Onefinemess

Posted By onefinemess on July 18, 2011

by: George R. R. Martin

There will be some spoilers.  You have been warned.

First off, let me say that this was not the best book ever.  FOR ME.  I’m sure plenty of people will love it.  I think it works great as a piece of something larger but, for me, it did not work particularly well as a single book.  Me, as a reader, needed something more to latch onto at the end of the book.  I mean, the beginning and middle were pretty much what we/I expected – a bunch of politicking and pieces moving around on a giant chessboard, assembling themselves for the blowout that is the last book or two.  All well and good but… when Dany spends the entire book being a goddam idiot and doing nothing of substance (besides hopefully learning that she was an idiot), another main character is left in the middle of an assassination attempt, and the others are barely even heard from well… that’s not enough of an ending for me.

Don’t get me wrong, the ending works in the sense of the book as a piece of something larger, and the epilogue works in the sense of closing one chapter of the story “of the realm”… I guess I don’t really care that much about the realm, I care about the individuals that populate it.  And none of the ones I care about had an ending that made me feel any kind of satisfaction.

Selfish of me, I know.  But hey, it’s my reading experience.

NOTE:  The prologue works as a kind of replacement epilogue for one of the characters with *some* kind of meat in it for me if you want to look at it that way.  But it’s not quite enough.

There are some great observations and theories in the thread over at Anibundel’s blog (Thanks for having the party, Ani!), including several things that I missed – the identities of Abel & his women for one.  Yes I know it’s a huge DUH but the lack of a time sync between the chapters there lost me.  I’m still a little confused as to how he could have gotten in place before Stannis’ army… but I’m sure it makes sense and someone has a nice chronology worked out somewhere.  Also, the bit about some Freys getting eaten.  Man, I hope that one is true.

Here are a couple of my thoughts:

• The subplot with the Dornish prince could have been thrown out.  I’m sure it sets the stage for other stuff later on, but it was just a big bleh for me.  I would have much rather given that page space over to pretty much anyone else (even Davos! …although maybe not Cersei…).
• The title of the book is misleading in the most common reading.  There is very little dragon dancing (or even dragons moving in general).  The majority of the dancing is done by slaves and the dragons spent most of their time in chains.  Kate Cox pointed out another reading to me, which I think is much more applicable to the book as a whole – “dragons” are a form of coinage (Yes, I forget basic things).  And pretty much everyone in this book is scrambling for coin or throwing the weight of coin around in one way or another.  Hell, the Watch up on the Wall even have a bit of a subplot about their need for coinage.  Someone is killed with a (physical) coin!  And HELLO – is that a coin on the cover?  Or a shield?  If it’s a shield it’s still round like a coin!
• There was no Sansa.  I think GRRM did this as some kind of peace offering for what he does to the MCs that are present, but it wasn’t enough for me.
• Weird wordpress lag just erased my other two points, then I forgot them when I had to dart into the boys room (because it takes them 90 minutes to fall asleep…).  I promise they were genius!   <.<
• [edit: I remembered one!]  What’s up with Rhyllor?  He’s the only deity in this world that can actively grant prayers with power?  That seems REALLY REALLY fishy, doesn’t it?  My initial guess was that the religion was a calcified form of fire magic (ie there is no god at all, the rituals of worship taught the users how to access a flavor of magic) that became a religion during the course of the time when there wasn’t much magic.  The other two possibilities seem to be A) All the other gods are dicks/lazy/locked up somewhere or B) Rhyllor actually is the “true god” (with the “one who shall not be named” as his negative counterpart).  I would find this pretty funny, but it doesn’t “feel” right to me.

My one random prediction:  Jon Snow will skinshift into a dragon at some point.  If he doesn’t, then … I dunno, GRRM will have wasted a damn-shame-ton of setup.

THREE AND THREE QUARTER STARS

Because it’s still damn good, and a piece of something even damner gooder, and very well written, but it just wasn’t enough for me on its own merits.  It didn’t pull me through the pages like past volumes have – some of this could be due to age, or a change in my reading taste… but my enjoyment level is what it is.

