/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.22993032]

>entire book is a list of characters with dialogues and interactions obliquely referencing events that are not explained to the reader
>"THE WORLDBUILDING IS SO DEEP" - midwits
His prose is of low quality.

[Anonymous No.22993040]

>>22993032
The joke is on you because you actually have read the slop or are pretending you have.

[Anonymous No.22993048]

>>22993032
I tried reading it, I don't mind the prose or the setting, it was just boring.

[Anonymous No.22993144]

>>22993032
> Didn't like / was filtered by a book
> Am I so out of touch?
> No. It's the author, fans, prose, and book that are bad.

It's okay to just say you didn't like it. There's no need to make excuses and blame everyone else.

[Anonymous No.22993155]

>>22993144
I didn't like it because the writing epitomized ZANZIBART FORGIVE ME

[Anonymous No.22993450]

>>22993155
Can you give an example? Doesn't have to be a quote. Just a situation where you think this applies.

Lots of stuff has explanations. But there's like 5 000 000 words in the entire series so I can't blame you for not wanting to read a bunch of books where you don't know what's going on.

It's the most common complaint

[Anonymous No.22993596]

>>22993155
What are you talking about? Everything in Malazan is explained eventually, there is no headcanon.

[Anonymous No.22993621]

>>22993032
Rather read a a fairy tale from a tobacco and beer obsessed catholic Englishmen then this

[Anonymous No.22993634]

The problems with this book as I see them:
> The author seems to think it makes things mysterious if he doesn't explian what he's talking about. The result is you're halfway through the book before you can picture anything in your head.
> Character development is an afterthought.
>No effort is made at the beginning to introduce the reader to the world. He just jumps in, so you have no idea who or what all these people are for half the book.
>In general, the writing isn't engaging. Even after the story started to pick up, it was likely to lull me to sleep.

[Anonymous No.22993756]

leave it to an anthropologist to add a real sense of weight and history and humanity to their work.
fantastic series.
Beaks is a real one.

[Anonymous No.22993815]

>>22993450
>Can you give an example? Doesn't have to be a quote. Just a situation where you think this applies.
Ngl, I was filtered after the first few chapters and it was awhile ago. I recall a bunch of undead rising from the earth, a poorly-described wizard battle between factions, one of which was a floating fortress, and some kind of descent into the Warrens.

The book felt like it wanted to be epic fantasy Game of Thrones, but it lacked GRRM's talent for including historical facts and worldbuilding text into the prose.

[Anonymous No.22993832]

>>22993815
you should have stuck with it.
nothing you're describing is left unexplained.

[Anonymous No.22993928]

>>22993815
Magic and warrens were not well done in book one. All the other stuff gets explained eventually. But it's a big investment to get there.
I think book 1 is worth getting through but it is generally considered to be the worst one. He wrote the second book 10 years after the first.

> including historical facts and worldbuilding text into the prose.
Some background on these would have been a good thing to add into the book. I actually looked up some info on a few things while reading it so I wouldn't be too lost. So I'm with you there.

> The undead
Actually my favorite fantasy race, I wish he had given more info about them at the time.
They're all neanderthals that enacted a ritual 300k years ago to keep them from dying so they could continue their campaign of genocide against a race of super orcs called the Jaghut.
(who are an allegory for the ice age and the pressures placed on humanity during that time).
Only issue is that they missed a few, and so can never find peace.
They follow the emperor cause they saw him as their best shot at redemption

> Floating fortress
It's a big rock that floats. Anomander Rake found it lying around.
It's a small fragment of a floating mountain created by a race of industrial lizards with the social structure of termites or ants

> Wizard battle between factions
The civilized and progressive empire is trying to expand their reach and bring civilization and rule of law to the shitholes of the world.
Rake and some other demigods (essentially) fight against them because they have no place in a civilization that can actually pose a threat to them.

[Anonymous No.22995145]

>>22993928
Alright, I'll give it another shot when I'm finished with Robin Hobb.

