It makes sense. Thanks - Edit 1
Before modification by DomA at 15/06/2010 12:20:41 AM
I know there was a 9 year period between the writing of GotM (and the years of marketing it) and DG. I believe Erikson either did the Iowa Writing Workshop either just before or just after writing GotM. I do know that he wrote a few "mainstream" novels under his real name of Steve Lundin between the two and that might have as much to do with the advancement in the storytelling.
I didn't really noticed the first time around, likely because I took a long time to start DG after reading GotM, but back to back the massive improvement in the writing really shows.
It's not primarly the prose - though his metaphors, turns of phrase, his dialogues and descriptive skills have improved quite a bit, but it's his storytelling in general too, his approach to characters. His writing just got a lot more efficient with DG.
In hinsight, GotM reads a bit like an overambitious book. DG and MoI in comparison are books from a writer who master his craft enough to write something as ambitious and complex.
Too bad he didn't do a more extensive rewrite of GotM, though I guess by the point he sold it he was more interested in moving on.
As for foreshadowings, this series is chock full of them, some of them as baldly presented as you note. Others I didn't catch until a re-read. Just read a "prophecy" of sorts about the Tiste that reveals quite a bit of what happens in the eighth book, Toll the Hounds; didn't catch that the first time through Midnight Tides.
There is indeed a lot. It gets really fascinating to pay attention to all of it by DG and MoI, but in GotM he went over the top, to the point of self-indulgence. There was no way the average reader could absorb most of it, so it was mostly noise. It's a fairly simple story made complex to follow by drowning the readers in a sea of details quite extraneous at the time.
Speaking of said book, probably Monday or Tuesday before I have a review of it (and of Dan Simmons' Endymion) up.
Take your time. I can read fast when I must, but I hate to use speed reading when I read for fun. So I'll keep reading each of the reviews, but I'll get quite behind you I'm afraid. I'm reaching the 2/3 mark in MoI at this point.
I'm currently swamped with last week readings for BAF 4 and then the majority of my work on that anthology will be done. I just pray that the guest editor, Minister Faust, finds enough great tales among the 75-90 that I'm sending him. I think that'll be enough, however, to make this an above-average reprint anthology. And if the proposed title stays the same, I think I might have a killer introduction angle to write.
And I'll have a look at that too.
