Books
Submitted by Abalieno on March 7, 2010 - 09:06.
 In the last two years, since I first discovered his books, Erikson has quickly became not only my favorite fantasy writer, but one of my favorite writers among all genres and classifications. And I started to ask myself what is that makes me "click" perfectly with some writers and not so much with others. What have Steven Erikson, David Foster Wallace and Roberto Bolano in common (the three most disparate writers I recently read)? I also got myself an answer: truthfulness. They write on the page things that are true. And I imagine the spontaneously arising question: how can a fantasy story be "true"? It can very well, and "Crack'd Pot Trail" is a most fitting example.
Recently I read a review of the first three novellas (not including this one, that comes fourth) that considered them a bit disappointing because they lacked a "serious" depth or actually gave something more to the characters primarily involved ( the necromancer Bauchelain & Korbal Broach, plus their manservant Emancipor Reese, the real star). This reminds me that the most devious aspect of everything that comes from Erikson's pen/quill/keyboard is about the approach. Thus my warning, right here: this story of Bauchelain & Korbal Broach takes place, in-truth (and out-spoilers, trust me, for the whole length of this commentary), at the periphery of these characters. It is a story about them, but not featuring them. On the other side you get Erikson. Erikson himself, the writer, who put himself in the story unlike, not like, but still somehow similarly, Stephen King did with The Dark Tower. He's there in the page and sometimes even pointing his finger and laughing at you, the reader. But, again, I remind you of the devious approach: the laugh is not scorn, just affinity. Sympathy.
The novella has a plot, it has a direction and drive, it moves toward a resolution already from the start. Akin to other fantasy and non-fantasy plots, it is also a journey. But in this case the plot isn't the idea that truly builds the novella, there's a metaphorical one that more strongly takes the scene. So two parallel binaries of purpose and narrative intent, both requiring payoff before the end, while also getting entwined enough to not be simply juxtaposed. Succeeding in doing that is not easy task at all. The novella is written beautifully, as I already raved weeks ago, almost to the point of showing off, stylistically brilliant, but in the second half I started having some serious doubts that it could get a satisfying resolution. Doubt that increased exponentially when I had just 10 pages left to read and still unable to see things possibly coming together in a decent way (no matter my own doubts were repeatedly voiced in the story itself by both characters and narrator). Then Erikson is able to pull it, masterly, in like 3 pages. It comes all together in three pages.
While the plot moves in a direction (an hapless bunch of artists, hunters, and champions of rectitude, together in necessity, on the heels of our infamous necromancers), the real story is about the relationship between art and audience. The artist, the critics and the public, seen from all possible perspectives and often metaphorically, but in such a case that a metaphor is, right the story, always executed literally, very real and sound (which I don't explain here to not ruin the greatest idea/association in the novella). The tortuous relationship is made focus and explored without filters. What, elsewhere, readers often mistake for boisterous arrogance (on the part of Erikson, toward readers) and are ready to jump upright and accuse, is instead a skewed perspective because Erikson never defends univocally one side, and what appears as spite and mockery (sometimes even truly, but healthy, as part of all relationships) is also always parody of all parts included. The audience as well the writer (self-parody as well self-doubt are featured, hopefully not smothered and forgotten after the ending, that does take a side but that shouldn't be interpreted as the author's own true belief that erases all doubts before, in a kind of very, you know, un-subtle way, on the part of the reader. But we're spinning again here and you never know which side you end up facing).
Which falls perfectly in the trick that makes the book, as subjects and objects mingle together and you can't discern anymore if you are reading a parody or if you are yourself the object of parody, the one who's laughing or the one who's being laughed at, or maybe just staring at yourself in a mirror, playing both roles, that also connects with other layers inside the novella, both as themes and plots. Which novella essentially is: a satire, a parody. Totally un-subtle, not even trying. As satires are meant to be: all-encompassing, clever, malicious, deceitful, outrageous, disrespectful, defiant, very politically un-correct. And, essentially: truly subversive at its core since it lacks even a verse. There's no safe ground. Everything and everyone is subject of scorn as well as compassion. No filters nor prejudices, just a razor sharp sight that spares no one.
Well, no one besides Bauchelain & Korbal Broach, who, you already know, are just meant to win even when they lose.
The premise that founds the story: who's more useless in the world than an "artist"? (especially a world where first priority is just surviving) And what if, to justify their existence, the artists were made to pay with their own life if their art was judged not entertaining enough?
And what if democracy (voting for: life or gallows) was made of stupids and illiterates who would only reward the worst of the artists?
As you can imagine I loved this novella as much I loved the previous three. It's not a mad rush as The Lees of Laughter's End, not as funny and as entertaining, but it has a similar drive of The Healthy Dead and quality-wise I judge it above. Sharper and more outrageous. Plot-wise it only shines toward the end and slacks a bit in the middle, but the payoff in the end redeems that aspect, as long you don't expect the plot and just the plot to drag you along for 180 pages. As in all cases, you have to be interested in what the writer is writing about, and in THAT case there's no slacking or word wasted even here.
"So I pose the following provision. Should she decide, at any time in your telling, that you are simply... shall we say, padding your narrative, why, one or both of the knights shall swing their swords."
It also reminded me I love reading.
P.S.
In the 181 pages there's also space for zombies (yes zombies, not T'lan Imass) and a good amount of graphic sex that will make you chuckle a lot (in a good way). Oh, and also a "fapping" god.
Submitted by Abalieno on February 16, 2010 - 08:57.
Hello acronyms. But then whoever may be interested in this knows already what the title is about.
In this last update GRRM explains that when you mess with the timeline you'll always get your ass handed back to you, whether you're Erikson or Martin.
He says he doesn't want advices, so I won't give any, nor I've read AFFC yet but I know what the general public thinks and that's what got me worried reading that update. The problem is that the longer the wait the more people expect a kind of payoff. That's why these long series always improve on rereads when you don't have to wait years from one book to the other. A relaxed and balanced pace is not bad, in a general context. But if you waited 5 years for that book, then every page you turn is one page less from whatever expectations you have. Without some sort of payoff you'll finish the book with a big feeling of dissatisfaction even if the book wasn't that bad. Preparatory work spread along 10 years of wait just can't work.
In the case of AFFC we got a book that was criticized exactly because it seemed to go nowhere and was mostly about setting the pieces back up again. It was a valley after a peak. So if this following book, 5 years later, only fills the gap and doesn't deliver anything special, the risk is that the already weakened balance breaks completely.
Taking back chapters to move them on the following book may be a disaster if those chapters make the plot move onward. Especially since the actual release of the next book is so remote that it may as well just not exist.
So my advice (to the publisher) is to think more about delivering the best book possible right now, than sparing the good stuff for later.
Submitted by Abalieno on February 15, 2010 - 03:55.
In regards to the previous post, the author of the quote wants to make sure he's not a Martin fanboy and that the first part of the phrase isn't directly implying the second (even if it actually is). I'll instead clarify that I simply extrapolate the quote to use it as a general example of a trend I sometime notice and don't like. No idea if the author of that review is biased or not, fanboy or not, I just say that the quote implied certain things that are false and I used it as a general example.
Instead the other day I got an occasion on Malazan forums to elaborate on the differences in writing between Martin and Eirkson. These are things that I believe do exist and are not a result of my biased perception. In the end my preference goes for a particular style and I explain why. I'm not interested to see one of them triumph on the other, only that when a discussion takes place it follows certain rules of coherence and objectivity when it comes to objective elements. I respect every opinion, as long it is coherent.
