I had similiar issues but I was still hooked in the books. They tend to be very confusing and half the time I had no idea what I was reading but I continued cause I simply wanted to know what was going onI'm having the same problem with Traitor's Knot it's interesting but a long slog.
If I remember MoI was the hardest to read but I had Deadhouse Gates waiting for me so I read it through rather quickly
But Deadhouse Gates comes before MoI....
Anyway, About a week ago I got back into MoI, because I reached the huge siege/battle about halfway through the book. Today I hit page 700 (still 400 left!!!).
I'm enjoying the book, but I'm extremely annoyed at how slow I'm reading it. So far, I've posted MoI in the 'Reading' threads for March, April, May, and now June! In truth it's only been 2.5 months, but it spans 4 different month threads! Depressing!
All I've read for 2005 so far is GotM, DHG, and MoI! At the speed I used to read, I'd be on my 10th-15th book of the year by now.
What I don't like is how he skips cross-novel over back-story. Like after you read about Karsa in HoC you want to go back and read DG, and now that I've read MT I want to go back over HoC to make sure I haven't missed some major stuff that I didn't understand the first time around.
read book 1 liked it read 200 pages of book 2 5 months ago never picked it up since! just cant seem to get into them, i find too many of the characters a chore to read
Yeah, I'm halfway through Gardens of the Moon, and I'm liking it so far, but am having trouble. I'm having a somewhat difficult time with the Warrens, Ascendents/Gods, and the large number of races, character, and locations.
But, I'm understanding more as I read on, and I'm loving it. Though, I still like GRRM more :P
That's almost exactly how I felt. Everyone seems to experience the same confusion with GoTM, but it all sort of becomes clearer. The Warrens, and the races are probably exactly what you think they are.
And it's true, the series does get better (I've read 2 and 3, which were pretty staggering).
But I'll also agree with you, in that I enjoy Martin a bit more too.
I'm two thirds of the way through GotM, and thusfar, its been a trouble-free read.
Elsewhere I mentioned that the first time I read it, however, I put it down, deciding to come back to it when I was in the mood. It is a book you need to concentrate on, but perhaps no more than with some of Bainks' work, or Zindell's Neverness.
Erkison writes extremely well, and thusfar I am inclined to agree with those who argue he is at the top of this particular sub-genre pile at the moment.
Last edited by Ouroboros; August 13th, 2005 at 04:23 AM.
I just want to say that I disagree about Erickson's world/story/whatever having great depth. It seems to be that a more suitable word for Malazan is breadth. The story seems very broad, but not as deep as some others I've read with fewer nations/religions/ etc. Like that comment about his history being simple compared to Byzantium. That's all well and good, but I'd rather he came close to having one society that was that complex than many that try to approach that level and come across as being a little thin.
Also, although it wound up being pretty integral to what happened to a certain Edur, there seems to be little difference to me between RJ spending too many pages writing about Elayne taking a bath and SE spending too many pages writing about Edur slaves dressing the dead. By the way, how many freakin slaves did those Edur have? can you imagine how long it would take them to clean up after a battle? I like the series quite a bit overall but that was one point where the credibility completely sank through the floorboards.
Which ultimately is forgiveable because the same book had Tehol and Bugg.
I figured it was only the nobility who got coined. Otherwise, yeah, way too much effort too inter the dead.
Midnight Tide Spoilers:
*****Spending the time dressing the dead is pretty important so that you can see Rhulad's fate. If he suddenly just woke up like that, it wouldn't make any sense, and it would lose all power to shock.***********
I think that it is a completely unfair comparison to Elayne having a bath in an RJ novel. Elayne having a bath has no significance in the novel and is purely filler, while this scene (which doesn't actually take up any more space) is more original and unexpected, but also integral to the plot.
I don't think they coined every single dead, just the nobility (or equivalent in Edur society). Every society has there own way of treating their dead, and this is the Edur's, so it was completely credible for me. In fact, I think that given the circumstances it is more credible than everyone just being buried.
Umm several things are actually disscused during that scene so it's not just filler.Elayne having a bath has no significance in the novel and is purely filler
Otherwise I pretty much agree with saintjon.
I've struggled mostly through trying to sort out all the different cultures. I'm reading Deadhouse Gates, and the sheer number of civilizations is mind-boggling.
I usually try to associate fictional cultures with real-world cultures, but it's hard to do that in this series (IE what I've read about the Wickans seems to show me they are a combonation of Mongol and Native Americans)
I'm probably wrong half the time, but it's still fun.
ChrisW, if the things discussed were more than just infodump and actually had proper significance to the plot (ie, they couldn't be left out without it making sense) than perhaps the two would be comparable. However, the case is that in WoT, this type of scene is repeated at least 3 times in each novel, if not more, and sometimes it has no significance. Also, I think Erikson's description of interring the dead took up less pages than Jordan's description of Elayne having a bath.
Even if not just the nobility are coined, but all Edur are, it may not be as time consuming as it first seems:
1) There are not anything like the number of Edur as even Letherii - as with the other Tiste races, there are very few of them - they also live longer, and so there is not nearly as much work to do.
2) It is left to slaves to do.
3) It takes about 1 day to do for the slave - our own funeral rites usually consume the majority of a day, so I hardly see why this is overly time-consuming.
4) They have no other use for coins - so it doesn't seem a waste to them.
If you look at other cultures throughout history, this is hardly unique in taking what we would consider today extreme effort to inter the dead - look at Egyptian embalming for example. And do the Edur even have that much to do? They don't have the enterprising, capitalist aims of the Letherii, and they are a relatively primative society - it is hardly surprising that they are willing to devote more effort to interring the dead.
That comes back to the thinness issue though. All this hooplah about what the slaves have to do when an Edur dies and more yet about how they aren't like the Letherii, but what then do they actually do with their time? With the Edur you get a good dose of them living in very large villages with some slaves and different customs, and oh yeah they're honourable and they don't care about money, but then there's nothing about how they live their lives, they hang out in the village just long enough to become yet another conquest-bent army in Erikson's mix.
I guess I'm just getting tired of hearing about what a great world builder he is when usually the extent of his fleshing out cultures is describing their style of warfare.
I thought he quite clearly gave the impression that the Edur had a susbsistence economy - they would spend most of their time working in farms or hunting to survive. There isn't the kind of detail as for other cultures because they are a much simpler culture. I far prefer to have a realistic few details about a culture than to have hundreds of pages of pointless detail about them. He is still writing a story, not a history book.
I'll challenge you to find out more details about culture though about the ancient Greek culture through a few historical fiction novels than about the Malazan culture. Of those I've read, that hasn't really happened - the depth in each is roughly equivalent, because they aren't simple histories.
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