[Anonymous No.22995693]

>>22995145
> Hobb
Now that's the series that filtered me. Mushy assassins just don't pull me in.

[Anonymous No.22995705]

>>22993032
This phenomenon of attributing false depth to essentially random information is also seen with movies like Mulholland Drive, which have no cohesive meaning yet are praised for "really makes me think"

I'm with you OP

[Anonymous No.22996676]

>>22993634
>Character development is an afterthought
This was the biggest issue for me. The minor characters like Squint are about as developed as main characters like Whiskeyjack.

[Anonymous No.22996683]

>>22993756
>weight and history and humanity to their work
How is there any weight? 90% of the characters who die just come back from the dead, even minor characters like Hedge.

[Anonymous No.22996902]

>>22993815
Filitered by the seige of pale in like chapter 2? Really anon? Mage casts spell > People die

[Anonymous No.22996932]

I have noticed that not particularly bright middle aged men go wild for this series.

I was filtered around book 4 by the cringe philosophising. I was kept going that far by the guilty appeal of hyperbolic anime-esque power scaling.

It's reads like a fanfic by a teenage male idiot savant. With all the kind of dialogue that that kind of autist would think both deep and realistic.

What's funny is if you read Erikson's social media output, he seems to really believe he's written something of great literary significance.

[Anonymous No.22996942]

Don't worry OP, everything gets explained in time, the joy of the series is watching all the pieces come together to reveal a bog-standard 80's D&D setting.

[Anonymous No.22997718]

>>22996902
>Mage casts spell
There are dozens of characters and it isn't clear who any of them are or why they are killing each other.

[Anonymous No.22997738]

>>22997718
None of the characters in the battle know why either. the empress didn't trust them and wanted to clean house

[Anonymous No.22997750]

>>22996683
He's talking about the world and the history of the world. Not the main cast of characters. The author is an anthropologist and a lot of that leaks into his setting.

[Anonymous No.22997764]

>>22997738
Just because a scene is confusing to the characters doesn't mean it needs to be confusing to the reader. Especially since it is so early in the book we aren’t even sure who the characters are. Imagine if the Red Wedding happened in the first part of the first Asoiaf book.

[Anonymous No.22997808]

>>22995705
This complaint just proves that you got filtered. Pretty much everything that is confusing or not understood in the first book gets thoroughly explored somewhere else in the series.

The complaint you should have is that he introduces too much, too fast and takes too long to give the reader some understanding.

[Anonymous No.22997835]

>>22997764
Good point. Looking back, the first book was a confusing mess. And while it got better after that I always felt like there wasn't enough info until a ways through the series.

I mediated the lack of info by looking at the wiki and trying not to spoil myself too much. But that shouldn't be require.

[Anonymous No.22997962]

>>22993155
I fucking love fromsoftware they've entertained me since i was 11. Thanks miyazaki, very cool.


thank you zanzibart.

[Anonymous No.22998033]

>>22993155
Wtf I love Malazan now

[Anonymous No.22998279]

>>22993155
>more than 2 dozen books
>OMG THEY DONT EXPLAIN ANYTHING!!!11

[Anonymous No.22998712]

>>22998279
2 dozen books and 0 character development.

[Anonymous No.22998881]

>>22993596
Yeah? then what happened with whiskeyjack's sister? Working on esselmont's stuff now if it's explained there since I just finished all of Erikson's works
>tfw no book 3 for the tiste yet due to poor reception and sales

[Anonymous No.22998888]

>>22997718
Well yes but thats literally the start of the story of course you shouldnt know them yet

[Anonymous No.22998896]

>>22997764
>Imagine if the Red Wedding happened in the first part of the first Asoiaf book

As a premise this dosent even sound bad at all

[Anonymous No.22999020]

Spent last hour on my porch reading ch 12 and 13, Gardens of Moon is so good. Use the powerpoint to help

[Anonymous No.22999036]

>>22998888
Checked, but you're also wrong. You need to establish characters before you start killing them off, or else it just becomes pointless bloodshed.