--
I think the whole approach to flaws is different.
Whereas Martin would write 100 pages and then toss away everything that isn't 100% working as expected, Erikson makes the process of writing part of the intent the novel is about. Erikson writes like a freeclimber. He knows exactly where he wants to go but the process of getting there is part of what you see on the page and his journey is your journey as a reader. Move after move. Sometimes you can't go straight up as you wish and have to move sideways, a few times maybe you have to move backwards, but every move you make is essential and part of what you're creating there and the final destination. Erikson is insanely ambitious in what he does and even when the task is quite hard to reach he doesn't back off, he just gets more motivated. So the books are indeed "flawed". There are parts that work better than others, some amazingly successful and some not quite reaching, yet this is what makes the books much more interesting to read for me. They are filled with experimentation on all levels and that's what keeps my interest and lightens up the brain and the fun feedback.
Reading Martin I think makes easier to forget about the book itself and engage with the story and characters. Erikson instead requires a certain detachment and look at things from multiple perspectives (what he calls "layering" the writing, sometimes to insane levels). With Martin you get a final product that is perfectly crafted and ready to be enjoyed. With Erikson instead you have the process of crafting itself as part of what you are experiencing. So while what Erikson writes feels rougher, for me it also feels like he's telling me something that is "true" and that offers me a lot more. And where Martin may respect all good rules that make a classic narrative without any slip of control or mastery, Erikson may as well go and break them all just because of his rebellious soul. You decide what you like better ;)
--
I'll also point out this post that, while not quite to the point on Erikson, I think underlines well certain canons that Martin follows and make me say there's not a whole lot of originality involved. He just picked certain canons that were not typical in "fantasy".
--
On the merit of the legitimacy of battles between writers, as the title of this post would suggest, I say that there's plenty of legitimacy in comparing things (or writers).
Where the thing breaks is when the intent is trying to have one being declared superior to another with a pretense of objectivity and absoluteness. Who can say who's the better writer? A final judgment made on what rules? What is the canon everyone agreed upon as the ultimate judgement? The only real objective and usable canon is: "sales". And sales will only declare which author is more accessible and able to reach a large public, leaving out everything else that belongs to writing. It basically tells nothing really useful beside the economic possibility of the book existing as a physical object and the writer being able to survive by writing as a job. We have no ultimate way to proclaim the better writer. So a discussion is only useful when it brings up characteristic of writing that are true and observable, so that the discussion helps to have a correct idea of the writer and his writing. Everyone will have a preference for something different. What is important is that the analysis is true to the writer and his style.
Submitted by Abalieno on February 12, 2010 - 04:28.
Everyone is entitled to have his own opinion, but it doesn't mean that one doesn't have to keep contact with reality.
So today I read this review of Best Served Cold and came to this part:
Where most authors dealing with multiple Point of View characters use a standard voice (grammar, structure and vocabulary) across all viewpoints, Abercrombie joins the ranks of authors like George R.R. Martin in his ability to reveal pieces of their personality through the way they tell their story.
Eh?
Ok, I understand that some readers really love Martin's series and have adopted it as a canon to judge all other fantasy, but the process of idolatry that is going on has trespassed all boundaries of plausibility of honest and earnest opinion.
George Martin has indeed a huge skill with characters, he makes them alive and sympathetic for the reader. That's his greatest skill. Along with making dialogues relevant and effective. But there's an aspect that was obvious to my eyes when I was reading the first book in the series and that has been praised by many readers: the prose is very good and even.
Martin writes very good prose, a pleasure to read. The book is accessible and engaging. But there's no experimentation with language. Grammar, structure, vocabulary? If true that would be the antithesis of an even, flowing prose. It would mean switching styles for every POV and it's definitely not something I saw happen in A Game of Thrones (especially with seven years old kids that would make any kind of adjusted use of vocabulary and structure extremely obvious).
So say that Martin is great at portraying multi-dimensional characters whose themes ring true and powerful. Say that he indulges in their minds, render wonderfully they thoughts on the page (plausible, faithful, consistent. Ok). But he does this through an even prose and style that represent constants through the book.
Doing true POVs that play with grammar, structure and vocabulary is extremely hard. It is rarely found in fantasy as it is rarely found in all genres of literature (Ulysses? Infinite Jest? House of Leaves? All examples of very simple and accessible books), and when you find it it's almost always about gimmicky aspects that are easily isolated. When it happens it also often leads to extremely polarized reactions by the readers because you can really come to HATE certain habits of certain characters and certain parts of the book really hard to wade through. It leads to an uneven prose, text hard to follow and definitely not an accessible book that is aiming for the broadest audience possible.
If that claim was true Martin's series would be nowhere as successful as it is. If it's successful is instead because the book has the kind of competent and beautiful prose that represent a constant throughout the book and that makes it a pleasure to read.
I also think that Abercrombie's style is completely different from Martin's and that you're really don't do Abercrombie justice if you look at his work through Martin's looking glass. It's hard for me to think even something vague that they may have in common.
Submitted by Abalieno on February 12, 2010 - 00:34.
 | Got this epic of a book today. Praised by David Foster Wallace and everyone else who had enough endurance for it. This trade paperback version has no frills, just 956 pages filled with text and looking sturdy and humongous.
This a quote from the first pages:
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Submitted by Abalieno on January 28, 2010 - 02:51.
Erikson is genius.
When I read a book I don't just pretend I'm reading about a good story or an interesting theme, but that there's some creative and inspired use of language, and wordplay. Something that is pertinent to writing itself as an art and form of expression.
In the latest months I've moved from reading Erikson (and fantasy) to David Foster Wallace. They can't be more far away in style and purpose, yet I seem to find more in common than differences. One thing I love about both is that the single WORDS they use have a weight that's bigger than the space they take on the page. Words alone open worlds. What's plainly denoted in the text is nowhere the breadth of what it suggest or implies. Of what's emergent from the book and transcends it.
Here's the simplest of examples I just quoted below:
"a sudden expostulation of amorous possibility"
Basically four relevant words that suggest much more, and yet that couldn't be more precise and delimiting perfectly the meaning of the text.
SUDDEN - Something abrupt, unforeseen. Something that breaks whatever came before. Interruption. A suggestion of change. Change of course. Break point. Something new.
EXPOSTULATION - "Postulate", comes from a latin word. It is used in geometry. "to assume or claim as true". An axiom. A principle but, in particular, a starting point. Following "sudden", it's what the New Wave is based on. Something that is both true and undeniable and new.
But you aren't unaware of context. The context is what happens in the mind of a bear. A bear doesn't think logically and its thoughts aren't articulated through language. So what it thinks is like an image that is projected on the mind. Ex-postulation. "Ex" stand for "out of". Something coming out. Something that, "suddenly", takes shape. That becomes real. A sudden axiom, a change in the bear's mind, coming as an image, a sudden apparition. But "expostulation", as a word, also directly suggest a demand. A claim. People who pretend their government responds to their demands. Here standing for a sudden request, something that suddenly exists, appears, is true and can't be denied. Also something totalitarian, that doesn't admit objections and that erases everything that was before.
OF - Of what? What is the object?
