Malazan Book of The Fallen Book Club (Book 2) Book • Page 8

It's really what I love about the series in terms of character building. You see women in places of power, not because they're women, but because they're people who are good at what they do. Malazan is for people who are sick of fantasy tropes. There's some familiarity here and there, but Erikson mostly throws all of that out of the window.

No braid-tugging, sniffing, or crossing arms beneath breasts here /s

 

Yes yes yes! I could never put my finger on why it felt so unique to me and you’re totally right. It’s IS so “un-tropey”. The creativity it takes to character and worldbuild like this blows my mind.

Erikson said in some interview somewhere that, unlike most series that inherently tell the story about a character/group of characters, these books instead zoom the focus out to tell the story of an entire Empire. The Empire as a whole is the real main character. Which seems to change how he views/writes people and probably
part of why it feels so new and creative. (His anthropologist background and POV shining through?)

Side note: I bought book 5 and 6 at B&N yesterday, and the guy ringing me up was like “wow. these look super dark and grim”. hahah.

 

OOF the "braid-tugging" hits hard - that one has been ever prevalent in EOTW

 

Lolll im sorry but it doesn’t go away . In fact I think it gets worse

 

I'm going to be out of town starting tomorrow for about a week so I'm gonna go ahead and update the OP with next week's reading, which will be Chapters 14-16, or the book "Gadrobi Hills."

Things are really coming to a head at this point. The Hills and what lies there has been hinted at the entire book. I love the different races that exist in the Malazan world and the T'lan Imass are one of my favorites, certainly of the Elder Races, so Tool's inclusion as a character is one of my favorite parts of the book.

And here's a cool picture of Kalam and Quick Ben from this week's reading:

 

This picture is awesome, thanks! I like having a visual for them. These two are so good as a duo I get hyped whenever they’re in a scene together

speaking of Quick Ben, that scene in last weeks reading where he outsmarts Shadowthrone (while surrounded by blood thirsty Hounds) is one of my favs from this book.
“You’ll not have me, Lord, because you can’t.” and you learn he was a High Priest of Shadow whattt. Quick Ben is the best.

 

Drove all the way to the mega used bookstore across town for them to have none of these books. Figures.

 

Yeah QB and Kalam are great, wait until you get into their backstories.

 

Of course all of the audiobooks go an additional 30% off putting them into a price range I'm comfortable with...the one month I have no extra money to pick them up with.

 

What are they priced at originally?

 

Because I’m an audible member, they were all $12-$15 each. This sale has them between $8 and $10

 

I stalled hard on the second half of the second book (due to life, not disinterest). Hoping to pick it back up this week.

 

Dang, I can see how that adds up. Books are expensive in all forms.

The back half of that book....whew boy.

 

Ok this coming week's reading is pretty short, but it is the last section before the final push to the end. We'll be reading Chapters 17-19, which is only about 51 pages. Of course, you're free to power through until the end. Loooots of stuff happened in this past week's reading and I'll want to get right into it tomorrow morning so avoid the thread if you're not caught up. OP updated.

 

Fine, it took me a little longer to post but whatever.

Tons of stuff happened in last week's reading:

- Hairlock was torn apart by the Hounds of Shadow
- Rake kills two Hounds of Shadow
- Sorry is freed from Cotillion's possession
- Paran enters Dragnipur and frees the aforementioned Hounds
- Toc gets thrown into a warren or something

Hairlock's descent into insanity as a puppet was entertaining, but there wasn't really much else for his character to do. Rake once again proves to be a badass, showing up and effectively knocking the House of Shadow out of the game on Genabackis. We finally get a look into Rake's sword and see what it is that is so terrible about it - everyone it cuts down is enslaved to a life of fruitlessly pulling a massive wagon in the warren within the sword. Paran's encounter with Oponn in Dragnipur is great because it shows how gods and Ascendants mess around with mortals and mortals can get pissed off and push right back. That's one of my favorite things about this series, they're not on a level playing field but mortals can definitely cause trouble for the gods.

Also here's a picture of the massive wagon within Dragnipur:

 

I'm all caught up already and this isn't spoilery or anything, but I just have to drop in and say Sorry/Apsalar is like...adorable? I don't know, but seeing her character progress as this cold, calculated killer and then seeing her as a sort of bewildered young girl is really endearing.

Rake is something else, too. Another point to this book's characters sitting on a very grey line - Rake almost feels like a more positive force than anyone coming from the Malazan Empire. He feels more "true neutral" to me than anything so far.

Really excited to finish this book and move on to Deadhouse Gates - the world becomes a little more alive to me with every few chapters.

 

Yeah it's really funny to see Quick Ben being scared out of his wits whenever she's about and then suddenly she's the fisher girl who misses her dad and is like 2 continents away from her village. Kind of a rough life.

And man oh man, the world gets so much richer with book 2. I've said it before, but Erikson's writing really takes off there.

 

All of the comments on the vast improvement in Erikson's writing make me triple excited - I really, really love this book and the world so far, so getting something even better than what I have here makes me ecstatic.

And I really do want the best for Sorry at this point - she is such an interesting character and my biggest hope is to see both sides of her character "converge" in a cool way. Not sure how/if that will occur at any point in the story, but she's one of the most interesting characters to me and has been since the start.

 

Any casualties yet? Then again I guess if someone gave up/isn't up to speed, they'd avoid the thread. This coming week's reading we will be finishing the book and then we can dissect it properly. Interested to hear everyone's thoughts! I will post the official reading later but basically it's the rest of the book.

 

This past week was a short reading, so the last reading will be the final push until the end. We'll be reading Chapters 20-24 and then the Epilogue (pages 535-657 in my book). It's the largest reading we've done so far, so if people would prefer to split it into two weeks, we can do that. Erikson's books tend to have these massive climaxes and they are really hard to put down when they get to these points, so I figured we should just not put the book down.

Any naysayers?

 

This is it! We finish the book this week. I can't say that many of the people outside of this thread have been keeping up. If nothing else, I'm just enjoying reading through the series again. As for this past week's reading, some good stuff happened, but I wouldn't say it was as eventful as the previous week's reading.

- Paran finally got to meet the squad. He had a brief encounter with them way back in the beginning of the book and then promptly died. Nice to see them finally meet officially.
- we get to see what Coll is like when he is sober. So much of the Darujhistan plot is about Rallick and Murillio trying to turn Coll's life around, and as you figure out how he got to the point of barely being sober anymore, you kinda feel for him. I really like his interaction with Paran.
- Dujek and Whiskeyjack's conversation on the "bone phone" which is what it is called now lol. A cool glimpse into the technology of the K' Chain Che' Malle.
- Rallick's fight with Ocelot is pretty intense
- we finally learn where the title of the book comes from

Lots of little good things, but nothing too massive.

 

Getting through this epilogue bit by bit - not as quickly as I'd like (or as quickly as the other readings), but enjoying it substantially.

I will say, the last run of the book has definitely felt a bit more abstract than the rest of the book (not confined to the epilogue, really just a statement on the last quarter maybe) - so much of it has an interesting flow that makes certain motions seem a bit more vague, but I'm enjoying it nonetheless.

 

maybe I should have mentioned this weeks ago but I have the audio files for all 10 books and I'm willing to share lol

 

;)

 

what's the easiest way to get these to you?