I think he needs to get cutesy and have tons of comic relief for what he portrays, otherwise his readers might get too depressed to go on (not me, but I'm not all readers...yet). I've never read any Eddings, so I don't know about that... he seems to like crazy characters though like Kruppe and that Shadow Priest guy w/ his D'ivers wife.Horrim Carabal wrote:I love Erikson, with a few caveats.
1) He can get too cutesy.
2) He's in love with some of his characters and it shows, in a decidedly Eddings-like way. That's not a good thing in my book.
3) He throws the reader to the wolves, and dares you to keep treading water until you can figure out what the heck is going on sometimes.
4) A little too much comic relief at times.
But I love the Malazan books, which I most likely would never have read except for SRD's recommendation.
I loved the beginning of Toll The Hounds...the prologue that ends with "and witness!" Great writing.
And being thrown to the wolves is one of the things I like most about this series