POSSIBILITY - The object isn't what is sexual. It is not being amorous. The object is the entire realm of "possibility". Whatever it suggests in your mind. Facts and potential. Wonder. Whatever is unspeakable, just suggested. Omitted because it's all in potential, whatever it is. Just the state of being in potential.
AMOROUS - Amorous is used as an adjective, not as the object. In this case it simply gives quality to the "possibility", and delimits it. It let's the object of the thought open up to embrace all possibility, without restraint. Yet it delimits it to give it a quality and express what it is for. But it's up to the reader imagine the "what". While keeping it open to everything that keeps "amorous" as a quality.
So here's why the language isn't powerful for its objective meaning, for what is denotative. But for everything else it suggest, precisely and without limits, in the mind of the reader. It conveys an idea in four words that is precisely what it wants to express (no misinterpretation), yet open to a world of possibility.
Submitted by Abalieno on January 25, 2010 - 03:20.
Still the very first few pages. I'll stop before PS Publishing has to sue me for showing too much of the book :)
Here's you have an example of VERY unreliable narrator who at the same time expresses the typical narcissism of an artist for his art. I love Erikson's original use of language, filled with creativity and love for words.
Only Erikson could write "a sudden expostulation of amorous possibility". And in spite of this indulgence in the use of language I admire that everything that is written has still a meaning and it's not just there for empty embellishment (Gene Wolfe for example is even more indulgent).
If you wonder what exactly IS the art of writing, if it comes so far from plausibility, here's the distilled idea, perfectly summarized by our narrator who admits of being unreliable:
And here an example of half-serious remark that still stays in a parodic context (here not shown):
Submitted by Abalieno on January 23, 2010 - 11:04.
As I wrote on Twitter I got this sexy, awesomely crafted book (three illustration and at 181 pages almost twice the length of the three previous novellas), and proceed to reading with insanely high expectations since I believe the previous three novellas are above everything else Erikson wrote.
The book starts with elegant writing, in a tone that is somewhere between the famous Blade Runner's ending monologue in reverse (meaning that here it starts the story) and the Greek poets that used to begin their works with formulaic flourishes where they invoked the muse to favor their art and inspire. All within the sub-text typical of Erikson of men against gods. He does not beg their help, but almost commands them to stay back, and witness.
Written as himself (Erikson) while disguised as one of the characters.
I've read that in this book Bauchelain and Korbal Broach barely appear, I've read that this book may disappoint Erikson's fans. Ken writes: "a book that is all about fandom, author intent, artistic integrity, criticism, contemplative self-doubt and cannibalism." I always love Erikson's audacity and recklessness. I admire courage and ambition. I don't get the novel to expect and pretend a certain story. I want to be brought to places. I just want to read something that gives feelings and thoughts. And something that is true deep down.
I was actually worried about the way Erikson would deal with this fourth novella because the relationship between the two necromancers and their manservant Emancipor Reese needed to be renovated to not fall into repetitiousness and predictability. Erikson was able to do this wonderfully in the third novella (The Healthy Dead) where the dissertations of Bauchelain on the nature of society were a masterpiece on their own. A great satire, incisive and funny. But where to go from there? It seems Erikson surprises once again telling a completely different story that takes place around the central characters instead of having them right on the scene. And Erikson here writes about themes that I want to know all about.
Great things await me, I'm sure.
Here's the quote for you:
Even the gods must wait spellbound.
Feed then, or perish.
Submitted by Abalieno on January 11, 2010 - 06:02.
This is how Dave Eggers' foreword to DFW's Infinite Jest begins:
In recent years, there have been a few literary dustups — how insane is it that such a thing exists in a world at war? — about readability in contemporary fiction. In essence, there are some people who feel that fiction should be easy to read, that it’s a popular medium that should communicate on a somewhat conversational wavelength. On the other hand, there are those who feel that fiction can be challenging, generally and thematically, and even on a sentence-by-sentence basis — that it’s okay if a person needs to work a bit while reading, for the rewards can be that much greater when one’s mind has been exercised and thus (presumably) expanded.
Much in the way that would-be civilized debates are polarized by extreme thinkers on either side, this debate has been made to seem like an either/or proposition, that the world has room for only one kind of fiction, and that the other kind should be banned and its proponents hunted down and, why not, dismembered.
But while the polarizers have been going at it, there has existed a silent legion of readers, perhaps the majority of readers of literary fiction, who don’t mind a little of both. They believe, though not too vocally, that so-called difficult books can exist next to, can even rub bindings suggestively with, more welcoming fiction. These readers might actually read both kinds of fiction themselves, sometimes in the same week. There might even be — though it’s impossible to prove — readers who find it possible enjoy Thomas Pynchon one day, and Elmore Leonard the next. Or even: readers who can have fun with Jonathan Franzen in the morning while wrestling with William Gaddis at night.
It's not excessively distant from the old debate about Fantasy books and serious literature, caused by the human necessity of drawing boundaries everywhere in order to have the illusion of "knowing".
One of the (many) reasons why Infinite Jest is special is that it pretends you have no boundaries of any kind. It will force you to play on different levels and welcome all of them. There's stuff both high and low, densely weaved together. If you try to extricate it by applying boundaries, you are deemed to fail.
I started to think that there's no one on the face of earth who's more suited for this book. I'm THE ideal reader. For a number of reasons. One of them is that I devour everything that is "culture" without any boundaries.
I love passionately and enjoy (without a real purpose or deliberate intent) everything that is culture (which, oddly enough, can be made into bits and pass on a PC). Books, movies, games, music,comics, anime. And within the same genre I go through everything. This is why when it comes to games I play RPGs, FPS, RTS, hardcore military simulators, flight sims, driving games, managerial sports, platforms, adventures, space sims of various degrees of complexity, arcades new and old, fighting games, ASCII stuff like Dwarf Fortress. And the more one of these creates a world on its own the happier I am. I contemplate degrees of infinity. But this condition is also not something unique to me. Many "gamers" out there enjoy different types of games. I just don't stop to games.
So this is why I am a movie enthusiast. Experimental and independent cinema, rare Japanese movies, documentaries, stuff old and new, as well accessibile comedy or the next (here in Italy) Avatar. And even this is fairly normal. But take something narrower and more specific. I started again watching anime this past year, and I have no boundaries. I enjoy something like Naruto or Fairy Tail like I can enjoy a romantic shoujo comedy in light tones, or something absurd like "Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei", or the fanservice-filled Chu-Bra and KissxSis, or mecha stuff (Gundam, Macross), edgy, incredibly deep and convoluted stuff I love (Evangelion), or moe shows (loved K-On), or anime about sport. In fact the most relevant common trait in Japanese anime is that they also have no boundaries. You can find stuff of all kinds and all genres and then more, often mixed together. Stuff high an low, in between. Targeted at niches or large public. For children, for adults, for both. Cutesy lovely stuff like the "Chi's Sweet Home" as well the psychedelic Trapeze. Then I started to watch (and deeply love, like hardwired to enjoy) all the Kamen Rider series I could find, as well great Japanese Tv Series like Mr. Brain or Nobuta wo Produce.
With books I have a similar approach. In the last two years I've dwelt and explored the fantasy genre for the most part, but before I've read all sort of stuff, from very low (or very odd, I was a fan of the pioneer of "chick-lit" Marian Keyes, before the genre was invented) to very high (up to almost occult and hermetic, like Strindberg). That's why one day I go and decide to start studying the Kaballah, or Swodenberg's Arcana Caelestia, or Ayn Rand (and yes, I've read parts of Dianetics too, many years ago). Worlds that open, filled with interesting and FUN things.
