Kevin's Watch

Man oh man!!! I guess I need to order it now! Not sure I can wait until January for US release!

do NOT, i repeat, DO NOT go to the malazan board and read any spoilers.

i warn you. don't do it.

my copy is on its way from the uk. woot!

ps. i love how somebody over there started calling CG "the Crippled Sod"!!!

I'm not going anywhere *near* the Malazan board for the forseeable future.

lucimay wrote:ps. i love how somebody over there started calling CG "the Crippled Sod"!!!

That's excellent!

Sorry for the double-post. I just had to tell y'all...mine just got here. It's shiny. And it's dedicated to SRD.

I won't say any more.

oooooo!!! i got cold chills! (i have no idea why)!! mine came today!! woot!!


in fact, the UPS man woke me up! and a few minutes later jenn called to see if she could bring her new mac upstairs and piggy on my comcast!
the UPS man woke her up too! YAY!!

So didja read the Author's Note? Yeesh... As long as he doesn't do a GRRM, I guess I can allow the guy a cliffhanger for this book....

Which reminds me -- why am I here? Why aren't I reading??

Double-post, sorry. Finished it last night. All I can say is, "Wow."

I see what you meant, Luci, when you said that this book has ended re-reads for you. The last 30 pages were an amazing ride. I was in the midst of it when my train got to the station last night; I didn't even drive home, just sat in the car and finished the book!

yeah its such a freakin cliff-hanger there's just no way to go backward now, huh.

arg. gonna be a long wait till next book. think Dances with Dragons will be published in the meantime? that'd be good huh!

so Badalle was the single most interesting thing to me in this book.
i have always admired (greatly) erikson's poetry (at the beginnings
of the chapters) and to finally (not counting Fisher's apprearance or Toc)
have an actual poet spouting poetry throughout the book, i just loved it.
amazing poems too. gut-punchers.

but i really really don't understand who all those kids are or even exactly
where they are or where they came from. are they the children of the Elan? that would make sense.
but like, sinn and grub are...what, their high priests? ascendants?
theres a connection to sinn and grub, right? or am i mis-reading that?
oh yeah and...

Spoiler

is Held a "real" baby?

also, can't really figure out who is dead and who is not.

It would be nice if the ribby snake kids *were* kids of the Elan -- would make Kaldyth (sp?) feel better to not be the only Elan left -- but I think they're from a different civilization (Kolanse, maybe?) as I hadn't heard the names of the folks chasing them in connection with anything else and Kaldyth didn't ever mention them. At first I thought the kids were Letherii, but now I'm not so sure. I like your theory that Sinn and Grub are their gods, tho. And yes, Badalle's poetry rocks!

Spoiler

Hard to believe that Held is a real baby -- or if he is, that he's still alive. I think an infant would be among the first to die, crossing that desert. But hmm, if he's not a real baby, then what is he?

Who's dead and who's not: you mean at the end of the book? I think that's deliberate on Erikson's part.

Spoiler

I can't remember exactly what a Finnest does -- it doesn't just create an Azath, does it? It holds a person's soul too, right? So Icarium's not gone for good, right? Oh, and wasn't it cool to see Whiskeyjack and Dujek again! I *knew* those guys weren't gone forever! And jeez, the K'Chain Che'Malle as *allies* of humanity???

The last book is gonna rock. That's all I can say.

please dont read these spoilers Onos, k? just go read the book first sweetie. please.

Spoiler

oh YEAH i freakin loved the k'chain che'malle guys! the assassin was freakin unNERVing huh! i dig it that they're now allies. i thought something like that might be in the offing because mortals are gonna
need all the help they can GET down the road i'm guessing! and all this time erikson has sort of been painting the k'chain as sort of "bad guys" or at least fairly destructive, whereas the Forkrul Assail were painted in a sort of more "good guy" type...interesting that in DoD we find out that, in fact, the FA seem very ominously "bad". sort of like how you can't really tell if the T'lann Imass are good guys now or bad guys (i mean, wtf Tool???) and i was thinking the Jhag were sort of the bad guys but now they seem exactly to be victims of Imass arrogance.

and for the pantheoners...

Spoiler

this "world ending" stuff has a familiar ring, don't it!!!!!!

What you said about

Spoiler

the Jaghut and the Imass. The Imass are sure sounding like jerks, huh?

I remember in some earlier book -- gods alone know which one -- about the Short Noses being way worse than the Che'Malle. But jeez, the thing about them becoming allies of the humans seriously caught me out...

C'mon, the rest of youse guys, hurry up and read this darn book so we can dispense with the spoilers!

I'm not going to read this thread because I don't want to know, and what I'm about to say is probably going to sound either too obvious or too stupid to those who've finished.

I just read the scene where Kalyth is given the vision of the Otataral Dragon, and is told about the whole system of opposing forces, and her pronouncement to the K'Chain CheMalle with her... and oh, god, they're going to end up worshipping the Bonehunters!

well i wouldn't say "worship" exactly!!

Just going off what that one paragraph of speech gave me.

'Somewhere, out there, you will find the purest essence of that philosophy. Perhaps in one person, perhaps in ten thousand. Looking to no other entity, no other force, no other will. Bound solely in comradeship, loyalty honed absolute. Yet devoid of all arrogance. Wise in humility. And that one, or ten thousand, is on a path. Unerring, it readies itself, not to shake a fist at the heavens. But to lift a lone hand, a hand filled with tears.' She found she was glaring at the giant reptiles. 'You want a faith? You want someone or something to believe in? No, do not worship the one or the ten thousand. Worship the sacrifice they will make, for they make it in the name of compassion - the only cause worth fighting and dying for.'

Well that just screamed out at me as being a description of the Bonehunters (a little too close to the truth, really, for someone to just come up with out of nowhere - a minor complaint of Erikson's plotting, preternatural insight coming out of supposedly ordinary and uninformed people's mouths). Given my history reading Erikson and Donaldson, it's only natural that I assumed the K'Chain CheMalle would misinterpret her and take it way too far (cf. The Masters).

Auugh. I've started a spoilered response twice now, but I'm not even sure I should go *that* far. Do I or don't I? Do I or don't I?

No need, I'll find out soon enough.

yeah ali, let him read it. heh.

okay as soon as i'm finished with Spook Country (wm gibson) i'll start on my reread of dod. heh.

Well, I can't read anything here yet. But ali sent me DoD, so I've begun! 120 pages in so far. It's gonna be a long read, because these old eyes need reading glasses. Some very cool stuff so far. Nice job Fid did with the deck, eh?

An amazing reading, wasn't it? Has Fid ascended, do you think?

they all do, don't they?