“Something can be born out of everything – if you want it to,” said Iris Haim, whose hostage son Yotam was killed in Gaza. Those words are helping her find hope, as she seeks to use his sperm to have a grandchild.
Serious question, and despite my tone, I mean this in a genuinely good-faith and non-hostile way: what do you like about the Malazan books? I read the first two at the suggestion of my coworkers, but I wasn’t a fan and neither of them were able to articulate why they enjoyed the series particularly well.
Like, Deadhouse kinda lingered on the whole “indigenous uprising is brutally murdering our perfect colonizers” and I was struggling to understand why I was supposed to care about the colonizers in that situation. Made it hard to sympathize with Coltaine et al.
I’ll address two different questions. I love the Malazan books because it’s an incredibly creative world with great characters who represent themes of compassion and sympathy in a world that is pointlessly cruel. Erikson uses a fantasy setting to explore humanity often using very inhumane creatures. Plus you get some awesome shit like sword guys fighting wizards and dragon demons. It’s also written by an archaeologist which shows when fantasy cultures are depicted with realistic depth.
Like, Deadhouse kinda lingered on the whole “indigenous uprising is brutally murdering our perfect colonizers”
Interestingly I had a very different interpretation of the Whirldwind. My thoughts were “of course the people of Seven Cities are being so violent, they’re responding to the violence of empire.” Real world indigenous struggles are not so clean either. At this point the Empire has also been shown to be cruel.
We had such a different reactions because Erikson narrates things like violence, genocide, and SA in a neutral light and expects the reader to form their own opinion. As a writer in general, he doesn’t spell things out for yon. In other fantasy series, I would expect the characters we are following (in this case imperial soldiers) to be presented as the good guys fighting bad guys, which would lead to your interpretation. In Malazan, he forgoes good and bad people and tells a story where people navigate a violent and cruel world. Sometimes they make selfish choices, sometimes they make selfless choices.
It’s also not a series for everyone. If you go into Memories of Ice with an open mind, you might start to enjoy it. That’s where he really starts getting mileage out of his best themes. But if that book doesn’t hook you, it might not be for you.
The colonising capitalist empire that ends up consumed by the undying mad corpse of one of their colonial subjects. Who is literally encased in golden coins that fall off him as he moves is probably the least subtle he could get in condemnation.
But even then the authorial voice is always distant and academic. He plays both sides really, setting up the scenarios he wants to criticise but never making it explicit, always dispassionately describing the events as they fall while he’s got a thumb on the scale.
I think you can actually track his own views by how distant the narrator gets from the action. Like in those horrific torture scenes they are basically described by a person backed so far into the corner of the room they’re breaking ribs.
Yes while his narration is academic as you said, Erikson really makes it obvious where he stands by book 5. He does his philosophizing through his characters, who don’t hide their displeasure with the world.
It’s been years but I don’t think you’re supposed to be picking sides exactly.
The malazan empire is explicitly corrupt and the invasion of continent a pointless and cruel disaster. The whirlwind in extrodinarily unnecessarily violent and doesn’t represent some unified purpose but one extreme faction rising to prominence. The chain of dogs could have been entirely avoided with an orderly evacuation but greed and cowardice + political scheming means a heart rending amount of suffering is going to take place.
In this backdrop a bunch of imperfect people are trying to do their best. The wickains are facing their own annihilation as the malazan empire subsumes them, but perhaps military performance can win them some freedom, a group of people set out to try kill the person they hold responsible but get tangled in a giant mess and end up maybe making things worse or perhaps not, a shithead becomes a broken girl but maybe also hope for tempering the uprising and wresting control from a corrupt and sexually perverted elite.
It’s just messy, and what drives it is people trying to do their best and often on different sides. You confront how good intentions can make mortal enemies and sometimes mortal enemies can become something else through recognition of common humanity.
The whole series is basically a meditation on the corrupting influence of empire, the momentum of historical events, the fundamental goodness in ordinary people, and how compassion can win something kinder from the ashes and blood left behind by imperial ambition.
Oh also without spoilers the series later goes into absolutely scathing criticism of colonialism and capitalism. At points the characters basically turn to the reader and go “Holy fuck shit I cannot even fathom what sort of imbecile, what absolute cretin, would organise society this way” so it is worth approaching the books in good faith.
The author is an anthropologist and so I think overall he is trying to present a nuanced, almost anti-fantasy world. There aren’t really good vs evil conflicts and tribal cultures that the books take the side of against empire are shown to have absolutely hideous punishments applied incorrectly while the glorious empire with its plumbing and cities rounds up and executes children in case they become politically inconvenient while sending thousands into pointless meat grinders.
