Now that Amanda and Bill have concluded their reread of Memories of Ice (and have gotten a well-deserved vacation), we’re opening up the floor to Malazan series author Steven Erikson for your Memories of Ice-related questions!
The procedure is the same as it was when Gardens of the Moon, Night of Knives, and Deadhouse Gates were wrapped up. Post your questions to Steven in the open thread below and they’ll be answered by the author himself! Keep in mind that the timing of the answers is subject to Steven’s schedule.
There are no strict guidelines for questions, but concise and well-composed questions are always best!
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Hi Steve, thanks very much for taking time out to answer our questions.
MoI-wise, there is a scene where some Rhivi scouts have come across K’ell Hunter corpses (killed by T’lan Ay), and Whiskeyjack, who’s next on the scene, asks them what they think happened. After a bit, other riders – Silverfox, Korlat, Kallor, Brood, etc appear in view, and one of the Rhivi mutters a mysterious ‘Yes’ which makes WJ wonder what was meant by that.
The question is a two-parter: 1) Was the ‘Yes’ in reference to Silverfox, a way of showing us that the Rhivi had linked the T’lan Ay to Silverfox, who’d just appeared? 2) Was it also foreshadowing a much later scene, where another person standing near Whiskeyjack – Kallor this time – utters ‘Yes’ mysteriously (mysteriously to the individuals nearby anyway) just as Silverfox appears?
You know when tiny tiny things stick in your mind? Well, this is one of those things for me :)
Steve, you already answered my MoI question in the last thread (thanks!) so if I may I’ll use this space to ask about your short story, “Goats of Glory”, which (by the way) was pretty awesome.
I know the anthology editor, Lou Anders, is quoted as saying “not a Malazan story, but a good one”. However, it appears to actually be set in the Malazan world, with the reference to “Aren steel” and the scent of spice accompanying a shapeshift; not to mention certain astronomical conditions that place it post-TtH.
Just wondering if you could confirm the story’s placement in Malazan “canon” (as it were), and whether this story takes place somewhere we’ve heard about but never seen, or perhaps someplace entirely new to us. Or maybe it was just a completely-unrelated one-off that on a whim you decided to give some Malazan “flavor”?
Thanks! ~Chris
Steven,
Were you afraid that Whiskeyjack’s refusal to have his leg fixed when he clearly has the time would detract from the impact of his death? Some readers are more angry at the way it feels manipulated as opposed to sad over a beloved character dying. How would you address that?
At what point did you start playing around with the concept of a soul being distinct from a body? Was it in the Malazan series? Do you believe this is so in real life?
Hi Steve, thanks for taking the time to field questions again.
The one thing I struggled with reading this book was what purpose the inclusion of Broach and Beauchelain served in this book. Almost all the regular characters in the book in some way serve the “main” plotlines but these two really don’t. There are admittedly wonderful scenes with them and those scenes serve to build other characters in some ways but the whole plot of KB & B, Reese and Buke sometimes felt out of place. And I’m not sure we see them again, at least not through Dust of Dreams. So my question is what you were bringing to the table with this storyline?
Thanks!
Steve,
Whiskeyjack’s death seems to be set up by the events at the garden party in Gardens of the Moon. When you were writing GotM did you know that Kallor would be the one killing WJ or did that emerge as you progressed through the books?
Also, in MoI, we can see set up for events in Midnight Tides for example, The Emperor of the Edur and the searching fleet. Did you have a lot of the big picture plotted out at the time you were writing and you were mainly filling in the myriad small details?
Thanks.
Steve,
one incident in MoI created a whole lot of confusion: Dujek and Whiskeyjack reminiscing on the T’lan Imass attack on Aren showing that the emperor wasn’t dead, while Dancer’s memories in DG go on about him having a discussion with Laseen on the same subject (thus obviously still around). Will you at some point clear up what happened at Aren?
Thanks very much.
Steven,
Do you (or maybe Cam) plan to make it more clear at one point in your books who or what Garath is? Some people speculate that he is a possible future addition to the hounds of shadow, but I’m not entirely convinced.
Thank you.
MOI has always been, for me, the novel with the highest number of tear-jerking moments. I just wanted to ask Steve, when writing particular scenes, is there a part of you that sits observing yourself writing that material and thinks, “Wow, this is going to knock some people for six”?
Do you anticipate readers’ reaction to scenes as you write them, and what scene, if any, has surprised you by the intensity or direction of the reaction to it?
How early in writing the series/MoI did you decide (or realize) that Whiskeyjack and the Bridgeburners were going to die? And was it painful to write those scenes?
Steven,
I don’t have much to ask about MoI only. It’s very tight and complete written, and one of my favourite books of all time. You did surprise me on the first read, with how the remaining BB’s were almost completely wiped out, but after a few rereads it fits very well.
I wasn’t surprised about WhiskeyJack dying (which is well written); even in my first read of GotM my impression of him was that of a tired/broken man, only caring about his squad’s and other BB squads’ survival. To me, that only could last for so long…
My question is about Silverfox, though. There has been some uncertainty in this book on if Bellurdan was one of the souls in her. Sometimes he was mentioned as one, and sometimes he wasn’t.
Considering what happens in one of the later books (I won’t spoil here for new readers, but I’m sure you know what I mean), is Bellurdan part of Silverfox or is the book I mentioned a clue pointing at something that happened to her before the events in that book (which we will possibly find out in a future installment)?
Mr. Erikson,
I thank you for once again taking the time to respond to our questions and comments; we’ve had a lot of fun with the re-read here, and your insights, both in your occasional presence in the re-read itself and here in these Q&A sessions, has been greatly appreciated. Your unique world, use of rarely used literary tricks, dismissal of tropes, strong characters and philosophical tangents have made the Malazan Book of the Fallen my favorite fantasy series I’ve read to date. Where I can appreciate the skill of other authors, for whatever reason my mind sees them as pieces of intelligent entertainment, where your novels take on a sort of literary value I rarely find in works of fiction, much less fantasy.
With that said, and the flattery dispensed with, I have just a few questions to offer you today.
Although I believe I’ve seen that the nature and origin of Burn is something you’ve decided to leave up to reader interpretation, the threat of Burn perishing from fever is a driving force in this novel, with dire repercussions hinted at if the event would come to pass. Can you tell us what exactly Burn’s death would mean for the world at large, and if not, can you at least tell us what Quick Ben, or another character’s, possibly erroneous opinion of the situation may have been?
I also wanted to ask a question about some of the characters introduced here, in particular Picker and Blend. After this novel, their appearances are for the most part a result of their getting caught up in larger events around them, but both only just begin to become proactive before you leave them at the close of The Crippled God. Was much of their use from this point forward a way of establishing events for Esslemont’s eventual Darujhistan novel, and do you ever wish that the scope of your Book of the Fallen had allowed you to pen the close of their story yourself?
My final question is in regard to something I found incredibly amusing in Esslemont’s latest work, Stonewielder. You both make a habit of overturning genre tropes, but in the process of writing your novels you seem to have created a few tropes yourselves. The character of Suth, the newly minted Malazan heavy that served as Esslemont’s eyes-on-the-ground character in the Malazan invasion force, seems to overturn every assumption we readers have ever made about a Malazan soldier. Was this a pre-conceived idea from your roleplaying game, or was it a creation of Esslemont’s for the novel? Also, what was your reaction to it?
Again, we thank you for your time, and hope for your continued presence her at Tor.com.
-David “ZetaStriker” T.
Steve,
I don’t have any questions specific to MOI but would like to say that, as always, it was an excellently written book. Although not one of my overall favorites in the series, its importance lies in the fact that it lays the foundation for so much of what follows. As always, very nicely done!
Did some questions get deleted? I’m sure I had posted this in the comments before… anyways:
Hi Steve,
MoI provides us with even more information and exposure to the complex Moranth society. You’ve revealed in the books or in other Q&As the specific expertise of the Gold, Silver, Black and Blue Moranth (ie: the Blue are expert seafarers). What are the expertise of the Green and Red Moranth? And are there any other Moranth colours not revealed in the series (aside from Kruppe’s speculated Purple Moranth!)?
Thanks!
Ugh, I need to start putting together all the questions but it’s hard in the impossible heat here.
Anyway, Steve, I’m going to pack a lot of questions without restraints, so feel free to ignore or dodge them, I won’t be disappointed ;)
(WARNING: wall of text incoming)
– In the latest world map we got in our hands (that was based on one of your old sketches), Jakuruku is placed west of Korelri. Both being also rather small (about the same size of Quon Tali). But in this Prologue K’rul moves through the whole Korelri and supposedly arrives on the west shore of Jakuruku (they are three, Draconus comes from the north, Sister of Cold Nights from the South, and K’rul from the west), so we could deduce that the positions are swapped. Could you tell us the correct placement of the two continents? And maybe take some pictures of that big map you have somewhere? ;)
– About the K’rul, Burn and Mother Dark trinity. And more in we include the Azath, that in DG was described as an entity above all others. Who comes first? Who’s of the three/four the actual “origin”? It seems Mother Dark created the “first wound”, as a warren, does it mean that K’rul was around at that time in a form or another (since he “contains” all warrens)? And considering that ideas like “light” and “dark” would precede the physical world, who is that created Burn if Burn came “after”? Is there any way to give an unitarian explanation to these seemingly disparate mythologies? (also wondering how all of this can be brought back to an anthropocentric interpretation, if we consider these entities as created and shaped by humanity, and considering the anthropomorphic aspects that rule everything)
– To complicate things so much further. The Prologue says that Togg and Fanderay considered K’rul and the other Elder Gods as “young entities”, coming from a warren that was ancient compared to the others. How is possible that K’rul is “younger” if he’s the “origin” (being the “vessel” of all warrens, so containing all of them)? Was this just an inconsistency or it should be taken as true and valid?
