officiumdefunctorum

Stumbled across this link looking for good Ruin and Rake artwork (there isn't any). It is both funny and interesting to see how many tropes we manage to cover in this series. https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Malazan_Book_of_the_Fallen

It probably had some slight historical significance, and I think that party is involved during the I honestly don't remember much of it at all. The later books where Shimmer and Co are actually doing stuff was much more interesting. @Briar King Iron Bars is my favorite. <3

I may have actually erased that entire plot arc from my memory, so you are correct. Did it even have anything to do with... anything? I honestly can't recall.

@Briar King You can do it!

I did enjoy having Barathol around again, but I'm not sure I was pleased with anything about Humble Measure, recalling the events of Toll the Hounds and whatnot. I think the Red Knight is one of those things you have to "get into". It's quite different, but once I started buying into what was going on it was really good. Not a predictable story. Coexistence of magic and religion. I enjoyed it, so take my opinion for what it is!

Honestly, I don't remember a lot of the details from the ICE books, with the exception of Orb Sceptre Throne and the stuff with the Seguleh and the Moranth and Assail. I'll have to read them again eventually. I did enjoy John Banks, though, and having one narrator do the whole set was nice. I'm not sure who I'd like to take over narrating Erikson's next books. The guy who does books 3-5 of the Red Knight series, Neil Dickson, is pretty great. Or maybe Simon Vance? He is fantastic with Lightbringer and the other things he's done. Honestly Michael Page took some getting used to after three books of Ralph Lister, but I think he did well, even if some of his vocal inflections and sound effects were a bit... Excessive. His Karsa Orlong is perfect.

I hope you like it! A different feel than the rest of Malazan, and a little difficult to understand at first, because they are all just Tiste, without andii/edur/liosan distinction. I thoroughly enjoyed it, though.

Wholeheartedly agree. (Also, what are you reading next?)

Kitten Update: No more blue on Silchas Ruin's eyes. I'll always hope that one day they turn red as death, but for now the kind of amber kind of gray in the right light thing he's got going on is pretty okay. Also, whisker nubbins.

I agree with you about grimdark. I suppose tonally, Kharkanus definitely digs into those elements more. I'm probably just remembering the hilarious parts and not the literal backstabbing, tragic misunderstandings, and horrifying mutilations going on. It's all quite stabby at times. Style is super important. I think I enjoy the straightforward more than the high handed, most of the time, though sometimes I'm really in the mood for some good soaring prose, a la the Horn of Gondor causing orcs to flee from the terrible sound, and whatnot. And lmao, the Pit of Depravity indeed. Honestly, Bakker gave it his best shot but you really lose the shine after like the 9,000th Sranc boner. I am 100% behind the idea that he half wrote that series just to weird people like me out. It's like... literary impressionism. It's still naked women, but with distorted perspective. Though IMO it's hardly brilliant. What genres are those other books you mentioned? @AngelEy3 The idea is growing on me. I suppose it's unlikely there'd be any random marines that Fiddler didn't know, at that point. It still has the feeling of someone pulling Fid's leg, though.

The Black company has been on my list for some time! I just had it re-recommended to me a couple weeks ago, and I bought the first audiobook to give it a try. If the narrator ruins it, I can always attempt to do the actual reading thing.

I've noticed that, in terms of people's use of the term. I suppose my own thoughts on it transcend the violence/brutality aspect alone and I think of grimdark as also infusing tonal/stylistic aspects, in addition to the realistic depiction of war/violence. But I've only read like... Three things I would consider grimdark, then. So. vOv

The tone of the two stories is also just so different. There is a complete lack of levity in Bakker's work, I think, whereas Erikson is always dishing up the tragedy of good intentions with a joke or two. I think Erikson likes to give equal credence to the power of compassion and the good in people, whereas Bakker continuously punches you in the face with, as you accurately stated, the darkness that comes before, and the indifference of the petty tyrants in the sky. I'll say this for The Aspect Emperor. It sticks to its themes, and it's trajectory, although offers nothing of predictability, possibly in an ironic way what with the presence of pseduo-omniscient and admittedly insane psychopaths. There is also something of the metaphorical... "climax" in how it goes out with a whimper, instead of a bang. I got what I wanted from the series, though. Which was to figure out how it bloody well ended. More than anything it's not even the content that pisses me off, it's the voice. I just don't think I like Bakker's style. It's one of the reasons that I seldom re-read LOTR, it's high-handedness. But the florid High Chant (ha, WoT reference) of LOTR makes the moments of glory all inspirational and Eye of the Tiger. It makes Bakker's Second Apocalypse uncanny in the Freudian sense, creating a cognitive dissonance that is like nails on a chalkboard. I absolutely believe that that is his intention, as well, so well done in that aspect. I just didn't enjoy it like I do Abercrombie's books, for example. Or, well, Erikson's. Truthfully I've never considered Malazan to be grimdark, though I guess it kinda fits?

I remembered what you were talking about, but still... It feels like something a Malazan marine would do, to mess with Fiddler like that. He sounds a bit like that Dalhonese mage, too, doesn't he? Coincidence? Or it could be Erikson being sneaky and the Malazan Magic doing its thing like it did with Grub in a "blink and you'll miss it" kind of way. Who knows. I never thought I'd think this much about Nefarious Bredd.

Until just now, yes, lmao. I suppose it is possible Nefarious Bredd 'manifested', but I think it more likely it was some dude screwing with Fiddler. I haven't though about him at all, really, and now I suppose I should!

