115 replies to this topic

[williamjm]

WrathOfNederlandsVoetbal, on 25 July 2012 - 11:47 AM, said:

More timeline issues, eh? I can see it. Weird that he doesn't seem to care.

Perhaps with the series so far back we are meant to think that modern retellings are wrong? But I can't remember if we get that information straight from the horse's mouth.

I suppose after 300 millennia even people who were there at the time might be a bit unreliable in their memories of what actually happened, although perhaps not to the extent that is suggested by Pat's review.

I think Toll The Hounds made it clear that he doesn't really have any interest in making everything consistent.

[Gormenghast]

On the timeline issues:

Hetan said that this was brought up during editing and was part of the discussion directly with Erikson. This means that what he did in this book was *deliberate*.

What is not clear is whether Erikson has his idea of how things fit in a bigger picture, or if it is a hole he simply refuses to fix for his own reasons.

But we can't call this a "mistake", since Erikson was aware of it before the book was finished and deliberately decided to do nothing about it.

[Sci-2]

Anytime I see his six-figure back in the day type dates, I mentally search+replace that shit with "A long fucking time ago."

[Arthmail]

Gormenghast, on 25 July 2012 - 05:20 PM, said:

On the timeline issues:

Hetan said that this was brought up during editing and was part of the discussion directly with Erikson. This means that what he did in this book was *deliberate*.

What is not clear is whether Erikson has his idea of how things fit in a bigger picture, or if it is a hole he simply refuses to fix for his own reasons.

But we can't call this a "mistake", since Erikson was aware of it before the book was finished and deliberately decided to do nothing about it.

I would call it a mistake, it was just one he was too lazy to correct. How old is Erikson anyway, like maybe 50? If i follow his technique, i think i've decided for the narrative in my own head, which needs no internal or external consistancy, that he is 50,018 years old. He was also likely the man that betrayed Jesus and rode dinosaurs.

[El Roboto Diablico]

I heard Erikson stole some cheese from an alien once 2000 years ago and thats why the engineers in Prometheus are so pissed off.

[Calibandar]

Quote

But we can't call this a "mistake", since Erikson was aware of it before the book was finished and deliberately decided to do nothing about it.

I recall Hetan said on Malazan that Erikson had been informed about the timeline errors in this new book, but shrugged it off. That he was unmoved by it.

Anyways, more errors on timeline and character ancestry were to be expected. What's disappointing to me is how this book is not about the Sons of Darkness at all, or Scabandari. I thought that would be a good part of why this series was iniated in the 1st place, and what most fans were hoping for.

Edited to add:

From Pat's review , I don't get a sense of what the conflict/story in this book is about. The synopsis hints at a Civil War, is that what the story is about?

Edited by Calibandar, 26 July 2012 - 04:50 AM.

[Gormenghast]

Calibandar, on 26 July 2012 - 03:52 AM, said:

I recall Hetan said on Malazan that Erikson had been informed about the timeline errors in this new book, but shrugged it off. That he was unmoved by it.

This is the message:

Quote

It was a step wise process and Steve's choice - there was some discussion over this and other matters which will upset our current understanding of the history of the Andi.

Also, he reveals more on this in his sffworld interview:

Quote

Histories hide behind other histories, and this Kharkanas trilogy is a layer pulled back, but even there it’s not structured as ‘this is precisely what happened back then.’  Rather, it is a tale deliberately reshaped by the narrator, for motives entirely his own.  This detail allowed me to stay fresh in creating the tale, without being too tightly bound to any kind of objective reality.

In many respects, it’s not even the Malazan world.  It is the progenitor, the setting for a creation myth, and for all that many characters in the ten-volume series believe they have an accurate sense of those ancient times (even the ones who were there – imagine what happens to memory if you were to live tens of thousands of years), well, they aren’t quite as reliable as they might think they are.