And I'm not brainlessly swallowing stuff passively, because I have my opinions, ideas, tastes. I participate with what I do, engage actively, piece things together, absorb. Criticize wildly and precisely when I have to. I'm not even the typical geek. I don't like Star Trek (I'm much more a Star Wars and Battlestar guy), don't like fancy T-shirts and don't wear glasses even if I should (glasses make me feel like things look more distorted or flawed than without)!
When it comes to culture I don't bring prejudices with me and devour everything, and am able to interface on different levels. From impossibly low (I love here in Italy the local Big Brother and another show where they dance and sing), to impossibly high (we have here on TV some crazy stuff late in the night, something that for example made me discover James Hillman). Obviously within my very human and average limits of understanding, but without prejudices and without boundaries. And I watch even the most stupid and low-denominator stuff with extreme attention. I never perfunctory watch TV or keep it in the background, for example.
This reflects the way I view things on a very broad level. Culture needs to be set free. Stuff that you like AS WELL stuff that looks outrageous. Because ideas need to be free and circulate. Positive ideas as well as utterly negative ideas. Racism, swastikas. Those ideas need to be expressed in their entirety.
If you accept -- and I do -- that freedom of speech is important, then you are going to have to defend the indefensible. That means you are going to be defending the right of people to read, or to write, or to say, what you don't say or like or want said.
This because I think knowledge is NEVER negative, its use can be and needs to be persecuted, but not knowledge itself or the expression of ideas you don't personally like. In the end knowing more is the only brittle way to make a better world and there's no misstep that isn't worth the price. It's ignorance the only real source of everything that is bad on this world.
P.S.
Another reason why I'm IJ's ideal reader is that the book is filled with characters that are deeply flawed. I find all their flaws in myself. And it is quite amusing that I can contain within myself all the flaws of a bunch of characters that were, like, made already in a caricatural way to be representative of those flaws. Which puts me very close to DFW, the man. Even if I can sadly only enjoy the surrogate of pure genius.
Submitted by Abalieno on December 30, 2009 - 00:46.
From the latest interview at Pat blog. Trite questions, but interesting answers. I still wish someone will make an interview with him discussing more directly what's in the books, like this one with Sanderson.
The only thing that rankled me in some of the reviews was the expression of doubt regarding my ability to pull off this finale, to which I respond: for fuck sake, there's been nine books so far, and each one has delivered the punch I intended (even if some readers objected to some of those punches), so where does this doubt come from? I'll deliver. I always have and there's no sign of stumbling this time around. Yeesh.
- After the massive commercial success of the Lord of the Rings films, do you look at the growing mainstream success of authors like George R. R. Martin and Neil Gaiman, following in the impressive footsteps of Terry Pratchett, and take comfort that genre fiction is starting to become more accepted as a whole by society? Do you think the perceived social stigma attached to it can ever be overturned so that authors such as yourself are compared on a level playing-field to those who write in other more widely "respected" genres? And, I suppose, do you actually care?
No, no, and sometimes. With each writer you have named, the critics invariably practise exceptionalism: these writers are not fine representatives of their genre; by virtue of their fineness, they have left the genre. By this alchemy the stigma remains. Will my stuff someday cross that threshold? What if it does? I will simply have been made ... exceptional.
And about progress on the last book:
Hope to be done by the beginning of the summer. It's coming along just fine. My son has read what I've done to date, and looks at me and says: "It's all going down, isn't it?" And no, he doesn't mean that in any negative sense. But he's right. It's all coming down. It's all coming down.
Also good to know that cooperation with Esslemont is once again strong.
Now if only the novella could reach my house instead of being in vacation around the world...
Submitted by Abalieno on December 26, 2009 - 19:05.
This is one of the quieter and more perfunctory passages in Infinite Jest. Meaning that it represents no pinnacle of absurdity or insanity. Yet it represents some excellent writing and has some qualities and peculiarities that define the book or, better, the writer.
Like many gifted bureaucrats, Hal's mother's adoptive brother Charles Tavis is physically small in a way that seems less endocrine than perspectival. His smallness resembles the smallness of something that's farther away from you than it wants to be, plus is receding.218 This weird appearance of recessive drift, together with the compulsive hand-movements that followed his quitting smoking some years back, helped contribute to the quality of perpetual frenzy about the man, a kind of locational panic that it's easy to see explains not only Tavis's compulsive energy - he and Avril, pretty much the Dynamic Duo of compulsion, between them, sleep, in their second-floor rooms in the Headmaster's House - separate rooms - tend to sleep, between them, about as much as any one normal insomniac - but maybe also contributes to the pathological openness of his manner, the way he thinks out loud about thinking out loud, a manner Ortho Stice can imitate so eerily that he's been prohibited by the male 18's from doing his Tavis-impression in front of the younger players, for fear that the littler kids will find it impossible to take the real Tavis seriously at the times he needs to be taken seriously.
As for the older kids, Stice can make them all double up now merely by shielding his eyes with his hand and assuming a horizon-scan expression whenever Tavis heaves into view, seeming to recede even as he bears on.
218. The late J. O. Incandenza's Meniscus Optical Products Ltd.'s development of those weird wide-angle rear-view mirrors on the sides of automobiles that so diminish the cars behind you that federal statute requires them to have printed right on the glass that Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear, which little imprints Incandenza found so disconcerting that he was kind of shocked when U.S. automakers and importers bought rights on the mirrors, way back, for Incandenza's first unsettling entrepreneurial payday - E.T.A.'s like to postulate that the mirrors had been inspired by the always-foreshortened Charles Tavis.
Some consider DFW's writing excessively convoluted and verbose, some sort of amused deliberate work that the author puts on the page merely to screw up with the reader and giving him an hard time or blatantly boast competency with words. Like a sort of stylistic mannerism that is all flash and no substance.
Instead DFW knows that words are nothing lesser than the fabric of reality and manipulates them with extreme care. Like something you fear and respect. There are no wasted words in Infinite Jest. Everything is deliberate. Every words has a weight that goes beyond what appears on the page. All that is written is complexly and deeply layered.
Even more important: Wallace has an obsession on truth. An analytical observation of things that are truthful. So he has to use words in a way that mirrors and reflects reality, maybe slightly refracted, like The Mad Stork's lenses. And this obsession on truth is not something you can escape or betray. And it's also not unlike the block/disconnection that Hal has at the very beginning of the book.
Also: Infinite Jest is the most generous book out there.
Submitted by Abalieno on December 23, 2009 - 23:40.
 It seems the more book reviews I try to write the harder they get, but I wanted to try anyway. I read this book in slightly more than three weeks, 1070 pages. I'm not a fast reader so it's quite an achievement for me. I didn't even expect to read it whole. As I'm used to do, I usually just read the beginning, and, when satisfied, put it away to read fully later on. Especially because I had the Infinite Jest task at hand and I didn't want to risk of losing track on that. Instead I started reading, curiosity pushed me past page 100 and at that point I just wanted to see what was next and there was no return.
This book is a real page-turner. With incredible constancy I kept reading way past my own target for that day. I told myself I'd finish the chapter, then read the first lines of the following to see where it was going next and continued for another thirty pages. It's superbly readable. It's also worth pointing out that I'm not exactly a Stephen King fan. I only read "IT" and that was many, many years ago. So I don't know how this book compares to his others, or if he's back to form, or whatever. On the internet there are mixed opinions. What I say is that this book is written really well. Something I didn't expect.
