Ahira's Hangar

I was in my local second hand bookshop yesterday, as I'm thinking of embarking on Erikson's 'Malazan' books. (Is that right, Malazan? Are they any good?). I started chatting to the lady who co-owns the store and she startled me by telling me that she hasn't read anything but fantasy for about 20 years. Nothing factual, no contemporary novels, comedy, nothing. She won't read newspapers or magazines, has almost no idea who the latest political leaders/events in the world are, and seems deliriously happy in her ignorance.
Anyone else as single-minded as her?

That does sound extreme.

I find the Malazan books to be a mixed bag with some brilliant writing, and some real bloat and boredom. Others seem to literally worship Erikson. And others hate him. He gets really mixed reactions!

I would say to give him a try - but if you do not like the first book Gardens of the Moon, please read at least through the second Deadhouse Gates. It was written several years after the first, and I think it is heads and tails better. I do not think he really hits his stride until that second book. if you do not like Deadhouse Gates, then he is probably not a writer to your tastes.

It's not a bad way to go (the all-fantasy, all-the-time approach). When I was a teenager, I read tons of SFF, and continued to on and off through college. Somewhere along the way, I ran out of stuff to read; it was so damn hard to find good books in the '80's and '90's, before the internet. I pretty much gave up on fantasy after a dude in grad school told me to give Mercedes Lackey a shot; oy, what bitter crap it was (actually, I liked the Diana Tregard books, but hated the fantasy of hers that I tried). I spent a good 10 years or so reading mostly detective/mystery fiction. It gets tiresome, but if you find some authors you like, it can keep you pretty well entertained.

Then, a couple of years ago, I heard about RotE being released, so I figured I'd re-read the first two chronicles and see if I still liked them. I was amazed to find that I had 1) Completely forgotten everything in the books (including Lena's rape; not sure I even understood that when I was 12, to be honest). 2) The books were amazing the second time around. So then I suddenly got the bright idea that there must be Donaldson fans out there, and I found KW, and through KW discovered that there actually had been a lot of great fantasy written over the last 20 years. Shazam! I've pretty much been reading fantasy (with sci-fi sprinkled in at first, but I'm reading it more lately) for the last 2 and a half years exclusively. The only non-SFF I've read so far has been The Man Who Killed His Brother; I have the other 3 Man Who books, and I'll read them in the next year or so. Otherwise, I don't see myself returning to detective novels anytime soon.

Anyway, I pretty much gave up on politics and news about 5 years ago. It doesn't do a whole helluva lot to enrich my life, so I figured, "Why give a crap?" I can understand where the bookstore lady is coming from. I've got plenty of work to do, a family, and limited free time. Screw the news! Try it, it's great, I tell you, great!

As far as the Malazan books go, I've read the first five, and I enjoy the series. They're a lot of work, though. The books are just so damn long. It took me close to a month to read each of them. It's unfortunate, but GotM is a difficult slog for most readers. Erikson is a little bit too cagey for his own good at times. He would've been a lot better off if he'd made his first book more accessible. Malazan fans tend to have their own club (just go over to SFFworld; actually, don't; that site sucks, if you ask me). It's like, if you get through that book and into the good stuff, you get to congratulate yourself on being more clever and a smarter reader than the average schlub, or something like that. Deadhouse Gates is a good read, but I got hooked on the series with Memories of Ice, which is an amazing read. I also really liked the next two books. I'll get back into the series, probably at the end of the summer. The books are just so long and exhausting, that I needed a break after I finished Midnight Tides last fall.

I actually think he jumped the shark with Midnight Tides - I had loved Deadhouse Gates through House of Chains. MT is where the bloat, lack of editing, and boredom set in for me. Erikson really really needs a vicious editor with a big red pen! I honestly think Malazan could have been one of the greatest fantasy series of all time if he just had a ruthless editor! He recovered somewhat with Bonehunters - at least he got back to the characters, settings, and plotlines from the previous books - but tellingly, I have had tha latest book, Reaper's Gale sitting around the house for months now and cannot seem to bring myself to even open it.

This lack of editing seems to be an increasing problem with the fantasy genre. Later books in Jordan's Wheel of Time series and a recent heralded debut novel called Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss could also be poster books for this problem.

(By editing I do not mean just proof reading. I mean having an author cut out unneeded subplots that take up a hundred or more pages in a book pushing 1000 pages.)

I actually really liked most of Midnight Tides. I don't know why, but I loved Seren Pedac. I couldn't get enough of her. But the Tiste Edur are a pretty damn boring group of people. They lack personality in a big way. That said, I really loved the trip across the icefield to get the sword. It was one of my favorite sequences in the books. I did think that Erikson must've gotten bored writing battles scenes, because the big battles pretty much sucked. All you got was a description of one group of wizards sending a giant fireball against a second group of wizards, who retaliated with their own fireball. It didn't come close to the battles in the previous three books.

I do know what you mean about all of the new characters. One thing I don't like about the Malazan books is just the fact that I think that Erikson went way overboard with the world-building in the series. There's a point at which I just don't care for all of the details. I want a good story with interesting characters. But with each new book, he's got to whip out yet another elder race, another continent, and another elder god or two that you're supposed to care about. And if you'd been really paying attention, you would remember the one sentence 3 books and 3,000 pages ago that referred to the new character and gave you some keen insight. I just don't care that much about the hidden back-stories.

I also think it's kind of weird that he's sharing the stories with that Esslemont dude. I don't care if they were big-time D&D geeks, and invented the Malazan world together (seriously, when you think about it, isn't that really pathetic? How about going out on a date or going bowling or something? Instead, you two guys sat around dreaming up elder races together?). I just have no desire to read any of Esslemont's books, even if they're really integral to the overall story. I just have a hard time believing that he's as good of a writer as Erikson. And his first book, Night of Knives, was fricking expensive! I think it only comes as a hardback, costs like 20 bucks, and is only about 300 pages (with pretty damn big print). There's just no way I would spend that kind of coin on a good author's buddy.

Some serious yes and no's here then! I do love a thumping good read, and have no problem with really long books, as I work shifts and have plenty of free time, but I'm going to get the first couple of books from the library before I plunge headlong into (yet another) book buying spree!

I actually like the idea of ideas/ worlds being so complicated that you need a fewe thousand pages to start actually seeing what's going on, and as far as I know there are ten books on the Malazan already published (?) so somebody must be doing something right!
Don't quite understand this co-author thing though. Are they completely stand-alone books or an integral part of the series that have been kind of franchised out?

I think they're standalonish, but provide good supplementary info on Erikson's series. They have some characters in common. I was reading an interview with Esslemont a few days ago (linked on pat5150's blog), and he was talking about Laseen, a big character in the series (although she doesn't actually appear that much), and said that he and Erikson had differences of opinions on what she was like. I think I'll go with Erikson's, whatever it is. Like I was joking above, Night of Knives would be equivalent to one of SRD's friends writing a book about Kevin Landwaster. It wouldn't be essential to any of the chronicles, but it's still something you'd buy in a second if SRD had written it. But not if his gardener wrote it, and was charging 25 bucks a copy for it.

Well all in all I'm taking this as a thumbs up, next stop Malazan!

When he is on his game (like the Chain of Dogs) he is a brilliant writer. I am just frustrated more than anything, as this could have been one of the best fantasy series ever, and it is marred by such bad editing.