(OT) Better than George Martin

[GreyOne]

Okay, now that I have your attention, read on. Steven Erikson's series The Malazan Book of the Fallen is easily comparable to Martin's Song of Fire and Ice. This is like the third time I've made a thread like this only to see it plummet into the bowels of obscurity. Only a few folks like barsoomcore seem to have read them. People need to find and read these books. It's imperitive. They aren't being published in the States but are available in Canada and the Europe. You can get them on Amazon I'm sure.

These are without a doubt the best role-playing idea-useable books out there, and the stories are so epic and complex. Thinking is required to read them and fully appreciate them.

This is an SF Site review for the second one, called Deadhouse Gates (I'm going to post it over several posts since many people don't read long posts):

If you're looking for a low-calorie dish of light fantasy, this ain't it. If you're looking for a nine-course riot of taste and texture, exotically spiced to make your eyes water, your heart pump faster and your brain do cartwheels inside your cranium, I know a great little Thai place downtown. Or, if you want something analogous to that in your reading, stop at the 'E's and pick up the latest from Steven Erikson.

For those who read and enjoyed Gardens of the Moon, Erikson's first novel, you certainly won't want to miss Deadhouse Gates. For those who found Gardens to be too complex, too vast and following too many characters, you'll have the same experience with Deadhouse Gates. Yes, it's a sequel; yes, it picks up where the first one left off; and yes, having read the first one will make easier going of the second. A familiarity with events in the first one will flesh out some character motivation and some backstory for this volume, but it's not essential. And, in fact, you might feel for the first several chapters that having read the first book hasn't given you any real advantage at all. Deadhouse Gates is a complete story in its own right, although a complicated one that is anything but light reading. It is, however, well worth the effort.

 

[GreyOne]

To give you a sense of how complex a tale it is, I'll try to summarize the plot as succinctly as I can:
After the decision of Empress Laseen to outlaw the elite Bridgeburners and the whole of the 9th Army on the Genabackis campaign, Kalam, Fiddler and Sorry (now going by the name of Apsalar) of the Bridgeburners, and the streetwise Crokus from Darujhistan, have journeyed from the continent of Genabackis to the Seven Cities with a secret mission. Kalam, once a member of the Claw, the Empire's loyal assassins, has sworn to kill the evil Laseen, Empress of the Malazan Empire. Kalam and his friends, however, soon realize they've just wandered into a religious uprising of Seven Cities natives, a jihad-like ethnic purge known as the Whirlwind. When it hits, Malazan citizens are targets for torture and murder. Coltaine, military governor of Hissar, one of the Seven Cities, takes it in hand to escort an ever-growing number of Malazan citizens and nobles to Aren, the only city on the continent still under the Empire's control. Trouble is, it's several hundred miles away, across deserts, across rivers, across ghost-haunted wastelands. Coltaine is trying to move 45,000 refugees all that way, with what's left of the Empire's 7th Army and a few clans of his own Wickan horse-warriors, while a huge army of Whirlwind fanatics -- including the rebel Malazan armies that have joined the cause -- harry and pick at them all the way, standing for pitched battles whenever Coltaine is in a particularly vulnerable position (such as attempting to ford a tricky river).

 

[GreyOne]

Just before the Whirlwind hits, Duiker, the imperial historian, and Kulp, the last surviving cadre mage of the 7th Army, are about to set off from Hissar to rescue Heboric (who has no hands), an exiled historian and former priest of Fenner, the Boar God. Heboric, along with Felisin Ganoes (youngest sister to Paran Ganoes, from Gardens of the Moon) and Baudin, a hulking brute who is obviously more than he appears -- are all exiled to an island that is anathema to magic. While Duiker returns to try to join up with Coltaine and his "chain of dogs," as the exodus of refugees becomes known, Kulp, the wizard, sails off with a small band of marines, only to end up trapped inside one of the Elder Warrens (a Warren being a sort of parallel magical plane from which magic is channelled).

Meanwhile, Icarium (of the immortal Jaghut race) and his companion Mappo (a Trell) -- both non-human humanoids -- are wandering the Seven Cities continent on Icarium's eternal quest to regain his past, his memory. Mappo, however, has another agenda: he is secretly trying to prevent his friend from attaining that lifelong goal. But something about the Whirlwind is luring Icarium ever closer to what he thinks he wants to find. And it's also luring the Soletaken (shape-shifters) and D'ivers (shape-shifters capable of assuming multi-form, such as a whole pack of wolves, a horde of rats, a plague of spiders).

 

[GreyOne]

Ok, I realize now that I'm only just getting into it and to give you the whole picture would take a lot longer that I thought. But I think you get the idea. There's an awful lot going on, and there are many players involved. It's a convoluted tale, with complex characters and a depth of scope that some readers will no doubt find overwhelming. Like Gardens of the Moon, and indeed like the whole concept for the 10-volume Malazan series, Deadhouse Gates is an ambitious work that is sometimes in danger of over-reaching itself. But if you can buckle down for the ride, it sure is a fun one. The writing is of a quality to provoke a whole spectrum of emotions in the reader, and although you may find yourself at times wondering what's really going on, there isn't a dull moment.

