Kevin's Watch

I agree with an earlier post by Stonemaybe. I have to say that, though I am an incredible fan of Erikson, Toll the Hounds was not that good. I felt so dissapointed about so much. Every plot line in the book either ended up seeming pointless, boring, or biult up and then flopped over to die. Especially the Traveller story-arc and the whole things with the Hounds of Light.

Erikson is still my favorite writer I'd have to say, I mean books 2-6 absolutely blew my mind with awesomeness (7 and 1 still blew my mind in the end, just not as easily)...but I'm not sure how much longer I'll be saying that after Toll the Hounds.



Maybe the next two will bring the series back up again...

I just finished it (I'm late, I know), and I'm kinda feeling the same way as I did after reading Reaper's Gale: 80% of the book is walking and talking, and the last 20% is awesome action. In RG the whole Clip thing was just talk, talk talk and half of it I didn't get. Then this book again! But I must admit when Rake decapitated Hood my heart skipped a beat. Wait, what? Let's read that sentence again.

heh.

yeah i'm in the ever-thang-he-writes-is-gold camp myself spiral.
i'm sure there's some stylistic bias sort of reason for that
but nonetheless, i like all that stuff that was annoying to some of
you in those particular books. i particularly enjoyed (as i was
reminded of recently in another thread) riding around inside Corab's
head myself, and i always enjoy riding around in Fid's head too.

having begun reading for consecutive threads in this series (went from TtH back to MoI then back into TtH to get the capustan thread/events clear for myself - gruntle and stonny and harllo, paran, matron, bastion, etc and such) all that walking and talking is invaluable! heh.


my feeling on the clip stuff is that its a character that, in fact, didn't really work for either erikson or esselmont. i think they didn't like him anymore that the rest of us! so he got cut...er....clipped, as it were.

Clip was in Esselmont? Hmm.

(I do think his changes in TtH were a deliberate undermining of the established character, mind you. They set him up to confront Anomander and then pulled the rug out from under him.)

lucimay wrote:yeah i'm in the ever-thang-he-writes-is-gold camp myself spiral.
i'm sure there's some stylistic bias sort of reason for that
but nonetheless, i like all that stuff that was annoying to some of
you in those particular books.

Yep, same here. I've veeeeeeery seldom hung onto every single word the way I do with Malazan. I did on later readings of TCTC, but my first time through LFB was difficult. At least for the first couple hundred pages. But GotM had me hooked from the intro. And I've definitely never devoured even half as many pages of anything else as fast as I've read Books 1-8 plus RotCG.

About 300 pages into Toll the Hounds.

Loved the exchange between Gothos and Kallor.

"I greet you as guests and so will not crush the life from you and devour your souls with peals of laughter. No, instead, I will make some tea."
...
Skintick squatted to pick up two of the cups, straightening to hand one to Nimander.The steam rising from the tea was heady, hinting of mint and cloves and something else. The taste numbed his tongue.

"Where is mine?" Kallor demanded. "If I must listen to this creature I will drink his tea."

-----

Some of it is difficult and convoluted reading. Is Kruppe narrating parts of this book?

Indeed he is. His is the unifying voice that ties it all together thematically, though really it tends to come and go in bits and pieces.

Did I ever post in this thread? TtH blew my mind.

Serious spoiler:

Spoiler

Anomander!!

--A

Yeah, it's an incredibly powerful book!!

Spoiler

Yup!

Spoiler

i know, huh! better yet...HOOD!

and who was it that witnessed that whole scene again...oh yeah,
samar and karsa!!

well Av, there aren't many answers to this scene in DoD so here's
hoping that TCG will be the tying up of loose ends to beat all tying
up of loose ends.

i have not gone to the malazan forum to peek at their analysis and
theories since before i read DoD.

i just don't really know how all the loose ends can be tied up in one
last book.


list of explanations i need:

how much of what has occurred with the Bridgeburners
was planned by Laseen and what was it she was hoping
to accomplish - that's still never been made clear

who WAS T'amber?

where is kalam?

was the entire point of this whole series really to do with Shadowthrone
and Cotillion? (their's was the very first story thread in GotM) and was
their only motivations revenge against laseen? (to destroy the empire
that she did not deserve to rule)

karsa? (you will be needed. for what? to kill a god)

seren pedec and trull's kid?

silchas ruin and rud ellale (or however you spell that, or whatever
silchas is calling him now)

is Toc's story really over and done with?

tool? *sniffle*

paran and the deck of dragons and its import in all that has transpired?

silverfox?

is nimandar's storyline done?

gruntle? not to mention harllo and that t'lan imass he discovered?

Apsal'ara (go with my blessing. where? you will know soon enough.)

and speaking of Apsalar and Cutter?

not to mention all the NEW questions generated by DoD.

arg. one book?

Yeah. Wow. I foresee some fancy Erikson footwork....

Hey, I just did the math -- so TCG and AATE are coming out in the same year? Not to mention the final Harry Potter movie? 2010 is gonna rock!

Started my re-read of TtH yesterday. Only the second time I'm reading it, so will doubtless notice plenty of stuff I missed before.

--A

I wonder how much I'd be willing to pay to be able to read as fast as you do.

Reapers Gale took long this time round (by my standards). It's always a juggling act between reading, internet and computer games.

--A

I took a short break from my re-read, to read Stoneweilder, and Crack'd Pot Trail, now Im ready to begin Toll the Hounds. Again.

And on to Toll The Hounds.

--A

Wow, he sure does jump around a lot in this one. Some incredible stuff, but yeah...some stuff that didn't really matter too.

I forgot about Murrilio when we were talking about people dying in the other thread...damn, that sucked.

Anyway, couple hundred pages into StoneWielder now...

--A

I stalled in this one , I guess that's acceptable during the re-read , but I went through at least a 2 week period where I didn't read at all. I'm back at it now , but slower. I have time because I know how this ends.

Not far in, so not reading through the thread as I usually do. Just a question: it's recently been revealed that Traveller is in fact Dassem Ultor. Cool! But, I thought, at the end of RoTC, that

Spoiler

it was Dassem who showed up out of nowhere to duel Skinner. But I made no connection at the time between him and Traveller. Was it him, and Esselmont intentionally kept it enigmatic? Or was it someone else?

Also, I got the suspicion from somewhere that the god Dessembrae was an ascended Dassem Ultor. Was I just flat out wrong in this?

It was him, and he was being enigmatic. And yes, he's Dessembrae too. Murrin is better at explaining it.

--A