jester47
First Post
Hi, recently I have been reading Steven Erikson's Memories of Ice. Doing so is part of a project where I sample the "Tome Tossers"* and see if I think they are all that they are cracked up to be.
BEGIN REVIEW---
Memories of Ice as written works as a stand alone book. That is one thing that attracted me to Erikson. Each book in his series can stand as an idependant novel. Memories of Ice does this well; at no point did I feel that somthing went unexplained. However, aside from a couple of cool characters and some truely cool scenes (as opposed to the numerous "supposed to be cool" scenes) I have gotten very bored with this book. Since I have already stated what I think is good about the book, I will now detail the reasons I probably will not finish it:
Throughout the story Erikson tries to give the sense of the languages of his world. If you understand a little about how languages work and borrow, you may find this annoying. In my opinion using made up languages should not be attempted if you do not have a solid (read PhD) background in the language. Some of the annoyances for example are: Rath' means priest. So we have a slew of Characters with the Rath'Name for thier name. This is stupid. Why not just use the word "priest" or find a word that already exists that connotes ecclesiastical rank? Then there is "Ullid" meaning "cavalry," and "lites" meaning infantry. "Betak" means "medium." So in this book we have the "Betakullid" and the "Betaklites." You guessed it, Medium Infantry and Medium Cavalry. Why this waste of time and mental effort? It is in my opinion a copout for characterising the fighting force. As a counterpoint one might bring up Tolkien saying he did the same with this languages. I beg to differ. Tolkien used his own languages when there was a concept that did not have an english word to illustrate it. Erikson's work is redundant and it shows how little he knows of how languages work: the key point here is that english only borrows when it does not have the word. Erikson's technique as a result seems forced. However, Erikson's background in archeology and anthropology does shine through his work and makes for a very original world and a magic that seems to have heavy doses of shamanism. This is refreshing in light of all the "quasi-celtic" magic we see in fantasy lit these days.
The next problem, and a little more severe is the prose style. It takes Erikson a paragraph to say what can be conveyed in a remark of a character or in two better written sentences. As a result his dialog seems fake as it leaves out the trivial content found in real conversations. We get a sentence about how one character wanted to do the cooking rather than having another character compliment or criticise the first characters meal preparation. We get a paragraph that explains the positioning of 2 characters relative to the third rather than him putting it in one sentance and using the words "both," "flanked," with "left" and "right." This is consistent throughout the novel, and I suspect counts for at least 200 of the 890 pages. Its longer because he is not being careful, thus the novel is "overwritten."
Gratuity in perpetuity. This is the next flaw in this book. Erikson wants very much to be seen as cool, in, with it. There is no other reason for the exhibitionary aspects of his stories. We don't need a description of one character pleasuring another durring a meeting because they were bored. We only need it to come out in conversation. We don't need a third of a page of a barbarian woman coming on to an old man. Those are details that are not pertinent to the story, which is somthing that does not need more than a sentence. In a similar vein we get a lot of poseing, screenshots, and other "cool" scenes. While cool scenes are nice, obviously arranging things in the story just so you can make one happen is no good. There is a word for it- contrived.
The next problem is the narrative. Erikson has a legion of characters. This is not all bad. However, he tries to show you almost every moment of these character's lives in the extent that they relate to the main plot. This gets boring, even when there is lots of action. Trimming down the subplots would make for a more solid narrative that was easier to follow. This is not to say that the subplots need to be any less in number, but rather the detail that we as readers are told about them needs to be lessened. This would make the work more readable without diminishing the complexity of the story and cut out probably another 200-300 pages, maybe more. Erikson however seems to find it important that we identify with numerous characters and find all his plots interesting.
Oh, on a sort of humorous side note, I find the continent is quite boring. It looks like a map of a cucumber. Continents aren't shaped like cucumbers....
In conclusion I find Memories of Ice to be a failure due to the technical aspects of the writing. While it has some cool ideas in fantastic magic and world building, the language in the world creation is forced, the prose is overwritten, and the action is gratuitous (in a bad way) and contrived. All of the above is deftly packaged in a scatterbrained narrative that makes the action more difficult to follow for the casual reader. Best to avoid this one unless you don't mind bad prose fighting you every inch for what would otherwise be a great story.
END REVIEW---
Aaron.