– Burn specifically. The myth says, or could be interpreted, as if Burn’s dream is her natural state. We (on the Malazan world) exist because Burn dreams of us. Life follows cycles as Burn may dream in cycles, so if Burn wakes up all current life ceases to be, replaced by the next cycle (and the Mhybe also represent a similar idea of “inner world”). Same for the interpretation of earthquakes as Burn stirring in her sleep. The problem is that Burn started sleeping only long after the fall of the Crippled God. Her sleep is a relatively recent event, so it can’t “contain” the whole story, nor rule the natural state of reality. The way her body represents the world is easily reconcilable with her dreaming, but what happens (and happened) when she is awake? Was she at the same time the world as well as a “physical” and conscious single entity within it, similar to how K’rul’s body represents the “warrens”, yet he walks the mortal realm as Keruli?
And more:
“You speak of the world as a physical thing, subject to natural laws. Is that all it is?”
“No, in the end the minds and senses of all that is alive define what is real – real for us, that is.”
“Is Burn the cause to our effect?”
“She sleeps … to dream.”
K’rul, yours was the path the Sleeping Goddess chose
This again hints at a bigger, hidden picture. Again the idea of an all-encompassing dream is the strongest. Burn’s sleep is a “box”, a kind of defined, ordered space, containing the possibility of life. To achieve what? “Of dreams, hopes and tragic ends”. It rises questions about us as dreams of someone else, about real purpose and real perception. Yet all these suggestive ideas are hard to reconcile with the fact that Burn started sleeping only at some point of the story, and that “humanity”, “life”, or “perception” were states that preceded Burn’s sleep. In the case of the Mhybe she becomes the vessel for a “physical” world, so that world becomes wholly contained in her dream, in the case of Burn instead the physical world extends outside her dream (since it existed BEFORE she started sleeping). This is the specific point that I can’t figure out and that I’d like to be commented, if possible.
– Continuing, why all life will be destroyed if Burn awakes, considering that life existed before she started to sleep and the beginning of her sleep doesn’t seem to coincide with any sort of apocalypse? “Burn’s sleep” doesn’t seem to coincide with any world changing event. The timeline appears continuous, unaffected and without a breaking point or wholly new origin.
– Continuing, why is Burn sleeping? In the end the Seer didn’t answer Quick Ben’s question directly. Following a weird line of thoughts I was considering that if the life/world has been “displaced” to Burn’s dream, does this mean that Burn has left behind another world left barren (like with Kallor, his empire gets “displaced” and becomes the Imperial Warren, while the land is left behind to heal)? And, if this harrowing line of thoughts is correct, what gave K’rul/Burn authority or power to carry over all the gods to Burn’s dreamworld, including those considered “alien” to the world/Burn?
– Chaos should be the space between warrens, as non-ordered space. Lack of meaning and structure, still part of K’rul’s body. This is another similar point to the fact that “chaos” seems an abstract idea, yet the Crippled God takes possession of it. Chaos is described in this book as the warren he uses. So “chaos” again precedes the Crippled God and he just took control of it? How was this kind of link formed between Chaos and the Crippled God?
– Is there a rational or motivated link between the magic spaces (warrens) and physical world? What I mean is that the Imperial Warren should be what was Jakuruku’s general area, more or less, yet the Malazans use that warren not to move around Jakuruku, but around their own lands. So what’s the link between that magic space and the physical one?
– Baaljagg should be the female ay that survives the Prologue. Yet she’s still around some 300,000 years later. So can K’rul grant immortality considering that the “binding” with Fanderay is supposed to happen at a much later date and that Baaljagg wandered alone a very long time?
– Same for Kilava. She doesn’t join the ritual. It is the ritual to grant other T’lan immortality, yet Kilava is still around. Where is immortality coming from? Or were shapeshifters/bonecasters already immortal?
– How was she supposed to generate alone the whole First Empire if Treach is the very first (and last, considering that he was at the ritual) of her sons? When the First Empire started and ended? Has to be after 300,000 years, since it’s after the T’lan ritual (and rightful First Empire). And if Treach is the first of the “humans”, does it mean that humans were around for 300,000 years? Or the transition happens at a later point? Also, if Treach is born as “mortal” and achieves immortality via ritual, how is it possible that the First Empire developed and collapsed in the span of one (his) life? Obviously, I’m missing some substantial parts here.
– What’s the link between these three events: the creation of Otataral (specific to the island where Heboric and the others end up), the shattering of an non-precised warren, the soletaken ritual gone wrong that destroys the First Empire. The incineration that created Otataral happened on the eastlands, while Heboric and others discover the remains of the First Empire and the ritual when they arrive somewhere in Seven Cities, so these two events must be separated (at least geographically). Is this shattering of warren completely separated from Shadow? And if not, what’s the link between Soletaken and Shadow (I’d rather guess a link between the Beast Throne and Soletaken)?
– Fener’s power waning. On a first read the plot only exposes what happens after Heboric touches the Jade statue (bringing Fener down, making him vulnerable and mortal), yet it seems that that one episode is only the last act, and that Fener’s power has been waning for a long time. This is important because it retrospectively explains the scene of the Prologue in DG (and a lot more). The reason why the priest of Hood had an interest in Heboric. DG didn’t seem to offer a plausible explanation that wasn’t contradictory, but in MoI we discover that the fall of Fener wasn’t unexpected or sudden as it appeared (in DG). It started long before, and it was being actively manipulated to happen. Heboric touching the Jade statue and triggering the fall was only the last step. The other revelation is that Heboric wasn’t a random priest among others, but the Destriant of Fener. So the possibility that Hood was directly involved (with K’rul, considering that in MoI K’rul moves the pieces and manipulates them long before they get revealed) in the planning and manipulation leading to Fener’s fall also justifies the fact that he had specific interest in Heboric (who was himself a “fallen” Destriant) and wanted to “show” him something. That’s also why Hood tries to recruit the Grey Swords by sending Gethol (before Fener’s actual fall, so anticipating it).
The question is about the actual origin of this huge plot movement. Because it’s as if everything is just a consequence of previous act (think of Heboric and the revelation that Fener’s fall is only the very last step of a long process). So this leads to backtracking and I’m wondering when, why and who first decided to push the events ultimately leading to Fener’s fall. Who is going to profit from this (not Treach, since he was in animal state and so couldn’t “plot” much), what’s the actual goal that drove it all? K’rul is actively manipulating things, but he was inactive before GotM. Is Hood the origin? What’s his goal? Other readers said that Fener’s power waning was due to the Malazan Empire discouraging said cult, so weakening Fener’s power. Was this Shadowthrone’s plan when he was on the throne? Was this part of some Grand Plan of his? If instead the cults were being disbanded because of corruption, what is that actually caused this process? All this is important to pin down because it’s the very foundation of everything that happens on a higher level in these books. So without being aware of a first movement it feels like the whole plot is based on unexplainable assumptions and starting conditions. Like the missing hinge of a huge door.
– Other elements of the plot appear “floaty” as well (Deus Ex Machina? ;D ). Take for example Picker’s torcs. They are delivered to Gruntle, exactly where they were supposed to go. Yet the events building up to this were completely fortuitous. It was Munug that was carrying the torcs, then Picker bought them without knowing that she was supposed to “deliver” them to someone else. So it seems that events were driven by an hidden hand and that nothing that appeared as fortuitous was really so. Is this K’rul manipulating things (as with Toc)? And how/why can he have this unnatural knowledge of future events, considering he knows things with precisions that can’t be possibly just deduced by cause/effect?
(I’m not done. Still have some important questions…)
Ab, I think most of those are RAFO. Also, K’rul didn’t make all the warrens; he’s the “Maker of Paths”, the Paths being those warrens accessible to humans. And we’ll see that this particular ability is not K’rul’s alone.
The problem with asking me about specific details from MOI is that I don’t remember most of them, but I’ll do my best here. I waited a few days to see if more questions would arrive, but I suspect the summer months will always be a slow period in this re-read venture (I hope it’s just that!).
Jordanes: the ‘yes’ certainly relates to recognition of all the things accrued to Silverfox. Both the Rhivi and, later, Kallor, see more to her than do most people.
SaltmanZ: ‘Goats of Glory’ is set just south of Shal Morzinn on the same landmass at Seven Cities, and hints at a conflict with The Three. In one respect it’s part of the Malazan canon, but in another, it isn’t, since should I write more about that crew there probably won’t be any cross-over.