I should make a distinction between the "what" and the "how". Between the craft and the material. Not unlike the review I was trying to write about A Game of Thrones, it's the craft that shines here. The book is masterfully driven and always under control. In books with a so high page count and large cast of characters there are always a number of diversions. I remember from IT that King loved to give his town its own story, and explore it fully, with patience. Plenty of stories to tell, interesting characters that demand their spotlight time. That is all pleasant to an extent, but it's the opposite of what happens here. The story in this book goes straight on. No looking back, no diversions, no flashbacks taking the story on a different level. The whole thing stays focused, both time-wise and location-wise. It moves linearly onward. The spotlight lights on Chester's Mill and its residents, never ever leaves them in time or place. This is also the major strength of this novel: it's all incredibly focused, tight and moving on with unrelenting pace. Only by being very picky I could say that there are two slight passages, one about the middle of the book, another before the end, where the careful domino set-up takes a bit too much exposition time, but this is more due to subtraction than bloat. Things need moving and they are a bit downplayed in respect to others so that the story doesn't go out of focus.
The books gives you no pauses even in the way it's structured. There are bigger titled sections that chunk the story and give it a broad theme, but then the story is written in quick chapters that keep the pages turning and turning fast. There are many characters and points of view, but they never go on their own unrelated tangent that may or may not converge later on. Every story thread and point of view is kept tight to the main story that goes through the book. You are never left longing in frustration for one side plot while the book jumps to a different point of view. When this happens what comes next is closely related to what you left, and when the writer deliberately abruptly breaks the chapter is to cleverly build suspense that is then satisfied shortly after. The book is generous and doesn't pretend more patience than what it deserves.
What I described is what defines this book. The tight focus and pacing. The only two moments where the action appears to relax coincide with the two I pointed out above, preceding the two major events in the book. Everything else stays on track, moving straight and never slowing down. The book looks huge but it reads like a fresh breeze. It goes down easy and never at the expense of quality. It's very well handled. One could probably make a kind of book-reality sync and match the way time passes in the book with real time. It takes 1070 pages to tell linearly what happens in a week. Day after day. With absolutely no dull moments.
Now let's talk about "the dome". Everyone likely knows what the book is about whether they read it or not. The theme is what sells the book and the theme is that simple. This fancy barrier/dome comes down on a small town and this is the story of those caught within. Will they survive? Will they get out of the barrier? This is obviously a trick (the dome) so that the writer can focus on the real theme: the stories of those characters. Their lives, their emotions. What people do under stress, what they become. This is a story of people. You are meant to connect with the characters and live along with them this nightmare under the dome. Get in close contact with the best and worst people can become. The way the put on and off masks. But one also wonders if this "dome" stays just as a trick, external to the book, a writing device, unexplained, untouched, inviolable, unknowable. A mere artifice that enables the writer to have this huge magnifying lens on the characters, and watch closely. Set them on fire, maybe. Watch them run around with nowhere to go, trapped in there. Which comes to be the cipher of the book itself. I'll say that, surprisingly, King tackles the theme of the dome itself (even if for 1050 pages the focus is somewhere else, and it is where the book works best). You won't be left with a mystery and the whole thing will be explained and understood by the end. It's not really the point, since the book is about what happens under the dome way more than about what the dome is, but the book is generous on this aspect and you will be delivered a decent explanation that wraps everything up neatly. If you were wondering.
Which leads me to talk whether it lives or not up to the task. While I was reading and turning the pages I just loved it, I already said, but I also wondered if the destination was worth it (payoff?) and if my opinion could change once I got to the very end. It's like if what you read is at stake, because it all seems to have a point a go somewhere. Is this "somewhere" a worthy destination? Well, readers will likely be pleased and deluded. Depending a lot on what you expect. From my point of view the journey is wonderful and engaging, the destination satisfying, but nothing more than that. The moral theme that plays by the end seems on a different note than the rest of the book, and, once again, it's the rest that works better. The end of the book is a valley after a peak, and it can disappoint. Everything is wrapped up neatly and yet feels like something is missing. I also think that the book works better on its meta-fictional explanation than in its fictional one (because, again, there's a real end that fills all mysteries).
What readers may feel like a real problem can be summarized with this: everything is as it appears to be. This constantly through the book. The craft is far superior to the material at hand. The story works so great, delivers moment of real suspense, always keeps you on your toes. But it's also kind of predictable and unsurprising. There are various moments in the book where guesses about mysteries are tossed around, and almost always things are exactly as they appeared to be with the delivery of the very first hint. There's almost nothing truly spicy to unveil, and yet the book haunts you and makes you read and read on as if your life depended on it. What it takes is some awesome "craft". King just executes brilliantly (and writes here really well) ideas that on their own wouldn't hold the book. This also because he can truly realize characters and make them live out the page. None really original, but executed to perfection, a pleasure to read.
The book also tries to kick you in the nuts plenty of times. Lots of deaths in this book and for me some of them are quite hard to get through. A few times I wondered why I was doing this to myself and read a book so harsh. There's some masochism involved. It's not an horror, and this makes it harder to bear because the way it starts and moves on (at least 1/3 through) is hyper-realistic. There are no real supernatural elements that may downplay and estrange from what happens, so it's harder to establish some distance. But, thankfully, the writing helps. King is able to balance things and sometimes he can produce something comical (yet authentic) out of an awful situation. It's not a book that just kicks and slaps. It's also plenty fun.
The writing is not my favorite style even if I appreciated it. The writer weighs in explicitly. At various times he's there beside you, right in the novel, speaking with his own voice, setting things up. I find this way of writing somewhat "untruthful". Something manneristic and showy. I also noticed that a few times different characters think metaphorically about their situation, and I thought that this was more a typical habit belonging to a writer than what someone usually does, especially since people don't really have a good grasp of what situation they are in and their metaphorical thoughts in the book are too good and neat to be plausible. I don't like much this tangible and direct presence and influence of the writer himself in the book, yet it didn't get in the way and I was still able to enjoy the book.
This is what it is. The story of the people who live in a town, the best, the worst that comes out of them. But then, even more, what turns the town from fine to armageddon in just four days is internal. Triggered but not made by the dome. The dome works more as a reveal than the real immediate problem. People project problems on the dome, but it's their own problems to surface and take them by the throat. The pace is unrelenting, the focus always tight. An agile and thrilling read. There are various hints that set the story somewhere in the close future. Obama is still president. There's even a kind of queer endorsement of his health care plan. In the book it is already approved and working but the context seems to suggest that, no matter of good intentions, the Americans will find a way to screw it up. The plot and characters are not overly original or surprising, and King uses tricks to create suspense that have been tried and honed a million of times across different media. But they still work. Everything is splendidly executed even if not entirely new, and reading is a pleasure.
I agree with what Dan Simmons said about this book. It's a breath of fresh air that you can't usually expect from a so prolific writer who's probably already squeezed out all the creative juice. Instead there's nothing tired about it, nothing perfunctory or superfluous. You can feel the enthusiasm and drive that went in the story and characters. It all seems to come with no effort. To balance all this it also shows a perfect control of structure and pacing and perfect execution all around. I don't know if it's the best King, but it's lively and fun.