*A "Tome Tosser" is a writer who continuously throws out large 500+ page works. Jordan, Erikson, Goodkind, and Martin are all Tome Tossers.
BEGIN REVIEW---
Memories of Ice as written works as a stand alone book. That is one thing that attracted me to Erikson. Each book in his series can stand as an idependant novel. Memories of Ice does this well; at no point did I feel that somthing went unexplained. However, aside from a couple of cool characters and some truely cool scenes (as opposed to the numerous "supposed to be cool" scenes) I have gotten very bored with this book. Since I have already stated what I think is good about the book, I will now detail the reasons I probably will not finish it:
Throughout the story Erikson tries to give the sense of the languages of his world. If you understand a little about how languages work and borrow, you may find this annoying. In my opinion using made up languages should not be attempted if you do not have a solid (read PhD) background in the language. Some of the annoyances for example are: Rath' means priest. So we have a slew of Characters with the Rath'Name for thier name. This is stupid. Why not just use the word "priest" or find a word that already exists that connotes ecclesiastical rank? Then there is "Ullid" meaning "cavalry," and "lites" meaning infantry. "Betak" means "medium." So in this book we have the "Betakullid" and the "Betaklites." You guessed it, Medium Infantry and Medium Cavalry. Why this waste of time and mental effort? It is in my opinion a copout for characterising the fighting force. As a counterpoint one might bring up Tolkien saying he did the same with this languages. I beg to differ. Tolkien used his own languages when there was a concept that did not have an english word to illustrate it. Erikson's work is redundant and it shows how little he knows of how languages work: the key point here is that english only borrows when it does not have the word. Erikson's technique as a result seems forced. However, Erikson's background in archeology and anthropology does shine through his work and makes for a very original world and a magic that seems to have heavy doses of shamanism. This is refreshing in light of all the "quasi-celtic" magic we see in fantasy lit these days.
The next problem, and a little more severe is the prose style. It takes Erikson a paragraph to say what can be conveyed in a remark of a character or in two better written sentences. As a result his dialog seems fake as it leaves out the trivial content found in real conversations. We get a sentence about how one character wanted to do the cooking rather than having another character compliment or criticise the first characters meal preparation. We get a paragraph that explains the positioning of 2 characters relative to the third rather than him putting it in one sentance and using the words "both," "flanked," with "left" and "right." This is consistent throughout the novel, and I suspect counts for at least 200 of the 890 pages. Its longer because he is not being careful, thus the novel is "overwritten."
Gratuity in perpetuity. This is the next flaw in this book. Erikson wants very much to be seen as cool, in, with it. There is no other reason for the exhibitionary aspects of his stories. We don't need a description of one character pleasuring another durring a meeting because they were bored. We only need it to come out in conversation. We don't need a third of a page of a barbarian woman coming on to an old man. Those are details that are not pertinent to the story, which is somthing that does not need more than a sentence. In a similar vein we get a lot of poseing, screenshots, and other "cool" scenes. While cool scenes are nice, obviously arranging things in the story just so you can make one happen is no good. There is a word for it- contrived.
The next problem is the narrative. Erikson has a legion of characters. This is not all bad. However, he tries to show you almost every moment of these character's lives in the extent that they relate to the main plot. This gets boring, even when there is lots of action. Trimming down the subplots would make for a more solid narrative that was easier to follow. This is not to say that the subplots need to be any less in number, but rather the detail that we as readers are told about them needs to be lessened. This would make the work more readable without diminishing the complexity of the story and cut out probably another 200-300 pages, maybe more. Erikson however seems to find it important that we identify with numerous characters and find all his plots interesting.
Oh, on a sort of humorous side note, I find the continent is quite boring. It looks like a map of a cucumber. Continents aren't shaped like cucumbers....
In conclusion I find Memories of Ice to be a failure due to the technical aspects of the writing. While it has some cool ideas in fantastic magic and world building, the language in the world creation is forced, the prose is overwritten, and the action is gratuitous (in a bad way) and contrived. All of the above is deftly packaged in a scatterbrained narrative that makes the action more difficult to follow for the casual reader. Best to avoid this one unless you don't mind bad prose fighting you every inch for what would otherwise be a great story.
END REVIEW---
Aaron.
*A "Tome Tosser" is a writer who continuously throws out large 500+ page works. Jordan, Erikson, Goodkind, and Martin are all Tome Tossers.
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