Is anyone else out there reading these? From what I understand, the first three books have been published in the US while the first five have been published in the UK.
I’m a short ways into the second book and I love them…but I continually find myself with a big “WTF?” bouncing around in my head.
Is there some sort of primer for these books? You have the various houses, warrens, and the like…but so what? What do they mean? What do they do? Is someone in charge of them? Quick Ben has mastered seven Warrens…that sounds good. Some people are impressed, but just how good is it?
Were do people get their weird names? I get the feeling that names like Hairlock and Tattersail weren’t what mom and dad called our little wizards.
Why are wizards so afraid of the claw? Unless they’ve got some of the anti-magic ore, what will keep a wizard from just obliterating a Claw assassin. From what we saw Hairlock and Tattersail weren’t the biggest and baddest wizards out there, but they seem able to toss around some pretty impressive firepower.
So, have we got a primer or something? Any good faqs?
I haven’t explored the site, but I’ve had many of the same questions you have. The discussions on Erikson’s section of the SFF World website might help too. Here.
I’m reading the books more than once. That works for me, better than reading summaries or FAQs. It’s more satisfying to discover the answers on my own. Plus, they’re great reads.
Well, that first site I’ve already been to and, while good intentioned, the authors seem to have gotten bored and given up. The first book they only go three chapters into their summaries!
Yeah, that’s a nice site, good people. It’s well-moderated, and posters are careful about spoilers. The authors visit from time to time too, which can be helpful.
I’ve only read the first three books. I’m waiting on the hardcovers. I think there will be ten when he’s finished.
The first and third books follow each other; the second is almost a stand-alone. Things do get more clear after a second reading.
Well that’s, dunno, discouraging, in a rather sort of way. I’ve just started these - I’m just at the beginning of book one - and I’m already rather confused as to what all these classes are, as he doesn’t really lay a groundwork. But I think it’s just because I am at the beginning, and maybe it’ll clear up as I move on.
I’ve avoided any websites because I want to stay clear of spoilers.
I’ve read the first five, so I’ll try to answer your questions while not giving away future plot points. If you have more questions, post them and I’ll do my best.
AFAICT, Houses are hierarchies of Ascendants(ie Gods). So, in High House Death, there’s the King of Death(Hood), the Queen, etc. I’m not sure if you have to be an Ascendant to hold a position in a House; it’s unclear whether Dassem Ultor, who was the Knight of Death, was mortal or not.
Later on, you’ll come across the notion of Holds. Holds are like Houses, but older and less permanent.
Warrens are associated with Houses(usually, you could argue that the T’lan Imass warren, Tellann, isn’t associated with a House). Magic comes from a Warren; mages can access a Warren and let power out that takes some form. The Warren determines what kind of form that the power can take. For example, the Denul Warren will heal people; Meanas will form illusions
(Active) Houses are ruled by an Ascendant, usually it’s the “King” or “Queen”. The rulers can be more or less active in ruling their House. Shadowthrone, King of Shadow, is quite active, while Mother Dark, who I believe is the Queen of Darkness, hasn’t been seen for millenia.
You will see later a House which is not ruled by its “King”; in fact, the Ascendant ruling the house holds no position at all.
I seem to recall that most people can only use one Warren. In fact, I think that all mages are limited to one. Quick Ben is an anomoly; his story comes out in book 3.
Eventually it’s mentioned that most of the soldiers picked up their name in basic training; some (like Fiddler) were named later. It’s probably the same for the mages.
Tattersail, remember, was offered the position of High Mage but refused it. Apparently the best wizards are essentially hiding their abilities because becoming a High Mage is tantamount to painting a target on your back.
Nothing is stopping an assassin of the Claw from being a mage, so that’s one reason why they’re feared. Claws would definitely have access to Otataral daggers, or enchanted weapons(like the assassins in Gardens of the Moon use). Also, magic can only protect you from a threat that you can see coming – if your throat is slit from behind, you’re still going to die.
It will clear up, but it might take awhile. I’ve always hated info dumps, but I could have used some, especially in the first book. I put it aside two or three times before getting into it, and then I read it twice.
Erikson’s lack of exposition helps to make you feel like you’re right there, almost like you’re one of the characters. I think that’s brilliant.
What’s the deal with the Jaghut Tyrant(s?) and the T’lan Imass? Some things were explained, of course, but not enough.
Tool, to me, seemed to come out of nowhere. So did the Tyrant in the mound. They’re both packing more power than any of the gods, near as I can tell, so why does it seem they were locked in a closet until someone wanted to get some use out of them?
It seemed to me in GotM that everyone wanted The Coin…but nobody seemed all that concerned about the Ascendants getting involved in matters. It was kind of like, “Well, shit. Shadowthrone is involved in all this now. That’s going to be inconvenient.” Seems to me if I found out I was going against The Gods I’d be more worried about that. Are Ascendants that weak?
If Tattersail was offered the post of High Mage (assuming that the Empire has only one High Mage), why does Tascheryn(sp) seem to be SO much more powerful than her? Does she just conceal her power as you said? Remember that during the exchange with Moon’s Spawn the firepower being thrown around by Rake and Tascheryn was killing thousands of unlucky troops.