[Anonymous No.22999041]

>>22998896
The Red Wedding worked because they were characters you had gotten to know and were rooting for, the Bridge Burners getting massacred by their own wizard allies is meaningless because you have no idea who they are or why you should be rooting for them.

[Anonymous No.22999058]

>>22999041
It's expanded upon later. You aren't expected to be rooting for the bridge burners, just curious on why it happened

[Anonymous No.22999080]

>>22996902
There's a bunch of characters shooting fire at each other. Who are they? Why are they fighting? Why do I care? Who knows.

>>22996942
IIRC, the books are based on an RPG campaign, so not a shock. GURPS, I believe, which is extremely autistic. So I suppose the author's choice of RPGs and his stories go together.

>>22997808
>you got FILTERED brainlet
>yes you need to read a book that is both boring and nonsensical in order to get to the parts that are interesting and make sense
A good writer wouldn't do that.

>>22998279
>there are twelve books of poorly-written distilled autism
>this is a selling point because

[Anonymous No.22999093]

>>22999058
>It's expanded upon later
That basically sums up the entire series. Even by book ten there isn't much payoff. Just more and more questions about what is going on.

[Anonymous No.22999105]

Malazan is uniquely terrible because it has a ton of exposition but it also doesn't explain much. It really is the worst of both worlds.

[Anonymous No.22999169]

>>22993634
I could not imagine being this much of a retard.

[Anonymous No.22999225]

>>22999169
What did he say that you disagree with? This is /lit/, anon, use your words.

[Anonymous No.22999231]

>>22999105
It's the beginning of the book and beginning of the series, how do you want it to start off?

[Anonymous No.22999240]

>>22999231
Introduce a few characters, establish their histories, personalities, and motivations, and let us see the world from their perspectives. Malazan has so many characters but none of them have any real depth, and the series is constantly referencing historical events the reader knows nothing about and using terminology that means nothing to the reader.

[Anonymous No.22999336]

>>22999080
Really pissed you off with that filtered comment. Also yeah, he wasnt the best author when he made that book 10 years before book 2. It was literally his first ever.

[Anonymous No.22999432]

>>22999336
>It was literally his first ever.
Yeah I could tell lol.

[Anonymous No.22999817]

>>22999041
Ah, there it is
>rooting for
While not anathema, not necessary for a good story. This site is not for minors btw.

[Anonymous No.22999824]

>>22993634
Try reading Pynchon

[Anonymous No.23000522]

>>22999817
>not necessary for a good story
Of course it is. If the characters aren't developed you can't care about them. When Whiskeyjack died in book three it meant nothing to me because even though he was a main character the author had told me nothing about him, or why I should care that he was now dead.

[Anonymous No.23002235]

>>22993634
>No effort is made at the beginning to introduce the reader to the world. He just jumps in, so you have no idea who or what all these people are for half the book.
if he did the opposite and spoonfeed the reader with infodumps and blatant exposition ever two pages you would be complaining about just that
fuck off

[Anonymous No.23002421]

>>23002235
Kill yourself faggot

[Anonymous No.23003172]

>>23002235
>if he did the opposite and spoonfeed the reader
If only there was a middle ground...

[Anonymous No.23003339]

>>22999036
Buuuut no character you should care about dies in that battle. Tattersails boyfriend is the only one of note and the guy who gets cut in half but he survives so its not like anyone of importance dies at the start anyway. Just a bunch of nameless army soldiers.

[Anonymous No.23003641]

>>23000522
I don't like that name at all and don't want to see it in a fantasy world.

[Anonymous No.23003698]

>>23003172
Middle grounds are tricky because no matter in which part of the scale you are not everyone will like it.
Only good solution really is making an annex which separately explains the setting, something like the dictionary at the end of the book in dune for example.