It will round up to 4 stars on librarything (that’s not everything I’ve read, just everything I have in the house) anyway.

P.S.: Bolton’s Bastard needs to die with a quickness.  Preferably off-page.  He doesn’t deserve an on-page death.  I don’t think there’s any kind of torture or pain he could suffer that would be anything close to what he deserves, and I’d rather not read GRRM trying to write up something like that.  It would probably keep me up for a while.

Category: Book Review, Books | No Comments »
Tags: A Song of Ice and Fire, George RR Martin

Posted By onefinemess on July 14, 2011

Let’s just get this out of the way first: I didn’t hate it.  I don’t feel like I wasted $6.

Yes, I saw it at the cheap theater. The normal ones are like $10.50 at night.  Ugh.  So, a better question would be – was it worth $10.50?  The answer there is “maybe”.

It really depends on what you expect from these things, I guess.  And by “these things” I mean “summer blockbusters”, because that’s all this was.  I think that, in the sense that this movie was targeted (even moreso than the standard male gaze) at teenage males and the teenage male locked not particularly tightly inside every adult male … it succeeds.  I mean, the special effects are indeed, fucking crazy.  The robots look great.  The ruined city set piece was great.  The falling building scene was pretty crazy.  The re-created historical scenes were neat.  Scenes with people flying all over and being caught by robots looked about as good as they could.  I mean, until we get our stunt robots trained up well enough that we don’t have to replace them with CGI in the action scenes at least.

Not to say I’m defending the movie – I mean, if you apply any kind of “serious criticism” (if such a thing exists, sometimes I’m not convinced) to the movie, pretty much everything falls apart.  My thoughts just run more along the lines of “Why would you defend it?”

A) It’s not worth it
B) You would lose that debate
C) There is nothing in this movie that asked me to be taken seriously

You know how people call things “films”? I wouldn’t call this that.

The plot had more holes and motivational wtfs than a zombified piece of sentient swiss cheese gardening.  But GIANT ROBOTS.  I guess maybe they shouldn’t inherently preclude seriousness… but at least for this incarnation of the franchise, for me, they do.   We know what to expect by now, right?

Sure, I’d love for someone to relaunch the franchise and do it up with a little more “respect” and seriousness and much less women running in high heels and robots that weren’t so damn shiny .   Maybe that would be the kind of movie I could consider thinking about seriously.  For this one, I just wanted to pay a couple bucks and see giant robots.

One thing that really annoyed me (even more than the zooms on Rosie’s face and awkward butt camera angles (a given with Bay, right?)) was that in one scene an Autobot kicked a defeated Decepticon into a potentially inhabited building (which exploded, even though plenty of times we see robots getting pulled apart without exploding – like I said, nothing makes consistent sense if you think about it too long).  Um?   That is not something an Autobot would ever do.  As an extension of that, none of the Autobots made any effort (that I could see) to avoid collateral damage – they seem to avoid intentionally killing humans but uh… don’t care much about doing it on accident.  Very not Autobot.

Final verdict?

Worth $6 to see on the big screen.

I didn’t see it in 3d, so I can’t speak to that.

 

 

 

Category: Movie Review, Movies | No Comments »
Tags: Transformers

Posted By onefinemess on July 13, 2011

by: Ian C. Esslemont

I should have written this last night, before I started A Dance with Dragons, because now that’s mostly what’s on my mind… but let’s see what I can recall.

ARGH. WordPress 3.2.1 made my dashboard even less functional and obnoxious.  Wait, what?  BOOK?  Right.

OK.  This book was not awesome.  It was par.

Stuff happened, and I kind of cared, but mostly I didn’t.  I couldn’t exactly tell you why, other than that the opening was decent, but when they swung away (perspective wise) from Greybeard and Kyle it just lost me.  The parts with Iron Bars were still interesting, as I like the guy and feel bad for him because he keeps getting totally shit on… or, in this case, has someone wedge their hand in between his ribs and squeeze on his heart for long periods of time.

