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2 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

Might just be the chemicals talking but Koringhus and the crab claw boy at Ishual a are cool take on The Road.

:)

 

I'm pretty happy their was a conclusion to Koringhus. I feel a lesser writer may have fallen into a trap of repeating TDTCF plot-line of Kellhus slowly engulfing Achamian, and was very worried Koringhus/Achamian/etc. would have made their way entirely throughout the rest of the plot.

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So glorious, Happy Ent.  I recall also someone at another site doing a "T'was the Night Before Christmans," Second Apocalypse-style.

"And what did their dream-weary orbs there perceive?

but a towering storm shouting WHAT DO YOU SEE!? 

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This is a quote from Sil-Inchor on Zombie Three-Seas, time ago now:

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Twas the Night Before the Second Apocalypse.

Twas just after the womb-plague
And all through the manse
Not a Nonman was stirring
Not even their prince.
The chorae were hung
By the chimney with care
In hopes that the Carapace
Soon would be there.

The sranc were all nestled
Up snug in their beds
Visions of obscenity
Dancing in their heads
When up on Earwa
There arose such a clatter
The violent arrival
Of Man’s Darkest Hour

Away to the windows
The Mandate did fly
They threw open the shutters
Light poured from their eyes
And what did their dream-blearied orbs
There perceive
But a towering storm shouting
WHAT DO YOU SEE?
With a nimil sarcophagus
So shiny and dread
They knew that slain Lokung
Was no longer Dead.

More rapid than eagles
The Consult they came
And He bellowed and gibbered
And screamed out their names

ON SKAFRA, ON GLORTMUND, ON HALGYS AND AURAX
ON BLODMYR, ON THREKLA, ON LYRNYR AND AURANG

TO THE NAIL HIGH IN HEAVEN
TO THE GODS THERE OUTSIDE
ON WRACU, ON BASHRAG, TO RUIN WE RIDE

So up to the skies
His legions they flew
Man-Traitors and skin-spies
The last Inchoroi, too

The Mandate, despairing
Could not stay aloof
They burned in the fires
Of the great Mog-Pharau

The Men of the Three Seas
Were soon overthrown
Their hearthstones all cracked
And their great kings dethroned
The Shriah was headless
The Emperor dead.
‘Twas the Second Apocalypse
The prophets all said

But remember, dear children
That though the No-God would fell us
If things really turn ugly
We can all trust in Kellhus

 

 

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13 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

Might just be the chemicals talking but Koringhus and the crab claw boy at Ishual a are cool take on The Road.

slick.  the road occurs in the same conceptual apocalyptic space as blood meridian, so the wheel is come full circle there.

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Absolutely awesome. I recall both of these from a while back. I have the Boatman carved so deep in my bean that I see him as Freddy splaining things to Sorweel a la Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The fear is that we have all inadvertently revealed our true ages...

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Sweet jesus, Aurax is just going to be Dr. Frank N. Furter, isn't he?  Not much of a man by the light of day/by night one hell of a lover (presumably as the rest of his kin).  Making a man with blond hair and a tan (he can after all).

He can even descend upon our protagonists Janet/Brad (Akka/Mimara) on the elevator on which Shae had his discussion with Nau-Cauyuti. 

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Alas, my Rocky Horror Picture Show/Anasurimbor Serwa parody (unfinished) also has fallen into oblivion. (We need a circle of half-defunct Westeros and Second Apocalypse boards, each copying posts to the next, in an endless, post-trapping nexus. We’re almost there, I feel.) 

Here’s an excerpt:

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A tiny head angled through the narrow opening, no larger than a fist. 

"Hello". The voice thin and reedy.

Moenghus composed himself, took a manly step forward, and stuck out his right hand according to the dicates of jnan.

"Hi. I'm Anasurimbor Moenghus, and this is my half-sister, Anasurimbor Serwa, grandmistress of the Swayali compact. I wonder if you could help us. You see, our metagnosis broke down a few miles up the road, and we need to contact the Holy War."

Tiny teeth clicking. Beady eyes blinking. A slow puppet nod.

"You're wet."

For the first time, Moenghus realised that the tiny human head was grafted to the body of a bird.

"I think you better both ...” Shadows fluttered around the bird form, as if some greater eye blinked
about the world. An intimation of rage and power. "... come inside."

The door opened and the Synthese hopped back. Slowly, Serwa and Moenghus entered the chamber behind, followed the fluttering bird through the passages. Gleaming metal, tissue, arcane artefacts of the tekne. Serwa had witnessed the strange torsion of sorcery often enough, but here it was gut-wrenching. Every panorama an obscenity.