[Anonymous No.23003842]

>>23003698
Just do what BotNS does: he starts with a single character in a single location and when Severian leaves his home he begins gradually introducing new characters, locations, and details about the world. It's like a pyramid where you start at the top. Of course BotNS also has deep characters, which Malazan doesn't have.

[Anonymous No.23003872]

>>23003641
It is a type of bird also known as a Canada Jay.

It was originally some unintelligible abbo word that was anglicized into whiskeyjack.

[Anonymous No.23003894]

>>23003872
Are there Canadian abbos in this story?

[Anonymous No.23003899]

>>23003842
BotNS is shit because all severian does is wander around aimlessly and stumble onto everything he needs to stumble into

[Anonymous No.23003903]

>>23003894
Its a real animal and that's its colloquial name. I was just explaining the origin.
would you prefer if he called real animals by completely made up names?

[Anonymous No.23005684]

>>23003842
Bro everyone complains that botns is unnecessary obscure and hard to get into, not to even mention the fact that the book never talks about having actually a sci-fi setting in disguise.
You could have not choosen a worse example.

[Anonymous No.23006523]

>>23005684
>Bro everyone complains that botns is unnecessary obscure and hard to get into
And yet it is easier to understand than Malazan.
>>23003899
The entire point of the series is that Severian is being manipulated by aliens working behind the scenes.

[Anonymous No.23006576]

>>23005684
>There are people on /lit/ unfavorably comparing Book of the New Sun to Malazan.

[Anonymous No.23007069]

>>23006576
Oh I prefer Wolfe by a landslide, I was just pointing out a popular complaint.

[Anonymous No.23008331]

>>22993155
this is a borderlands writer and he was actually not being sarcastic, he liked this style of storytelling. anti zanzibart faggots eternally btfo, age of forgiveness is here to stay

[Anonymous No.23008629]

>>22996683
Why do you say this lie every thread? Even if it wasn't a lie, thinking people coming back from the dead detracts from the weight of the series is a personal illus you have with it, not a flaw of the series.

[Anonymous No.23008759]

>>23006523
Oh no. My baseless complaint as someone who got filtered by the series has been refuted by someone who actually finished it.
I cannot think of an adequate reply so I will instead say that the series has bad prose.
Also If the series was good then why was I so confused when reading it? Checkmate.

I will now reinforce my points by calling you a racial slur. You illiterate porch monkey.

[Anonymous No.23008767]

>entire anime is a list of characters with dialogues and interactions obliquely referencing events that are not explained to the viewer
>"THE WORLDBUILDING IS SO DEEP" - midwits

[Anonymous No.23008985]

>>23008759
literally me

[Anonymous No.23009065]

>Hairlock
>Whiskeyjack

Actual character names

[Anonymous No.23010022]

>>23009065
gives identity, and afaik those are pseudonyms nicknames and earned titles. One Arm Dujek wasn't born that way. There are better more valid complaints

[Anonymous No.23010029]

Every scene with Anomander Rake, Son of Darkness and wielder of Dragnipur sword of souls, demands presence. Eriksson knows how to hype a character I literally smile every time he's on page and I'm gardensofmoon kobo anon

[Anonymous No.23010053]

>>23010029
The writing doesn't back up how strong and ancient many of the characters are said to be. Rake is 100000 years old. He should be totally alien, not just a mopey superhero.

[Anonymous No.23010068]

>>23010053
>100000 years old. He should be totally alien
kinda agree, that's usually how giga ancient beings are depcited. I'm early so idk, I also think the Tiste Andii race are aliens maybe. But maybe having ancient super old age and knowledge is WHY he has his personality - he chooses to act a way despite supposed to act dignified in his position. Even that is a character trait right?

[Anonymous No.23010203]

>>23010053
The reason he isn't totally alien is because he hasn't been total isolation for the last 100k years. He's been out and about, engaging with the world for all that time.

Also he has to be somewhat personable since he's the leader of his race. If it weren't for him they'd have all killed themselves.

