Just finished The Bonehunters. It was really good, but once again my head is spinning slightly from all the various plot lines and foreshadowing. That said, one of the best things about the series imo is that even if you can't quite grasp the overall significance of something, the characters and writing (and sheer awesome) suck you in and keep you reading.

More specific comments.

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Ganoes Paran is the fucking man. Quick Ben is a close second, although he's in significant danger at this stage of being outshone by Bottle, who I found rather fascinating.
No idea what was going on with the dragon corpses (and ghosts? The ones following Apsolar around).
Kalam kicking ass at the end was spectacular, but possibly too much; I know that he's probably the best assassin in the world, but come on. You can buy it from someone like Icarium, because he's an Ascendant, or at least a centuries old, specifically engineered killing machine. Kalam is badass, but he's just a normal human, training aside. Anyway.

The seige of Y'Ghatan and the ensuing journey beneath the city was incredible.

Going to track down a copy of Reaper's Gale asap.

 

Yay double post.

So I finished Reapers Gale yesterday (and immediately started Toll the Hounds...) and, in amongst all the awesomeness and tragedy - I nearly cried over Beak - I'm a little confused about the whole Redmask plot strand. It was awesome, don't get me wrong, and seeing

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Toc and Tool

however briefly, was cool, but...yeah, it didn't seem to add much to the plot.

I'm guessing that the presence of Redmask's guardians is indicative of some significance further down the line, but at the moment it feels like it was just filler. Good filler, sure, but still.

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Also, lol at Silchas Ruin :awesome Building up to a massive smackdown with Rhulad...oh hai sappers!

 

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Toc has the salient point. When one goes seeking the Mortal Sword of K'Chain Che'maille, it's quite surprising to find a human in the role. Hopefully the red scales didn't fool 'em.

 

Oh, Beak, my most favorite character in the whole series just for his backstory.

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Especially the ending with, Hood personally coming for him and telling him about his brother waiting for him

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Yeah, Redmask was just filler but its true that (and I don't think its a spoiler) the guardians are a hint of the role their race will play in the future.

Also props to you from going directly from one book to another immediately, I could never do that.

If I remember correctly, Toll the hounds is the one narrated by Kruppe? yeah that kind of got a little exhausting to read. You are in for a treat though and a lot of revelations as plans starting going into motion.

You like bottle? Why? I honestly hated him out of all the bonehunters and he just seems like a cheap imitation of Quick.

 

It's something of a defense mechanism; I was barely a hundred pages in and it was a scene with some noblewoman who'd been known by another name previously, and I was just going "Am I supposed to know who that is? It's been two years since I read GotM, how am I supposed to remember that?!" So yeah, trying to read as much as possible in sequence.

Bottle...I don't know really. I liked his dialogue, and his more subtle magic.

 

Do you mean in Toll the hounds or Reaper's gale?

Oh and now that you've seen more of Tavore, what do you think about her?

Personally I hated her, especially her tendency to withhold vital information from her soldiers for the sake of mystery(Unwitnessed my ass).

And Kruppe too, to this day Kruppe is the only character in the whole series that completely confused me.

 

He hasn't shown up thus far in TtH, so I'll get back to you on that. To be honest, it's more Bonehunters than RG, with the whole eavesdropping stuff, and guiding them through the tunnels under Y'Ghaten.

She's an interesting character...I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say I hate her, but she really needs to chill out a bit. I guess I admire her somewhat - her style of leadership stinks, and she woefully misjudged the invasion of Lether, but I can at least respect her principles and (probable) aims. With regards to the whole unwitnessed thing...yeah, fair point, but given that she's presumably gearing up for war against the Crippled God, I can understand not wanting to say to her soldiers "We're abandoning your families and everyone you've ever known and loved outside this army, and going to fight an insane god. That cool?" Never going to end well!

 

One of the few things I like about her arc is what happened outside Y'Ghaten and how it was implied that she knew because apparently her lover(I forget her name) told her. Though you're right she is to be commended for her strength.

I have to ask, what did you think about Ganoes' decision to give the crippled god his own house in the deck of dragons. I mean as you were reading, and he did it what went through your mind(before he gave his reasons)

I remember been really pissed off about it because it seemed that at the time he just did it to piss off the other ascendants and anyone else who was trying to tell him what to do and that it was also a form of rebellion against whatever made him the Master.

Man you've kind of re-ignited my interest in the series and since I haven't read Ian's books guess I still have new things to read.I did read night of knives and it was good in that it explains a bit about cotillion and Shadowthrone and how they got to it.

