The "Malazan Book of the Fallen" thread.

[Doppelganger]

Well I realised we haven't had a proper dedicated thread to the Malazan series by Steven Erikson, so I thought "Hood, I'll do it myself".

I'm currently about a quarter of the way through Memories of Ice, and so far it's brilliant. You can see Erikson really developing as a writer as he goes along. The thing I also liked about this book so far, is that Erikson actually describes enemies/monsters that are encountered. In the previous books, we've usually been told the name of the creature, and then we'd have no real idea what they'd look like.

If you could, please use spoilers, as the series is quite huge, and some of us (namely me) may not be as far as you into the series.

[pat5150]

The only thing I have to say is this series is the shit!!!

Almost done with THE BONEHUNTERS, and I'm loving it! Roll on REAPER'S GALE!

Patrick

[Knight of the Wineskin]

The only thing I want to say is: why the fuck does it take so much longer to get the books in the US?

[werewolfv2]

The only thing I want to say is: why the fuck does it take so much longer to get the books in the US?

eh?

thats to the internet and places like Clarkes the series is more than easy to get here

[kedlav]

I'm working my way through House of Chains right now, and I've pretty much enjoyed the entire series. Its a very neat and original style of writing, though it makes it a bitch and a half to speedread as I usually do. The whole hundred and fifty page prologue thing is starting to nag at me though, it makes it a bit harder to get into the flow of the novel.

[aergern]

The only thing I want to say is: why the fuck does it take so much longer to get the books in the US?

Because lame American publishers probably wouldn't take a chance on Mr. Erikson since he's a Canuck and hadn't done much. So he went to England where he was first published. He didn't get picked up until the American publishers saw numbers, because you know that is what it's all about here in the states. :/ Also, they couldn't catch up the states by flooding the market with them all at once.. so they're behind. I got four, five and six from Amazon.ca .. the conversion is almost dead on these days .. sure it's a little more in shipping but WTF.. who cares.

[Itkovian84]

This series is the best fantasy has to offer. Yes fine tear me apart and no i will not relent i believe Malazan beats Martin.

Pat by any chance are you the Pat that runs the Empire boards?

If anyone here has not seen the thread i made earlier then please page through. Steven will be doing an online signing for his US release of House of Chains. Todd Lockwood the artist will be joining him to do a double signing .

Check out Signed page

Itkovian

I am hoping that this online signing will go well because we want to Steven to want to come back and do more of these things for his fans. Tell anyone who is a fan.

Any here read the 3 short novellas? Just fantastic writing. I really hope they both continue to write short snippets like them for various characters.

Itkovian

[Durckad]

Todd Lockwood the artist will be joining him to do a double signing .

Off topic: Todd Lockwood is fucking awesome, but I didn't know that he was gonna do the cover for the Erikson books. Could be really good or really cheesy. *cherises his DG and HoC books with the original covers*

[Brys]

Like Itkovian, I think this is the best epic fantasy series - yes, even ahead of Martin, though admittedly it's very close. One thing that always struck me about the series was its sheer scope and ambition - not just was it a planned ten book series, but from Gardens it was obvious that those ten books were going to be absolutely full of action, and he was going to create a hugely detailed, complex world. And until Midnight Tides, his writing improved with every book (though not necessarily the book as a whole, but the prose itself in MT is hugely better than in GotM). I'm about 1/3rd of the way through the Bonehunters which so far doesn't seem special, but it has begun picking up pace - and I'll just say that Y'Ghatan is very entertaining - I'd put it at about the level of House of Chains so far, but then the first section of Erikson's books are usually the weakest, so it might improve quite a bit.

[Zadok]

My only real complaint with Erikson is with the similarity of most of his soldiers. He keeps throwing these names at you and I'll be damned if I can remember who is who, and even what sex they are. Sometimes the series also feels a little too ambitious to me, with some characters given hundreds of pages seemingly to pad out an already lengthy book. I guess I can't really judge the last part until I see how the series ends.

[Lord Baelish]

I love Erikson and rate him higher than I do Martin. I could reread the MBotF series all day and not get tired of it. What I love is the way you can pick things up on the rereads that you missed before, and link them to things that happen in later books. It really shows how much effort has been put into the books and how much detail Erikson has gone into in planning them. For example:

SPOILER: Whole Series

It seems clear that the Tiste Edur body discovered by Quick and Paran in MoI is Theradas Buhn, killed in Midnight Tides. And the Edur warlock Felisin et all discover on the Silanda in Deadhouse Gates is another character we don't meet until Midnight Tides

It's only on rereads that you can make these connections.

And although some of his soldier characters are a bit ... samey, I still love them. Especially the marines of the Bonehunters. And Fiddler remains my favourite characer in the series.