[Anonymous No.23010361]

>>23010203
100,000 years is far too long for him to be acting like a melancholic 40 year old general. Its a stupidly long amount of time for anything to exist, let alone a mind that inexplicably acts totally human. Its just a carelessly large number thrown in without any consideration as to how silly it is. Malazan is like that; all spectacle (superwizards and superhumans and super fantasy races) without any substance or sense to ground it. Because of that it all just becomes "please think this is badass" samey mush.

For some reason you've got armies of poor fuckers with swords and shields (50/50 split on gender tho) and teleporting demigods zipping around exploding mountains or preforming herculean feats of physical prowess - all with an edgy layer of bland philosophising. But they all think and talk and act so similar it gets nonsensical to read.

[Anonymous No.23010472]

>>23010053
>Rake is 100000 years old. He should be totally alien, not just a mopey superhero.

You know this because your familiar with a lot of people who are that old or what? You have no basis to argue this on in reality, since no one actually lives that long. Who is to say thats how he should be?

[Anonymous No.23010525]

>>23010472
A mind that could hold 1000 times the experience of a human one would be fundamentally different. Mesopotamia to the modern world is 6% of Rake's age. Clay tablets to supercomputers, times ten, is still way younger than Rake. Still acts like a regular lord but hes a bit dour. Its just a big number for a big numbers sake.

[Anonymous No.23010863]

>>23010361
>>23010525

The tiste andii are not humans that live a long time. And the reason that they're depressed isn't because they've been alive for too long. They aren't elves.

>Then why do the non-humans act so much like humans.
That's a complaint you can levy against like 90% of fantasy races. And while it's a fair criticism, it's hardly one that ruins the story. The other races in malazan are far more non-human. And they get a lot of exploration in the latter books.

The numbers thrown around aren't for big numbers sake either. Erikson is an anthropologist, and Esslemont is an archeologist. Those big numbers are consequences of their desire to have humans evolve from homo-erectus to neanderthals T'lan imass and modern humans. You can see the influence their education and interest in the history of humanity and its cultures had on the creation of the setting.

[Anonymous No.23011166]

>>22993032
>no omniscient info dumps to help me understand things like in Sanderson
>all these characters just talking about stuff
>I'd have to pay attention and use my mind to figure things out
>I guess there's just no wordl building
I literally never say this but filtered.

[Anonymous No.23011875]

>>23010863
>That's a complaint you can levy against like 90% of fantasy races.
No, because most fantasy doesn't have characters who are 20 times older than clay tablets walking around. Such things are just de facto absurd unless a lot of effort is put into justifying them. If he were a couple thousand years old it wouldn't be so silly.

The point being that characters are basically paper figures for epic powers to be tacked onto.
>Rake is 7ft tall and superhumanly strong, he can move faster than a man can see, and he is a super wizard and is one hundred thousand years old and he has a super sword that can kill gods and is too heavy for anyone but him to lift and and and and
>Whats he LIKE? Well, err, he is stoic... and badass... cool... err...

You don't need old characters to examine past societies either.

For a gigantic fantasy epic you'd figure there would be some epic, larger than life characters. There aren't really, or at least weren't in the first two books I read. A good way of describing it would be LItrpg but with the numbers described in purple prose.

[Anonymous No.23012595]

>>23011166
>I'd have to pay attention and use my mind to figure things out
The only thing there is to figure out is what the gibberish words mean. Once you understand that Tiste Andii are just elves, Eleint are just dragons, T'lan Imass are just liches, etc the books go from confusing to annoying, because it's just a pretentious D&D setting with nothing interesting or creative.

[Anonymous No.23012604]

>>23011875
I remember being really confused when Rake turned into a dragon in book one because I'm almost certain it was never clarified that he could do that, or how he could do it.

[Anonymous No.23012626]

>>23012604
I'm reading Gardens of Moon rn and while you spoiled that for me I am 60% done and he has been referred to as "the dragon" multiple times, and Moon's Spawn "housing 5 black dragons" (iirc) was an obvious wait how and where tf are the dragons. Well they shapeshift.. I guess? Like I said you spoiled that for me not there yet. Writing all this to literally prove you wrong and say that it doesn't surprise me at all that Rake was Dragon. A testament.