Serious question, and despite my tone, I mean this in a genuinely good-faith and non-hostile way: what do you like about the Malazan books? I read the first two at the suggestion of my coworkers, but I wasn’t a fan and neither of them were able to articulate why they enjoyed the series particularly well.
Like, Deadhouse kinda lingered on the whole “indigenous uprising is brutally murdering our perfect colonizers” and I was struggling to understand why I was supposed to care about the colonizers in that situation. Made it hard to sympathize with Coltaine et al.
I’ll address two different questions. I love the Malazan books because it’s an incredibly creative world with great characters who represent themes of compassion and sympathy in a world that is pointlessly cruel. Erikson uses a fantasy setting to explore humanity often using very inhumane creatures. Plus you get some awesome shit like sword guys fighting wizards and dragon demons. It’s also written by an archaeologist which shows when fantasy cultures are depicted with realistic depth.
Interestingly I had a very different interpretation of the Whirldwind. My thoughts were “of course the people of Seven Cities are being so violent, they’re responding to the violence of empire.” Real world indigenous struggles are not so clean either. At this point the Empire has also been shown to be cruel.
We had such a different reactions because Erikson narrates things like violence, genocide, and SA in a neutral light and expects the reader to form their own opinion. As a writer in general, he doesn’t spell things out for yon. In other fantasy series, I would expect the characters we are following (in this case imperial soldiers) to be presented as the good guys fighting bad guys, which would lead to your interpretation. In Malazan, he forgoes good and bad people and tells a story where people navigate a violent and cruel world. Sometimes they make selfish choices, sometimes they make selfless choices.
It’s also not a series for everyone. If you go into Memories of Ice with an open mind, you might start to enjoy it. That’s where he really starts getting mileage out of his best themes. But if that book doesn’t hook you, it might not be for you.
plot spoilers
The colonising capitalist empire that ends up consumed by the undying mad corpse of one of their colonial subjects. Who is literally encased in golden coins that fall off him as he moves is probably the least subtle he could get in condemnation.
But even then the authorial voice is always distant and academic. He plays both sides really, setting up the scenarios he wants to criticise but never making it explicit, always dispassionately describing the events as they fall while he’s got a thumb on the scale.
I think you can actually track his own views by how distant the narrator gets from the action. Like in those horrific torture scenes they are basically described by a person backed so far into the corner of the room they’re breaking ribs.
Yes while his narration is academic as you said, Erikson really makes it obvious where he stands by book 5. He does his philosophizing through his characters, who don’t hide their displeasure with the world.
It’s been years but I don’t think you’re supposed to be picking sides exactly.
The malazan empire is explicitly corrupt and the invasion of continent a pointless and cruel disaster. The whirlwind in extrodinarily unnecessarily violent and doesn’t represent some unified purpose but one extreme faction rising to prominence. The chain of dogs could have been entirely avoided with an orderly evacuation but greed and cowardice + political scheming means a heart rending amount of suffering is going to take place.
In this backdrop a bunch of imperfect people are trying to do their best. The wickains are facing their own annihilation as the malazan empire subsumes them, but perhaps military performance can win them some freedom, a group of people set out to try kill the person they hold responsible but get tangled in a giant mess and end up maybe making things worse or perhaps not, a shithead becomes a broken girl but maybe also hope for tempering the uprising and wresting control from a corrupt and sexually perverted elite.
It’s just messy, and what drives it is people trying to do their best and often on different sides. You confront how good intentions can make mortal enemies and sometimes mortal enemies can become something else through recognition of common humanity.
The whole series is basically a meditation on the corrupting influence of empire, the momentum of historical events, the fundamental goodness in ordinary people, and how compassion can win something kinder from the ashes and blood left behind by imperial ambition.
Oh also without spoilers the series later goes into absolutely scathing criticism of colonialism and capitalism. At points the characters basically turn to the reader and go “Holy fuck shit I cannot even fathom what sort of imbecile, what absolute cretin, would organise society this way” so it is worth approaching the books in good faith.
The author is an anthropologist and so I think overall he is trying to present a nuanced, almost anti-fantasy world. There aren’t really good vs evil conflicts and tribal cultures that the books take the side of against empire are shown to have absolutely hideous punishments applied incorrectly while the glorious empire with its plumbing and cities rounds up and executes children in case they become politically inconvenient while sending thousands into pointless meat grinders.