Malazan

[Ammanas]

A couple of my audiobooks came through on my library app. That means I will have to pause RotCG (which I own) and get back to it later. Am I destined to be the next Briar King? Forever trying to finish this book, but never reaching the end haha!

Edited August 3, 2018 by Ammanas

[Orlion Blight]

3 minutes ago, Ammanas said:

A couple of my audiobooks came through on my library app. That means I will have to pause RotCG (which I own) and get back to it later. Am I destined to be the next Briar King? Forever trying to finish this book, but never reaching the end haha!

You two will never reach the end of RotCG! For, to read the whole book you have to read half the book first! And before that, you have to read half of that! And half of that! And so forth ad infinitum! It is impossible to make it past the first page! 

[Ammanas]

Its a literary equivalent of a asymptote hah!

[Briar King]

I’m actually quite enjoying it at present. The Guard is invading Unta and it’s quite action packed. 

[officiumdefunctorum]

1 hour ago, Briar King said:

I’m actually quite enjoying it at present. The Guard is invading Unta and it’s quite action packed. 

I think maybe you've passed the book's equivalent of Wednesday, and it is more interesting through the end.

[Briar King]

Ok blanking on this. In Return Kyle is dreaming

of a meeting between Anoman and Oss in the distant past where A ask O “How Resuthenal is doing?” I can’t remember this name currently. Is this an ICE only thing or am I forgetting a mention from SE 1-7 or perhaps a character fleshed out in FoD? The passage doesn’t say anything beyond that. Loric’s mom maybe?

[officiumdefunctorum]

1 hour ago, Briar King said:

Ok blanking on this. In Return Kyle is dreaming

  Hide contents

of a meeting between Anoman and Oss in the distant past where A ask O “How Resuthenal is doing?” I can’t remember this name currently. Is this an ICE only thing or am I forgetting a mention from SE 1-7 or perhaps a character fleshed out in FoD? The passage doesn’t say anything beyond that. Loric’s mom maybe?

 

Not mentioned in FoD. We have a pretty limited time with O in FoD and FoL. I think it's also implied that 

Spoiler

Osserc gets around, and has or will have, er, a lot of bastards? So she may or may not be a woman of importance, but not in the books.

 

[Ammanas]

I pretty sure that Resuthenal is only mentioned in RotCG and was just a common aquaintance, they both knew, and were making small talk over.

[Briar King]

Ah yeah I was thinking it was prob a ICE thing. Didn’t ring any bells from past reads.

[Briar King]

Welp I have just officially passed the max progress I made on my 2nd attempt which was pg 478. I still had my page marker in. Going smooth now that it’s the only book I’m reading.

[Ammanas]

Back to RotCG! I guess I never noticed on previous reads the Sayings of the Fool and how many there are throughout the series. I think my favorite one is found in this book, "While travelling I met a man dressed in rags, his feet and shoulders bare. Take this coin, I offered him, yet he refused my hand. You see me poor, hungry, and cold, he said -- yet I am rich in dreams."

I also like the one in Deadhouse Gates which provides some nice foreshadowing for events in House of Chains:

He swam at my feet,
Powerful arms in broad strokes
Sweeping the sand.
So I asked this man,
What seas do you swim?
And to this he answered,
'I have seen shells and the like
On this desert floor,
So I swim this land's memory
Thus honouring its past,'
Is the journey far, queried I.
'I cannot say,' he replied,
'For I shall drown long before
I am done.'

There are a few others too:

http://malazan.wikia.com/wiki/Sayings_of_the_Fool

On a different note how awesome is Braven Tooth? Everyone, including the empress, just assumed he died a long time ago, but he's still training soldiers and will play a bigger role later on in the book. The very definition of, "Old soldiers never die; they just fade away"

[AngelEy3]

Currently working on Forge of Darkness. I like it just fine so far. RotCG is awesome! And so is Braven Tooth. I think my favorite name he gave was Limp's. Dude busts his knee like 5 times. 

[Briar King]

3rd time was the charm. Done!

[Yvainnie]

So Bonehunters done and it was AWESOME, suprisingly not a lot of important people have died, thats the first time. Lassen is slontze. I just started Reapers Gale and in prologue or first chapter there are some dead soldiers with wolf insingnia and a lot of woman among them, are they bonehunters? can someone please spoil thois for me?

[officiumdefunctorum]

6 minutes ago, Yvainnie said:

So Bonehunters done and it was AWESOME, suprisingly not a lot of important people have died, thats the first time. Lassen is slontze. I just started Reapers Gale and in prologue or first chapter there are some dead soldiers with wolf insingnia and a lot of woman among them, are they bonehunters? can someone please spoil thois for me?

Spoiler

Grey Swords. It's picking up the story of what happened after Toc and the rest left after Fener fell (They decided to follow the wolves of winter afterward) and the other events in Deadhouse Gates/Memories of Ice.

 

[Briar King]

Ok now it’s time for the reread of TTH and I’m both dreading and curious to see how it’s going to go. It was/is easily my least fav of the 10 and I always hear this changes on 2nd trip. We shall see.

 

oh and for rust and giggles I spent 155 days reading RotCG. Either from one word or 113pgs(last night) a day. That’s a long time.

[officiumdefunctorum]

29 minutes ago, Briar King said:

Ok now it’s time for the reread of TTH and I’m both dreading and curious to see how it’s going to go. It was/is easily my least fav of the 10 and I always hear this changes on 2nd trip. We shall see.