Edgewalker: my sense from years of reader responses is that WJ’s poorly mended leg and the foreshadowing that represented, in no way diminished the impact of his death. What it did, however, was raise the (eternal, unanswerable) question of whether a healthy WJ would have brought down the illimitable High King, Kallor. I like the notion of that question being unanswered. Don’t you?
amphibian: ‘soul distinct from body.’ Well, it works better for fiction where people travel into an underworld and we’re witness to all of that; and of course also positing the possibility of returning from that underworld. As to how it relates to my own belief system, well, it’d be nice, wouldn’t it, if such a thing existed. Beliefs offer comfort both sweet and bitter, but imagine a world without them.
djk1978: Bauchelain and KB’s appearance in MOI … hmm, I think I was writing the first or second of their novellas at the time, and thought a cameo might be fun. But mostly it all had to do with Buke’s story which, while modest in the sheme of things, felt tender enough and emotional enough to warrant its inclusion. So often I write to a final scene for a particular character, but I only allow it if that final scene does all that I want it to do. Buke’s final scene does that for me, so I saw nothing extraneous in it.
Shalter: yes, things were set up well in advance. I knew where it was all going and the journeys the characters were making needed to serve that (the only exception was a surprise conclusion to one character, in Reaper’s Gale).
Torvald Nom: will we ever clear up the Aren events? No, why should we? Those were confused times and I assure you, both Cam and I share in that confusion.
Capetown: Gareth was a dog, wasn’t he? Only slightly kidding. I think we wanted it open as to the possibility of new hounds; but no direct opportunity has risen as of yet to make that inclusion. This is one dog’s tale that didn’t end and accordingly is not one worth following.
useofweapons: great Banks novel, btw. In reaching for genuine emotions in the reader I need to feel them first, and I do. So when I want to break hearts I need only examine the pieces of my own and write from that place of pain and anguish. The cynical of this world might doubt or even mock such notions, but to be honest, I have never written for cynics and I never will. I want you to feel because I feel; and I want us all to feel because the absence of feeling is hell on earth.
DRickard: from the very start. Scenes like those are why I write. See above.
Fiddler: in my mind Bellurdan’s essence always played a role in Silverfox. I’m not sure what later book reference you’re referring to, but it’s always possible I changed my mind. Enlighten me (sidestepping egregious spoilers of course)?
Zetastriker: first question: the hint is there for certain characters, that Burn’s ‘death’ would involve the death of dreams, and Burn’s dreams have created this world. Whether this is true or not remains open to interpretation, or indeed faith. The notion of internal dialogue through dreams is explored with other characters in the series, more directly addressing the causative possibilities with respect to Creation.
second question: I think Picker and Blend continue in Cam’s Darujhistan novel, but they are like most characters in this series: their lives go on and I’m happy with that; I’m even happy with their right to privacy in that matter. Just like a god, I used them, but now I’m done with them, and Cam might well be done with them, too. Live in peace, you two dear women…
third question: but the whole point of overturning tropes is to undermine the sanctity of those tropes, so why wouldn’t Cam dismantle even the ur-tropes we might have stumbled upon in our storytelling styles? Nothing is sacred in all this — which was our point all along. I too delighted in that sly dismantling from Cam.
Me-Annabel: too many spoilers needed for your question, I’m afraid. There’ll be more on the Moranth in novels to come, I assure you.
Oh Ab, I wish you wouldn’t write such long questions. East … west … whatever. The rest of this stuff (well, the first half) relates to cosmology, and cosmology is precisely what I’m writing about in the Kharkanas trilogy. The point is, truth and belief are ill-at-ease bed partners. If, as you say, Burn’s Sleep is as limited as the relevant scholars would have everyone believe, then what preceded it? Clearly, the very idea of setting a date on that sleep is ridiculous, but like all such dates they are not always meant to be literal, or their primary purpose is something other than pantheonic precision (in this case, a manageable year system adopted by numerous civilizations). You need to separate the creator(s) of fiction from whatever cosmological particulars are present in the fictonal world: as writers Cam and I are all about belief systems and their impact on society and history. It’s not relevant whether Achilles got a bum deal, or which part of Baldur didn’t get blessed: all that matters is the fatal flaw inherent in their being. I could almost picture some great ancestor of yours chasing Homer down asking where all those iron age weapons came from in a bronze age story … but maybe that’s not quite fair of me (apologies). The thing is, while I am comfortable with contradiction, you clearly are not, and upon this we can never agree, can we? As for who is in the know among the gods and what are they up to, all I can say is, keep reading. You’ll get some of your questions answered but not all of them, and that’s just how it is.
cheers for now
steve
Steven Erikson said:
Fiddler: in my mind Bellurdan’s essence always played a role in
Silverfox. I’m not sure what later book reference you’re referring to,
but it’s always possible I changed my mind. Enlighten me (sidestepping egregious spoilers of course)?
First, thank you for being available to us rereaders once again. This is rare in authors as far as I know, and it is appreciated a lot.
What I was referring to concerning Bellurdan is in Toll the Hounds.
TtH spoiler below, whited out. Select text between the dots to read it:
.
Bellurdan’s spirit turns out to be The Dying God. How can this be when he is also part of Silverfox? My question was meant to check if Silverfox still lives/exists at the time of the events in Toll the Hounds. If this is in a future book I guess I’ll get a RAFO.
.
In any case, thanks!
Fantastic answers, as always, Steve. Thanks so much (again!) for such a great dialogue.
To be more specific, thanks for the tidbits about “Goats of Glory”. I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing more of that crew sometime in the future. Stories like this one are one of the (admittedly many) things I love most about the Malazan world: the sheer breadth and scope that allows for so many stories to be told, even those unrelated to the Book of the Fallen, or the Malazan Empire, or anyone and anything that we’ve ever read about before. Thanks yet again. ~Chris
Wow, considering how infatuated everyone is with the mysterious Shal-Morzinn, that Goats of Glory revelation is going to be huge!
SE said:
Fair enough, and good to hear that the Moranth (and their delightful munitions) will be seen in some future novel(la)s.
Steve, if you come by for another round of Q&A, I am curious if you’d be willing to share the location of of Quaint (from The Healthy Dead) within the wider world. Not technically MoI material, I know, but I’m not sure Amanda and Bill will do a Healthy Dead re-read…
Thanks Steve, we’re all looking forward to the prequel trilogy!
Thanks very much for answering our questions, it’s very generous of you to take time out to do this. If you’re still reading these, on a related note, I wonder if you have any opinions about what the author Steph Swainston said recently? I’ve put a link to the article below?
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/steph-swainston-i-need-to-return-to-reality-2309804.html
Basically, she’s quitting writing because of the extra demands on her time. Among other things, she said: “it’s as if authors have to be celebrities these days. It’s expected that authors do loads of self-publicity – Facebook, Twitter, blogs, forum discussions – but it’s an author’s job to write a book, not do the marketing. Just like celebrities don’t make good authors, authors don’t really make good celebrities.” Also: “Writers are expected to engage and respond [with their audience nowadays]. The internet is poison to authors.”
As someone who regularly engages with their audience, and contributes to forum discussions, what’s your take on this? Are her arguments valid to an extent, or do you think writers need to keep up with the times, as it were?
And sorry for going way off MoI-topic!
Steve, I write those long questions in the hope to get answers as well to collect them in one place so that I can use them as reference in the future and pin down stuff that is solved and stuff that isn’t. That’s also why I’m still commenting the past reread articles that no one reads. I’m doing this work for myself as well to whoever may care. So gathering those questions serves a purpose already (answering them would complete it, but still…).
I don’t understand your answers though. Burn’s sleep date could be an approximation, but it still is an event within the timeline and not outside it. So I don’t understand how it can be the whole “vessel”. It’s also a mess from my point of view because we get this problem of “priority” on a very high level. As you say about belief systems.
The problem here is that in OUR world belief systems are a human thing. This is why, in your interview thing about epic fantasy on Clarkesworld, you talk about anthropomorphism. We are the center and so what we see outside is completely limited, and what we can see outside can as well be a projection of what’s within (the inner world and all the Greeks have built). But in your series you don’t limit the perspective, and we have non-humans as well as gods. The timeline itself stretching beyond the beginning of humanity, with sentient beings from a prior time still around. So you show what’s outside a closed belief system and limited perception. If a Malazan scholar thinks that all life is created by Burn’s sleep then this is the product of limited perception (if he can’t use science to probe what’s before), but a god (as well the myriad of populations that already existed at the time of Burn’s sleep), that lived BEFORE the Crippled God’s fall and so before the need for Burn to sleep, must know what happened in the transition. If they DON’T know, in the sense they weren’t affected in any way, this also leads to other important deductions while closing other possibilities.
What I mean is that it’s the belief system to be pierced as the story and the timeline extend way, way beyond the limit of the belief system itself. So what you can do is only play with limited perspective (that you know how to do, and do well. Think for example of Karsa and the Teblor, whose belief system was a lie, because it was enclosed and, so, blind). Meaning that one belief system can get nested within a bigger one (moving through a revelatory spark). But in the moment you do this, you, yourself, have to have a clear vision of how they reconcile. You don’t want to answer? Fine. But I don’t understand if you tell me that you can be at ease with a contradiction on this or other levels. Why do you feel so? Why should I feel so?
