors, but I'm not experienced enough in that field to say if it makes a whole lot of sense.
Heh, I was thinking that this was one of the more confusing reviews I have read, but when I read "hurly-burly" and "Roland Green" it all made sense. (This is pretty much how he talks in real life as well)
I'm giving the full, detailed explanation - it'll cover a lot of stuff you probably overlooked your first time through previous books.
The conversation was essentially about whether or not Tayschrenn did his best to save Whiskeyjack, or let him die in a misguided attempt to continue what he was doing in GotM.
Follow all that?
Aaaah, I see. Thanks alot
Also, Malazan thread....YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.;o))))
Edit:
You should stick NoK in the first post. It's a novel by ICE:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1904619932/202-4058849-5726261?v=glance&n=266239&s=gateway&v=glance
Giving further insight on the Malaz world(chronologically, it's the first book of the series....), actually, I'd strongly suggest reading it BEFORE you read book 6 - The Bonehunters.
Agreed. Although some of them give odd foreshadowing. Consider
Have you read the two short stories by Erikson that concern Bruchelain and Korbal Broach?
No, but I haven't read them by choice. I know the Healthy dead is still available and even cheaper then NoK, but even if it's Malazan world based the book is not related to the grand scheme and I'd just give it a miss till the big story is told. Then will probably go and read it.
About Grub:
[spoiler:743f7b9394]
I still don't expect the scope of the books to get to Emprire's end, but we'll see. That line was just a way to realize early on just how "special" Grub is.
[/spoiler:743f7b9394]
btw, I'm still waiting for somebody with a lot of talent & free time to get a real Deck of dragons out there.;o)) That & a Carnivale opening credits deck are 2 sets of cards I'd gladly spend cash on....
That'd be kinda tough, given the Deck is constantly in flux - some of the cards have different patrons through the course of the series.
Anyways, finally finished Memories of Ice. Loved, loved, loved it.
[spoiler:b2875f047b]Seeing Duiker again, and reading that last line was just... painful. The thing I love about Erikson is how he weaves everything together, from book to book.[/spoiler:b2875f047b]
MoI is easily my favorite book in the series. Capustan itself is awesome, but then that ending....
....it was just masterful.
Go back through Memories of Ice and carefully look at the instances where Artanthos is mentioned, the Malazan Army standard bearer.
[realspoiler:80eeeb3135]
Artanthos = Tayschrenn. I can think of only one instance off the top of my head where Whiskyjack mentions that "He felt he [Tayschrenn] was closer than most though" or something of that nature. It's before the meeting of Caladan an Dujek.
[/realspoiler:80eeeb3135]
Ooh, thanks for the heads up.
http://www.malazanempire.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5781
Enjoy!!!!;o))
Hot, thanks.
[spoiler:5c8652d3af]and holy shit the last 100 pages[/spoiler:5c8652d3af]
Let me write this whole thing down in order to understand it...
[realspoiler:5c8652d3af]The whole attack on Coral turns into a shitstorm. Trotts, Detoran, Toes, Hedge, and the majority of the Bridgeburners eat it.
The alliance gets betrayed by Kallor, who murders Whiskeyjack along with Silverfox's two marines due to a God breaking Whiskey's leg at the wrong time.
Itkovian dies somehow, I didn't catch how
Artanthos is really Tayschrenn, who reveals himself by killing off Kallor after he murder's Whiskeyjack
IMHO, the most touching part was when Ben and Paran visited the tomb of all the fallen Bridgeburners and Whiskeyjack in Moon's Spawn. [/realspoiler:5c8652d3af]
By the end of the book:
[realspoiler:5c8652d3af]Paran, Mallet, Picker, Spindle, Blend, and Antsy are with Baruk, Krupp, Coll, Murillio, Raest, and the newly-ressurected Duiker are in Darujistan with a shit-ton of money and a whole lot of talent among the group
Tayschrenn, who infact is not an bad guy, and the newly-promoted High Mage Quick Ben are with Dujek on their way to join with Tavore to retake the Seven Cities
Quick Ben has buddied up with Talamandas, and together they can deliver ridiculous amounts of ass-kicking
Fiddler and Kalam just met up in Malaz City, while Apsalar's going home with her father, and Crokus is tagging along trying to get into her pants.
There better be some giant reunion for everbody, coinciding with them teaming up to slaughter a few hundred thousand evil guys. [/realspoiler:5c8652d3af]
Mostly right.
Itkovian was the Shield Anvil. He acts to take all the pain and suffering that people have recieved (and caused) as part of his warrior sect, so to speak. Normally, there is a God for him to depend upon to release this to, but since Fener was pulled into our world by Heboric in Deadhouse Gates, Fener was not there for him - ie, through all of Capustan, etc, he was just taking it into himself. In the last scene, he took all the suffering that the T'lan Imass clan had been accruing over thousands of years of un-deadness into himself because they had outlived their Gods. It was too much for him to handle. Think of it as his heart exploding, both physically and metaphorically.
Tayschrenn didn't kill Kallor. He just chased him off.
Correct on the Darujistan thing, and they opened a bar in the former temple of K'Rul.
You know, come to think of it, I don't remember anything specific Talamandas does in later books. He's probably there, or has an explanation, or something, but it's been a while and nothing strikes me.
As for the rest, well.....there's a lot of books before there's going to be a giant reunion, I imagine.
But yeah....the last sentence of MoI....completely heartbreaking, wasn't it?