[Anonymous No.23012643]

>>23012626
But is he literally a dragon? Is he able to shapeshift because he is a wizard? Can all elves shapeshift into dragons? It's explained several books later but it is pretty bizarre when it happens.

[Anonymous No.23012647]

>>23012604
you discover why he can turn into a dragon much later in the series. He and several other tiste devoured a dragon and gained the ability to become one. They also became ambitious and arrogant assholes. The more he transforms the more likely he'll just try to take over the world

[Anonymous No.23012653]

>>23011166
>book is mid prose with a dozen characters lacking discernable personalities dialoguing with one another obliquely referencing events without any reason for the reader to care about them
>"heh you just need to use your brain" - anon who confuses disinterest with befuddlement

[Anonymous No.23012656]

>>23012647
I know, I read until book 9 before giving up. I just mean that it is very confusing in book 1.

[Anonymous No.23012665]

>>23012595
you never made it past book 1 or 2 and it tells

[Anonymous No.23012680]

>>23012665
I wish I'd stopped at book 2, it was probably the best one. When Hood and Rake died in book 9 I decided there wasn't much point in reading further, so I quit.

[Anonymous No.23012686]

>>23012680
Book 8, not 9. Whatever.

[Anonymous No.23012693]

>did I lie? was I telling the truth? OoOoooOoOOO.... I'm Holden Caulfield..... in space!
dogshit books

[Anonymous No.23012719]

>>23011875
>characters bad
>characters bad
>characters bad
>characters bad
I get it. you don't like the characterization. What are a couple books that you would consider to have good character

[Anonymous No.23013252]

>>23012595
Book 3 makes you fall in love with the Imass, and one of Esslemont's side story makes you hate them. The Andii never stops being annoying though.

[Anonymous No.23013320]

>>23012643
It's not bizarre unless you're an exposition crybaby. You should be able to piece together the basic reasoning by book 2.

[Anonymous No.23013738]

>>23000522
You must be 18 to post here.

[Anonymous No.23013740]

>>23012719
He already mentioned his love of GRRM.

[Anonymous No.23013769]

>>22999041
That's a bad example that can only be fueled by you viewing the series through the HBO adaptation. George tells his story in a comparable anecdotal manner no I'm not saying it's the same. You, as a reader, don't spend that much time in A Song of Ice and Fire with anyone who is killed at the Red Wedding with the notable exception of Catelyn. And don't misunderstand me. This is not criticism of the storytelling.

[Anonymous No.23013783]

>>22993032
Malazan is meant as a literary simulation of being trapped in the break room with a nerdy coworker going on about the "most crazy and epic" DnD campaign he ever had. While Erikson inundates with references and parlance you don't understand, in the back of your mind you're suppose to be thinking of a polite way to excuse yourself from the conversation.

[Anonymous No.23013910]

>>23012719
>you don't like the characterization
What characterization? Every single character is either a stoic badass (Rake, Karsa, Brood) or a snarky goofball (Kruppa, Tehol, Bugg). Those are the only two templates for characters.

[Anonymous No.23014163]

>>23013769
>You, as a reader, don't spend that much time in A Song of Ice and Fire with anyone who is killed at the Red Wedding
Robb is the only main character killed at the Red Wedding, but you still spend an entire book with the Starks, which is a book more than you spend with the Bridge Burners. Furthermore the Starks want to avenge Ned's death, which makes them likable because they have a sympathetic motive. The Bridge Burners are never likable because they are soldiers working for a tyrannical empire.

[Anonymous No.23014170]

>>23013769
>You, as a reader, don't spend that much time in A Song of Ice and Fire with anyone who is killed at the Red Wedding
Robb is the only main character killed at the Red Wedding, but you still spend an entire book with the Starks, which is a book more than you spend with the Bridge Burners. Furthermore the Starks want to avenge Ned's death, which makes them likable because they have a sympathetic motive. The Bridge Burners are never likable because they are soldiers working for a tyrannical empire.