The Crippled God fell during Burn’s sleep or before she started to sleep? If the sleep is consequence of the Crippled God’s fall, then the Crippled God couldn’t have crash into her dreamspace, it didn’t exist yet. Meaning that a possibility could be about “displacement”, like Kallor’s empire, or the Mhybe (she “sleeps to dream”, and “must dream for real”). Places that existed somewhere else and were then moved into dreams. But then one wonders why also “alien” or external gods got carried over (maybe limited to those gods “bound” to corresponding and mortal populations, if the T’lan gods also moved into Mhybe’s dreamspace), or how Burn affected life before the dream started (or how the dream can cure the illness considering that also Brood was carried over, which makes a fascinating possibility).
Or are you telling me that the structural means are irrelevant as long they reach their emotional ends? So is the Deus Ex Machina not a flaw as long the public is cheering at the climax?
I could gather the pieces and make my own theories about how all these pieces could fit. I have my chunks of pet theories. And I also think the details and unexplored possibilities in here can make for good stories. But I keep those out of the discussion because I don’t like speculating and going on wild tangents. I prefer to stay with what’s in the books instead of writing my own fanfiction. What I mean is that I hope YOU also have your own answers and are not ignoring all those questions. Because they aren’t “mine”. They are in the text.
(also, I’d say that those questions would arise for those relevant scholars of the Malazan Empire too)
Well, I considered writing the other chunk of questions but I’ll leave them out. Two of these I’d still offer though:
– The Mhybe’s scene were for me the better part of the reread. The one aspect where I share some doubts with the criticism is that the Mhybe’s suffering seems to be “exploited” and stretched a bit too much. What I mean is that I would expect better from K’rul, Kruppe and Silverfox. All these three have a deeper awareness of what is going on, yet none of them does anything directly to reassure the Mhybe or help her *understanding* what is happening to her in her dreams. The problem is about the matter of (lack of) communication. And in that way it appears very like the Elder Gods type of hidden manipulation (so very unlike Kruppe and the new K’rul). The notion of “mercy” seems entirely contained in the fact that they manipulate for the Mhybe’s own good. What I don’t accept directly is that they decide to leave the Mhybe unaware and do her own good without letting her understand or be part of it (and so sharpening her pain, since most of it was due to lack of comprehension of what she was going through).
– The other question on the same line and about Paran’s decision with Anaster (the scene is at the very end of Chapter 21). It’s about the theme of choice, or the imposition of it. In this case Paran appears as manipulative as Nightchill, imposing his own choice on someone else, based on his own personal idea of “right” and “wrong”. The matter is that Anaster WANTS to live in pain, as consequence of his life. While the Grey Sword’s Shield Anvil wants to “liberate” him of his pain. Paran is asked to give permission to this and he gives it without hesitation. This appears very “wrong” to me. One thing this series actually teaches is about respect. Even Anaster is a figure about respect (see the poem at the beginning of Chapter 16). It’s because we can never be certain of anything that we should at least respect others’ choices, no matter how bad they appear to us and “good willed” ours. Imposition of choice is always an act of violence and implies arrogance. It’s a tyranny of point of view. This even in the extreme cases, in the same way Anaster is an example of an extreme case that still demands to be understood (and forgiven).
Salvation can be offered, but it can’t be forced. You can help someone else make the right choice by showing him other possibilities, but you can’t force those choices directly, or impose them. This was a kind of block from my point of view. Then I thought a way out: liberating Anaster could have been a way to actually put him in the condition of being able to make a choice. Because his choice of living in pain was itself a product of obscuration. So the forcing was required in order to offer him a better awareness. A necessary, but TEMPORARY step. Yet, this is the outcome:
Rides unknowing. He is naught but a shell, sir. There was naught else within him but pain. Its taking has stolen his knowledge of himself.
There’s no better awareness. Anaster got obliterated entirely. So, am I wrong in the interpretation of this passage? I know where it’s headed, but it seemed to me another forced manipulation done by Elder Gods that disrespectfully stepped right over people’s choice. That Paran wholly embraced.
@@@@@ Ab, in regards to Burn. after having read the entire series and wondered the same things you’re wondering, my belief is that you should continue reading.
the fact is that burn is an ‘earth mother’ goddess. a progenitor being, and more, worshipped by countless cultures in particular ways. gods are shaped by their worshippers, this is a consequence of belief and worship in the MBotF. i believe burn was called something different before she went to sleep, and even that the idea of an earth mother goddess named burn might not have existed before burn’s sleep.
i don’t even believe she’s solely responsible for life. what of life-giving water? is it not essential for life?
arghh, see, this is the problem. i could just answer your questions directly, but that would be stupidly spoilerific.
And as you can see my question wasn’t simply about Burn, but the trinity (Burn, K’rul, Mother Dark) and how these sit in respect to each other.
I’m rising questions that should be tackled and considered. Whether Erikson wants to address them directly or not (in the text or outside it) is his own choice, but all those deductions of cause and consequence need to be tackled. He says he’s writing about the cosmology right now, so I hope he has a clear vision (and he cares enough to keep it consistent with what he already wrote). Muddying the waters is always fun (imho), but it means the the job is explonentially harder as every new layer needs to be consistent and be justified in the bigger picture. You can’t just do it for the sake of it.
I always very gladly welcome RAFO (if not used as an excuse). My questions only represent a stage. I don’t know what kind of answers I’ll get. Maybe none about all that, or maybe some that sit in contradiction. So the point was for me to gather questions in detail because they represent what I’m thinking right now, and loose threads that are hopefully tied later on. It’s to keep *me* focused.
As I said I used the reread to backtrack a lot of those parts that felt more “loose”, so trying to pin down what on a first read doesn’t get the attention (for example I’d really like if Erikson gave us some insight or his own opinion about that scene in chapter 21 between Dujek and WJ, that drew a lot of controversy and I was planning to ask).
Other loose pieces only appear as so, but you never know if there’s no answer because it was not provided (like Quick Ben’s origin, that Erikson says can’t be deduced) or because you didn’t look hard enough. For example to the Prologue scene of DG Erikson didn’t answer me:
There is simply no way that I can give you specific meaning, because it carries multiple meanings.
Yet I think I got that answer reading MoI (and it’s specific). Hood may have reached for Heboric because of who Heboric truly was, and because Hood knew that Fener’s fall was near (and maybe had an hand in it). So there weren’t multiple meanings, but multiple facets that originated from that point. Which is what I was puzzling about, since in DG one only gets the idea that Fener’s fall is a sudden and unplanned event. No idea that Fener’s power has been waning for a very long time, or that there were manipulative gods involved. That was a RAFO too, I guess (though, easily missed even if one read MoI).
And sometimes it feels these non-central plots that are actually the spine of the bigger plot are so well hidden that Erikson himself risks of forgetting about them (in the sense that I don’t know why this example about Fener didn’t get a better exposition in these books, since it’s pivotal and still almost completely omitted on the explicit level, dealt with as an almost irrelevant sub-plot on the sideline, relying completely on the reader to dig out).
Anyway, at a later point I’ll surely forget about most of this, so I can use what I wrote here as a reference.
Also, I’d discuss this impression I get from Erikson’s reaction that I’m not sure others really want to (discuss). The impression that he wants to leave his work behind, so that he can then move on with the current and future stuff he’s writing. As if one is necessary in order to do the other.
While instead my impression as a reader is the opposite: that everything he will write strictly depends on (and is woven with) what came before. As a dialogue or as a way to develop the connections in the plot and themes that are there. And so that he should revisit what came before in order to backtrack and remember how those ideas came out and why (see for example the answer he gives about the hound, trying to remember what was the original idea).
His not remembering is absolutely normal. His not wanting or even refusing to remember makes me curious because I don’t understand it.
Briefly returning on this:
The thing is, while I am comfortable with contradiction, you clearly are not, and upon this we can never agree, can we?
No, we have to agree. I’m very comfortable with contradiction, but I see it in the way I see “characters lying”. From my point of view it forces to do TWICE the work. If you want to make a character lie then you need to know the truth AND give the character a motivation to lie. So it branches in two and you have to keep both these branches alive. “Lying” can’t be the shortcut or excuse to avoid explaining something (as long you deliberately hide the explanation, but you need to know the answer and have very good motivations for refusing to give the reader this kind of payoff).
I’m fine with contradiction as long it’s a limited PoV, hopefully waiting for the light to shine. I love contradiction as long is momentary and part of a process. I love the first 100 pages of HoC because they deliver a self-contained story that plays directly with this structure. You are shown an idea of truth, and then see it “escalate” as veils are removed as if it was an onion (and every layer motivated to be manipulated that way). It moves toward truth and you realize of how all previous assumptions were lies (first those of the characters involved, and then your own as reader). But the vector is one of truth. It’s not an haphazard process that wants to say that nothing can be explained. In fact those 100 pages offer great satisfaction and are an example of a structure that I think does the “mystery” aspect optimally (it builds on top of knowledge coming from previous books, it opens like a flower instead of becoming a dead-end, every answer offering a deeper understanding, connecting more parts, it works both on the plot level as well the thematic one). There was a substantial payoff there for reasons I’ve stated.