 

oh and for rust and giggles I spent 155 days reading RotCG. Either from one word or 113pgs(last night) a day. That’s a long time.

I'll say this for TTH: I read it directly after finishing the two Karkhanus books, and enjoyed it infinitely more.

[Briar King]

2 hours ago, officiumdefunctorum said:

I'll say this for TTH: I read it directly after finishing the two Karkhanus books, and enjoyed it infinitely more.

That meshes I’m sure.

rereading FoD fills me with even more dread then TTH cause I just down right disliked it. Will be quite awhile before I get around to it again. Pretty sure 8-10 mixed with ICE 3-6 will take me into 2019 unless I just zen out and become a speed reader. AND not read other rusting books at the same time lol

got to order Dancer bks to

Edited August 11, 2018 by Briar King

[Ammanas]

16 minutes ago, Briar King said:

 Will be quite awhile before I get around to it again.

I plan on rereading them if (when?) the third Kharkanus, Walk in Shadow, is released. I think the earliest we can hope for is at least five years; he has talked about how difficult it is for him to write them plus the three Karsa books that are to come first.

16 minutes ago, Briar King said:

got to order Dancer bks to

I joke around that the Early Empire books were written by the "third malazan author". I say that because ICE completely changed his prose and I feel it was a huge success! I really hope that Tor contracts him for more in the Early Empire series...there is still so much for him to explore and his current contract is for three.

Edited August 11, 2018 by Ammanas

[officiumdefunctorum]

@Briar King I assume if you didn't care for FoD, you didn't read Fall of Light? It's not saying much if you didn't like the style at all, but there's a lot more going on in Fall of Light, esp with Spinok and some of the other Tiste/Azathenai names that get dropped in the main series. Plus Hood and Gothos.

Also, my opinion is that the ICE storyline makes more sense and meshes better when reading it alone, straight through, after a Malazan read. Keeping the timeline of events in mind, that storyline itself makes a lot more sense with how it relates to some of our missing characters and plot arcs (

Spoiler

Silverfox and the Kron T'lann Imass, Tayschrenn, Leoman, Kallor, Greymane, the Stormriders, Darujhistan and the retired bridgeburners, Mallick Rel, Spite/Envy, Osserc, Fisher, and of course The Crimson Guard/Iron Bars

), without getting bogged down in the interim by what's essentially happening an ocean away, and absent any real relevance to the main storyline with the exception of the One Big Thing.

Edited August 11, 2018 by officiumdefunctorum

[Briar King]

I def had problems enjoying FoD after having built up the info from 1-10. It clashed with my brain to much at the time and I loathed the book. Haven’t read FoL yet. I honestly wasn’t even go to reread FoD in this massive reread until I reread a certain conversation between Tool and Lorn in GotM. FoD is the only book I actually hated. 

[officiumdefunctorum]

8 minutes ago, Briar King said:

I def had problems enjoying FoD after having built up the info from 1-10. It clashed with my brain to much at the time and I loathed the book. Haven’t read FoL yet. I honestly wasn’t even go to reread FoD in this massive reread until I reread a certain conversation between Tool and Lorn in GotM. FoD is the only book I actually hated. 

Fair enough. Some of the mythos and history is just downright contradictory when it isn't completely different altogether, at least in some ways. I rather enjoyed the story, myself, but I'm also mostly capable of putting myself into a hypnotic binge trance they usually convinces me I'm enjoying anything I read as long as the prose is good, the characters don't suck, and the narrator does their job well.

Usually it's after I finish something I decide if I hated it. Notable exceptions being all things Drizzt/Dark Elf, and the Second Apocalypse, which I despised by the time I finished them, for completely different reasons.

[Ammanas]

4 minutes ago, officiumdefunctorum said:

Some of the mythos and history is just downright contradictory when it isn't completely different altogether, at least in some ways.

I'm interested in how much of the contradictions are by design or not. He has mentioned in past interviews that he is interested in exploring about the idea of how history changes and is lost as time passes. He has also mentioned how unconcerned he is about keeping timelines and other details straight; I can't remember the interview, but he said that doing that would zap the joy from writing and he is more concerned about getting across specific themes to the reader.

[officiumdefunctorum]

@Ammanas I recall what you're talking about, and I've no doubt it's mostly intentional. After all, we're talking about mythology and events that are in the timeline of epochs that spans hundreds of millennia, not just a few. I'm reminded of Robert Jordan's interview in which he wanted to emphasize the deterioration and corruption of information as it spreads through time and geography both. With Malazan history, we've got some of the people who were around during the time, but even they didn't have all the answers, and are working toward their own ends or have forgotten a lot along the way (Mael, Rake, Silchas Ruin, Errastus, Kallor, Hood, T'riss, etc).

It can be irritating, though, when it's used in Erikson's style wherein he's just presenting new or different information as presumable fact, rather than Jordan's, where it's an element of dramatic irony and tension.

[Orlion Blight]

43 minutes ago, Ammanas said:

I'm interested in how much of the contradictions are by design or not. He has mentioned in past interviews that he is interested in exploring about the idea of how history changes and is lost as time passes. He has also mentioned how unconcerned he is about keeping timelines and other details straight; I can't remember the interview, but he said that doing that would zap the joy from writing and he is more concerned about getting across specific themes to the reader.

It's a convenient position that he has, his post modern technique of "history is different depending on who tells it!" It allows him to write off any screw ups as "part of how stories change in the telling" instead of him not keeping any notes.