The fact that the book left Greybeard’s initial acquiring of Stoneweilder as well as the prophecy basically unexplained was a huge, huge detriment.  The resolution came basically out of nowhere (not totally, but enough) and felt stupid.  Plus, now we’ll never know what the Riders said to him?  I was hoping we’d find out wtf they are in the next book, but it looks like their plot is resolved here??

I’m really confused as to why and how exactly giant god woman ties in with the Goddess (who I’m *guessing* was related to the fall of jade giants/Broken/Shattered God…maybe?).  She had to know what the riders were after (and that they were indeed somewhat benign towards things outside their goal) – why in the world would she help the humans build the Stormwall?  I mean, I’m sure there was a reason, but the information given in this volume was sorely lacking.

All the stuff with Pyke was a horrible waste of paper.  They should (and would, I would think) have just killed him and been done with it early.  Why did ICE keep him around that long?  Just to show that yes, everyone was right?  ?

I was hoping to find out something about the Moranth here… but nope.

Hell, I’m not even exactly clear on what happened with Greybeard and the 6th originally… I think that info is all out there, but requires too much brain work for me to put together at the moment.  Google, here I come!

There wasn’t enough new info about the world of Malazan to justify the bland writing here.

I did really like Ipshank & Manask  – although I wish I’d gotten a better visual of Manask and his armor setup, not to mention whatever role they played in the original invasion.

Rillish was also good, but his interaction with Greymane was annoying – we find out in the end that they were both (?) operating under various misconceptions and it just annoyed me as a reader.  It’s a common enough writing trope (?), but it really didn’t work for me here.

Also… so much secrecy in the Malazan invasion plan as well as the Liberation Army (?) plans.   Like, seriously?  No one tells anyone anything?  While it might make for more suspense, it also makes for more annoyance.

TWO AND THREE QUARTER STARS

Because it was definitely not as good as Return of the Crimson Guard and while it might have been a little better written than Night of Knives, NoK was … more satisfying?  Maybe?

Also – the quality drop from Crimson Guard feels noticeable, but this could just be me.   I didn’t dislike the book, it just didn’t give me what I wanted.  The plot lines that were resolved were not resolved satisfactorily to me, and the background that I would have liked to have on some characters wasn’t there.

We’ll see how I feel about it after I finish The Crippled God (which might fill in some other holes).

[edited: updated a little.]

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Tags: Malazan Book of the Fallen

Posted By onefinemess on July 7, 2011

by: Steven Erikson

There may be more spoilers here than in my other Malazan review/rambles because there’s a lot to talk about and some of it would just look silly were I to dance around things.

Well.

This was a strange one, for a number of reasons.

First: The weird Kruppe narrations that open most chapters.  WTF?  They seem really, really out of place with the rest of the books. I mean, they work as a narrative device and aren’t terribly written, but they are kind of jarring when compared to the 7 or 8 thousand words that came before them.  Or were they in the other Kruppe books too?  Maybe I’ve just forgotten, or maybe they were less voluminous (“Kruppe-esque” even)?

It started with book 7, but now with this volume (book 8) I’m mostly just skimming the chapter intro poems.  They seem to be contributing less and less of interest the longer the series goes on.

If this were running on the Hallmark channel it would have been called “Reunions” or “The one with happy endings”.  So many happy endings it gave me the creeps… you know they’ve all got to come burning down soon.  Erikson can’t let happiness lie!  The sheer amount (in comparison to the other books) of relative happiness and people-NOT-dying at the end of this one reminded me of a line from an old X-Men story – something like “It’s always darkest before the dawn” (I think it was one of the Fall of the Mutants issues) – except in reverse like “It’s always brightest right before everything goes to hells”.  Seriously, it left me with a really strange feeling.

In another series, this might have been the final volume.  Except for the fact that, I mean, nothing is resolved – it only dealt with the issues it produced, more or less (and only some of them).  BUT, it really has a feeling of finality with all the weird happy-ish endings.