Right now I gave a glance at the Malazan forum and there were people discussing the last book and still without a clue about the Jade statues, Otataral and whatnot, just for an example. So, I’m fine with contradiction, but I naturally try to work it out, eventually. Step up in the process of comprehension. If I can’t, or get stuck, I will be frustrated, and in that case I hope you (as the writer) have at least a good reason to have chosen for that kind of outcome.
Hopefully my point of view is understood….
(I feel a bit like the Mhybe in my own question above, being deliberately kept in the dark for a reason I can’t understand. Or like channeling Paran against Nightchill:
Keeping us ingnorant is your notion of mercy?
Though, Nightchill answers: In time…
I am patiently restless.)
When, oh when will darkness come? When will merciful darkness fall, Kruppe reiterates, so that blessed blindness enwreathes proper selves, thus permitting inspiration to flash and thus reveal the deceit of deceits, the sleightest of sleight of hands, the non-illusion of illusions?
Ab, it’s not that a lot of your questions don’t have some valid grounding, but why does everything have to be explained plain and simple in the end, as you clearly are asking for? Why can’t things be left hazy, uncertain, with different characters believing and continuing to state different and contradictory things, with the reader still uncertain about exactly how things work, what actually happened? And just because some character might know the truth, why should they have to spell it out? Indeed, who is to say that their explanation is THE explanation? Is all this not like life?
One of the beauties of this series (for me, if not for you) is that it is anything but black and white – and that extends to the narrative as well as the characters. Where things are left murky, unresolved, I’m more than happy to insert my own interpretation. I might go so far as to suggest that that is what SE intended (I don’t know) – with different readers coming up with different interpretations and generating as much debate between them as do the characters within the novels. Life imitating art :)
And I’m not someone who’s simply happy to turn a blind eye to discrepancies and shrug my shoulders. But it is my belief that the concerns you raise are (almost) all to do with background knowledge, and not necessary to the overall enjoyment and satisfaction of the novel (yes, including the Fener thing, they mentioned it when they had to talk about it – haven’t you seen that that is a trait of so many characters in these novels, everyone keeps their cards close to their chest, for better or worse). As I said, it’s not as if I’m entirely uncritical – there are things that bug me (timeline!). It’s not perfect, but what novel is? As it is, the MBotF has brought me back to it again and again, so overall it must be doing something right.
I’m prepared to acknowledge discrepancies, then move on because not everything (almost nothing?) has to have a cut-and-dry, worry-free explanation. And because, in the end, I continue to love and enjoy the novels. Because of the extent to which you pursue clean explanations and keep beating the same drum, I have to question if you actually enjoy these novels, or if they simply trouble you too much. But then, maybe that’s how you enjoy novels, by taking them apart and attempting to reassemble them *in a way in which you would have done, had you written it.* Maybe, like most things, that’s not easily explainable and none of us will ever really know.
I’ll answer that with a quote from an article on David Foster Wallace:
The editing went smoothly. In a letter to Howard, Wallace had promised to be “neurotic and obsessive” but “not too intransigent or defensive.” But they disagreed on how “Broom” should end. Howard felt that the text called for some sort of resolution; Wallace did not think so. Howard urged him to keep in mind “the physics of reading”—or, as Wallace came to understand the phrase, “a whole set of readers’ values and tolerances and capacities and patience-levels to take into account when the gritty business of writing stuff for others to read is undertaken.” In other words, a reader who got through a long novel like “Broom” deserved a satisfying ending. Wallace was not so confident a writer as to simply ignore Howard’s suggestion; as he wrote to Howard, he didn’t want his novel to be like “Kafka’s ‘Investigations of a Dog’ . . . Ayn Rand or late Günter Grass, or Pynchon at his rare worst”—books that gave pleasure only to their authors. Yet when he tried to write a proper conclusion, “in which geriatrics emerge, revelations revelationize, things are cleared up,” the words felt wrong to him. “I am young and confused and obsessed with certain problems that I think right now distill the experience of being human,” he wrote to Howard. Reality was fragmented, and so his book must be, too. In the end, he broke the novel off midsentence: “I’m a man of my”
…
He expressed concern, however, over the novel’s many dangling threads. Earlier, he had cautioned Wallace that the reader, after so many pages, would feel entitled to “find out who or how or why.”
I agree with Wallace’s editor. After so many pages the reader has earned his answers, hopefully the writer is generous enough to provide them. The more pages the fairer the demand for answers.
I already put Erikson among the generous writers for what I’ve read of him. Maybe I’m just never completely satisfied (but this isn’t a justification, or will stop me from asking or trying to figure out).
Also a relevant quote I just read from GRRM, about his own stuff (and own struggles):
Maybe I did make it too big two books ago. But I’ve thrown the balls in the air and I feel obligated to keep on juggling them as best I can. You can’t just forget about some of the balls, you have to deal with the plot threads that you’ve introduced. If I can pull it all off the way I want hopefully it will be great. And if I don’t, I’m sure the world will let me know.
@Aba 26
And as you can see my question wasn’t simply about Burn, but the trinity (Burn, K’rul, Mother Dark) and how these sit in respect to each other.
I’ll be interested to see if SE wants to put any more detail in this, but here’s my response.
The main problem I see with this question, is that those three aren’t the be all and end all of the early pantheon – there are many other divine and semi-divine entities around at the same time, who have a greater or lesser influence on Wu.
You also might like to think though about what preceeded Burn…
Going back to my post from chapter 6&7 :
So what we have is a world with animals and lower forms of life,
spinning through the ether. It has a range of elemental forces
operating on it, but not codified by anything. Forces like
heat/cold/dark/light/death/life and so on. Some of these forces are
given shape either by or through their actions upon the world. Togg
& Fanderay for example as beasts. Then the Founding Races evolve
over time. As they develop intelligence, they evoke their more
primitive beliefs into shape, the Holds of Beasts, Life, Death, Fire,
Ice and so on. There are many of them, and the Elder Gods truly
manifest around this time, as particular gods of the Founding Races.
So we have founding divine creators on Wu, like Burn, who seems to be the epitome of the Gaia style earth goddess spawning Life.
We also have the pure elemental creators of Mother Dark and Father Light, who created the Tiste races in their own dimensions.
They didn’t necessarily do this at the same time, indeed, Time is a concept that doesn’t really apply yet.
Later, as life spreads and evolves, we get the primitive creations of the Hunt/Ice/Death/Love/Chance and so on. Some will become corporate, due to belief, some stay as pure ideas, or merge together to form new creations.
As the Founding Races evolve (and note only four are named, but there are highly likely to have been more) they start to codify the elemental forces into their Gods.
(Side point, one founding race, the K’Chain Che’malle never actually believed in gods, they believe in their Matrons, who worked directly with the raw power of Chaos. Hmm, it just occurred to me who the K’Chain *did* worship, and it is interesting that they didn’t evolve into Gods. )
K’Rul arises as the embodiment of Magic, of Will and Ritual. His actions provide structure to the various flavours of magic split off from raw chaos into the Holds and Forces, and allows them to be tapped by a wider audience. He does this by anchoring those flavours within the essence of the oldest of Burn’s creations, as evidenced by the two chambers of the Heart imagery – Kurald Galain and Starvald Demelain. Note he doesn’t create either warren, he just uses those particular ones as a tangible starting point, for reasons that become apparent later in the series.
However K’Rul for all his Elder wisdom, has to be a much younger figure than Burn, or Togg & Fanderay, because his whole purpose for being cannot exist until Reason can exist, which requires the Founding Races to evolve intelligence and to believe in a reason for that gift.
There is much more developed on this in Midnight Tides, as we are shown the creation myths of the Letherii who worship different things to the mainstream. They have their own beliefs in the creation of the world and the founding of the Holds, they don’t recognise K’Rul’s Warrens.
Wow, I really can’t wait till we get to that part of MT, I think I just worked out what Edgewalker does.
@ab,
You are using GRRM and other author’s own personal feelings on such matters and applying them to a different person, with different feelings in vastly different series of books. I feel it’s a tad unfair.
@steven,
I hadn’t thought of that (Whiskeyjack at full health being able to take down Kallor) simply b/c it seemed like it was about to happen had not the knee buckled. The unanswerable things like that are what keeps this series in my head even after I’ve read them. Well done.
Ab, you agree with the editor but ignore that Wallace went with his gut feeling anyway – that to clear up loose threads actually compromised the novel.
I understand what you’re saying about the reader feeling entitled to be satisfied after they’ve put in the time and effort of reading and absorbing the books (and have you read all of the novels yet before demanding satisfaction, by the way?), and I think it’s fair to say that the majority of those who’ve read SE’s books do come away feeling they got their money’s worth. There’s always going to be some – and I know you’re not the only one Ab – who don’t feel the same. But you’re not going to get satisfaction by pulling apart and rearranging every aspect of a finite number of words. If it’s not there for you, it’s simply not there. But I would suggest that that is a personal response, and not necessarily a failing of the author’s writing.
Ab,
Mother Dark, K’rul & Burn are not a trinity. We have already seen
the Sister of Cold Nights and Draconus listed as kin of K’rul. And, we have seen mentions of Tiam. We will be seeing others. How they all relate is quite complex and to some extent open to interpretation and even a matter of perspective.