[Anonymous No.23014176]

>You, as a reader, don't spend that much time in A Song of Ice and Fire with anyone who is killed at the Red Wedding
Robb is the only main character killed at the Red Wedding, but you still spend an entire book with the Starks, which is a book more than you spend with the Bridge Burners. Furthermore the Starks want to avenge Ned's death, which makes them likable because they have a sympathetic motive. The Bridge Burners are never likable because they are soldiers working for a tyrannical empire.

[Anonymous No.23014179]

>You, as a reader, don't spend that much time in A Song of Ice and Fire with anyone who is killed at the Red Wedding
Robb is the only main character killed at the Red Wedding, but you still spend an entire book with the Starks, which is a book more than you spend with the Bridge Burners. Furthermore the Starks want to avenge Ned's death, which makes them likable because they have a sympathetic motive. The Bridge Burners are never likable because they are soldiers working for a tyrannical empire.

[Anonymous No.23014193]

>>23013910
> character bad
When you can only keep track of the most basic traits I guess it would seem that way

[Anonymous No.23014219]

>>23013910
Karsa and brood?
brood shows up like twice in the series. And I dont know what you read to make you think karsa is stoik. If you're going to boil him down to one or two character traits it would be angry and cruel

[Anonymous No.23014222]

>>23014193
In book one the Whiskeyjack's crew are literally planting IEDs on a public street and planning on massacring innocent civilians. That's pretty extreme for protagonists.

[Anonymous No.23014239]

>>23014222
Did you mean to reply to me?
Also when karsa is introduced he commits a bit of genocide and rape to kick off his journey

[Anonymous No.23014277]

>>23012719
Traitor Son is good. Its similar to malazan in that its got quite a bit of battlefield magic and focuses a lot on war. But the characters are immediately interesting, instead of never being interesting throughout the entire novel.

[Anonymous No.23014284]

>>23014277
Agree to disagree. But I'll take a look at it

[Anonymous No.23014391]

>>23014239
Karsa is obviously meant to be an unsympathetic character at first, Whiskeyjack and his friends are meant to be likable even though they are terrible people.

[Anonymous No.23014402]

>>23014193
Which characters do you feel have any depth?

[Anonymous No.23014436]

>>23014402
Tool, felisin, toc the younger, and karsa to name a few.
Though it's hard to tell what you consider to be depth or not. There are lots of characters with long histories or interesting motivations. but you probably don't consider that depth since it isn't spelled out

[Anonymous No.23014693]

>>23012719
NTA, I was going to make a jokepost about Sanderson's characters, but I think GURM, Bakker, and Hobb all write fairly good characters for their genre.

>>23014436
>motivations and histories aren't revealed through the text, instead they are all on 20 page backstories submitted to the GM before the game
The audience is not the problem here.

[Anonymous No.23014704]

>>23014436
How is Karsa deep? He's a violent thug that gradually realizes that rape and murder isn't nice. Not exactly profound.

[Anonymous No.23014776]

Plutarch said in Parallel Lives "The most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men; sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations, than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever."

That sums up why Malazan is such a bad series. It's about the exploits of these powerful heroes, but they have the thinnest characterization imaginable, which makes all of their exploits boring.

[Anonymous No.23014787]

>>23014693
Of course they're revealed in the text. Where else would you get them from?

[Anonymous No.23014797]

>>23014787
NTA but we learn almost nothing about most characters in this series. Malazan "backstories" are usually just vague references to a character's exploits from years ago.

[Anonymous No.23014807]

The worst thing about the Malzan series is that characters never stay dead. If a character dies you can pretty safely assume they're coming back to life within a few chapters.

[Anonymous No.23014855]

>>23014776
If you think that quote doesn't perfectly describe why Malazan is good, you should maybe try reading them with your eyes open next time.