[It's funny, at any point before the last 200 or so pages I would have said the moral of this book was "No one that deserves it gets a happy ending, ever."]

The religious commentary that was the Redeemer and Anomander Rake’s life was interesting – I mean, I don’t find that subject particularly interesting at the moment, but almost every fantasy series has its take on religion, and this one was no different.  I didn’t really bother to process and digest any of the Redeemer stuff – maybe if I had been reading through the book alongside a friend or something, but by myself it was just a waste of brain processor time.  Rake’s was… a little different I guess.  Both seemed to offer pieces of the same puzzle: how a true god (worthy of worship?  or just worthy of the title?) should behave (Rake was one of the better savior updates I’ve seen in fantasy).   The added catch in the Malazan world is that worshipers can make their gods obey them with their prayers (see the rest of the series and how follows misuse and their deities)… but Rake, although he most certainly has the powers of a god, doesn’t seem subject to those same whims? I was a little confused about consistency of world there, but who knows.

I still have no fucking idea what happened with Mother Dark, or why she would bother to come back when she did.  Hopefully the last two books finish that bit of the pre-story up.

Also Osseric/Father Light (???) – his behavior (if he is indeed both of those people) still makes no sense with the little bit he was shown in Memories of Ice.  Although it didn’t have to be him that sent the Hounds of Light.  The way Light & the Tistii Liosan are so rarely mentioned, then pop up out of nowhere every so often is… interesting.

Didn’t Karsa already meet Traveller?  Then who was that dude assembling bones?  Oh wait, that was Urko Crust.  It’s been a while.  Huh. I *think* Urko is still alive (he was at the end of Return of the Crimson Guard, at least), I wonder if they’ll meet again?

It was nice to see Karsa get humbled 2 or 3 times in a row.  Not that anyone beat him in a fight – but to at least see him having to process that he is maybe not the badest-assest thing ever was nice.  I like the addition of his daughters and I wonder if that will change anything about his plans (the “destroy everything” plans) – it doesn’t look like we’ll get to see him start along that road in this series.

Hood as a Jaghut… how does this relate to the dead/soulless Jaghuts that Hedge found down there in the abandoned Jaghut layer of death?   Hmmmm.  And knowing that the Jaghuts went to war against death and one of them is Death?  I really hope we get the back story there.

Somewhere it mentions that stubbornness is one route to godhood, that seems to have been Dassem Ultor’s path.  That and the fact that he has worshipers?

Also, Clip should have died when the Dying God was dealt with.  Seriously.  Waste of space.  He’s the new Karsa from book 4, except with no redeeming characteristics.

The bits with Kallor were interesting.  Obviously that’s going somewhere…

The bit with the two Soletaken Tiste Andii was, odd.  The one who should have been most driven by vengeance didn’t follow, but the other did (and was easily killed – and not mentioned again?).   Also, Kallor’s curse someone means he’s an insane badass?  Lame.  He’s like the open beta version of Karsa (or you could say Karsa is Kallor 2.0, but I think it works better the other way because, at least thus far in the books, Karsa has … better character) in the sense of the whole indomitable will survival badass thing.

The bit with Gruntle getting ready to fight in that battle, then getting towed off because he was a shareholder earning  a snicker.

Random questions:

Who is the Elder god watching the final scene play out?  Draconus?  K’rul (it’s his temple… I’m still surprised nothing was done with that, I figured something would happen to Mallet & Bluepearl being buried there, what with all the blood that was spilled), Kruppe??

I was really confused by the bits with Vorcan & Envy.  I thought that was Envy’s villa & seat on the council (didn’t the bard come to visit her there??), yet when Vorcan showed up they called her Lady Varada?  Maybe I missed something and there were two different villas involved but I could have sworn they were the same.  Also, Envy and Spite’s behavior is… erratic, to say the least.  Both have been “heroic”, or at least done good deeds now, then they go all crazy when near each other?  Then decide to go for Dragnipur?  Wouldn’t they realize that they wouldn’t be able to do anything with it (if it held onto its original power, which I don’t think it did, but they didn’t know that)?  By “do anything” I mean that it’s strongly implied that one one but Anomander could bear the weight of the blade.