@ab: Just to add to the conversation, at one point you mention how if one character isn’t telling the truth about an event or something they are lying and need justification or motivation. This just isn’t so. This is a medieval world (in terms of communication, no email, TV, texting, twitter etc). An event is only communicated between characters by word of mouth. So descriptions may vary based on how many times the message has passed on, who it came from before, what perspective the originator of it had, and so on. If several thousand people see something what are the chances they all describe it exactly the same way? Some of them may even not identify things correctly. It’s true that sometimes a malicious spin can be put on something too. I don’t think the author is required to clearly identify the one that is right. This makes the whole thing that much more realistic. The reader can be left to piece together what is closest to the truth, and/or accept what they like best. That is ok.
First off, thanks Ab for your observations, and I mean that sincerely. I’ll begin this with a little story. I was at a convention here in the UK a couple years back when a friend of mine (Bill, who along with Hazel, run the Malazanempire.com site) came up to me in agitation and disbelief, since it turned out he had come to a revelation. I think he’d just finished reading The Crippled God (as an advance reader) or maybe it was ‘Dust of Dreams.’ Anyway, he said something like: “Steve, I just figured it out. You don’t give a f**k!”
I understood him well enough, and he was both right and wrong (as I have always said about being comfortable with contradictions, this is one of them). He was right in the sense of how I approach my writing, in that I adhere to something that, for lack of a better word, we can call ‘authenticity.’ To explain that isn’t always easy, but luckily I don’t need to elaborate overmuch since the quote you provided (Abalieno) between Wallace and his editor just about summed it up. Wallace was defending something I understood instinctively and it’s hardly surprising that while you sided with the editor, I mostly definitely sided with Wallace.
The editor will speak for the reader (as he or she imagines them to be or wants them to be); while the writer speaks for his or her own work’s authenticity — but that is a position not easily understood by others. To make this relevant to this re-read and the other questioners on this thread, one of the reasons I hesitate going back and re-reading these novels (or any other stuff I’ve written) is that I’m no longer that writer: I’m no longer the Steven Erikson who wrote Memories of Ice. I remember various bits of him, but what I cannot capture is the time and the place that created him. All I can do, and all that I have ever been able to do, is to trust in that guy, to hold to the faith that he knew what he was up and that what he wrote belonged to his time and his place and that he was true to both. I peruse that stuff feeling like a stranger.
I think I needed to do this in order to keep writing this series. I needed to trust what was behind me, the author in my wake if you will, in order to plunge ever onward to the end I envisaged. Without that faith I could never have finished the series. This is what Wallace was defending: the work and its time and its place and the sanctity of both.
As mentioned by another correspondant above, the key for the author is whether enough other stuff is in the work to still ensure that the reader is satisfied. Editors will always err on the other side of that,and it’s this balance that defines a good relationship between editor and writer (which doesn’t always exist — I know I battled with an editor over my first novel, This River Awakens, and on some fronts I lost that battle — which is why the re-release of that novel will see my fixing it and thus bringing it closer to its original, un-surrendered state. And I use the [nonexistent] term ‘un-surrendered’ quite deliberately here, because I felt that in losing those battles I surrendered some of the sanctity of that novel, and that it suffered for it).
This was Wallace’s argument. So, yes, we will certainly always be on opposing sides in this matter.
I don’t give a f**k when it comes to what others might want from me and my writing, because, frankly, I can’t afford to heed them. I know where I write from, and I know its place and its time, and so I know its authenticity. This does not make my product unassailable, or somehow immune to criticism or analysis; it’s just that, for me, it is what it is, but what it is is only what it was, and I’m not there anymore. In that respect, I’m the last person to defend my work or even explain myself, if you see my point. In my wake all I see is the trust and the faith, not the details (which I leave to the Steven Erikson of that time and place, and he’s welcome to that mess).
In other words, ultimately, against your critiques I am helpless and for your questions I have few answers.
But where I do give a f**k is in reaching the readers on a visceral level. But strictly speaking, that’s not a rational process despite the manipulations involved, so it doesn’t invite much analysis except in the technical, word-choice sense. I can respond to that kind of discussion, since I can still ‘read’ in the text the reasons for selecting a certain word, phrase, sentence pattern, tone or whatever. Hit me with those, Ab, and we can go to town.
Jordanes: I’ve not read the entirety of Steph’s article but I have the gist of her argument and I read something of what some other writers have written via my FB page. I have heard from a number of writers who overdosed on internet participation, and certainly I share the sense that I’m not the best at promoting my own stuff, and that it is getting increasingly exhausting. It’s just down to balance, I think. I go through periods of being open and communicative, and then other stretches where I virtually disappear (pun intended).
I can’t do what Rob Sawyer does, for example, which is to go to about one event every month. He’s able to write at any time and anywhere, even if all he has is ten minutes before giving a talk. That’s damned impressive. Me, I need to hunker down and sink into the world I’m writing, and that takes at least a few hours.
That said, in the past four days I’ve been in the zone and my fiction writing is proving most satisfying: yet for some reason this seems to have freed me up for stuff like this thread, and a few essays and so on. It may be down to a more general oscillation, a sine wave if you will, in creativity or communicativeness. Who knows, but I’m not complaining and have no plans to drop off the edge of the world. The greater danger is probably saying too much, and making people sick of me.
On that note, cheers for now.
Steve,
In that respect, I’m the last person to defend my work or even explain myself, if you see my point.
Well, I guess I do. That line reminded me a letter of Wallace:
I tend, to the extent that I remember Infinite Jest at all, to get all sorts of different mss. and draft and pre-edited versions of it jumbled up with whatever version of it actually came out, and so I am just about the world’s worst source of info on that book.
He meant his own and most famous book.
I have the vivid sensation from reading your books that “he knew what he was up”, which is why it’s even more frustrating because I am the one to try to reach that point and figure out what you were thinking at the time. Sometimes I grasp a line of thought in the way some scenes alternate, but I’m often chasing just my own delusions.
Still, on a very simplistic level, I think you are being deliberately closed (for your own legitimate reasons) and you have been writing and are still writing about the same material. See for example my comment from today on Chapter 23 part 1 of the re-read. That’s stuff that belongs to the book you’re currently writing, so I won’t believe you “forgot”.
At the core there seem to be some disparate elements (the fall of the Crippled God, the human generation, the elder races, the elder gods, Mother Dark and the origin of all) that you’ll HAVE TO reconcile in some way and “order”.
And on an even more general level you’re breaking the “anthropocentric” nature of myth by playing with what’s outside. So by making it “real”, you are also making it false, as you describe a world that is not seen from a closed and blind anthropocentric perspective. The Greek myths existed, and in that specific form, because they were anthropocentric. So inner world projected outside.
Specifically with this new trilogy about the Tiste Andii, in an ancient, pre-human era, you are breaking that anthropocentrism. This confuses me a lot (about your intent, it’s like you are breaking a “tabu”), and will also force you to reconcile those elements as the “blind spot” of human condition and perception is broken. You’re offering an external point of view, so it will be in a dialogue with the internal one we have already. And I think you have to have both clear in your mind.
Also,
That said, in the past four days I’ve been in the zone
Infinite Jest, page 242:
—
‘It’s definitely one of those can’t-miss intervals. It’s just like that magical feeling on those rare days out there playing. Playing out of your head, deLint calls it. Loach calls it The Zone. Being in The Zone. Those days when you feel perfectly calibrated.’
‘Coordinated as God.’
‘Some groove in the shape of the air of the day guides everything down and in.’
‘But you never know when the magic will descend on you. You never know when the grooves will open up. And once the magic descends you don’t want to change even the smallest detail. You don’t know what concordance of factors and variables yields that calibrated can’t-miss feeling, and you don’t want to soil the magic by trying to figure it out, but you don’t want to change your grip, your stick, your side of the court, your angle of incidence to the sun. Your heart’s in your throat every time you change sides of the court.’
‘You start to get like a superstitious native. What’s the word propitiate the divine spell.’
‘I suddenly understand the gesundheit-impulse, the salt over the shoulder and apotropaic barn-signs.’
‘These can’t-miss intervals make superstitious natives out of us all, Hallie. The professional football player’s maybe the worst superstitious native of all the sports. That’s why all the high-tech padding and garish Lycra and complex play-terminology. The like self-reassuring display of high-tech. Because the bug-eyed native’s lurking just under the surface, we know. The bug-eyed spear-rattling grass-skirted primitive, feeding virgins to Popogatapec and afraid of planes.’
Hi Ab, yes, I have something clear in my mind since I’m working on it right now. How it reconciles with a reader’s sense of the Malazan world that followed is of course only relevant to those who come to the new trilogy having read the earlier series. I am hoping to be more inclusive with this trilogy, and I think it has a more traditional feel to it. On the one hand I tell myself that I’ve taken all the risks I wanted to take, starting with, oh, House of Chains and then onward through the rest of the novels in the series. But in all honesty, I am probably taking risks with this trilogy as well, especially when it comes to that Malazan-savvy readership. The biggest one is with the visualisation of the setting itself, and the peoples involved, because, frankly, it doesn’t much fit with those fragmented recollections we’ve had to date (except, perhaps, with the Tiste Andii). Now, whether I pull it off remains to be seen, but my attention and focus right now is entirely with character. Plot serves character here rather than the other way around.
