SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Folks say that no one gets hooked on this book until the 2nd half...Who made it?
Although the Pale scenes are needed for future reference, Darujhistan as a city was just a much better place to be...What hooked you and what scene is your favorite?

I finished it a little while ago. Enjoyed it and plan on getting to the others soon.

I'm only 35% through and am really finding it hard to continue. It's not that it's badly written but I'm just not finding it interesting. I'm going to read a non-fantasy book and see if after that I can get back into it.

I gotta tell ya Kim-it really gets going after the halfway mark.

It really is a tough book to get through, especially considering it's the first in a huge series.

Hopefully the rest of the series is worth the work, though.

yup Ala-it is the first and probably the weakest...I think given Eriksons writing style the first half of the first book was bound to be hard, but the rest of it more than makes up for it

The scene Quick Ben with Ammanas Shadowthrone - I LOVE it! :o) And maybe reborn of Tattersail. And unhappy love of Crocus for that noble girl, too :o)- I returned because it back to his theft and reread it better. :o)

Kim wrote: "I'm only 35% through and am really finding it hard to continue."

Totally agree, I struggled and struggled, then it hit a new "book" with what looks like an entire new set of characters, and I just couldn't face it. Goodreads has opened up so many new books/authors for me to explore, that I am now more willing to throw in the towel on a book.

I remember hitting that same spot, Geordax. I distinctly recall it going something like, "what the? who the hell are thse people? why? what about..? ARGH".

I barely managed to power through, on fumes it seems, solely on the promise that book 2(and the rest) is "so much better".

I've yet to test that due to other books getting in the way, but I will eventually.

Once I finally got through the whole thing I was happy I did and immediately started re-reading it as I did not "get" the first half the first time through. I went on to read the whole series and am a happy Erikson addict!

It's gritty and complex, but boy it sets the conventions on their heads!

I'm persevering and am now just past 60%. It is interesting but it doesn't really grab me and make me want to know what's going to happen next. Too much is going on that I lose interest.

Halfway through. No wonder there are 10 books in this series. There is so much going on it will take that many. Just when I think I'm getting a handle on things there are more characters and new developments. I like it but am ready for some progression and not just addition of new elements.
Crone is my favorite character so far.

I am at ~70% now. I will finish this book in a few days, but it's hard to see myself continuing the series. A lot is happening, but I don't care much about the characters. They feel disposable, in more ways than one. It's not like George Martin, who makes you like characters before killing them off. I am expecting these characters to die, and I barely feel anything for them. Just pawns on a board.

If you need good characters I wouldn't recommend this book (and probably not anything by the author). But I found it interesting for its world building, and the complicated story intrigued me. But I agree about the characters. Who cares?

I need characters! They don't all have to be "good" or likeable, but I need to care about what happens to them. The lack of character empathy is bothering me, and I had the same problem with Grace of Kings.

In my research, I read the author intentionally wanted the books to have no "good" or "evil" because that concept is overdone in fantasy. But character development was sacrificed (to me in a bad way).

*I'm forging on all the same.

Melanie wrote: "I need characters! They don't all have to be "good" or likeable, but I need to care about what happens to them. ..."

I totally agree with this. Tattersail is the only one I'm at all interested in. I think this is mildly interesting but there's no way I'll continue the series. I'm at 63%.

I'm also not a fan of the writing. It's not by any means terrible but it lacks depth. There are also spelling and grammar errors. It seems less like a novel and more like someone geekin' out. I can totally see where it would be fun to get lost in your own creation but this isn't really working for me. When people said how dense it was I think I was expecting a literary writing style.

In summary: Meh.

One of the numerous things that annoy me about his writing style is that he doesn't make much effort to place me in the shoes of his point-of-view characters. The point-of-view changes way, way too frequently and is often "detached" from an individual character. I think one of the consequences of this is that character development is weaker than it could be.

Paran has "developed" from immature to annoying to vaguely likeable, but it feels like instead of experiencing his character develop, I was informed that it happened, from a distance. I never related to him.

Tattersail and Quick Ben are the most interesting characters so far. Sadly Tattersail hasn't been getting as much screen time and Ben isn't as well developed as I'd like. I think Ben is probably my favorite character at the moment, but I don't love any of them.

That said, I'm at 76% now, and I've liked the second half much more than the first. It still annoys me occasionally but I haven't wanted to put it down at all, whereas for the first half I kept putting it down constantly. I'll consider continuing the series if it continues to improve. I've been told that it does.

It's amazing how easy I get distracted when I'm reading this. "Oh, I really need to do laundry! And empty the dishwasher!"

Seriously, these are not things that pop into my head when I'm enjoying a book. But the lack of character development is critical to me. I just can't get absorbed in a book if I'm not attached to the characters. I'm curious about the Tattersail-puppet and where that's going but not even close to curious enough to have read 63% of a 666 page book. I'm still planning on finishing but I'm looking at 2.5 stars right now. I wouldn't be finishing at all if I wasn't reading this with this group.

I’ve just finished and fully agree with the already mentioned points! I don’t feel the characters; the language is not moving me and in my opinion the author just tries to make it extra difficult. As David mentions, for example, why doesn’t he introduce at the beginning of a new POV who he’s talking about???

And what really annoyed me was that for the most part of this book, there was no reason behind all these wars!!! Why do the soldiers do what they’re told? Why keep conquering? Why not abandon these bloody wars and rebel against this ambitious empress? This makes absolutely no sense to me!

I think the setting portrays a level of social development where individuals consider themselves part of 'a people', and 'us' beating 'them' into submission was seen as a good thing.

