Timewaster's Guide Archive
Departments => Books => Topic started by: Patriotic Kaz on July 31, 2009, 05:40:46 PM
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Feel free to theorize on the next 2 books, talk about your favorite scenes, ect.
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Who do you think takes up the throne of death? I think it will end up being Dassem Ultor. Also, how do you plan to heal Kurald Emurahln?
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Man, I don't know. I like to pride myself on being able to see where books are going, but Erikson never ceases to surprise me.
One of my personal favorite scenes is where Pust is talking out-loud to himself about how his god is insane. One of the most hysterical scenes.
One of the most powerful scenes, to me, was the thousands of crows that feast on Coultain at the end of book 2.
I also enjoyed the trap laid in Bonehunters with the walls of the city filled with oil.
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Pust never ceases to mention the follies of his god and his lack of sanity...i assume the scene you speak of is when he tells shadowthrone that he is insane. I prefer the end of Toll the Hounds when you find out why pust is the Magus of Shadow that was hillarious... i was also surprised that dragnipur was destroyed i thought Karsa would end up with it as he is the knight of High House Chains
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are you importing book 9 or waiting till january-ish for the US release date? I'm importing it along with the WoT novel (i refuse to have the US ugly version in my house).
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Depends if the shipping is too costly i'll wait
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its not too bad. I think it ends up costing me around $30 something for the book with shipping. and i get the better cover art! and i get it nearly 6 months before the US release date.
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Shipping will be the deciding factor for me as well. And I'll probably import the UK version of Gathering Storm as well, just because I really really hate the US cover.
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I picked up GARDENS last week and made it a few chapters in, then kinda decided I would read it last (I got a couple other books from my library too). I may actually never get around to it. I was at the part where all the Mages were attacking the giant castle or whatever and just getting utterly destroyed until eventually it was only the female viewpoint mage who survived. It just seemed like it was going to be too long and too slowly paced for me. I didn't have it in me to start another huge fantasy series with a really complex plot line that didn't have much going for it in the way of uniqueness.
Tell me, am I wrong? Is this series really going to pay off later? What do YOU think is so great about this series? Try to convince me.
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Did you seriously say it wasn't unique? What's your address? I'm sending you anthrax.
You know, I am posting a review of GARDENS on my review blog this week sometime (maybe tomorrow). It give a non-spoiler view about what makes it good.
GARDENS is prolly the hardest book to get into out of any fantasy novel. It's learning curve is very steep. The 9th book of the 10 book series just came out in the UK, so this portion of it is almost done. It is the most complex story of any fantasy out there, but whether you like that or not is up to personal preference. But uniqueness? Erikson's stuff is positively infested with uniqueness. Erikson has a background in anthropology and archeology, which has let him build incredibly deep and detailed original races. GARDEN picks up in the middle of a war that has been going on for a VERY long time. His world is as gritty as Martin's, but with extreme amounts of magic (whereas martin has virtually none).
My conclusion is that GARDENS doesn't become a great book until you have read more of the series. Hardly the best business plan up front, i know, but after reading through the next 2 novels (especially book 3), you realize how important GARDENS is, and how much info Erikson snuck in. Generally, I say that more happens in the first 3 Erikson novels than most other complete series (Jordan included).
I finally convinced Kaz to give it a read--he wasn't sold after book 1. However after books 2 and 3 he saw the light.
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Alright. After that review I will have to at least finish the book. And yes, I did get the terrible US cover: maybe that colored my perceptions a bit.
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look at the UK covers, they are much nicer. It also looks like the US is going to start using the UK covers. We just had a trade paperback reissue of GARDENS with a much better cover, and book 9 is being advertised in the Tor Catalog with the UK cover. hopefully the US will reissue books 3-8 with the UK covers (book 2 has it).
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Book 1 is good it just isn't great HOWEVER Memories of Ice is as good as Dragon Reborn or whatever your favorite WoT Book is and would be better if it didn't start slow.
*SPOILERS*
Gothos is such a badass i mean if you can call Raest a weakling (isn't he one of the weaker sons of Gothos i mean Icarium would kick his ass and he's a half breed) your damn strong i like his conversation with Kallor it hillarious and so are most of the conversations with Raest