I’m not being obtuse and I don’t feel ‘closed’ in these matters. It’s just that my sensbilities regarding the cosmology of this invented universe are fluid, even protean, to which I give shape and detail as I go along. Obviously, to explain that cosmology now would be to give the game away regarding the trilogy, so I can’t do that. Which leaves me at an impasse, for, while you ask about and comment on the cosmology as portrayed in the Book of the Fallen, I am presently wrestling with how it was really was (though once removed, a detail I can’t explain at the moment). Accordingly, there is a tension between the two, which I quite like even though it’s dangerous.
Luckily, my advance readers are there to catch anything truly egregious and out of place (though I am somewhat befuddled by their comments to date, which is to in effect say: ‘we don’t care how it fits into what we thought we knew, we just love the story/writing/whatever’. I need to shake them up a bit more, I think. Though, to be fair, they helped with a couple of those ‘egregious errors’ already committed).
I’m not too bothered by the anthropomorphic stuff: it hardly matters what gods, species, etc. I concoct, the basic undeniable truth is that it all relates to the human condition, whether we pretend otherwise or not. The Greek gods are of course within the human sphere. It is impossible to be outside it. The same can be said for the Malazan gods, the jaghut, the k’chain che’malle or whomever. We will embrace all that we see and more to the point, we will also embrace all that we can imagine.
Do, if you can, Abalieno, give me a written example of a work that steps outside anthropomorphic sensibilities, by any author in any genre — I would love to see it.
cheers
Well, thanks for the infuriating and awesome dialogue. I mean it sincerely ;)
I am satisfied, at least in the sense that I think I was understood, so it’s good enough for me to know you’ve considered the perspective I offered.
Only a couple of points left, if you’re still here. The first is if you want to elaborate what you say about starting taking the risks with House of Chains (not sure if you mean structure, or about leaps of faith about certain aspects of the plot, or the “timeline”, or something else).
The other thing is about my two questions up at comment 24. They aren’t about technical writing but they are thematic and not so connected with the plot itself. The one about the Mhybe is more specific but I wonder your point of view on the Paran/Anaster thing. Am I completely wrong there?
It’s connected with where Anaster is “going” (becoming a vessel for Toc, but I’ve not not reached that part of the re-read yet) but in general the idea is outside the story itself, so I’m asking how do you “feel” about that.
Or maybe I’m just too radical with that idea of “choice”. Yet those two questions are connected as they are both about a “journey” filled with pain, but that also is meant to reach a purpose. Not sure if the purpose can justify the pain, but the core idea that bugs me is that it’s necessary to make the transition, and that the transition has to be compelled.
Which becomes one strong theme of the whole novel and beyond. About old vs new. Paran calling Nightchill “patronizing bitch” and speaking these pivotal words:
Know this, then: until you can find another means, until you can show me another way – something other than pain and grief – I’ll fight you.
K’rul, via Kruppe, marks a change from former Elder God K’rul. Yet with the Mhybe Kruppe embraces the same path. One of pain and grief (for the Mhybe, keeping her unaware).
‘Kruppe is pleased to assure you that matters of vast mercy are in progress. Momentary appearances are to be discounted.’
‘Then why not tell her that?’ Coll growled, nodding towards the Mhybe’s wagon.
‘Ah, but she is not yet ready to receive such truths, alas. This is a journey of the spirit. She must begin it within herself. Kruppe and Silverfox can only do so much, despite our apparent omnipotence.’
About the others:
@31
The main problem I see with this question, is that those three aren’t the be all and end all of the early pantheon – there are many other divine and semi-divine entities around at the same time, who have a greater or lesser influence on Wu.
You also might like to think though about what preceeded Burn…
They are the be all and end all. Limited to perception. As in Kabbalistic theory and their 300+ senses that need to be awakened, you can only perceive what you can perceive (tautology). Burn represents the physical world, K’rul the magic one. That’s enough to enclose everything. In MoI the two are often confused and hinted as one. So it’s about taking these two spheres and make them sentient, or anthropomorphic.
The Azath are about a structure and a more abstract war between order and chaos. So it seems not about a specific entity or tangible element. It’s just a natural rule, like a law of physics, or “math”. And Mother Dark is “outside” the current picture. In the sense that whatever is there is considered “alien” to the current worldly perspective of Burn/earth. Yet the ideas of Darkness and Light aren’t external to Burn’s physical dimension, and so this needs to be reconciled too.
So I don’t care how many other gods were around (there’s also this problem of Togg and Fanderay considering K’rul and others as “young”, where they on Burn before the arrival of the Andii? So how could they see and live without “Light”?), the point is that they belong to ideas that ARE “the be all and end all”.
What preceded Burn? I have no idea. The same being with a different name? The Big Bang?
I’m actually starting to see what Erikson may mean about this all being Protean and fluid.
Anyway, need to sit on those (31) ideas a while, they offer a better frame than all I did.
Head spinning.
He does this by anchoring those flavours within the essence of the oldest of Burn’s creations, as evidenced by the two chambers of the Heart imagery – Kurald Galain and Starvald Demelain.
So you put Burn “before” Mother Dark? And how you reconcile the fact that Mother Dark is considered alien?
@ab
I think there is a big difference between how you are reading all of this and how I read it. I get the sense that you are looking for “truth” and I don’t’ think truth exists. The only thing that exists are people’s point of view filtered by their own beliefs. The day Burn went to sleep is no more precise than when Jesus was born (which certainly wasn’t Dec 25th of the year 0!). Does Burn exist? Dunno. Does Jesus? Quick Ben thinks she does. file that. does it really matter? I’m not sure it does. (fwiw, I choose to think she does. but I have no idea what’ll happen if she wakes up. maybe the warren will wander around looking for another dreamer…)
I think one of the great glories of these books is that there is no “truth”. No black hats. No white hats. Everybody (infuriatingly so) comes from an authentic point of view that I might not agree with, but I can at least empathize with.
I’ve created a career out of eliminating ambiguity (I’m an engineer) and zeroing in on the facts. It is second nature to me. But I had to let all of that go in order to make sense of this wonderful world of Malazan.
Said another way — the *value* of the book is that the questions you are asking simply can’t be answered. doing so would elevate one point of view above all others and that would destroy the whole foundation that everybody’s point of view is valid.
Steve — if you are still around, for me one of the great joys of the books is when you reward my faith in empathy when I finally get from the character what their motivations are/were and then I can see again the whole arc of their story through this motivation. One of my favorite sentences (not too huge a spoiler, I think) is when Kallor says “Does it occur, to any of you, what these things do to ME?…”
@Aba 41 .
I’m going to spoiler out the following section, which is an excerpt from Midnight Tides, but I think you need to read it to make some more connections. Remember that at this point in the series, we are more defined by what we don’t know, than by what we do.
Terror twisted her once-beautiful features, the terror of Beginnings, the soul standing before oblivion. A place of such loneliness that despair seemed the only answer. Yet it was also the place where power was thought, and thought flickered through the Abyss bereft of Makers, born from flesh yet to exist – for only the mind could reach back into the past, only its thoughts could dwell there. She was in the time before the worlds, and now must stride forward.
To witness the rise of the Holds.
Udinaas, like all Letherü, knew the sequences and the forms. First would come the three Fulcra known as the Realm Forgers. Fire, the silent scream of light, the very swirl of the stars themselves. Then Dolmen, bleak and rootless, drifting aimless in the void. And into the path of these two forces, the Errant. Bearer of its own unknowable laws, it would draw Fire and Dolmen into fierce wars. Vast fields of destructions, instance upon instance of mutual annihilation. But occasionally, rarely, there would be peace made between the two contestants. And Fire would bathe but not burn, and Dolmen would surrender its wandering ways, and so find root.
The Errant would then weave its mysterious skein, forging the Holds themselves. Ice. Eleint. Azath. Beast. And into their midst would emerge the remaining Fulcra. Axe, Knuckles, Blade, the Pack, Shapefinder and White Crow.
Then, as the realms took shape, the spiralling light would grow sharper, and the final Hold would be revealed. The Hold that had existed, unseen, at the very beginning. The Empty Hold – heart of Letherü worship – that was at the very centre of the vast spiral of realms. Home to the Throne that knew no King, home to the Wanderer Knight, and to the Mistress who waited still, alone in her bed of dreams. To the Watcher, who witnessed all, and the Walker, who patrolled borders not even he could see. To the Saviour, whose outstretched hand was never grasped. And, finally, to the Betrayer, whose loving embrace destroyed all it touched.
As I see it, Fire (or Light) and Dolmen (Earth) kick everything off, brought together by the Errant, the epitome of randomness. Over time, their struggle brings forth Life.
From that background Burn doesn’t represent the world so much as she represents Life, created from the mixture of fire and earth.
We then get the founding of the earliest Holds. Ice. Elient. Azath. Beasts. Each one partially reflects one of the named Founding Races, Jaghut, K’Chain, Forkrul Assail and Imass. They also reflect what was happening in their world at that time.
We then get the Fulcra, the driving forces in their mythos – Axe, for war; Knuckles, for chance; the Pack and Shapefinder, relating to the D’ivers and Soletaken; White Crow, treachery.
