officiumdefunctorum

I think I might be one of the only people in this thread that didn't have any issues with RotCG! I did let it sit for a long time before getting started with it, but I went straight through without wanting to give up. It wasn't amazing and I'm not sure I'll listen to it again, but I didn't hate it, haha. Granted, I consume books and audiobooks at an alarming rate. I started Stavely's Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne last Friday and I'll probably finish the trilogy by this Friday.

I mean, with the Malazan saga, you won't need to supplement with too many other books to have enough for a fort. They're some hefty tomes.

I don't know, I just thoroughly enjoyed my audiobook experience the first time around, and the second (taking a break from my third at Crown of Swords). Michael Kramer and Kate Reading make it a better experience, I think. I unashamedly skipped a good chunk of Perrin's angst fest in Ghealdan, though. And a lot of the stuff with Egwene and Elayne. :| It has its faults, but I bloody love it. My sister and I are going to JordanCon in the spring! I'll probably do an ICE re-read this winter. It all feels really fresh, even though it's been almost a year since my first listen.

First read, I felt similarly. Second read, it grew on me.

@Briar King I've grown fond of the "turn off notifications about this post" button, for sure. I'll consider the forum! I've unfortunately stumbled upon the people that seem to enjoy Erikson for the wrong reasons, and learn nothing from his excellent use of allegory and unsubtle philosophizing. @TheOrlionThatComesBefore I'm finishing a Gentleman Bastards re-read, and five books into the Spellmonger series, because I needed levity in my life now that school has started again. Almost done with main arc of The Witcher, only Tower of Swallows to go. Thinking about maybe going for Gwynne when I've stopped bouncing around, though only the first book is available on Audible in the US.

Possibly foolishly, I joined the Malazan Empire Facebook group. There seem to be a disproportionate number of cads and ruffians mucking up the friendly discussion. I prefer our discourse here. What's everyone reading right now? Anybody still plugging along with Malazan or ICE?

I feel like night of knives is an ill conceived introduction to characters that will later be important in that series. Tay, Kiske, the Stormriders, etc. Like an extended prologue. As for Ruthan Gudd, especially if he's getting addressed in Karkhanus, it's probably a safe bet that he's

@TheOrlionThatComesBefore That too. @Ammanas Re: Vance. He doesn't usurp the dream team of Michael Kramer and Kate Reading as my favorite, but everything of his that I've listened to has been fantastic. I think I'd have enjoyed Night Angel 1000x more if it had been him narrating instead of the dude who reminded me of the True Facts guy. I was disappointed that he didn't do the rest of Malazan, and wonder why he didn't. Page certainly did a fine job, and I prefer his Kalam and Quickben to Vance's, but I also hate change. Roy Dotrice's name was bandied about earlier. Frankly, I hated him. I'll never listen to ASoIaF again because he made my skin crawl and utterly butchered the phrase Valar Morghulis. Whoever did The Prince of Nothing portion of Second Apocalypse didn't do it and favors, either.

In the latter half of the series, a bounty is put on Sranc scalps (rabid, rapacious creatures that run in hordes, bit like Goblins), and bands of hunters cropped up who would go on expeditions into an inhospitable region to retrieve them. This arduous, sometimes months long hunt in the wilderness became colloquially known as "the slog" by the hunters. One character, when on a slog of unprecedented length and ambition, referred to it as "the slog of slogs", later becoming his cackling catchphrase as it devolves into madness.

Truth. They can also make the boring parts of books bearable, too. Michael Kramer and Kate Reading are magical, and make the slog portion of the Wheel of Time as interesting as it can be.

That's an apt metaphor. Sometimes Page gets it amazingly right (Gruntle, Karsa, Quickben, Hellian) and other times I want to cover my ears (Pust, Kruppe, some of the T'lan Imass). I think I liked what he did with Gentleman Bastards, more. damnation narrators and their effect on things...

Badalle gets her One Big Thing and then you don't really have to deal with her on her own so much. Agreed on Michael Page not doing well with those voices, nor with Olar Ethil. I think he tries too hard. And yes, second half of CG is brilliant. The ultimate convergence.

Art from the new limited edition of Toll the Hounds:

Heyooo

Did you happen to notice that in DoD, one of them had become a woman? I know he and ICE both play fast and loose with K'rul's gender/form, but they're an elder god and all, so I'm wondering if he'll hand-wave that he even wrote that into the events of DoD, or if there is some precedent for changing one's gender in the Tiste andii culture.

@Briar King I don't think there's too much maundering in FoL. There's rather too much going on, for it, I think. You may just want to skim the parts with Dathenar and Praezek, as I believe Erikson just kind of uses them as a medium for those selected times he wishes to maunder.

That's a fantastic play on words for anyone who is familiar with Malazan. Well chosen.

So, my kitten is about four months old, now, and he is finally big enough to access things he once could not. This means he is CLIMBING ALL THE THINGS. So I am in the position, fully aware that I have done this to myself, of bleating in alarm as a pure white kitten tries to scale a table lamp or a tower of DVDs (multiple times a day) and shouting "Silchas Ruin!", while I scurry to prevent immanent disaster. This name has now and will likely forever have lost any majesty or gravitas it once held. Really helps you to get over the oddness of a name, though, shouting it multiple times a day.

@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.

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.

@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 ( ), 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.

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

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

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