Deadhouse Gates [Spoilers]

[aliantha]

Dear gods, does that mean Erikson will eventually write a sequel to this 10-book series????

(edited to write the right "write" )

[Holsety]

Well...it might be Iacamessle who writes it in the end; going by NOK, it seems like the series (6 books) he's on now takes place before the malazan book of the fallen, but maybe he'll move further forward or write another series.

Truth be told, the malazan books are the first where I might not mind a seemingly never ending train of novels and sub series.

[Fist and Faith]

I'm definitely getting more out of my re-read. Alas, I'm very bad with landscapes. He describes the land, and who's battling where, who's heading in which direction, and I'm usuallly lost. Frustrating. I SO want to have a clear idea of everything Coltaine does! *sigh*

[Holsety]

I can visualize most of the individual battles (especially the one w/ the river, sappers, bridge thingy, etc) but I have no grasp of 7 cities geography. I have the general idea of Genabackis, and I think I have lether down pat.

Is genabaris a separate continent?

[I'm Murrin]

Genabaris is a city (and probably region) in northern Genabackis. One of the first places on that continent that the Malazans conquered, IIRC.

[Fist and Faith]

Immediately after the battle:

Duiker sank to his knees, suddenly overwhelmed, his emotions a cauldron of grief, anger and horror. Speak not of victory this day. No, do not speak at all

Someone stumbled onto the bank, breath ragged. Footsteps dragged closer, then a gauntleted hand fell heavily on the historian's shoulder. A voice that Duiker struggled to identify spoke. "They mock our nobleborn, did you know that, old man? They've a name for us in Dhebral. You know what it translates into? The Chain of Dogs. Coltaine's Chain of Dogs. He leads, yet is led, he strains forward, yet is held back, he bares his fangs, yet what nips at his heels if not those he is sworn to protect? Ah, there's profundity in such names, don't you think?"

The voice was Lull's, yet altered. Duiker raised his head and stared into the face of the man crouched beside him. A single blue eye glittered from a ravaged mass of torn flesh. A mace had caught him a solid blow, driving the cheek guard into his face, shattering cheek, bursting one eye and tearing away the captain's nose. The horrifying ruin that was Lull's face twisted into something like a grin. "I'm a lucky man, Historian. Look, not a single tooth knocked out - not even a wobble."

Pust mentioned the phrase Chain of Dogs. Now we learn what it is. The name of a march whose nobility and horror are unsurpassed in fiction. Only rl examples, like the Cherokee Trail of Tears, can be more moving.


Then we are given this...

The count of losses was a numbing litany to war's futility. To the historian's mind, only Hood himself could smile in triumph.

The Weasel Clan has awaited the Tithansi lancers and the godling commander who led them. An ambush by earth spirits had taken the Semk warleader down, tearing his flesh to pieces in their hunger to rip apart and devour the Semk god's remnant. Then the Weasel Clan had sprung their own trap, and it had held its own horror, for the refugees had been the bait, and hundreds had been killed or wounded in the trap's clinical, cold-blooded execution.

The Weasel Clan's warleaders could claim that they had been outnumbered four to one, that some among those they were sworn to protect had been sacrificed to save the rest. All true, and providing a defensible justification for what they did. Yet the warleaders said nothing, and though that silence was met with outrage by the refugees and especially by the Council of Nobles, Duiker saw it in a different light. The Wickan tribe held voiced reasons and excuses in contempt - they accepted none from others and were derisive of those who tried. And in turn, they offered none, because, Duiker suspected, they held those who were sacrificed - and their kin - in a respect that could not survive something so base and self-serving as its utterance.

It was unfortunate for them that the refugees understood none of this, that for them the Wickans' silence was in itself an expression of contempt, a disdain for the lives lost.

The Weasel Clan had, however, offered yet another salute to those refugees who had died. With the slaughter of the Tithansi archers in the basin added to the Weasel Clan's actions, an entire plains tribe had effectively ceased to exist. The Wickans' retribution had been absolute. Nor had they stopped there, for they had found Kamist's army, arriving late to the battle from the east. The slaughter exacted there was a graphic revelation of the fate the Tithansi sought to inflict on the Malazans. This lesson, too, was lost on the refugees.

For all that scholars tried, Duiker knew there was no explanation possible for the dark currents of human thought that roiled in the wake of bloodshed. He need only look upon his own reaction, when stumbling down to where Nil and Nether stood, their hands gummed with congealing sweat and blood on the flanks of a mare standing dead. Life forces were powerful, almost beyond comprehension, and the sacrifice of one animal to gift close to five thousand others with appalling strength and force of will was on the face of it worthy and noble.