 

My main memory of Ganoes prior to Bonehunters is that I didn't much care for the whiny bastard, although to give him credit where it's due, he did notch up a couple of badass moments. I don't specifically remember what I thought of his decision, but it was probably coloured by that general indifference. Of course, after seeing him in action as Master of the Deck, I've warmed up to him considerably - and he's easily the most likeable of the Paran siblings, although I appreciate that's not saying much.

 

Yeah, he's more of a mix of his two sisters come to think of it.

 

Found this a while ago, and thought it might be of interest/assistance. Two people reading the series, one for the first time and one for the second, and passing comment on it. I've only read a few of the posts, so it might turn out to be rubbish, but thought I'd share.

 

The Tor Re-read is pretty good. Erikson also answers questions after each book.

 

I've just started reading this, because this thread popped up and I saw it in NPR's top 100 of Fiction on the same day. So far I like it, although I've read no more than the first hundred pages of Gardens of the Moon. Paran is slightly interesting, but the abrupt change of POV is kind of annoying, especially if it's just to introduce Sorry - which I guess is the fisherman's daughter (I'm assuming spoilers aren't necessary here, considering it's the very beginning).

One thing that does bother me there is a real sense of repetition in the writing. "Paran said", "Paran nodded", "Paran rapped", "Paran halted", "Paran did" (all this in what I'm guessing are less than 150 words). Basically every paragraph and/or sentence begins with a character's name, and I've never associated this with good writing. Does this get better?

Don't get me wrong, it's a minor complaint. I cant help but compare it to the Wheel of Time series, and it never bothered me in those books. I was wondering if anyone read both this and WoT and could compare them, story-wise. Warring seems similar to Travelling, and the risks of Warring made me think of the corruption of the Way(s?), one of the things I consider to be the best of detailed world-building in WoT.

 

GoM is the weakest of the books, and to be honest the writing only began to strike me as really good from the Bonehunters onwards with Toll, Dust and The CG having especially good language. GoM is a converted movie script I think so that might have something to do with it.

As far as comparisons to the Wheel of Time. It's there but the scales are vastly different and there's a lot more grey in the Book of the Fallen. Plus the magic and various cultures are explored in much more depth rather than what happened with Wheel where it was in general terms the successor states of Hawkwing's empire scheming while there was a definite big bad hiding in the wings. Rand was always the central character throughout even if he stopped being the primary POV, that isn't the case with Fallen where the POV's are used more or less to show the different sides of the conflict, and there are a ton of key characters, it's more like Song of Ice and Fire in that respect.

 

I've just finished the last two books in a marathon reading session in the last three days and the Crippled God has become one of my favorite fantasy novel.

It was brilliant and epic and just plain fucking awesome. I am still trying to wrap my head around everything.

 

Finished The Crippled God last night, and it was marvellous. Tragic, moving, and flat out badass for the vast majority of the book (and probably the easiest book to read, in that it's a fairly straight-forward clash of armies/races to save/destroy the world).

Series as a whole? Ridiculously good. I probably wouldn't go so far as to say that it's the best series I've read - it can be a chore to get through at times, particularly when Erikson really waxes lyrical on the philosophy, although the worst point for me was the whole 'hobbling' thing in Dust of Dreams; had to put the book down for a bit while my stomach settled. Then of course you've got the fact that it's really fucking miserable a lot of the time. That said, I'd happily recommend it to anyone up for the challenge. While it is miserable, it never feels pointlessly so, as I've felt with SoIaF, for instance, and at times it approaches genuine tragedy. And there's so much awesome that it hurts.

Torn now between re-reading and diving into Esslemont's books.

 

If you haven't read the Esslemonts books, i highly recommend them, while not as good as Erikson they do get better. Stonewielder and Orb, Sceptre, Throne are fantastic and I havent read the latest one yet.

 

Finished Forge of Darkness, which was an excellent read - and I now have much more of an appreciation for the Jaghut. Looking forward to the next one, but now I really want to reread the main series to see if I can spot all the links.

Picked up Night of Knives and the Korbal Broach short story collection as well.

 

I keep putting off reading FoD and I don't know why. Did you find yourself missing the old cast?

Are the Korbal Broach novellas that you have e-books or physical?

 

It's well worth picking it up. And it's actually a little surprising in just how many of the cast of the main series are around. Obviously not any of the Malazans, or, say, Tehol, but lots of the Andii characters are kicking around - Anomander, Silchas and Andarist (although actually, I don't recall him making a proper appearance in the main books...) all show up, for instance, and Draconus has arguably the main plot. There's a load more people you'll recognise, but spoilers. Actually, in a way that's my main criticism of it; so many characters in the same place at the same time. Still excellent though. It's also an easier read than his other books. There's a much more traditional fantasy epic structure. YMMV on whether that's a good thing, of course.

Physical; I don't really do e-books, beyond an app on my phone, and the only ones I've actually bought are written by a cetain Mr. Ducie...