And he's also quite pleased, that can't hurt

Quote

Writing ‘Forge of Darkness’ was a real pleasure, and everything about it felt new, blessedly refreshed, and very much a work that reaffirmed my love of writing.  To be honest, I don’t think I’ve done better, especially with the language, rhythm and tone.

Edited by Gormenghast, 26 July 2012 - 05:59 AM.

[pat5150]

Essentially, FoD is about the coming of the civil war. It's a set-up book, with the bulk of the civil that will split the Tiste occurring in volume 2, Fall of Light.

Patrick

[Calibandar]

Gormenghast.

I've got to say I find that very unconvincing. Especially the:

Quote

Histories hide behind other histories, and this Kharkanas trilogy is a layer pulled back, but even there it’s not structured as ‘this is precisely what happened back then.’  Rather, it is a tale deliberately reshaped by the narrator, for motives entirely his own.  This detail allowed me to stay fresh in creating the tale, without being too tightly bound to any kind of objective reality.

To me that reads like the author repeats his well known pattern of inserting "get out of jail free" cards. Every time this happens internal consistency is ruined a little bit more, and this just reads as excuses. It's not new, we've seen him say this before, I know. Doesn't make it better than hearing it for the first time though. He doesn't care and doesn't think internal consistency is important. I disagree ( not just for Malazan, but alternate world creations in general). It is why many here on this forum have logged off from this series.

If I suddenly read in Winds of Winter that Rhaegar Targaryen is the son of Aegon the Conqueror who lived 300 years before the series started, I'd find that a bummer as well, and Martin would get hammered for that sort of stuff.

Quote

And he's also quite pleased, that can't hurt

He's generally quite pleased with himself isn't he?

Edited by Calibandar, 26 July 2012 - 08:18 AM.

[Sci-2]

Overall I don't care about the dates, but I do agree he might have left things in epochs instead of giving these supposedly exact dates. So you could "Primordial Age", "Mythic Time", whatevs.

[Gormenghast]

More from Erikson, emphasis mine:

Quote

Already on the fan-based site, advance readers are weighing in (beware spoilers) on Forge of Darkness, with emphasis on perceived inconsistencies, none of which I was unaware. But as is often the case with only the first book of a series to arrive, and one drawing elements from a previous series (the Malazan Book of the Fallen), questions will arise, especially when salient details seem at first glance to be at odds. To be honest, a part of me wants to reach through the inter-ether, close hands on neck, and shout TRUST ME!

But the best part for me is where he goes "Alas my contrary inclinations." ...

Edited by Gormenghast, 26 July 2012 - 06:00 PM.

[Arthmail]

Gormenghast, on 26 July 2012 - 05:55 PM, said:

More from Erikson, emphasis mine:



But the best part for me is where he goes "Alas my contrary inclinations." ...

Yea, but has he cleared up the inconsistencies before? To my knowledge, no, meaning why should people trust him on that. Besides, i think he's a fucking loon if he thinks people want to wade through all of his books looking for his "intentional" inconsistencies. I think he's burned off his readership that way, and i can't say i think its a good idea for him to continue doing that now.

What a blowhard.

[Gormenghast]

I agree that the previous unaddressed inconsistencies in the Malazan series have undermined the "trust", and so that he's obtaining the actual contrary effect: proving that they ARE important.

But still, he has played and can play with unreliable narrators. They spice the story and in this one it seems to have an important role. That message is written for whoever is interested reading the new books, not for who has already made his own mind.

[Zach H]

I couldn't care less about timeline, world-building or even backstory discrepancies as long as he delievers stuff like the Snake storyline from the last two books.

[Sci-2]

Yeah, do people really care about the dates? Or are there worse inconsistencies, like with mysteries of the gods or something?

[Tarant]

Erikson's use of unreliable narrators is pure, unadulterated laziness.