If not for a dumb beast's incomprehension at its own desturction beneath the loving hands of two heartbroken children.

I'd dearly love to find better writing anywhere.

[Fist and Faith]

Between moving and FR, my reread took a while. But I finished yesterday. I'm amazed at the thought that I said MoI is my favorite of the four I've read. How anything can surpass DG in any way is beyond me. The length of time it takes the Chain of Dogs to get from Hissar to Aren and the things they go through throughout the journey; the descriptions of everyone's states of mind at different stages (OMG, ending with some simply sitting down on Aren Way in sight of the walls!!); the horror of the soldiers standing on the walls, not permitted to go out and help; the unbelievable courage and skill of the Wickans and the Seventh...

To say nothing of Kalam; Fiddler, Mappo, Icarium, Apsalar, and Crokus; Felesin, Heboric, Baudin, and Kulp...

And I like MoI more??? Wow, I can't wait!

[lucimay]

i know fist. i finished my re-read of GoTM and stopped there. i simply didn't think i was ready to go through DG again yet.

[lucimay]

and i'm still not ready, but i'm doing it anyway.

god...i totally forgot the first couple of paragraphs!!!! mannnnn.

i was on the bus when i started reading. i read the dedication, then looked at the maps, then started reading.
i noticed an older woman next to me looking at my book. the dedication is nice and big. its a trade paperback so i figured she was reading as i did.
then i read the first couple of paragraphs. the priest of Hood, if you'll remember...and the flies. heh.

suddenly i heard the woman next to me on the bus gasp! and she said "oh my god" softly and i look up. she's been reading along too! she was looking horrified first at me and then at the book.
then she MOVED over and put a seat between us!!!

yeah. first few paragraphs of DG. freakin Heboric and Felisin. arg.

[stonemaybe]

and i'm still not ready, but i'm doing it anyway.

god...i totally forgot the first couple of paragraphs!!!! mannnnn.

i was on the bus when i started reading. i read the dedication, then looked at the maps, then started reading.
i noticed an older woman next to me looking at my book. the dedication is nice and big. its a trade paperback so i figured she was reading as i did.
then i read the first couple of paragraphs. the priest of Hood, if you'll remember...and the flies. heh.

suddenly i heard the woman next to me on the bus gasp! and she said "oh my god" softly and i look up. she's been reading along too! she was looking horrified first at me and then at the book.
then she MOVED over and put a seat between us!!!

yeah. first few paragraphs of DG. freakin Heboric and Felisin. arg.

[Fist and Faith]

Awesome!!! You KNOW you're doing something right when something like that happens!!!!

Heboric and Felisin have their annoying aspects, but they surely have their greatness. Especially Heboric, with all the information he got from the ghosts, if you remember all that craziness.

And anyway, nothing I've ever read surpasses Duiker, Coltaine, Bult, and the Chain of Dogs! That's worth anything else you may not be crazy about in the book!

[lucimay]

i know. Duiker. Coltain. Bult. GESLER!!! yay!!!

its not that i dislike Heboric and Felisin. it's just...i dunno, they're so freakin' T R A G I C. brutally so. it was just a gut wrenching read.
but yeah, well worth it. it was this book that REALLY hooked me on
Erikson. i liked GotM well enough to continue to DG but this book,
the writing...brilliant.

as i've said before, it's like going to the Peloponnesian Wars with both Thucydides and Herodotus!!! deftly done and emotionally brilliant.

[Xar]

By the way, here's a picture I found on the Malazan guild of DeviantArt... it details

Spoiler

The death of Coltaine

at the end of the book, so I wouldn't look at it unless you already finished it...

malazan-art-guild.deviantart.com/art/The-Fall-of-Coltaine-by-Timett-54124553

[drew]

Okay, I'm further behind than any Watcher reading this series...
Just finished DG today.

And I liked the ending.
I liked Shadowthrown/Ammanas granting the wishes.

I like the fact that the point of the series (as far as I can tell so far, and mind you I've only just finished the second book) is about things going around in circles.

I mean, Tattersail, Coltaine, Duiker all comming back to life.
Kelevend and Dancer being Accended.

All those ancient villages and ruins showing ancient lives and ancient cities where everyone there died, in similar battles. Proving that Life on the Malazan world, has been going on in circles for...well basically for ever.

Anyways thats what I got out of it, again, I've only JUST finished the second bok.

There were a few problems I had with the book.

One plot device (Or D.E.M...although I think that term is Dumb) was that Karpolen traveling merchant guy, who showed up the nick of time and hleped everyone out.