There are a couple of big moral themes at play, but I think the most fitting is the dismay about how far and wrong things can go before you can fully realize it. It's an entirely political concept and it's the true protagonist of the novel. Unsettling because we are all under the dome, and it doesn't end by just closing the book.
P.S.
If you are interested in the meta explanation I've hinted I can suggest to follow this link.
Submitted by Abalieno on December 10, 2009 - 00:17.
From a humorous interview (an aside: when no one is able to make a decent interview, writers have to interview each other to compensate):
As you're probably well aware, editors in the book world often do a lot of the work for a fraction of the glory, and tend to serve as scapegoats for the wrath of readers. If people like a book – well written. If they hate it – badly edited. And the odd thing is that it's virtually impossible to tell from the finished product how good the editing is, as you've no idea what state it started in.
Submitted by Abalieno on November 9, 2009 - 15:54.
Wrote to submit it for Pat's Q&A with him:
--
There has been quite an heated, ungenerous debate on forums about a presumed lack of editing and care for consistency on your part. We already know your stance, as a writer caught in the process of writing, about the push to drive the story forward to its ultimate destination while fighting and struggling against the tangle of details threatening to take you down. But once the thing will be wrapped up and finished it would make sense, maybe, to step out and take it as a whole to straighten those missteps and inconsistencies that have slipped through and that were kind of unavoidable with such an impossibly broad scope and ambitious series. For example the latest HC 10 Anniversary Edition of GotM has the 1st version of the text with even the simplest errors and inconsistencies still there (example: Dujek being called High Mage instead of High Fist pag.50, or the wrong warren name used by Quick Ben pag.98), but there are also more complicated matters, intricacies and various aspects that could be improved in GotM and other books. Most of these little mistakes, timeline problems and whatnot are concerns of overly dedicated fans who love to track the details and explore the text in every direction, so I'd like to ask if you have ever considered and are vaguely interested in ever doing this kind of laundry/polishing work that obviously couldn't be done in the first pass without succumbing to the text, but that opens now as a viable opportunity (at least from your own position as a writer, not considering the publisher's demand) to thoroughly content Everyone, really.
Submitted by Abalieno on November 6, 2009 - 18:51.
From Infinite Jest to Games' brainwashing.
You burn with hunger for food that does not exist.
Submitted by Abalieno on November 3, 2009 - 18:01.
Got my copy of this hardcover UK edition of GotM from Amazon.co.uk.
- It follows more or less the format of other hardcovers.
- Exceptions: two less lines each page and they decided to move the image on the side of the book on top, so it mismatches with the others (where the image is at the bottom).
- It has a new 2-page foreword.
- It has still the very 1st version of the text, with all the mistakes and errors on the text (like Dujek being called High Mage instead of High Fist or the warren of Meanas being called Rashan).
- Same for the map, still error-ridden 1st version.
I took some time to type here what's written in this new foreword.
To be honest, there is something slightly numbing about the realization that ten years have passed since the first publication of Gardens of the Moon. At that time the remaining novels in the series existed as ephemeral notions solely in my head. They belonged to the realm of dreams and wishes. The journey ahead, of words on a screen and then paper, still awaited me in the idyllic state that was the future. Yet the publication of Gardens of the Moon was, for me, a momentous event; for it permitted me to sharpen my focus, as I slowly, almost disbelievingly, comprehended that what was now coming to pass was indeed possible. These things could be reached. The import of that statement cannot be overemphasized. They can be reached.
I am now on the cusp of the tenth and final novel in the Malazan Book of the Fallen. Almost ten thousand pages span the gulf from Gardens to The Crippled God, a detail even more numbing than the decade it took to compose them. I am often asked; how do you sustain it? A difficult question to answer. How do I not? I have a tale to tell and until it is done an inexorable momentum drives me, an impatience against which I still struggle, knowing I need to do it right, and that haste is my deadliest enemy. Especially now.
So, I have been straining at the bit for a long time now. Ten years. Even longer if I include the seven or eight years it took for this first novel to find a publisher. And it is from this stance of long, familiar experience that I offer the following words to you, the reader, as you contemplate embarking on this series. If you are to share the journey that begins with Gardens of the Moon, hold tight against impatience. The story needs time, even as it seeks to urge you forward. There is something diabolical at work here and I have no idea what it is. It was never deliberate, even though, not counting the prologue, the first words of Gardens of the Moon are, uncannily,'Prod and pull...'
I cannot claim any prescience with that opening; perhaps, indeed, I was aware on some subconscious level that I was fighting the very thing that confounds many readers with this series. For me, it was the push to advance the story versus the pull to keep it under control, to hold tight on the reins no matter how wild the bucking beast. For the reader, the whole thing reverses: the story pulls, the details prod, claw and tug.
Prod and pull, 'this the way of the gods ...
Well, they certainly jerked my chain.
I am always dubious when I read what writers have to say about their work years after the fact (and I do not exclude myself). My scepticism only deepens when those writers then advise others on how things should be done, based solely on what they did. How easy is that? The truth is that most advice sucks, simply because now one knows where it's been, and experience is not something one can readily pass on anyway, as anyone with a teenaged child can tell you. So, when earlier on I offered some words on how to read my work, before I reached the final full stop I already felt jaded about the sentiment, no matter how well intentioned it happened to be. The novel will do what it does, and it is out of my control and maybe out of yours, too. With luck, one day you will be cracking the spine on the tenth and final novel in the series, and you will look back, slightly benumbed, to that creased and battered copy of Gardens of the Moon, there on your bookshelf, and you might think: That's where this all started. What did I think when I read that book? Did I guess where it would take me, eleven thousand pages later? How do I feel now?
When you have an answer to that last question, let me know. We can share notes.
With thanks and best wishes,
Steven Erikson
Cornwall
August, 2009
Submitted by Abalieno on October 26, 2009 - 06:34.
Arthmail:
Now, i didn't see your posts, but from the reaction here on the board, it sounds to me like you made personal attacks.
If you read my reconstructed post and didn't see any "personal attacks" it's because there were none.
I imagine that Werthead considered a personal attack when I said he was making false claims and then the part at the end where I was calling people hypocritical. It was all done in context and with argumentation. There were no gratuitous personal attacks.
Again, your being pretty subjective with your response. What some have argued (perhaps Werthead has, i can't remember), is that the series will not be done with 10 books because HALF OF THE SHIT THAT HAPPENS IN THE SERIES HAS YET TO BE EXPLAINED.
I had understood his point. Nor I have claimed the contrary.
That's why I was calling it a linguistic problem. That's why I said it's subjective whether or not the series receives a proper, satisfying closure. You can't set objectively what a reader may find satisfying or not. Nor you can say objectively if enough plots threads are resolved to match your own personal idea of "complete".
What I pointed out and that is objective is that the Malazan series has 10 books. And while the world in there is not "over", the series is. It has a start and an end, and it followed the pattern that was set and delivered. You people are arguing even on this.
If I make a project to build an house, set a timeframe and budget. Then I go on to build the house and in the end it takes twice the time, twice the budget, and there's no roof. Am I allowed to call the project a "failure"?
I didn't say ASoIaF was a failure because it sucks or because it wasn't successful enough. I called it a failure, as a project, because Martin himself wasn't able to match his own promises and doesn't seem to be able to stay ahead of the thing and give it a proper closure (objectively as in: maintaining his own declared plan of writing and finishing the series in 7 books).