[Anonymous No.23014937]

>>23014855
The series is almost nonstop action. You rarely see characters talking about what they believe in or why they believe what they believe. Everyone is either killing people or making vague references to times in the past when they killed people.

[Anonymous No.23014966]

>>22993032
I stalled out somewhere about a third through book ten of the Fallen series. It just got so slow and boring, the characters were all waxing poetic, even the characters who never had. Terrible pacing. Too much pretentious bullshit. For a grand finale book, it just kinda sucks
Thats not to say this series overall is bad. I mean I'm not a good reader, but I stuck with it through 9 other books. Honestly, the first four books are great (maybe book 5 too?), and then 7 and 8 are also pretty solid
But geeze, this last book is a slog. I'd like to finish plowing through it someday just to see it through, but I won't be reading any of the companion series

>>22993634
yeah, I hate how sometimes he just doesn't explain anything, or how some characters never elaborate on stuff because they're supposed to be "le mysterious"
>>22998888
ch-ch-checked
>>23010029
he's definitely one of the most memorable characters. him, tool, and ben
>>23014436
Forgot Toc, he's a good character too. But I wasn't a fan of Karsa. One of the only things I can remember from him was when he was reaming out his fuckbuddy over soap, like "you like soap? but what about the poor soapmakers! silly capitalist pawn." Maybe that's overembellishing it, but I remember rolling my eyes and going "really?"

[Anonymous No.23014982]

>>23014937
> I want my fantasy to be a bunch of characters sitting around talking to each other about their beliefs.

You know people generally read fantasy for entertainment right?

Anyway there is absolutely some of that characters talking to each other about why they hold their beliefs. Off the top of my head there's lostara yil talking about why the red blades are so loyal to the empire. And again with coltaine or someone explaining why they allied with the emperor. And I think those were both in the same book

[Anonymous No.23015044]

>>23014937
Oh so you are literally just confusing Malazan with some other series. That makes sense. "People talking" is like 75% of what goes on in most of the books. "Too much talking not enough action" is literally one of the most common complaints when people discuss it.

[Anonymous No.23015053]

>>23014982
>>23015044
I suppose it depends on what fiction you read but compared to Book of the New Sun or A Song of Ice and Fire Malazan is far faster paced.

[Anonymous No.23015078]

>>23014982
Coltaine and Lostara Yil are both minor characters, especially Coltaine. How much does Malazan ever explain about Rake, Quick Ben, Dancer, Fiddler, etc? They're practically just cardboard cutouts.

[Anonymous No.23015167]

>>23015078
Those were just two examples of people literally talking to each other about their beliefs.

Quick Ben and fiddler are loyal to the people they fought alongside, I guess you could say that isn't much of an explanation.
Rake has two entire books going over his history and origins. And dancer has another 4 books.
So your complaint is more about how none of this is included in the main series. But the whole "alluding to a deeper mystery" trope is a common one that you either like or hate.

[Anonymous No.23015275]

>>23015053
good to know becasue i just started Maza, and I also started New sun and I like both, so if ppl are saying either is slow paced, I guess ill be fine as it seems decent to me so far and not too bad

[Anonymous No.23015343]

agreed op. I think I will stick with the patrician's high fantasy, the clear top choice for the elite and ascended

[Anonymous No.23015761]

>>23015167
>But the whole "alluding to a deeper mystery" trope is a common one that you either like or hate.
The difference being there is other stuff to substitute it. In malazan someone is either a bland nobody or a superspecial Coldsteel the edgehog type character.

Its like the meme where there are 50 Aragorns all trying to cram themselves into the same mysterious and badass corner.

[Anonymous No.23015815]

>>23015761
Don't forget the 50 identical girlboss characters.

[Anonymous No.23016458]

>>23015761
>The difference being there is other stuff to substitute it
No there isn't that's why it pisses some people off

[Anonymous No.23017006]

This sums up my opinion of Malazan and its fans.