Finally the Empty Hold, their guiding principle.
And the interesting thing about their mythos, is it is a mixture of primal creation myth, and actual tangible beings who took part in their prehistory. Midnight Tides, and later Reaper’s Gale reveal what is going on in much more detail.
@ab 42.
I’m deliberately being a bit vague there – what I see as Burn’s oldest creations aren’t the two chambers of the heart, they are beings in their own right. Instead, K’Rul worked with those beings and used them as anchor points for his flavours of magic. I don’t want to spoil the revelations from late in the series to be more specific.
To clarify though, K’Rul doesn’t create magic, he merely makes it more formalised, more structured. All the elder warrens predate what he did, he simply provides additional definition that allows the flavours of magic to spread out and mingle, creating new mixtures that are more accessible. Meanas, a shadow of Shadow, Telann and Thyr – Fire as Life, and Fire as Destruction.
As for Burn and Mother Dark, they don’t predate each other. They simply are. One represents Life, the other Darkness. They are completely independant.
The main division as such is the elemental Light/Darkness/Shadow of the Tiste, versus the elemental Life/Ice/Fire/Earth/Water of Wu.
They are alien to each other, but not to the realms each represent.
Wow. Good, insightful stuff there, Mayhem. Bravo.
I want to second that. Nice read, chapeau.
@43
I have no idea what’ll happen if she wakes up. maybe the warren will wander around looking for another dreamer…
Reminds me a very popular comics in Italy and on of its stories titled “Story of nobody” (another of those “fallen” no one notices, completely forgotten). Imagining that the world was just the dream of a “nobody” who died.
I think the story in MoI is quite explicit because it reflects right on the Mhybe, so you see exactly the way Burn’s sleep could have worked.
I like a lot the idea of beliefs that shape dynamically. Once again the problem is if you offer a point of view outside the system, since the system works solely on the premise it’s closed and isolated. That’s where Malazan, and especially with the new series, treads dangerous ground.
Also this (the video, and specifically the part about the closed system):
http://www.perceivingreality.com/
Ab@48,
Very interesting discussion you’ve raised. But perhaps Malazan realms (worlds, holds, dreams, or whatever) are more along the lines of frames of reference in special relativity? IIRC locally consistent, but different perspectives can give rise to different observations.
E.g. there is a realm that spawns Togg/Fanderay. Since its inhabitants have no notion of duration, it has one date: Now.
K’rul visits this realm to install a warren. While there, he encounters the wolf gods and and asks how old they are. Confusion ensues.
The point being that given different natural laws, K’rul could well date from a time before the realm came into existence – while they recall living through events that add to more time than K’rul has existed…
Not sure if your “outside” perspective exists here… There could be some global system that generates the laws of each realm (and whatever happens when they overlap), and explains all the apparent inconsistencies. Insisting that SE actually generate a system that does this for everything mentioned in 10 large books seems a bit optimistic…
I’m thrilled that SE is doing more with the cosmology. But there’s no reason to believe that the Malazan universe has a simple structure. I’d worry less about whether the Cartoon History of Time According to the Andii is the full story (it isn’t), and more about whether it’s an accurate depiction from some perspective.
jgtheok@49:I think relativity is a good analogy. Two differing viewpoints aren’t necessarily both wrong. In Malazan, all the possibilities are open:
They both could be right.
One could be right and one wrong.
They both could be wrong.
They both could be partially right and wrong.
@50
Good point, not to mention all the issues we have with Unreliable Narrators – the events at Pale are fairly high on that list.
What one character says is only ever proof of their view of things.
Only after you see an event from two, three or even more angles can you really start to piece together what actually might have happened.
Between a characters ulterior motives, deliberate or accidental misinterpretation,or even simply leading the reader the wrong way, SE loves to play with our expectations. Indeed, sometimes the more genre savvy the reader, the more likely it is that they will be led astray…
And thats with tangible events, like Pale. Intangible questions, like cosmology, well. Take the creation myths of the Norse, the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Hindus. Shake em well together, and explain to me exactly how the world formed. Bonus points for making it coherent.
Wow. Thank you Steven for all your great input! All the comments are so interesting and insightful.
Mayhem, you have cleared up quite a few things for me. Thanks!
Take the creation myths of the Norse, the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Hindus. Shake em well together, and explain to me exactly how the world formed. Bonus points for making it coherent.
ROFLOL….excellent.
Mayhem@51: Here goes… … Stuff Happened.
Points for brevity as well I hope? :P Seriously though, nice posts.
I don’t mean to get off-topic as this has been a particularly awesome Q&A session, but I wonder if we could get an update from the mods as to when the re-read of the next book is going to start? I mean sure, I’m in the middle of reading A Dance with Dragons right now, but I’m starting to get antsy to start tackling MoI… :-)
@54: I had gotten ahold of Amanda on Twitter last Wednesday, and she had said Bill wasn’t back yet, hence the HoC reread not starting yet. Haven’t heard anything else since, though. Presumably it will be starting up tomorrow? And I’m guessing we’ll just be covering the prologue, even though it’s only like 4 pages. I kinda wish communication was a little better on this.
It would be a great feature for these re-reads to have a little control on the page or something that shows when the next intended post date is. Maybe something for the Tor folks to implement.
I was sure that someone had posted the next date in one of the threads and I think it’s today but I can’t find it anywhere.
@56: It was buried back in one of the MoI Chapter 25 comments sections, if I recall. And it was for the 13th (last Wednesday.)
Personally, I’d love it if each post ended with “Next Wednesday/Friday we’ll be reading Chapter X” or whatever. Something more concrete than “We’ll be starting HoC”. Paginations for the books are available online so figuring out what we’re reading next shouldn’t be difficult:
http://encyclopediamalazica.pbworks.com/w/page/29328285/Pagination-of-House-of-Chains
(duplicate post deleted)
Sometimes I wonder if someone can be too dumb to actually enjoy Malazan Book of the Fallen series on the level it deserves, sometimes I wonder whether the true form of the series are completely out of reach for me but that said, it does not detract the love I have for these books I think it opened the doors for the possibilities of being a fantasy author way more than any other books have done in the past.
Not sure what I mean or what I wanted to say other than Thank You, Mr. Erikson.
Regards Kenneth From Denmark.
Hello all, well, I did not post anything for a long time now. I also stopped following every chapter reread. That’s for two reasons. First there were to much spoilers for me, as a first time reader, even though most of you were trying hard not to spoil anything. And secondly, it cost just to much time of my life following every chapter reread and reading all the comments. There are other things I like to do and following everything here caused me loosing a lot of time doing those and it kept me also sometimes from reading on in the book. For example, somtimes when I finished reading those chapter conlusions and comments, it was so late allready, that I needed to go to sleep. Well, so I decided not to follow this thing here anymore.
But now, I finally finished MoI today, after reading only very small parts at a time for quite some time, I finished the last more or less 200 Pages today in one go. It payed of. Those pages were great, thank you Mr. Erikson. I had tears in my eyes over a lot of those pages. Sometimes I cheered too. Well, a lot of emotions going on inside of me during todays read. And not many books can manage that I assure you. Thank you again. I will make a little pause now, from the Malazan books, may be read something else. But I’m looking forward to come back to this world with House of chains, which lies allrady in a drawer here at my appartement :-).
Untill some other time.
Alex
Ah, what I wanted to state also, which is really worth mentioning in my opinion is, which I forgot yesterday:
The most moving, touching thing in this book, was for me the relationship between Tool and Toc. The story of this friendship was so nicely written. The scene where Tool in his new appeareance said goodbye to Toc, who was also in his new body, was tearing me apart from inside out. I hope Toc will know sooner or later who it was, that said goodbye to him. Hell I hope, they will meet again.
What about us first time readers? Will we be meeting Toc and Tool again in the future Malazan books? I just love to read about them.
If deadhouse gates and memories of ice run parallel, why can the Warrens be accessed in deadhouse gates, but they’re poisoned in memories of ice? I thought these two books were happening at the same time???
@ryan
So the Warrens are the imposition of a form of order upon raw chaos. The ones on Genabackis were locally poisoned during MoI through the actions of the Pannion Seer. He and his minions used the powers of chaos to warp creatures and attack their enemies, and that use of chaos was anathema to the order of the warrens. Defeating the seer and removing the Matron stopped the use of chaos and allowed the warrens to heal.
On Seven Cities the opposite is happening – the presence of all the shapeshifters convening to find the Path of Hands means the warrens are almost too strong – any use of warren magic has a chance of attracting shapeshifters to the area, as they seek to kill or dominate their rivals. The major battles are an exception since the shapeshifters are smart enough to keep well clear.
Along side this, there was an infection and poisoning of Burn herself as a result of the presence of the Crippled God on Wu. The unveiling of Omtose Phellack at the end will act to slow the infection and ensures that Burn can cope.
I know this is from a long time ago, and I’ve tried reading the series many times. This is just where I stop. I miss the Bridge Burners too much to really continue. The next book, what? Expects me to follow along with a guy would wants to rape and murder people? No thank you, so I can’t even continue due to that. If someone has an idea of where in the books I can once again find the fun, and let’s face it, similar morality to the Bridge Burners, then please let me know.