By "your own" definition of "complete", ASoIaF may not be complete even if those 7 books are finished. So comparing Malazan to ASoIaF on this argument is wrong. You are using two different standards.
I don't remember him justifying it that way. As for quality, its BEEN proven. ASOIAF is superior to Malazan in any number of ways
It's your opinion that it is superior. And I would restrain to use popularity as a proof since even "Twilight" may end up as more popular than ASoIaF and so of a better quality. Let's just not go there.
When I said quality has yet to be proven I intended for books past 3 (it's with book 4 that difficulties started to rise and that many readers considered not up to the quality standard Martin set). Now that the delays are getting more important and that Martin is struggling more and more, quality has to be proven. We can't say if in the end he will actually match the readers expectations. For now he justifies the delays in the name of quality, but quality has yet to be proven (considering that Martin may find harder to write the series now compared to 12 years ago, which is part of my argument).
Everyone here wishes that Erikson as well started to delay his books indefinitely in the name of quality. I'd be wary to suggest that. First because it's utterly ludicrous since writers aren't computers and you can't simply order a writer to work under set rules, assuming that what works for Martin would work for Erikson and vice versa. Secondly because it's not an absolute rule that a delay equals better quality.
As China Meiveille said, Martin is not your bitch. As a fan of the series, it is troubling how long its taking Martin to finish even the next book, let alone others. As for not being successful, well, some people with money are pumping considerable amounts of said money into a tv project based on the novels. But if speaking strictly about the novels, how in gods green garden do you know what his original intent was? And how, exactly, did he betray it?
Yes, I see you have a problem not recognizing the context in which I used the word "successful".
As far as critical response, popularity and whatnot, ASoIaF is successful. Without a doubt more successful than Malazan will ever hope to be. Not only I know that but I even see very well the motivations.
I said it betrayed its original intent as in taking way longer than Martin originally planned and plausibly not being completed as Martin originally planned (as in: seven books). Erikson is planning new projects now that his first is near completion, projects set in the same fictional world, but different projects. Martin has to finish this one before he can plan another, even if a new one could be as well set in the same fictional world. Can't you see that their situation is not the same?
Heres a concept he could have used. Cut the books in half with a decent editor, loose a shit ton of reduandant stories, and move on. And when i mean cut in half, i mean don't have the friggin things 1000 pages nearly every book. He could have fulfilled his contract obligations by simply having 500 page books and increasing the quality of each one.
Only that "increasing the quality" is what you say.
In the same way people are saying each book should be 300 pages considering that all they enjoy are the fireworks. The problem is that not everyone wants that. Because what sets apart Malazan is not the fireworks, but everything else.
Different readers enjoy different things, even within the same book. You should also realize at this point that Erikson is "not your bitch". Not writing what you enjoy the most. In the same way Martin doesn't write stuff that I enjoy the most. But even if I don't like especially what Martin writes you don't see me pretending to give him writing lessons, while people here do it all the time in regards to Erikson (like you did up here).
In particular, Erikson himself made this point clear:
Some of my readers would rather I cut to the chase quicker than I do; to which I can only respond that my reasons for doing what I do continue to satisfy me, and trust me, if I am not satisfied absolutely no-one else will be. I am very deliberate in my approach, and I would humbly remind those impatient readers that their pace is not my pace; that reading is an engagement distinct from that of writing, and that at no time do I pad for the hell of it – again, I have my reasons!
By the way, while looking up that quote I found another that demonstrates pretty well how some claims Werthead made were utterly wrong. This is what Werthead says:
The Malazan Book of the Fallen was a project deliberately solicited to be a money-making series for Bantam UK. It was, literally, picked up to do the business for them that Wheel of Time did for Tor and Orbit. That's why they asked for 10 books when Erikson wasn't thinking about anywhere near that many and that's why they offered him such a colossal sum of money for it.
So he says that it was Bantam idea to propose him a series of 10 books and that they convinced him through a colossal sum of money.
That's not what Erikson himself says though:
I admit to some coyness at first. When the deal was being made for the first novel, it was a one-off contract, with first rights of refusal for the next one. It was only after 'Gardens' came out that I made mention of my grander scheme: ten books. And since by that point I was finishing up the second novel, Deadhouse Gates, I suspect it was seen as encouraging, in that I was able to deliver manuscripts at a decent pace, and I didn't balk at the notion of doing one a year. It's hard to consider the notions of everyone else involved -- I was, I suspect, both confident and naive, as only unseasoned writers can be. The series never felt too big, never felt impossible, or frightening. All I knew was an immense, burning impatience. I had the arc laid out in my mind: I knew where it was going and where and how it would end and I just wanted to get there.
Also, about the series not being complete as you argued thorough this thread:
With the tenth novel, The Crippled God, the ‘Malazan Book of the Fallen’ ends. While Cam (Ian Esslemont) has a few more to write in that sequence, I do not. The two new trilogies I am signed to write share the world and its cosmos, but they do not resume the arc of the Fallen. This may seem an odd distinction, maybe even an unconvincing one, but it is sharp in my mind. The whole point of the Malazan Book of the Fallen was to deliver a self-contained series, a slice of history, and to give the readers a sense of completion when they read the last line on the last page.
Submitted by Abalieno on October 25, 2009 - 18:46.
Once again I was participating to an interesting debate on Westeros forum when a moderator realized my arguments were not easy to counter in a normal discussion and so deleted all my posts. *groan*
I was quite pissed because I had written a lot and I'm one of those who can't write the same thing twice. So now I had to rebuild everything and is only a pale imitation of a discussion that I considered engaging (not just with him) and that I was enjoying.
This is more or less what it was, it appends at the end of this thread:
--
Me: ASoIaF (A Song of Ice and Fire, aka Martin's own fantasy series) risks to not be realistically realized and completed.
Werthead:
And so does Malazan. There's a hell of a long way to go yet.
You still don't think the series finishes with The Crippled God though, do you? Not even the authors are suggesting that. The only thing that finishes in the next book is the Crippled God story arc. Many, many other storylines stretching back to Book 1 will be going on for many years and many more books to come.
There is no more sign that ASoIaF cannot be brought to a conclusion than Malazan can be.
The Malazan series is ten books. It is going to be complete with that last book.
What Werthead considers "complete" is subjective. It's a matter of quality. It's a matter of whether or not the last book will offer readers what they consider a satisfying conclusion and proper closure. The last book isn't out so we can't say if it delivers from a subjective point of view or not. If it's good or not. But it's plain naive to argue that since more books are planned beyond the main series, and since we don't know what happened to every character, then the Malazan series is to be considered as unfinished and as a failure in the same way of ASoIaF. Or even that their situation is comparable. That's a quite ludicrous thing to say.
The difference is that Erikson is going to finish the series and it will be out there for readers to say if it's good or if it's shit. He went to the point and fulfilled his promises to the publisher and his readers.
Martin instead is holding back, and justifying these delays in the name of quality. But quality that has still to be proven and not to be taken so easily for granted.
Here people are being persuaded that a book taking forever is always synonymous of quality. It's not. It is more like a hope of his faithful readers that is yet to be fulfilled. It's suspended. A possibility but not a truth. It is ludicrous to say that Martin's way of doing his series is something that Erikson should learn for himself and that is to be preferred (obviously assuming that it is even possible to translate a writing process from a writer to another like a program in a computer, but we're just pretending in support of a discussion). Subjectively you can make your choice and have your preference, but no one can say if these delays are really justifying the quality of the book. Even more it's arguable that is to be preferred a series that appears to stick to an high quality standard but that takes 20 years to get to the point, and actually not getting to the point at all, to one that stays on track both from the schedule perspective and writing intent of its writer, even if it suffers form some mistakes along the way and that sacrificed the strive for perfection to not lose anything of its deliberateness, drive and ultimate goal.