Honestly I thought of Bredd as a joke that became a kind of urban legend for those not In On It. Like blaming strange things on a ghost and then other people taking you seriously. I'd think that @TheOrlionThatComesBefore oh god don't read it. SAVE YOURSELF. It's basically... relentless misery-porn. It's very much the subversion of Tolkien's LOTR Quest in exactly every way, right down to the Non-Men/S'rank. The Quest devolving into madness instead of glorious victory. It's seriously a four novel long exercise in nihilism and "up yours, Tolkien, haha people are TERRIBLE AND HONOR IS A MYTH" using Tolkien's own voice. By the time unholy consult came out I was very much Over It and like "welp, horrific rape and massive betrayal, must be Tuesday". Also, there is just so much... seed. Kharkanus is not even in the same universe, I'd say. Erikson's voice is still very present, which is why I think I enjoyed it. I'd say it's the... differences in the characters that we know, and the inconsistency with what we think we know from the Malazan world, and the somewhat screwy timeline of it all. There is a lot of what someone in this thread called "philosophical wankery", though I'd not say any more than in what we experience in the main Malazan storyline. The cool bits are definitely what goes down with Draconus, his son, the Shake, and the exploration of the Azathanai, K'rul, and how they relate to the creation of Elder Gods and the Warrens, though all in a much more storylike format than The Silmarillion. It has nothing of the arrogance of Bakker's grimdark, though it deals with some of the same themes, i.e. betrayal for 'reasons', using good people for your own ends, Sudden Murder, rape, etc.

I haven't been keeping the Esslemont books on my radar. I'll have to investigate. And besides @TheOrlionThatComesBefore, he's got Shadowthrone on his avatar. That automatically makes all his posts just a little Malazan related... right? Meanwhile every time I see your avatar, I remember that I was reading Those Books about a year ago and get angry all over again at myself, lol. Re: religious perspective in books in general I've found the presence/persistence of religion/higher power to be A Thing in both Weeks and Sanderson's books. The idea of Fate/Destiny in WoT is also A Thing. Frankly, I'm an atheist, and I enjoy it from a philosophical and anthropological perspective, seeing how it affects characters motivations, social structure, and the machinations of the deities themselves. I especially enjoy anything that delves into the origins of religious/cultural-but-basically-religious practices like Sanderson always does. Really, It's one of the reasons I found Malazan so refreshing. "Gods" are real, but also humanized, flawed, and beholden to mortality. It's very often questions of balance, power, obligation, and time that come into play rather than the more ephemeral but pervasive fate and faith. It's also not concerned with fairness so much as consequences. I love that Erikson even mocks the idea of justice by personifying it in the zealotry of the Forkrul Assail. Basically, @Ammanas I agree with what you're seeing/saying, but experience it intellectually rather than spiritually. I found the Malazan books to be more personally affecting for their human-ness, even when dealing with alien gods, in that way. Edit: do we need a Brent Weeks thread?

I started thinking of Gentleman Bastards as soon as I started reading your post, haha. I think, especially with the audiobooks, it feels weird in Michael Page's voice, at first. It's a little discordant, but in Locke and Jean's characters it feels a lot more like Hedge and Fiddler. "Nice bird, arsehole" will forever be one of my favorite quotes.

Okay, so I'm four books into the Wheel of Time re-read, and I'm already thinking ahead to my Stormlight re-read (nostalgia, Stormlight was my impulse buy when I finished WoT for the first time because I was devastated it was over and didn't know what to do after two months of Rand al'Thor's journey), and here's my take on something I appreciate a lot about Malazan: Profanity. Like, I absolutely understand the whys and wherefores of having a home grown set of curses and whatnot to keep things PG-13 or just for reasons of personal taste, but I think back to times when characters like Temper, Hedge, Quickben, Draconus (v dramatic moment in Forge of Darkness) and Udinaas let 'em rip, and how totally relatable it was. Jordan does it better than Sanderson, I think. "Light!" and "Blood and bloody ashes!" and "Burn me." are infinitely less... infantile than "Storm you". But man, it's gonna be awhile before someone gives the verbal finger to anyone in a book I'm planning to read, and I miss it already.

You're good. Recommendations based on Malazan tastes are totally within reason, and I tangent-ed into wheel of time already, lol

@Ammanas ha! I already added it to my list. I'm four books into my re-read of WoT, and always find this series going really fast, so doubtless I'll get in on out before the summer is out.

@Ammanas I've never heard of it before, but usually forgo anything with a Goodreads rating below 4 stars. GR has all four books at a just about a solid 4 stars, and the audible ratings are better. Maybe listen to a sample? 28 hours doesn't feel long, anymore. Not after 55 hours of Oathbringer, lol.

Pust, too! And no, hair pulling is not my particular affectation, though to be fair my hair is super long, and curly, and I do mess with it constantly if it's down. If I had a braid as "thick as my wrist" hanging over my shoulder, I'd probably mess with it, too. I think of it like Islington's Lycanius books. He always always ALWAYS writes that someone "inclined/s their head", which is NOT A THING PEOPLE DO except very occasionally or if you're, like, Lucius Malfoy. But nobody ever nods agreement, or says "yep", it's always "inclined his head". I honestly was going to start counting, like the skirt smoothing. So yeah, braid tugging is a Jordanism. Re: audiobook. I didn't notice anything wonky, but that doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't there.

Listen to the audiobooks. Michael Kramer and Kate Reading are magical and any slow parts are totally worth it for how awesome everything else is. It has flaws like any long series, but ultimately it is so well constructed that I think of it as the pinnacle of the genre if you're bringing a story from its beginning to its conclusion. People will disagree with me, but it's super worth it. Also... Sanderson's contribution is amazing but there were things he did that cheesed me pretty hard, so. There's that.

I'm doing a Wheel of Time re-read but I feel like a Wheel of Time thread would not be as much fun as this one, for some reason. Mostly I want to complain about how much of a jerk Mat is for the first three and a half books, even though he's my absolute favorite. :|