Re: Erikson's Malazan series worth starting?

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 13:51:26 -0000, "Rob Kerr" <robert.kerr@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

<r.rice@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:hajqv19d530lmbuq3q5jh1d0j9d6a3coqg@xxxxxxxxxx
On 22 Feb 2006 20:05:47 -0800, ewoh27@xxxxxxx wrote:

style as it's possible to be. My best advice is to get the first from
the library if you aren't sure but want to give it a try.

Though there are a lot of people who maintain that "Gardens of the
Moon" was too confusing, and they only really got hooked by "Deadhouse
Gates". I'm not one of them, but I do understand where they're coming
from. So if you find "Gardens of the Moon" confusing, I would recommend
persevering. If you don't like "Deadhouse Gates" there's no hope for
you :)

I have a friend who has just started reading these books, and is
absolutely devouring them. She's been borrowing my books, and I
remember the look on her face when, after listening to her rave about
how much she liked Garden, and how much she was looking forward to
learning more about Whiskeyjack and Anomander and the rest, I had to
tell her that Deadhouse introduces a whole new set of characters. But
thankfully she liked it even without them.

And, if your concern is "will this series ever get finished", I sure
hope so. Because a lot of the attraction, for me, is the underlying
story arc that is slowly being revealed. It would be awful if that
story arc just suddenly stopped without being resolved.

Given that even before GotM was published, he knew the number of books
in the sequence and had titles and plots for them (according to what
I've read), and hasn't yet deviated from that plan, I'd say that barring
unfortunate events there is every chance we'll get the whole story as
planned.

I'm pretty confident, especially since he's got Bonehunters coming out
soon. But there are always the terrible tragedies that can happen.

I do have some concern about how well planned out the series is, based
entirely on two items. One is that Korlat changed sex between Gates
and Deadhouse, at least in the UK. The US version cleaned up that and
some other issues when it was printed. The second is that Anomander's
full name changed between the teaser printed at the end of book 4 and
the scene as it appeared in book 5. However, these could be examples
of the difference between having the grand plan well drafted vs the
fine details.

Rebecca
.

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