What Werthead does here is playing on semantics because he's more interested to win an internet argument than actually understanding what I'm saying and having a normal discussion. So this has now become a linguistic problem.
How many trees you need to make a wood? 100? If 100 trees make a wood then what are 99 trees? Some trees together?
Words are just words. We use them to make ourselves understood but the words don't mirror reality and can be used to deceive (a theme that should be well known to Malazan readers). "Complete" is solely what you consider so. It's something subjective. You decide for yourself what you consider complete. But it is a fact that the Malazan series is 10 books. It was ten books when it was planned and it was delivered that way. So, as a project, it is complete. There are may be more books that Erikson decides to write that are set in the same world, but they would be their own projects. Projects within other projects. ASoIaF is planned to have 7 books. At this point it is not so plausible that Martin is going to deliver them and complete the series.
I will consider ASoIaF complete even if:
- Not all plot threads will be completely resolved in the last book.
- The conclusion sucks.
- Martin decides to write a sequel or prequel.
In the EXACT same way Erikson decided to write more books, Martin may decide as well (as long he achieves immortality) to write more books set in the same world. Does this mean that the series isn't complete?
Are you saying that since now Stephen King has linked all his books through the Dark Tower now all those books are to be considered incomplete because there may be an odd character that may appear in another book sometime in the future?
What I said is that, as a project, the Malazan series is plausibly going to be completed. As a project it was "successful", in the sense that it went as planned and Erikson delivered the goods. He wrote it in the exact way he wanted to write it. It is an accomplished thing. Fully realized. This doesn't mean that it's automatically great and everyone is going to love it. That's for the readers to say. But as a project it worked. ASoIaF, as a project, was a failure. Because Martin planned seven books and is not plausible that we'll see the end of it. It took him too long to write the thing, much longer than he thought. You can love it as much you want, but this doesn't make it a "successful" project. Because as a project it betrayed its original intent and proved to be harder and above what Martin seems able to handle when facing human limits.
To re-rail back the discussion on the only point that was meaningful in what I was saying: I believe that Erikson wrote this series in the only way it was possible to write it. Taking more time for each book would mean stretching it over a too long period of time and it is very likely that done that way Erikson would have lost momentum, focus and deliberateness. Here we assume again that more time equals better quality. Not always, not univocally. It's probable that the series would have gained in consistence and error-free continuity but Erikson himself decided that those mistakes weren't a priority in what he wanted to achieve. It's up to the readers then to say what they care the most about and if they enjoyed what he made in the way he made it.
That's why I was saying that from my point of view it would make sense to make a revision AFTER the series is complete. Because I believe that there are significant margins of improvement and you can take care of the minor details and inconsistencies that slipped through. But the series itself, with its scope and intent, was executed in the only way that was humanly possible with a project with this scope and ambition. There aren't better ways to do it. Stretching it over a period of 20 years would mean risking of getting swallowed and never again see the way out (not unlike Martin). Erikson proved that he could stay ahead of the thing, and demonstrated to be in control of it. Much more than any other example in fantasy.
That's why I say it is a success. Even if it doesn't mean that everyone is going to love it just because the writer fully realized what he intended to realize.
Then there's the part where Werthead makes false claims in support of his theories. I knows he is well informed but he presents what are wild guesses as proven facts and people on those forums are starting to believe him because those guesses are plausible. But something plausible doesn't make it true. Easier to believe, sure, but not true. It may be true, but we can't simply take something plausible for granted as if it was proven.
"It took until 2006 for the advance to be paid back"
"it took significantly longer than expected for the series to make any money."
"it's not doing anything even remotely like it was commissioned to do."
These are rather precise claims he made. I asked him to prove these claims and he deleted my posts instead. This is why I say that he makes wild, rough guesses and then pretends that we believe them. A lie that is made of parts that are true is a lie that is plausible, but still a lie. Werthead's behavior leads to believe people here that "he knows stuff", when instead he makes wild guesses that originate from true things he knows. Then he repeats those guesses across multiple forums over and over and over and over till he himself is persuaded that they are true. He brainwashed us and himself. And again I repeat that HE IS well informed, if he only stuck to things he know and didn't make up the rest.
That's the point where I said that the Malazan series should have taught him to not believe of truths that are made-up. He's like Karsa before the journey, with the difference that he makes up his own lies.
--
I also commented that I saw plenty of times on those forums people comparing Erikson's books to "anime" or "comic books" as a way to diminish their value and ridicule them in a way they believe is so subtle and smart, when instead it is really not.
That's why I said that it's a proof of how it seems the great majority of people are deeply hardwired hypocrite.
They read "fantasy" so they are ready to spring up and proudly defend the genre when one of those "fantasy versus serious literature" arguments comes up. They defend their own garden. Ready to go against those who call fantasy as a lesser form of literature and mock books that have magic, wizards and trolls.
But then they themselves have no concerns calling the Malazan series "anime in book form" or "literary comic book" as a cheap way to diminish its value and reduce the books to just a bunch of spectacular scenes. It's the same as usual: people mocking what they do not understand in order to celebrate their own stuff and elevate it above the rest.
Next time your daddy mocks your fantasy book collection just remember that you are no different.
Submitted by Abalieno on August 30, 2009 - 19:41.
Not a particularly interesting interview but at least we have more insight about the four books that Esslemont has planned as part of the Malazan series. I wish he said more about how the writing is going and what's the schedule more than just the confirmation that the project goes on.
Here what we know:
1- Stonewielder. It should be out in about a year. "tackles the Korel, or Fistian, subcontinent. It centers on Malazan entanglements there, the Stormriders, and a local religious cult." And that's more or less what we already knew.
2- The Darujhistan novel. Still confirmed. I had doubts because I think Erikson wrapped most plot threads in Toll the Hounds. There's more to say, apparently.
3- Jacuruku.
4- Assail.
Maybe these last two novels will deal with the aftermath of the main series. It remains to be seen WHEN these books will be published since the main series closes next year. 6-8 years at least before we see these books, since Esslemont isn't the writing machine that Erikson is.
Submitted by Abalieno on August 17, 2009 - 14:54.
If the decision to split "A Memory of Light" in three different books in order to milk the franchise didn't reveal a particular intention, this may even to the loudest and dumbest apologists.
Brandon Sanderson has written another piece where he explains he WILL WRITE the outriggers (Dune-like) as long Tom covers him with money while he unloads all responsibilities on Harriet.
The reasoning is quite interesting:
It would be very hard to let someone else write it. Almost as hard as it would be to let go of another series.
This being Sanderson expressing his own feelings, and one wonders how JORDAN would feel about Sanderson writing his stuff.
Translation: he already stabbed Mr Jordan once, and he's the most fitting to do it again.
What is irritating is the complete lack of sincerity and the continuous attempts to justify what he does without taking ANY responsibility for his choices. It's Tom that wants the books, it's Harriet that will decide if they will be made. He's just the passive writer with no choice but to save the day.
The outriggers being another three books, the prequels another two. He's set for a great career.
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