When did Rake fight the Segulah (who wind up in Hood’s realm, not Dragnipur)?  It must have been before he got Dragnipur… but it is implied that he’s carried the blade for a long, long, long time.  Does that mean the Segulah society is like First Empire old?

Who the hell is Rake’s father?  I assume it was an Elient, since his children have Elient blood – or is Mother Dark Elient?  CONFUSED.

Why are the Bridgeburners in Hood’s realm?  I thought they ascended after death?  If all that means is they died really fancy, then why the hell did Erikson make all that drama about them ascending??

I still don’t get what exactly was going on in Dragnipur.  If Chaos destroyed the realm inside the sword, I guess that was supposed to mean that it would continue on past the sword and get everything?  But somehow moving the Warren/Hold of Darkness out of the blade fixed that?  Was it just that it would devour Darkness and that would be bad… or?  I need to google this shit, but I don’t want any spoilers… so it will have to wait.

What Throne was supposed to appear in Darujhistan?  I thought it was the Crippled one but that never showed?  Delayed to book 10?

I’m still confused as to what exactly these thrones do – let you command things (a la the T’lann Imass throne) – but you don’t need to sit on the Shadow throne to command the Hounds?  Yeahhh.  I want a DM guide for this world.

Whatever.

/end ramble

FOUR STARS

Because it wasn’t quite as good as the two books preceding it, at least in part to the way the tone shifted in those Kruppe narration sections.  BUT it still kicked crazy ass and all kinds of things happened and not everyone is dead yet.

 

 

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Tags: Malazan Book of the Fallen, Steven Erikson

Posted By onefinemess on July 2, 2011

So there’s some kind of… well, I don’t want to call it a leak because I can’t find a single goddam thing LEAKING… so we’ll call it an “emanation”.   There’s some kind of a water emanation in our basement.  I would think it was coming up from the floor but uh … there are no holes and I know nothing about how these things work so let’s just stop before I look dumber.

ANYWAY.

So the boys are trading/passing a weird little sickness that seems to consist of one fit of intense vomiting, then some tiredeness, then maybe some unfriendly syrupy diarrhea two days later.  But in between all that they are mostly fine (just slightly weird appetites).  So where was I?  Right.  The vomit.  #2 started throwing up in the car on our way to the park today (it was really sad!  Poor guy :( ) and we’d been coasting lately on the preparedness thing so did not have an anti-vomit kit and such in the car… so we cleaned him all up with some old (but clean!  to start…) bedcovers that we were going to give to Goodwill.  And the car well… that took more effort, later.

Anyway.  Skip ahead an hour or two.

Water emanation in basement.

Nothing to wipe it up with… oh hey there’s those old bedcovers that are already ruined and not particularly wet, just reeking of sickly sweet vomit (mostly milk, I think).  So yeah, I’ll use those to mop up as much of this brackish water as I can.

Anyway, it stunk. Stinks.  Blerf.  There’s still some water left.  And it kind of smells like vomit.

On the bright side, I installed a new garbage disposal all by my damn self last week.  Because the old one broke.  SIGH.  BUT STILL.  I plumbed.  Again.  It’s maybe the only homeowner thing I am not terrible at.

Category: family, Life | 2 Comments »
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Posted By onefinemess on July 2, 2011

by: Steven Erikson

Wow.  You know Erikson always has to be killing people (especially out of nowhere) … but some of them still hurt.  Especially because I think this one – the last one (one of the “big” ones) – does not come with the resurrection clause that has brought so many others back on the rebound (2 resurrections just in this book, but we knew they were both coming).

This book was solid.  Just solid. I tore through at least a third of it yesterday and stayed up way too late again to finish it.  So much buildup at the end that I couldn’t go to sleep without wrapping it up.  Icarnium’s bit was… odd though.  Of course not the end (since Mappo is still out there), but just oddly empty.