The idea of prospering at the expense of others (especially when 'we' are bringing them 'our' superior culture) being seen as a bad thing is a very new idea in human history. It may even be fleeting.

Anyway, this premodern world view should be natural in a fantasy setting without an advanced economy or even industrialisation.

That’s an interesting point, though I still have problems believing that a people would accept the loss of thousands just to bring across their superior culture…

I can believe, that prosperity is a factor though, and certainly with Darujhistan, it is written that the empress wanted their riches.

Anyway, if a book starts with a war, I sooner or later would like to know why and to me, this was missing.

Yeah I guess they could've made it explicit. But for real world history, just feeling threatened has usually been enough for one people/state to attempt to disarm another. How can 'we' ever really trust 'them'? We don't know what their intentions are. Better off making sure they can't hurt us. I think it's pretty fundamental human behaviour.

Sabrina wrote: "Anyway, if a book starts with a war, I sooner or later would like to know why and to me, this was missing."

The Empress wanted to conquer the whole continent. That's why.

Melanie wrote: "The Empress wanted to conquer the whole continent. That's why."

Yes, but if thousands are dying like in Pale, why don't they rebel?

Sabrina wrote: "Yes, but if thousands are dying like in Pale, why don't they rebel?"

At this point, I don't think the rank-and-file know that Laseen is to blame for their deaths. They're also deeply loyal to Dujek, so they're going to follow him even if they don't care much for the Empress.

At this point in the story the Malazan Empire seems to be by far the most powerful entity in the world, so I don't think they could be very confident that a rebellion would succeed.

This sort of thing has played itself out many times in the real world. If we assume that the Malazan Empire is at least as ruthless as real-world classical empires, it's likely that if they rebelled and lost, the retribution would be far more horrifying than the war they were fighting.

can’t argue these points, they sound reasonable… but it still bugged me :-)

Sabrina wrote: "Yes, but if thousands are dying like in Pale, why don't they rebel?"

Like David said, it mimics the peasant mentality of real-life history. Why did people allow themselves to be ruled by lords and kings? The people being oppressed are the nobility of the conquered cities. Peasant life doesn't change much regardless of who is in charge, which is a theme present in a lot of epic fantasy.

Also, a certain group DOES fight back before the end of the book. I won't spoil the surprise, and this book is delightfully chaotic enough it was difficult to predict.

Sabrina wrote: "can’t argue these points, they sound reasonable… but it still bugged me :-)"

I agree the pre-modern mindset is alien. Their motivations can seem jarring. It's the same when you read about history.

Maybe I should rephrase my complaints, it’s not that I don’t understand the history or the general idea behind war. What bugged me is that I didn’t get a feeling why these wars were fought. Comparing this book to "game of thrones" for example, where I know exactly, why and for what everyone is fighting, these motives were severely lacking, so maybe better call it characters development instead!?
Anyway, this was the reason, why I was rooting for the enemies of the Malazan empire from the beginning… so “hooray” for the group at the end!

Yeah, not letting us know what's going on or why seems to be this author's style. :)

I wonder if initially he was just writing for himself and not to publish?

I made that comment in my review. That the author seemed happy to toy with the reader. I agree he overdid it on the slow reveal.

Was this his first published novel? I've read other authors talk about how they become better writers and write differently after they've had to go through the process of working with an editor.

I remember reading an interview with Erikson where he wished he could go back and rewrite GotM to make it less confusing but wasn't really sure how.

He definitely does not spoonfeed the reader: he requires you to put some effort into it ... you get out of it what you put in. For me (who read the original release when there was little-to-no online forums/wikis and thus took meticulous notes between books), it was the most incredible world building and layered story I have ever read. Nothing comes close.

But as with all things, its not for everyone.

Actually-he originally wrote this book as a screenplay based on an Urps game he had made, and then turned into a novel later. About ten years later he wrote the rest of the series. So yeah-as everyone *even the author) states, this is the weakest book in the series.

Maggie wrote: "Actually-he originally wrote this book as a screenplay based on an Urps game he had made, and then turned into a novel later. About ten years later he wrote the rest of the series. So yeah-as every..."

That's fascinating. I never would have guessed. Sort of like Dragonlance, except the book is nothing like Dragonlance.

It does explain a whole lot. It sounds like it took him a long time to convince somebody to publish it, which doesn't surprise me.

I'm only in chapter 3, but thus far would consider this one of my favorite dark fantasy intros. It's a slow-roll for sure, and the reader joins the story years into an empire expanding its boundaries, but it's intriguing to me the amount of work I have to do to decipher who's who, what's happening, how the warrens work, what's a Claw, is this person a good guy or a bad guy, etc. Of course, all will be revealed in due time, so I'm getting accustomed to just sitting back and enjoying the ride, and making mental notes when necessary.

The meeting of mages in Dujek's tent, and their sniping at each other, really provided some needed dark humor. And the battle of Pale was exciting.

Coming off of reading Glen Cook's Black Company series last year, this is sitting perfectly with me right now.

The Black Company trilogy has a lot in common with this book. The Black Company itself is sort of analogous to the first third of Gardens of the Moon, especially with how the worldbuilding is present but not really explained at all.

Fortunately The Black Company's plot picks up much faster, which made it easier for me to get into. The Black Company trilogy also had far fewer point-of-view characters and scene changes, and Croaker is a fairly likable character, which makes it easier to step into his shoes.

I can see myself really liking the Malazan series in time, but on the whole I felt The Black Company trilogy was much more accessible than this first book.