Moenghus was unfazed. "This is probably some kind of hunting lodge for rich weirdos."

"No," she muttered under her breath. She had visited these halls often enough as Seswatha. "This is Min-Uroikas."

In this version, Frank N. Furter is Shauri. (The important thing is that in the end, Aurang can dethrone Frank/Shauri and take the ship home, just like Riff-Raff. So the Aliens need to be Frank and his sister.) 

Here’s my Frank:

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The man standing before them was not so much old as he was decrepit. Sagging skin, a tangled beard, scars of the tekne. His Mark was deep, almost purple.

So was his lipstick.

He wore a green silk gown crisscrossed by a form-hugging sash of blue. Like an old boy whore playing the coquette.

"How do you do. See you've met my," an imperceptible pause, "faithful," another pause,
"Inchoroi."

In a way curiously obscene for one so old, he sashayed past them. Serwa convulsed with pleasure.
The old man seated himself in the throne, spreading his withered legs. The confusion of his shriveled genitalia stood in stark contrast to the gleaming phalli of the two Inchoroi who now flanked the throne.

Heavy, black, and pendolous. 

"Don't get strung out by the way I look. As the Nilmameshi say, don't judge a book by its cover."

A lascivious grin spread across the scabrous ruin of his face, as he enunciated every glottoral consonant, penetrating a barrier of murky phlegm.

"I'm just a gnostic grandmaster from gorgeous Golgotterath."

 

I have only bits and pieces for the rest. But when Frank summons the No-God in the laboratory, here’s part of the lyrics:

Quote

WOE IS ME, MY LIFE IS A MYSTERY: WHAT AM I? WHAT DO YOU SEE?

 

(I find it scare how well the entire story fits the Rocky Horror show. Something about shared memetic spaces, delving into a vast area of themes and situations that have been established through two generations of speculative fiction, now well past the point of parody.) 

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Questions:

I assume the expanded glossary will contain much more of the Nonmen history. Do you plan on writing an extensive summary and/or series of tales about the 'old days' of Nonmen glory, before the coming of the Vile?

Atrocity Tales: a few years back you mentioned your goal was to produce around 100k or so words of AT before submitting for publication. Is this still the current plan? How many AT do you plan on writing? 

Looking back on The Aspect Emperor, are there any structural changes you would consider making, if you could do it over again?

I ask this last question primarily do to my own opinion of the series: I feel it might have made TJE (and Sorweel's character) more epic and satisfying if the initial battle sequences from WLW had been juxtaposed against the Cil-Aujas chapters. This would have made Sorweel seem more prominent and given some palpable tension to the Ordeal arc.

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On 03/10/2016 at 2:23 AM, rsbakker said:

There's only one Ark, but many cataclysms appear to have wracked the Promised World.

After TUC is out, I intend to do that very thing. It's one of the events I have been aiming for all these years. To be so close is some crazy shit, let me tell you.

Hi Scott.

Will the title of the Series That Shall Not Be Named be self-evident by the end of TUC based on how the book ends?

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I didn't think TDTCB was any harder to get into than Gardens of the Moon. Both series seem to have similar levels of critical acclaim and reader divisiveness. I'm not sure why Malazan has turned out to be more successful...maybe just more books taking up more shelf space to attract more eyes.  Or just different publishers.  

Malazan is published by Bantam UK in the, er, UK, which is not a massive SFF publisher. The few SFF works they do release they focus on a lot and put a lot of faith and work into them. However, much more to the point is that Malazan's US publisher is Tor, the biggest SFF publisher in the business. That makes a lot of difference.

That said, the last sales figures we had for Malazan (Erikson only) are between 2 and 3 million, which is great but it's also spread out over 12 books. The number of actual readers Erikson has is therefore only in the very low hundreds of thousands. It's the sheer number of books that he's put out plus the better-known US publisher which has helped him be more successful.

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I have, but the problem with different era's is that they work against the point of such a prequel, which is to level the steep learning curve in TDTCB. I'm feeling good about Uster Scraul, but the problem here is that his story largely takes place after the First Holy War.

Hmm. For a more prosaic prequel story, something involving Achamian's younger days and his tutoring of Nersei Proyas would more directly lead into TDTCB, but that depends if there's a good enough story there to justify the exercise.

What might be helpful - although probably not for a first read-through - is assembling the "What Comes Before" sections into their own self-contained ebook you could either sell or give away for free via Amazon (or the vendor of your choice), which would then help reboot longer-standing readers who perhaps don't have time for full rereads.

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