Anyway.  So this is the book where the Letherii/Edur empire (from book 5) and the Bonehunters/(ex-)Malazan plots and armies finally collide.  And, as with everything Erikson, nothing goes as expected.  Almost no one dies gloriously.  Almost no one.  One guy does and you really feel for him.  Main characters don’t seem to though – they just catch a knife in the back or something else tragic and “realistic”.

One thing that bums me out about this world is all the r#pe.  Seriously, 50 pages in and there were already 2 (with a couple more by the end).  Three of the ~major females (with significant dialogue or a plot arc) so far have been r#ped (one in book 5, the other two as mentioned).  I’m trying to think who *hasn’t* been.  Tavore – but we don’t know her background.  For the others it seems sadly more realistic to just assume they have.  Harsh world – yet in other aspects, genderwise, it’s much, much more egalitarian.  Is Erikson trying to make some kind of statement here?  Probably.  There are lots of statements in these books (but they work in context)… maybe something about the violence & lust innate in masculinity?

The best scene in the series so far was in this book.  The one in Tehol’s place when Janath wakes up.  I ?guess? some people don’t like Tehol?  I don’t know, something must be broken inside… finding a way to work absurdity into this series was a masterstroke by Erikson.  A little levity goes a long way in all this bleakness.  I mean, there are other spots (the 3 critters from the Crippled God’s island, Pust, other assorted bits), but this one works the best for me.

I really wasn’t expecting the fight between the second two parties that intersected at Bloodeye’s soul… I mean, they could have just talked it out and it would have been good.  Seriously.  Except that douche, Chip.  Seriously.  Ugh.  Although maybe the bit with the baby Azath might not have gone over so well.  Oh well.  I’m not a huge fan of happy endings, but I really felt like the two brothers that died deserved some kind of happiness together, at least a moment.

I wonder when the Bonehunters are going to run out of Moranth munitions?  I mean, it’s not like they can resupply anymore.

Also, Quick Ben leveled up again.

FOUR AND A QUARTER STARS

Because it was 1250 pages of goodness.

[EDIT: Random plot thread: WTF was up with the Segulah that walked out of the Letherii capital near the end?  It said something about all the challengers being dead except Karsa & Icarnium - but then she walks out?  Why would a Segulah avoid a fight?  Did she decide it was rigged?  Would that matter?

Also: Re: the way to kill Rhulad: DUH.  Super obvious - at least the first step. I seriously cannot believe that no one tried that before.]

Category: Book Review, Books | 5 Comments »
Tags: Malazan Book of the Fallen, Steven Erikson

Posted By onefinemess on June 30, 2011

So, I lost some weight (10-15lbs, depending on when and how you measure) over the last couple of months.  Some of this was due to a diet was on for a week (yes, only a week) – not a diet intended to cause weight loss but one probing for dietary issues that may be related to IBS.  The rest of it was due to just eating less.  Mostly less meat, but also less snacks. I guess.  Less in general!

Anyway, the last two times Jen has been pregnant I’ve gained around 10 lbs, so I figured this time I would try for the opposite.  Or at least a holding pattern.

Before this, 197 was the lowest I’d ever made it (in 2009), and that was after a couple months of working out every night and I could only hold it as long as I kept up the working out… which of course I couldn’t.  I was back up to 205ish just a couple months later when our 2nd bundle of energy was born.

After that I tried a couple things – for a couple months I ran 2-3 times a week, at night 1-2 miles.  After that I even tried a gym for 3 months or so.  45 mins a night 2-3 nights a week.  Weight never dropped below 202.

These days I hang out between 192 & 195 – still 10 more than I weighed in college (but that may be a pipe dream), but longer than I’ve kept myself in this range in a long, long time.

I’m annoyed that I still can’t stop my shirts from getting shorter.

 

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Posted By onefinemess on June 25, 2011

by: Ian C. Esslemont

First things first: this was definitely an improvement over Night of Knives.  There was a ton going on (it was like 2.5x as long) and it even got to use some of the more familiar characters.  In fact… I’m amazed that what happened with the Empire happened here instead of in the “main” books.  Wow, I’m just… really interested to see how the “main” books deal with the kind of huge upheaval that happened at the end of this one.

