“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.
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.
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.