1. The near-seamless integration of non-white human, female soldiers, and lesbian (but not really male gay) characters is more startling when one stops to think about it, as there is no scene that tries to scream this out at readers.
I get the strong impression that the Malazan army is to a considerable extent inspired by the American army - the thing about minorities being so strongly present is of course also true for various other armies past and present, but still. I realized this while recently reading Band of Brothers, when I noticed that the Malazan army's structure with its heavy reliance on sergeants and general notion of the sergeants being the backbone of the army, seemed to come straight out of that book. But yes, one difference is that Erikson increased the role of women beyond what it is in any real-world army - and not just among the Malazans, either. He definitely tries to be feminist (and to a much lesser extent gay-friendly, as you note), by rejecting the idea that such integration of women in armed forces would be anything special.
I thought some of the influence was the Roman Republic armies of the 2nd-early 1st century BCE, but yeah, the attitudes do remind me more of 20th century US military histories/memoirs. And what made the point of women as soldiers were the two that opposed Kallor near the end of MoI. They weren't made out to be like failed Eowyns; they were just soldiers who died in combat. That lack of exceptionalism just reinforces things, no?
In The Crippled God (the most recent Erikson book I've read), most of the military command on the "good" side consists of women, and the two men (Brys and Paran) are both quite far from the macho stereotypes you'd often come across in other fictional army commanders.
Agreed. Very few soldiers were "macho," if I recall.
2. In light of having read the just-released Forge of Darkness before re-reading DHG, there was a surprising connection between that new book and a "past" scene in DHG.
Looking forward to reading FoD.
You might be irritated by sections of it (it did remind me in some ways of TtH), but the story pauses at a very crucial point in the past, one that recasts quite a few things. You'll recognize several of the characters in new guises.
3. Lots of foreshadowing for the latter Erikson novels, as well as some in Esslemont's books. Not all that newsworthy, but there isn't that initial sense of "retconning" that I had when I first read the last three books of the main series.
I'm not surprised. I don't know if it's entirely the case that, as I once remember thinking, every new Malazan book casts a new light on every single one of the earlier books, but if not, they're not far off. Would be rather strange then if the change of direction in the last few novels hadn't been intended from the start.
The foreshadowing for TtH in both GotM and MoI was much stronger than I recalled at the time, for example.
4. Erikson does bromance quite well.
He certainly does. Better than romance.
Ha! Although even those scenes were a bit better than I recall them being
Maybe that's only because I read that D&D dreck recently? 
5. He has new "favorite words" in each of the early volumes.
Really? Like which ones?
I'd have to scan through 60+ emails to find the ones he noted, but I remember "gelid" being used fairly frequently in MoI.
6. Friend didn't find Gardens of the Moon to be difficult at all. He could see a clear D&D origin in it, though.
I don't know that the plot is necessarily that difficult to follow, no... I think most of the people who call it "difficult" mean simply that they find it difficult to care about what is going on, since it's so intentionally unclear what the motivations are and what connects the various plotlines.
I remember some saying they couldn't follow the action due to the in media res near-beginning, but he (and I, if memory serves) liked the mysterious aspects...an element that is still in play after 15 novels and four novellas between the two writers.
7. To him, Rake was at first yet another dark elf (I didn't realize this until I read those execrable D&D books earlier this month), yet with some potential to be something else other than the stock character.
Makes sense in a way, I guess, though the Tiste Andii as a race and Rake as a character are presented as the good guys pretty much from the start, the siege of Pale excepted. You could argue it's subversion of tropes, but I'm not sure if that's even the case... they have the skin/hair colour and near-immortality in common, yes, but that's about it.
Like I said, I had no base for comparison
9. In reference to my comment about the perceived didactic narrative of the latter books, he said this: " Erikson definately thinks about the meaning of what is behind the things that are happening, which alone puts him miles ahead of most of the other fantasy writers. Most epic fantasy is empty, like you said, good for a waste of time. It has nothing to say except to display the extent of time the author has spent thinking he has learned about battles."
Is that really necessarily a good thing though? I'm thinking in particular of that "bullies are evil" storyline in Toll the Hounds - if that's the way he inserts meanings into his book, I'd really rather he didn't. Fortunately most other cases aren't as bad, but still. Wasn't too impressed by the vacillating and inconclusive conclusions of the "nature should fight back against the outrages humans commit against her" plotline in The Crippled God, either.
He hasn't read past MT so far (I did warn him that the narrative changes around this time), so I'd say his comments are based on the first four books. There's quite a bit of commentary in those books as well, as I've noticed upon reading these for the first time after the series' "completion." Oh, there's some bits on order/anarchy that are revisited throughout the series and the latest book that aren't meant to have a singular answer, I suspect.
So, if others who've read/are reading/have re-read the books want to comment on the little points above, feel free. It's been an interesting email exchange, since I didn't expect him to like the series that much (he reads even more weird/surrealist/Decadent fiction than I do).
That is kind of strange then, yes... Erikson does have some depth to his writing, but at the end of the day he still writes epic fantasy with a heavy stress on "epic", and much of the depth is simply the way he has an extremely complicated plot and backstory that he intentionally keeps mysterious, leaving the reader to figure out things for himself - it's less mindless than other fantasy, for sure, but is it really the kind of depth that picky readers are looking for? I would imagine that you yourself would recommend quite a number of speculative fiction works more than the Malazan books, and still more so if not for the nostalgia factor of the Erikson Reading Cult. You went by Itkovian, no?
You went by Itkovian, no? Well, I did have a lukewarm rec of the series when he asked earlier this year, but I think there's more to the series than just a complex (and complicated, yes, but there's more to the plot than a vast series of moving parts, I'd argue). As for "depth," it can be that medium-level depth that allows for a change of pace without insulting one's intelligence/desire not to be stuffed full of what may be extraneous information.
As for what I tend to recommend, yes, I don't usually recommend epic fantasies unless one wants such to read, but when I do, I tend to recommend Erikson more based on the later books, so it wouldn't be due to nostalgia factors
Illusions fall like the husk of a fruit, one after another, and the fruit is experience. - Narrator, Sylvie
Je suis méchant.
Je suis méchant.
Observations made while a friend and I read/re-read the Malazan books
- 23/09/2012 07:16:19 PM
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Interesting.
- 23/09/2012 08:26:48 PM
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Re: Interesting.
- 23/09/2012 09:03:48 PM
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I re-read Toll the Hounds this past weekend
- 08/10/2012 10:11:56 PM
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My commentary on Midnight Tides
- 27/09/2012 06:06:41 PM
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