Quote

Already on the fan-based site, advance readers are weighing in (beware spoilers) on Forge of Darkness, with emphasis on perceived inconsistencies, none of which I was unaware. But as is often the case with only the first book of a series to arrive, and one drawing elements from a previous series (the Malazan Book of the Fallen), questions will arise, especially when salient details seem at first glance to be at odds. To be honest, a part of me wants to reach through the inter-ether, close hands on neck, and shout TRUST ME!
While another part of me, railing even louder in my mind, wants to add a brain-rattling shake and say IT’S NOT AS IMPORTANT AS YOU THINK!

Is Steven Erikson unaware that he is really bad at consistency?  Like, the worst writer in fantasy when it comes to consistency.  Seriously, is there any writer out there that is worse then him? I love him saying "trust me" and then in the next sentence saying"it's not as important as you think".  Nothing inspires confidence like a man claiming he's got a handle on the details even when he thinks the details are completely irrelevant.

[Tarant]

Calibandar, on 26 July 2012 - 08:01 AM, said:

He's generally quite pleased with himself isn't he?

Steve Erikson always seems quite pleased with himself.

[Gormenghast]

Tarant, on 26 July 2012 - 09:09 PM, said:

Seriously, is there any writer out there that is worse then him?

Alexandre Dumas is a cheese hole compared (the most famous: d'Artagnan becoming musketeer twice).

David Foster Wallace has a number of small mistakes, inconsistencies and timeline issues due to the amount of editing in his masterpiece, Infinite Jest.

Stephen King went as far as rewriting the first book in the Dark Tower, to make it consistent with the rest.

Even Brandon Sanderson, who obsesses about these small trivialities, makes mistakes, takes note of them, and sends them back to the publisher so they can be fixed in later editions.

Pretty much every author I know of, with enough of a complex project, makes mistakes of the same significance or more compared to Erikson.

Tolkien too if he didn't decide that writing his history was a project that shouldn't be ever completed.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

[spoilers for House of Chains and I think Toll the Hounds]

Sciborg - my favorite Erikson mistake was having Karsa Orlong tell us that Toblakai take a long time to mature in a storyline that included he and several companions gang-raping the women of a conquered village (for the express purpose of impregnating them), then two books later - something like 5 years later in story time - he encounters two of his daughters from the incident, apparently fully-grown.

Another one - and this might not be an inconsistency, just something that never made sense to me - us the belief (most notable in Memories of Ice) that of Beru wakes, all life will end... Yet we are told that Beru has only been sleeping for a few thousand years. A mere blip on the timeline.

Oh and Dassem Ultor was present at the Chaining several thousand years in the past but was still apparently a mortal roughly 100 years in the past when he was the imperial champion.

(Someone please correct me if I've made mistakes, it's been a long time since I've read Malazan and I haven't yet finished the series)

[Tarant]

Gormenghast, on 26 July 2012 - 09:54 PM, said:

Alexandre Dumas is a cheese hole compared (the most famous: d'Artagnan becoming musketeer twice).

David Foster Wallace has a number of small mistakes, inconsistencies and timeline issues due to the amount of editing in his masterpiece, Infinite Jest.

Stephen King went as far as rewriting the first book in the Dark Tower, to make it consistent with the rest.

Even Brandon Sanderson, who obsesses about these small trivialities, makes mistakes, takes note of them, and sends them back to the publisher so they can be fixed in later editions.

Pretty much every author I know of, with enough of a complex project, makes mistakes of the same significance or more compared to Erikson.

Tolkien too if he didn't decide that writing his history was a project that shouldn't be ever completed.

Yeah, no.  Epic fantasy writers tend to be pretty anal about the details of their world building.  I've never seen a good summary of the differences between the original gunslinger and the revised edition but major props to King for going back and trying to make it all cohere.  Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan made minor mistakes and always fix them in subsequent editions.  George R.R. Martin has some mistakes when it comes to eye color and travel times.  Meanwhile, Erikson will completely forget that one of his main characters is carrying one of the most powerful weapons in the world.  Getting an eye color wrong and forgetting that your character is carrying a super weapon are two very different things.