Timewaster's Guide Archive

Well I read Reaper's Gale and Toll the Hounds from Erikson this week.  I liked them both, but for different reasons. 

Reaper's Gale was very well told.  It included some of my favorite characters.  One thing that Erikson does very well, which I think is rare in fantasy, is capture the movements of armies over an entire campaign.  He does this without bogging down, or being boring.  I loved the story of the Marines in Reaper's Gale.  There was a lot of nail biting moments.  I liked that Erikson went out of his way to demonstrate that in many ways, the Malazans were much further advanced.  Their magic was different, their weapons and armor superior, and their technology was superior.  Still, there were a few times that he sliced through Gordion knots that didn't have to be cut in such an abrupt manner.  Mainly, I'm looking at Karsa's duel with the Emperor.  I thought it was more than a little anticlimatic.

Toll the Hounds was hard to get through.  It's strange, because I saved several quotations throughout this novel on my kindle.  I did so, because Erikson had some very profound thoughts on grief, faith, and several other things.  The further destruction of the Bridgeburners was heartbreaking.  Cutter's personal growth was nice to see.  The ending was very well done.  Very poignant.  Unfortunately, I found several portions in the middle that ran on and on, seemingly going nowhere.  Also, the beginning was hard to sink my teeth into because it felt like we jumped from one POV/plot line to another to another to another.  After a few hundred pages and you've only come back to a few plot lines twice, it gets old.  So this novel, while hard to get through, was well paid off in the end.

Finally, I read Dan Wells's latest in the series.  "I Don't Want to Kill You."  I found his first novel intriguing.  Almost like a teenage Dexter.  (Yes I know, the comparison's been made many times before).  I knew going in about the supernatural aspect (and yes, as Dan's addressed before, it's not set up well and kind of pulls the reader out of the book when it first occurs).  Still, I wanted to read the second one.  Mr. Monster was disturbing.  I've experienced a lot in my life.  Overseas, my experiences have been well outside the realm of the average person.  Even so, this novel was upsetting.  You see, Dan does a good job of making us think that there's more to John Cleaver.  Perhaps, he isn't a sociopath.  Perhaps there's hope.  Mr. Monster dashes those hopes away.  Even while we see John start dating and began to become more normal.  We know it can't last...and it doesn't.

Which brings me to his latest novel.  It's a fast read.  I found myself wondering where John was going to go in this novel.  Dan starts us off similarly to the first two.  There is a murder.  There's sufficient evidence to indicate it's a serial killer.  What I loved about this novel, is that it threw out the rule book.  John seemed more in control of his tendencies, but we got to see that he was indeed falliable.  What made this novel for me though, was the interaction between John and those around him.  I'm not quite convinced that a girl like Marci would exist in the real world.  It would take a hell of a personality for a girl to be the hottest girl in school and still have the confidence to go for an unpopular guy.  Not only to go for that unpopular guy, but to appreciate him for who and what he is.  And ultimately, that level of maturity is increasingly rare in our society.  I'm not convinced that Marci exists, but I hope she does.  And Dan clearly hopes so as well.  For once, John isn't alone.  Dan did a very good job here.  He made me forget that thus far, this series has not been a happy one.  The happiest ending was the first book and it's only grown darker since.  I won't give anything away, but I was reading the book at work  (I'm blessed with free time occassionally) and had I known what was coming, I would've put the book down and waited until I got home.  It packs a punch.  One that leaves the reader gasping.

I've never been a huge fan of YA.  Too many times it's like high school all over again.  The only people that look back with fondness on high school are either old enough to forget what it was like or else were part of the reason why high school was not the best years of our lives.  I'm suspicious of those that espouse it to be the best years.  Dan Wells does a good job of weaving roses in amongst the thorns and reminding the reader that there were rays of sunshine.  And enjoy those rays, because he doesn't let them last long.  Thanks for the read, Dan!


@Bookstore Guy, I'll probably give those two books a read this weekend if I have time.  I need to take a breath before the plunge of the final two :-)

@Bookstore Guy

I'm okay with the novels setting up the rest.  Haha, as a huge WOT fan I've had some experience with the middle novels bridging the gap of earlier novels and setting up future ones.  As long as the world is brilliantly realized and the characters are intriguing I don't need an incredibly active plot provided it's clearly going somewhere.  Clearly, Erikson's delivered on those points.

I get what you're saying about Martin and co. To be fair, I don't think those guys are putting out books at such a slow rate due to editing though.  I think it's mainly due to not writing as fast or as often.  I get your point.  I do love authors that are prolific.  I have a lot of respect for King, Sanderson, (and now) Erikson who put out large volumes of work on a consistent basis. 

I look forward to reading the interview.  I've been busy lately and haven't had a chance to research Erikson much.  So far it's just been through his novels.

There's quite a bit of passive voice going on.  Ex. "was leaning", "had flung."  Instead just use "leaned, flung, flew, etc". 

The first sentence of the third paragraph (which really is the first sentence) was too passive for me as well.
"The camp for now was quiet which was an unusual occurrence, usually the clamor of men at arms or the screaming of prisoners could be heard throughout the night, preventing a sleep that was filled with its own breed of deathly melody."