OK, improvements being noted, I have a couple complaints:

1. Names:  This is a general … concern with all the Malazan books.  BUT.  In this book, someone thinks something like “Traveller – that’s a strange name.”  This someone happens to be traveling with people named Coots and Stalker and Badlands and used to work with people named things like Cowl and Shimmer!  Oh, and this someone’s name is KYLE.  KYLE.  The first “normal” (ie American style) name I can recall seeing so far.  And I’m pretty sure I’ve seen over 500 names by now.What I do know is that NO ONE, ANYWHERE in this series should be allowed to say that someone has a strange name.  EVER.  For serioustrue.

   Elsewhere, someone goes to pieces when they find someone named “Sorrow” like… like it fucking means something!?!?  It doesn’t.  Trust me, it doesn’t.  And, even if the author intends it to it still means absolutely nothing, given the context of all the other names in this series.
   

2. There was a scene that I found to be the most poorly written scene out of all the Malazan books thus far: the scene with the dude buried in the cask where Erecko [SPOILER].  If he was an Avowed he’d probably still be alive you don’t even check what the fuck?  SERIOUSLY.  Also, it totally wasn’t even clear WHY they were going to that continent until they got their anyway.  Maybe I missed a clued somewhere?  Possible, much of the reading was done with kids striking and climbing on me.

Other things of note:

• Laseen the cipher:  Incompetent ruler or insanely intelligent one?  General comment on the Malazan books.  I think you can interpret it pretty clearly either way, at least with the information I have available from books 1-6 & ICE 1-2.
• What is up with people unleashing ancient imprisoned things that will bite them in the ass?  I mean, is that like a standard method of dealing with things in this world???  See: Ganoes & the Deragoth, the Nameless and the thing that Ganoes needs the Deragoth to kill….
• Didn’t Osric’s son just free him back in book 4?  First major continuity fail of the series.  Confusion.  Are there two?
• OH.  And was “Temp” supposed to be “Temper” from NoN?  Because.  What?  Isn’t he bound to the Deadhouse area?

I’m kind of annoyed that Reaper’s Gale (next up) is set back in Edurland… reallllly want to see how Erikson follows/ties in what happened here.

Also, that last, what, 200 page fight scene… that was pretty epic.  Especially in the sense that it was just one thing after another after another careening around and into things.  The whole “power draws power” bit seems to almost be a law of physics in this world.

I totally didn’t realize that Ullen died until I spent a good 10 minutes trying to figure out who the hell Dissembrae was talking about in the epilogue.  I’m assuming it was Ullen?

THREE AND A QUARTER STARS

Because it was better than NoN, but still had some noticeable issues with the writing.  It’s like ICE is trying to write in the same style as Erikson – it mostly works but still feels really, really odd.

Also because Iron Bars is awesome and I want to see more of him.  Poor dude.

 

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Tags: Malazan Book of the Fallen

Posted By onefinemess on June 18, 2011

by: Steven Erikson

Oh.  This was good.  Very good.

An interesting kind of good… if only in contrast to the rest of the series.  The kind of good that can only happen in a series.  I mean, I suppose it could happen with enough build up in one book BUT this book is 1200 pages.  Sixth book in, and 1200 pages.  So I’m going to go out on a limb and say that it’s probably not like the kind of thing you would ever see in a stand-alone.  Or even in a trilogy.  Things have finally started coming together.  Violently. Duh, right?

We have a new (mostly) generation of Bridgeburners, and this time we see the formation – as opposed to just hearing about people talking about it all the time (Mott’s Wood & Raraku).  I had a feeling early about what the title phrase referred to, and I was very happy to find myself right.

Quick Ben is going crazy, maybe?  It was definitely interesting seeing him as a non-narrator this time through.  I want to call him an NPC, but that might be saying too much.  It was an interesting choice by Erikson and I’m curious what the reasoning behind it was.