I'm sure he will come into play in the future, but the way he showed up, to me, wasn't overly creative.

And one other problem I have so far, is Kellevend and Dancer being Accended to become Shadowthrone and Coltillian....
First of all, I don't really understand; wasn't Shadowthrone there BEFORE the Emperer died, Did Kelly just BECOME Shadowthrone, what happened to the Shadowthrone that USED to be Shadowthrone?
Is that what Happenes when you Accend, you become one of the existing accendents?

If someone could explain that one to me, I'd love it. (either here or via a PM)
THe other problem I have with that accention, is DG in particular, is that everyone kind of figures out at the same time, that those two DID accend, and they all figure out pretty quick who they became...it ended up being pretty much common knowledge...yet in Gardens, Quick Ben talks to Shadowthrone, and even though he knew the emperor, he had no clue.

Am I missing something?

[Farm Ur-Ted]

One plot device (Or D.E.M...although I think that term is Dumb) was that Karpolen traveling merchant guy, who showed up the nick of time and hleped everyone out.

I'm sure he will come into play in the future, but the way he showed up, to me, wasn't overly creative.

You find out why that happened in Memories of Ice. I was annoyed as well when it occurred. It reminded me of the lame-o scene in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when Santa Clause appeared. I read an interview with Erikson the other day, and it sounds like he actually started writing MOI first, but halfway through the book his computer ate the manuscript (duh! Ever heard of a back-up?). He couldn't face re-writing everything right then, so he turned to DG instead and finished it before MOI. That scene in particular would have worked better if MOI came first, in my opinion.

[Onos T'oolan]

Yeah, I was very unhappy with that, too. And yeah, stuff we learn in MoI makes it a lot easier to take. (Didn't know about having lost MoI with a computer crash!! LOL!!!!)

No, Shadowthrone did not exist before Kellanved ascended. (If I'm wrong about that, I haven't learned it yet in six books.)

[wayfriend]

Hi folks.

I read the first three books in the series, and then dropped out of it for ... I don't know, some combination of frustration and lack of engagement. But I am rereading again.

One thing that really bothers me in DG is how many things got retroed.

For example, Fiddler. In GotM, he was a sapper who uses his sword so infrequently that he often forgets where he left it, and with a spider sense. In DG, he's quite the warrior, and the spider sense is gone.

And the Soletaken. In DG, Soletaken are like animagi. But in GotM, Tattersail was declared a Soletaken, because she was reborn to a Rhivi child. Isn't that a completely different meaning?

Another thing that bothers me is things that seem to just happen with no explanation.

For example, all of a sudden, halfway through the book, Heboric is blind. He wasn't blind when he jumped off the Silanis [?]. Next scene, wandering through the Whirlwind, he's all of a sudden blind. What's up with that?

Are there explanations that I'm missing?

[I'm Murrin]

The bit about Tattersail being Soletaken can be taken quite literally. She has become one in her new form. I guess we hadn't been really introduced to Soletaken enough at that point for the statement that she would be one to be clear; a lot more surrounding that whole issue is in the next book.
As for Fiddler: yeah, Erikson's character sdo seem to change sometimes. Fiddler goes from young to old between the books too, iirc.
There are a lot of continuity issues with the first book; it's generally taken that if anything contradicts information in GotM, then the version from GotM is the one that's wrong.
I never got the impression that Heboric was suddenly blind like that--he went blind (or at least nearly blind, iirc), but I don't remember it being a "one scene he can see next he's blind" thing. In DG he seems to transition from being able to see normally to seeing the ghosts and past versions of places and seeming oblivious to everything else.

[Onos T'oolan]

Fiddler still has his spider-sense. I don't remember it specifically in DG, but it's in several of the books. More a sense of knowing that things are going to go bad, though, rather than a "Everybody duck!" kind of thing.

As for his warrior skills, does he ever pick up a sword in DG? I don't remember it, although it may be he did. But his greatness lies in things like: his immense experience, which lets him see and understand everything that's going on, and anticipate what's coming up; his skill with crossbows and Moranth munitions; and his extreme toughness, which allows him stay alert, with a cocked crossbow, in a sandstorm, for hours. As Mappo said, he's a wonder. He is one of the original Bridgeburners, ya know! You've already seen hints of what that means, but we learn more later. Especially HoC.

[Onos T'oolan]

As for Fiddler: yeah, Erikson's character sdo seem to change sometimes. Fiddler goes from young to old between the books too, iirc.

It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage. But really,

Spoiler

In one book or other, Fiddler shaves, and Quick remarks that the beard made him look older than he really is. But he sure must feel old after all the stuff he's been through!