I think something similar to this would work better:

"The camp was unusually quiet.  The silence screamed in her ears.  Sleep was a struggle without the cries of prisoners or the clash of weapons.  Sleep, devoid of its deathly melody would not come."

Your language is flowery, but I don't think that's issue.  I liked it.  There were numerous places with dialogue that had missing punctuation.  Also, I think that usually the standard format is Courier or Times New Roman, double spaced.  I didn't mind the different font, but the single spaced is harder to read.

You used the word forced three times nearly right in a row.  I would suggest using it once and finding different words for the other portions.

I agree with Akoebel, you should lose the first paragraph.  The second paragraph you could keep where it is, but I think it would be better as a quotation before the piece begins.  It works in nicely at the end.  That was well done.  I also liked that it wasn't enough.  Never make it too easy for the characters :-)

Just finished Memories of Ice, Book 3 by Steven Erikson.  Wow is the first word that comes to mind.  I said before the world is massive, but this one really started to show just how much of an understatement that is (and there were hints at how much larger the world is so I'm guessing I'm not done yet).  This time the novel switches back to the Bridgeburners, or what's left of them.  I loved the cycle of Gods and how they are being forced to come together.  I loved the politics.  I really loved some of the social commentary made by Erikson.  It was nice to see the Malazan Empire through the eyes of others and realize that in many respects, here is an Empire very similar to the Roman Empire, minus the lack of morality.  The explanations of their army structure and their layers within layers that the reader is only now beginning to see is breathtaking.

Description was a lot better than the previous two books (though still lacking in parts).  Characterization was much more developed as well.  I feel that by this book Erikson no longer feels like a beginning novelist still finding his feet.  That's refreshing because the series feels like it's about to take off and I'm ready to try to keep up.

Once again, there was one plotline that seemed to me to be completely unneccessary.  The Mhybe (sp?) was hard to read and generally boring.  I understand the reason for her line (mainly to show us that Silverfox had good intentions), but I feel that this could have been shown without having to read pages and pages of endless whining. 

I said it before and I'll say it again.  I feel that Erikson would benefit from a really good editor.  I wouldn't envy them the task, because to be hypervigilant through 900+ pages is not easy.  I think that they caught 90% of the book.  Whether this was Erikson on a rewrite or the agent or the editor, I don't know.  I do know that there were occassional parts that were either sloppy, plodding, unneccessary, or not as well executed.  For most authors this wouldn't stand out, but Erikson's prose/story was so well done on this one that I picked up on it.

The ending was one long boulder rushing down a mountainside that bounced off into space and plummetted, taking my heart with it.  I wasn't prepared for the level of emotion unleashed at the end of the book.  Erikson was masterful in that moment.  Readers beware, like Martin, he's not afraid to kill off beloved main characters.  I think the main difference is that, whereas Martin does it to be realistic/gritty, Erikson's characters generally die in ways to show the best parts of humanity.

To sum up, I'll be reading the rest of the series :-)

Thanks for the link!  I had heard his learning curve was steep, and it was, but I didn't think it was too terrible.  I also heard that he started in the middle of the story and made no bones about it.  I was fine with that, but I still think his characters weren't well developed.  Having said that, the ending was sufficiently entertaining and the prose was well done.  Based on that and the link I'll pick up the second book.  We'll see how that goes, I'm looking forward to it.

I just finished two books today.

The first is 9 years among the Apache.  It's an account from a boy who was kidnapped by the Apaches in 1870 at age 11.  He lived with them and the Comanches as an Indian for 9 years.  He stole horses, killed white men, indians, and mexicans, and rode over most of the southwest.  Finally, Quannah Parker convinced him to go to the reservations and then they found his family and he was reunited.  He eventually became "civilized" again.  He lived until the 1930's and Congress made an exception so that he could stay on the reservation as a Comanche.   Very intriguing read, I have read a lot of the West, but was still unprepared for some of the savagery in the book.

The second was Freakonomics.  I saw the documentary and wanted to pick up the book.  Very interesting read.  The authors tackle some controversial subjects (abortion and it's effects on crime) but only from the relationships of numbers and the data, not from any moral aspect.  Other interesting portions deal with parenting, sumo wrestling, and real estate agents.  I've always liked economics (in theory, in practice I'm not a huge fan of regression analysis) and this book was a fun read.

Next up is the 2nd  Erikson novel.

Hahaha, that was good.  I was thinking the same thing.  I like GRRM's books, but my opinion of his work ethic is something else entirely.

I agree that Meluan Lackless's sister is most likely Kvothe's mother.  I hadn't heard about the potential second trilogy.  I think that would make a lot of sense and you're right.  The first person POV is much tighter than the third POV parts.  I'm not sure how he would make that work, but he's got a few years to figure that out.

I spoke with Scott at World Fantasy at the end of October.  He seemed to be doing better.  I asked him about the next book and he said that he hoped to have it out this spring.  Having said that, I don't know if it will actually happen.  Usually when there's months in between posts it's not a good sign.  I feel bad for the guy.  His exwife has a live journal that she posts very candidly about their relationship.  A few months after she left him she was posting about how great it was to be free and there are several posts about dating other people and wanting to be with someone else.  Obviously, there are two sides to every story, but if you're having panic/anxiety attacks and then your wife leaves you and starts putting up stuff like that, I can't imagine it's very helpful in moving on with your life.