What was the point of Hairlock? I know sticking him a puppet body was supposed to allow him to (somehow) discover who was behind the plot the off the Bridgeburners (Empress, I’d imagine)…but how? And did he ever accomplish anything or was Hairlock just a big miscalculation on the part of the Birdgeburners?
Finally, there’s the Empress. As near as I can tell she’s a terrible Empress and everyone except for her Adjuct is totally aware of this. Including the military leaders who could raise a rebeliion in no based on their cults of personality. Is there a good reason nobody has whacked her yet?
Just keep reading the series. A lot of this stuff will be explained–at least to some degree–in later books. This limited up-front exposition is a major component of Erikson’s approach to writing the books.
The following will contain minor spoilers. I won’t spoil any major future plot points.
[spoiler]The Jaghut were one of the Elder races. Individually, they were extremely powerful, but the Jaghuts were also very solitary by their nature. Most of them lived alone. The Tyrants were Jaghuts who had the ability to enslave other beings. They enslaved ordinary Jaghut to form societies. Armies of Jaghut were nigh-unstoppable, so the Imass dedicated themselves to eliminating the threat by destroying the entire Jaghut race.
The Tyrant in GotM, Raest, was imprisoned by other Jaghut who realized the threat he posed. It was intended that he remain imprisoned indefinitely, but Tool, as an Imass, was able to break the seal holding Raest(the Imass warren, Tellann, is the “Elder Imass Warren of Fire” while the Jaghut warren, Omtose Phellack, is the “Elder Jaghut Warren of Ice”.
The logical next question is, why did Tool help to free the Tyrant, and I don’t know the answer to that one[/spoiler]
[spoiler]They’re extremely powerful, but in the mortal realm they’re just as vulnerable as any human. Think of them sort of like the Elves in LotR. They don’t die from sickness or from age, but they can still be killed(of course, they’re far more powerful than the Elves). So while an Ancendant probably kill any individual human, if they were to attack an army on their own, someone would get lucky with a spear or an arrow and take them down.
The Ascendants know this, so they tend to be much more subtle. They use mortals to do their bidding so that they don’t have to risk themselves. Plus, Ascendants only involve themselves in the mortal world when it can benefit themselves, so they’re not likely to be directly opposed to any particular mortal.[/spoiler]
High Mage is a title like Black Belt; it just signifies your level of proficiency with magic. It might be that Tayschrenn and Anomander Rake command Warrens that are more destructive than Tattersail’s Thyr Warren, but there would be more to a duel than just pure destructive power.
Hairlock made a deal with Quick Ben in case of his death. That deal probably was a mistake, because Quick Ben didn’t anticipate that Hairlock would embrace the power of Chaos that almost allowed him to escape control.
For starters, the Claw is totally loyal to her, and the Claw is very powerful. One thing about the Malazan military is that they are trained to follow their orders; you’ll see this again in the second book. Furthermore, before assassinating the Emperor and Dancer, Laseen assassinated Dassem Ultor, who was the First Sword(ie head of the military). So when the Emperor and Dancer will assassinated, there weren’t many other people who could have rebelled, and those who could have didn’t want to rule the empire themselves.
I’ve read through book 5. I’ve been purchasing them from Amazon UK, where they come out earlier. Handily enough, my Amazon US account information was already available to the UK branch, so ordering was easy.
Erikson’s style is to throw detail at you without explanation, pretty much requiring you to soak it up and figure it out later. I did find that much of what I had read earlier became much clearer as I read the later books. As previously mentioned, re-reading helps. I like his approach, but I can definitely see where it would be frustrating. He reminds me rather a lot of Glen Cook, whose Black Company series has a similar feeling of enormous magical power, long history and hidden motivations.
Erikson is also similar to Cook in his willingness to kill off major characters, including sympathetic ones.
Generally speaking, the T’lan Imass are rather single-minded in their obsession with the Jaghut. We’re talking about a tribe that
underwent a ritual that converted every single member of their race into an undead dust-creature and permanently changed the Warren that is the source of their power, just so they could be sure they’d have enough power to fight the Jaghut. Onos T’oolan (aka Tool) will serve anyone and anything if it lets him find and kill Jaghut.
Okay, but in that case wasn’t Tool necessary to find the Jaghut? Doesn’t that mean he could have done it on his own and not needed to follow the Adjunct?
I’m not trying to be difficult here…it’s just that when you’ve got a demigod following and serving a mortal, I’d like the explanantion to be as airtight as possible.
Good point. I was just going with the flow when I was reading it, but in retrospect I do wonder a bit about why Tool was working for the Adjunct. I had the sense that it was part of a larger plan. Although Tool’s not really a demigod. I think of him more like a powerful undead guy under a geas.
Well, the Jaghut would, I’d say, count as a demigod. After all, he took on Rake and six(five?) dragons. Correct me if I’m wrong, but from what I’ve seen so far Rake seems to be the most powerful mortal operating in the world…that I’ve seen, anyways.
Tool seemed to be brought along for the sake of waking and then taking out the Jaghut, or so I thought. I normally have a very good memory for books…but the ending of GotM is kind of a blur, and I only read it a month or two ago.