Random things that bug me:

• No one shares intelligence!  Even people that are supposed to be friends.  Seriously!??
• There was at least one moment where someone hears something that changes their world (The bit with Cotillion, where someone tells him that everything casts a shadow into Shadow or something) but the rest of us have no idea why.
• Is Felisin Jr. just too lazy to fight what’s happening to her?  Yeesh.  Then again, I guess she never had much willpower or whatever.
• I still don’t get how the army “becomes” Tavore’s… in fact everything seems to imply that this is not what is happening.  It seems like just more of a case of them defending the Wickans??

Not much to complain about.  More people die, but that is to be expected by now.  I “like” (in the sense that it was interesting from a writing standpoint) how one of the deaths is just… well, being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  A character that is fairly powerful (I guess) just gets mowed down by some mid-level (in the grand scheme of things) bad guys who are after something else.

I really want to know what Mael did at the end of Midnight Tides!!!! Hopefully that pops up somewhere.  Also, every single thing that happens in this series seems to be setting the reader up for an unexpected ending.  Not unexpected in the sense of “That’s not who I thought would die!”, but more like “Oh, so that’s what this series was about…”  … or something.  The whole games within games within games and whatnot.

FOUR STARS

At least, will think on it more as I make my way through the series, maybe revise the rating.  I expect this to be the high point, but hope to be proven wrong.

I am seriously going to go back and wiki the fuck out of this series once I finish.  I’m sure I’m missing so many little (and probably some big) things – there’s just too much to keep in my wee little headspace.

[EDIT:

I still want to know what/who T'amber was before... what happened.  Not to mention why it chose HER!

And I'm not clear on why Lanseen would throw everything away for... nothing?  She's always seemed farsighted in the other books, but now she's ...not?

Also, it was interesting to see how the intended perception of (Lanseen's) Empire shifted over the course of novels 1-4 & 6.  It seems that now we're back to square/book 1.

]

Category: Book Review, Books | No Comments »
Tags: Malazan Book of the Fallen, Steven Erikson

Posted By onefinemess on June 14, 2011

by: Ian C. Esslemont

OK, so it wasn’t much of a break, I finished this in an afternoon/evening.   Also, I’m betting that “Ian C. Esslemont” is not a pen name (Erikson is).  That’s just too much name to be made up.

ORIZIT?
DUNDUNthissstupid. Stop it!  Silly.

Right.  Where was I?  The book.

There’s not much to it.

The back cover copy should have just said “The night of Kellanved & Dancer’s ascension.”  Seriously.  I mean yeah, they barely get any scene time at all (a handful of lines), but that’s really why we came right?  To see what the hell happened?

Well, we still don’t really find out.  That kind of pissed me off.  They went back into the Deadhouse they’d lived in for years…and that did it?  WHAT?

So, other than NOT having the critical information that I was looking for and ALSO having some extended sequences about dudes riding ice that… did not make a whole lot of sense, especially given the epilogue scene (but that will surely be picked up on later, right?) was it OK?

Yeah, I guess.  It had some Bridgeburners.  But they were total dicks?  Except for one.  And we got some background on Dassem Ultor and how he went down.  That was cool.  And it was a fast read.  The two leads were… OK.  Neither of them very bright and driven… or perhaps consumed by their own natures.  Really not bad for a first book, especially when he kind of has/had to compete with Gardens of the Moon.

TWO AND SEVEN EIGHTHS STARS

Because I skimmed a lot because things were unclear (without being apparently crucial, a la Erikson) and some extended descriptions were uninteresting.  Or didn’t feel relevant.  Also, I may be unfair in my judgement because I really wanted to see things from Kellanved & Dancer’s perspectives.   Annnd I want to know wtf happened to make them gods.  Seriously.

[update before post:  I'm 200 pages or so into Bonehunters, and it has already referenced a few things specifically from this book, so that's interesting. ]

 

Category: Book Review, Books | No Comments »
Tags: Ian C. Esslemont, Malazan Book of the Fallen