Even with a few months left to go, I think I can safely say: Deadhouse Gates is one of the best fantasy novels of 2000. It's on my personal top three list (along with Guy Gavriel Kay's Lord of Emperors, Book 2 of The Sarantine Mosaic, and Paul Kearney's The Second Empire, Book 4 of The Monarchies of God). Erikson wins hands down for complexity of plot, level of intrigue, sense of history in the created world, and depth of story. He also offers some very memorable characters, each of whom has complexity enough (with the frequently resulting moral ambivalence Erikson strives for) to make them real people.

The conclusion to Deadhouse Gates is unexpected (or so I found it to be). It is also sufficient to make this novel stand on its own -- this stage of the story, in its various plot threads, is satisfyingly completed by the end of the book. However, I'm sure I'm not alone in very much looking forward to the continuation of the series and the return to events in Genabackis with the next Tale of the Malazan Book of the Fallen.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Ok I may try to read it, but honestly I hate Martins writing style. so a comparison to him doesn't sell it for me. The story(martins) may be good, but how it is being told I just don't like. I didn't like him in the wildcard days, and I don't like the fantasy series that I tried to read, but couldn't since his style just doesn't click with me so I had to put the book down. And I've only not finished a book about 5 or 6 times in my life, though those 5 or 6 times have happend in the last 5 or 6 years of my life so maybe I'm getting more picky.

 

[GreyOne]

I wouldn't say they're in the same writing style as Martin. They are very grim/gritty, but the language used requires a bit of thinking. My reference to Martin is more in the vast, epic-style of story-telling, with a huge cast of ambiguous, interesting characters and rich world background.

 

[Volaran]

I hate to say it, but I really dislike Erikson's series. My friend and DM is obsessed with his work, and recommended them to me, even lending me his copy of Deadhouse Gates before it was avaliable in North America. His wife's (also a player in our group) father is in Erikson's GURPs campaign that the books are based on, and that's how he got into it.

I was amused enough at some of the campaign stories, such as several chapters having to be rewritten in the latest book, due to players accidentally getting a major baddie killed long before he was supposed to, and the campaign that inspired Anomander Rake's character, to borrow his copies of the first two books and have a read.

I slogged through them, but I did not enjoy it. Characters bled together far too easily for me, for one thing. I can only read about so many hardcore military characters who hate war in one book before they begin to meld.

I had other problems, which if I recall involved the Malazan empire just not making any bloody sense to me...sadly a year after the reading, I can't remember precisely what...blocked out bad memories I suppose. I suppose my biggest gripe was simply that I was unable to care about any of the characters.

Even my DM, fanatic that he is, has the occasional problem. The battles on Genabackis for example. It was an issue before, but now in the third book, he tells me that its very difficult to imagine the scale of the battles. Dujek's(sp?) army is beset on all sides, yet he tells me that its very difficult to picture the battles, as it seems unclear as to whether the whole army is involved and desperate, or if these are skirmishes.

That said, he found it much easier in the second book, due to more specific numbers.


Now, these were my problems reading Erikson's books. I don't actually think they're bad per se, but definitly not something that I enjoyed. I'm glad you seem to be very satisfied with them though. My DM will be glad to know that he's not the only one. You may be happy to know as well, that the fourth book is finished past the halfway mark. Since he returned to Winnipeg and started up his campaign again (the first two books, which he wrote in London, covered what had happened when he lived here before) the events seem to be going like mad.

 

[GreyOne]

Thanks Valaran. You raised some valid points. I also knew Erikson was a gamer but I didn't know what game.

Anyway, the only time I had any trouble distinguishing characters was in the third book with the newer Bridgeburners like Picker, Antsy, and Blend. When I starting catching on that their names reflect some characteristic about them it was easier.

There are a ton of characters; goodies, unknowns and baddies. Its not any more difficult to distinguish though, than Martin's vast cast.

As to reading the books, I've had trouble putting them down, and I don't like finishing books that I enjoy. Thus I tend to say "I'll read to here and then put it down for a while". It never works with these. I pour through them, rereading parts just to make sure I really got what really happened (its often very ambiguous). There is a lot about soldiers contemplating about the folly of war, but to me, that's only one of the elements of an entire Periodic Table. I mean there's characters who rejoice in war and battle. And the battle scenes are suitably bloody and violent (and adult).

These stories are not just about soldiers either. There the characters in Darujihstan, Icarium, Mappo, the Rhivi, the various Ascendants, the Otataral slaves, etc.

The climax of Deadhouse Gates seriously affected me and was every bit as heartwrenching and shocking as the Red Wedding of the Freys in Martin's books.

 

[GreyOne]

Floats to the surface...

 

[Deadguy]

I'll lend my support to you, Grey One. This is turning out to be an excellent series. If you haven't read it, you really need to get a hold of a copy of Memories of Ice. In it, you can begin to see why some of the past events have arisen, and discover why so much of what is happening is...well happening!

I was talking this series over with a friend, recently. He and I agree that it shows that it's based on a RP campaign. There are details just thrown away, the sort of thing that a DM works out to add to verisimilitude, that n author usually doesn't bother with. Authors don't have their characters say "Why DM?" and "Didn't you say that... was red last week?" I think that that is perhaps why it feels like heavy going. For me, I am glad it is there, but you really do need the cast of characters sections. And I wish he was a little more descriptive of scenes and people sometimes.

Even so, if you want an idea of a world that incorporates its magic thoroughly, then this series is for you. I wonder how long before we get a sourcebook (I am guessing a GURPS book!)?