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Message: <blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 1390392" data-attributes="member: 812">Since you're looking for input on your review, jes, let me jump in with some comments:I would never take any review seriously by somebody who hadn't finished the book. If you can't finish it, you can't finish it, but I'm going to be awfully skeptical of your opinions, knowing you haven't read the book. Unless your review features facts, I'm not likely to pay much attention.You are clearly wrong on this general point. In many cases Erikson does use the words "Priest", "cavalry", "infantry" and "medium". Obviously there is a purpose to his use of these specialized terms in these cases. Is he telling us that these are archaic terms or foreign loan words? Well, we know, for example, that the Rath Council in Capustan are of foreign descent -- there's something about them that makes them a little weird (check the final resolution of Rath'Fener). Perhaps his use of the term "Rath" rather than priest is meant to give us an idea of the reaction of characters like Quick Ben or Whiskeyjack (who seem a little more "normal") upon meeting or hearing of these priests.There are two possibilities: either Erikson doesn't know what he's doing, or he does. You prefer the former interpretation, I prefer the latter. I submit that the evidence supports both interpretations (especially if you only read one book -- having read FIVE I think I can safely say the evidence weighs against your interpretation rather clearly).This is a funny sort of statement. Can you back it up? Noting, for example, that the very word "cavalry" is in fact a borrowing from French. Why use "cavalry" when "horsemen" will do just fine? The English language has been, to my experience, a greedy one that takes in multiple terms from multiple sources for identical concepts.I think your characterisation of the English language is incorrect, and that therefore your objection to Erikson's technique is without basis. Well, this is a matter of taste. You prefer tighter stories, fair enough.  This is the first time you mention this.If you want your review to be taken seriously, you have to take all this stuff out of it. You don't know what Erikson wants. Don't pretend you do. You know what he wrote. You're just  making this up to support your attack -- and everyone who reads this will know that, and will lose respect for your opinion thereby.If you consider large portions of the story irrelevant, say so. Don't speculate on Erikson's motives -- who cares? This is the second time you mention that the writing is too expansive.We do if it shows us how another character feels about one of the two involved. Did you miss that? I guess if you'd finished the book it might have come out.We do if it's going to pay off as one of the funniest scenes in the whole series later on.Point out one case of this happening. Honestly, I don't know what you're talking about, and frankly, I think you're misrepresenting the book rather greviously.Yes, you think the story should be tighter. This is the only actual comment you've made on the book so far -- you've made it three times now.I don't know what your intended audience is for this review, but as it stands, I don't think it succeeds as a serious review of a novel. You have one real objection to the book -- which is that the writing is insufficiently tight for you. -- and you have spun that out into three seemingly separate "points", each of which is only repeating what the other said. Your speculations on Erikson's character only weaken your position, and your statements on the nature of languages don't convince me.Finally, I have to repeat that any review by a reader who hasn't finished the book is not a review that deserves to be taken seriously. At least finish the book if you want to write a review to which people will give credence.I hope this doesn't come off as all cranky and defensive, Aaron. I don't feel the need to defend Erikson particularly -- all I want is for him to be successful enough to finish the series, which I think is pretty much in the can already. If nobody else in the world likes him, that's okay with me. But if this is meant to be a serious review, I think it needs some serious work.That said, I rather like the term "Tome Tosser".  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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