[MinDonner]

To be fair, I don't think there's any room for proper character development in Erikson's books, what with everything else that's going on... if we had to have a POV from every major character that shows all their inner conflict and emotional journey, then we probably wouldn't have even got to the end of the first book yet... I'd say read GRRM if you want characters, read Erikson if you want insanely complicated plots, warring gods, ancient races and all the other things he does really well. You can't have everything unfortunately!

[Itkovian84]

To be fair, I don't think there's any room for proper character development in Erikson's books, what with everything else that's going on... if we had to have a POV from every major character that shows all their inner conflict and emotional journey, then we probably wouldn't have even got to the end of the first book yet... I'd say read GRRM if you want characters, read Erikson if you want insanely complicated plots, warring gods, ancient races and all the other things he does really well. You can't have everything unfortunately!

I couldn't have said it any better. Although i do believe that Erikson has some very well developed characters (Fiddler, Paran, Duiker, Quik Ben etc). It is great to find some true Malazan fans out there:)

Itkovian

[LacyinTX]

I just started Memories of Ice yesterday. I love it so far. Deadhouse Gates was great. I ordered MoI, HoC and MT from Amazon.ca because I couldn't stand to wait for them to be published here in the US. I will be ordering Bonehunters and the novellas soon.

FINALLY a series that engrosses me (almost) as much as ASOIAF. WOO!

[Zadok]

It's not really the lack of character development I have issue with, as others have mentioned Erikson does do an excellent job of this with some characters. I just don't see why it was necessary to introduce Snow White and the 70 Marines. The names certainly don't help you remember who is who either. It's almost like Erikson wanted to give the reader a near omniscent POV of the armies, so he just switches around from marine to marine and infodumps through them.

It's hard to put into words.

[MinDonner]

I actually find that the nickname-style monickers of the marines makes it much easier to tell who is who - if they were all called Aghelbard and Thorthelorth it'd be much more difficult... with the non-soldier characters he does like to have names beginning with K, though, and sometimes I get confused between Korlat, K'rul, Kallor, Kruppe, Keruli and the other one in the Bonehunters (Kellar? Karlot?)... As for distinguishing gender, I think a lot of the point is that the soldiers are supposed to be equal so there's no reason to make the gender obvious, unless there is a particular plot point to be made by it.

[pat5150]

I'm on the malazanempire.com board with the same screen name, but I don't run anything there. However, I am the one responsible for bringing you the 2 interviews with SE, and the 2 others with ICE.

Patrick

[Werthead]

Actually, I think we do have an existing Erikson thread, so I will track it down and merge if appropriate (although memory tells me it may have related only to the first book).

I think Erikson is great. I was so inspired I even sat down and drew the Malazan world map. However, I would rank several authors above him in overall enjoyment level (Martin, Vance, possibly Hamilton and Pratchett) and by the end of his second novel Bakker has equalled him. Erikson's major weakness is over-writing and injecting authorial voice into characters. He tends to have characters discuss matters that they should have little or no knowledge or cares about. He is also guilty of straying too close to 'purple prose' (most specifically at the start of Midnight Tides and in some parts of Gardens of the Moon). And the major discrepencies with characters changing sex (although, granted, not vital ones) and the timeline making no sense at all are irritating. The series could do with heavy editing in places and certainly House of Chains could have had 100 pages removed from it with little loss.

On the other hand, Memories of Ice is a towering monument of an epic fantasy novel, eclipsing most other books in the genre aside from ASoIaF. Certainly if The Thousandfold Thought does not match it, then Erikson will remain ahead of Bakker in my rankings. Very few of my main complaints apply to it and the story and characters are gripping from start to finish (although some of the battles do feel a little silly in retrospect, but I can see what he was trying to do there). It also has the single funniest moment in the series in the discussion between Quick Ben and Bauchelain. Unfortunately, the series did peak there and House of Chains, Midnight Tides and The Bonehunters have been notably inferior, with The Bonehunters disappointingly emerging as the weakest novel in the series, mainly due to a lack of focus (as the direction of the entire novel shifts about 90 degrees halfway through the book and Erikson doesn't quite pull it off). Hopefully Reaper's Gale will right this problem.

Overall, Erikson is an excellent author, but not the paragon of brilliance that he is sometimes held up to be.

[Arakasi]

Well to you anyway Wert. Maybe not to others who hold Erikson in a higher light than you. DG is still likely my favorite of his books though. After that it is a jumble between the others.

Edit: Slowly going through a reread now. I enjoyed BH, but I'll have to reread it again to see how it stacks up. For example I enjoyed MT more on rereads than I did initially. House of Chains was always a book I liked a lot, especially the Karsa prologue.

[Maltaran]

Nice map, Wert, but given the tundra nature of the Edur lands, shouldn't the Lether continent be further north?