Because I think it’s a huge black mark against the book series? I mean, it’s on the same level as furries or slashfics as far as I’m concerned. And there’s other incest themes too.
So war, torture and mutilation are all cool but a little brother-sister sex is WRONG?
My apologies for having an opinion. For what it’s worth, I don’t care what credibility I have with random strangers.
I didn’t say anything about wrong. I just think it’s stupid and doesn’t add anything. War, torture, mutilation? It adds a lot, in a lot of situations. I can’t see anything that would change in Martin’s series with the exception of removing the plot device needed to justify throwing a child to his expected death.
You take it out, make Jaime throw him out the window simply because he’s an asshole, and nothing about the entire series changes.
That’s good, because saying stuff like this
isn’t helping. You seriously think ‘I like throwing children out of windows because I am EVIL’ is just as good a motivation as trying to kill someone because they just saw something that would completely destroy your reputation if it got out?
Wow, I don’t even know where to start. Everything in the series would change without the incest. The entire setup was based around the need to cover it up and the actions taken to do so.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s a somewhat victimless crime which makes it a unique plot device - some see it as morally wrong, others as politically wrong, and some know and simply do not care. Additionally, the children themselves are effectively innocent of this crime but would be killed if the truth came out, which makes covering it up a moral grey area.
I don’t think you quite picked up on this either. This has nothing to do with Jaime’s reputation - he doesn’t give two shits about what anyone else thinks about him. He’s doing it to save his own 3 children and sister from being killed. Again, the moral ambiguity of this “evil” act is only possible due to incest.
I think it’s worth mentioning, while we’re discussing levels of stupidity in sexual elements authors throw into their epic fantasy, that one of the undead characters in Letherii gets a makeover that includes a magical vagina symbiote that hungers for…oh, let’s use Dr. Strangelove terminology here, male essence of precious bodily fluids.
Been a while since I read it; you’re probably right.
Haha! Yeah. She’s a great character, I’d forgotten about that!
edit: Anyway, I’ll stop slagging on Martin because it really is apparent I don’t remember enough to do it properly – I’ll just leave it at finding the books boring and uninteresting, whereas I find that Erikson actually embraces fantasy in such a way as to make it generally interesting, even if it comes from such things as being completely over the top. It’s still radically different from anything I’ve read before, and made me believe that fantasy isn’t a complete write-off as a genre.
In a way, I think a large part of why I don’t like Martin’s books is how mundane everything is, and when it isn’t mundane it tends towards being generic. The fantasy elements, that is. Little of Eriksons fantasy (leaving aside plot or characters) is generic. From how he views undead, to new takes on shapeshifting like the D’ivers, etc. A new take on how magic works and why, and what a god is and how to get there. It tosses so many fantasy conventions out the window, that I can’t help but love it for what it is.
If you’d actually read what I wrote, you’d see that I found it to be a bunch of disjoint horseshit, but I was like, “Well, I’m coming in at book 2 so it’s bound to be a bit rocky,” then all the disjoint horseshit turned out to be introductions of new things, which doesn’t get the free pass that it would if it had been continuations.
I’m guessing this is on the back of his door:
Funnily enough, Martin being a breath of fresh air on the fantasy scene is why I dug his series. Erikson’s take on fantasy tropes is more original than most, sure, but to me they’re interesting riffs on not entirely dissimilar themes. Just handled with a richer sense of history and a more epic scale. Martin has mostly dumped the fantasy and gone with bitter political feuds and infighting, so I can see where that might not appeal (I guess), but I’d be really happy if that were less unique among fantasy series.
D’Ivers. So called because they are ‘diverse’ - that is to say there are many of them. With an apostrophe added JUST BECAUSE.
My favourite random apostrophism remains the ‘W’itch’ books. Which contain, well. Witches.
Yeah, the name is weak. The concept is pretty neat though.
I hate Ericksons naming of shit.
Also, I would like to see a book where Humans are unique and/or rare in the universe, rather than being everywhere and anything ELSE being the exception.
Fantasy book?
If SF, try Fire Upon the Deep. Though it deals with races only tangentially.
It seems in Toll the Hounds there’s Kruppe Vs Iskaral Pust. That could be interesting ;)
I bet it’ll be an epic struggle of epic proportions. Epic.
Kruppe and Iskaral Pust, the two greatest characters ever concocted in a Fantasy series. And Jan Jansen. Can’t forget him. The three greatest characters ever concocted in two separate Fantasy series.
I think you may want to keep the snark to yourself:
The first two books are sequential - that’s how Kalam manages to be in two places at once - and the dates, which are spelled out for you, are the 7th and 10th years of the rule of Empress Laseen.
I guess in your haste to score some cheap points you mixed up the first two books and the first and fourth books, which do take place simultaneously.
Hubris I stab at thee with my flimsy stabbing thing.
I will plan to down a shot every time a dainty pastry is snatched as Kruppe dances through a crowd like a very fat ballerina, and every time Isk wackily narrates his inner monologue. As a proactive measure, I’m going to call 911 before I even start reading each chapter.
There’s a KICK ASS interview that was just posted and that is interesting to read in the context of this thread.
One of the best interview I’ve read, and the merit is of Erikson who always have interesting things to say and always goes deep.
In many ways I approached Gardens of the Moon as I would any fiction project. I had been schooled in the non-emotive style prevalent in contemporary fiction. I wrote in the style of ‘he said/she said’ rather than ‘he/she grated, growled, hissed etc;’ and where I used such descriptive add-ons they were once removed. In a sense this didn’t fit with the genre style; readers pursuing a heightened plot with adventure and excitement foremost in their minds are used to a fully delivered emotional context to dialogue – a stylistic shortcut (the kind that rankles Stephen King). They don’t want to have to guess or prise out that context. I was working hard at conveying emotional context through gesture and inference rather than anything more obvious. The editorial push was to work those emotives in, which I did, although with some discomfort.
I have no ill feelings about that. There was enough unusual, challenging elements in the novel that anything we could do to ease the path was probably a good thing. Over time, however, and through the subsequent books, I have worked back to something close to my original style, one I am most comfortable with. I think I can get away with it now since by this time my readers know how to read my stuff.
Specific to Deadhouse Gates, well, there were eight years between writing that one my first draught of Gardens of the Moon. Eight years spent writing contemporary fiction. Finding a publisher for Gardens was a huge boost to my confidence, and I set about writing Deadhouse Gates with a sharp focus on what I wanted to achieve. Furthermore, I felt I could build from the introduction established by Gardens (even though the setting takes a sharp shift).
Also, Deadhouse Gates felt tight from the very start. Very deliberate, word by word. Whereas Gardens begins with more of a wild ramble and only tightens up towards the end (and even there it’s with a sly wink, quite different from the tone of the conclusion of Deadhouse Gates). I wanted to ‘get fucking serious’ with Deadhouse Gates. Years ago I had a mentor (Jack Hodgins) observe that my writing was not immediately inviting – in tone, in theme – but rather than fight it (and myself), I should endeavour to take the reader by the hand, gently, even when my ultimate intention was the drag that reader into hell. He gave good guidance, I think. The more a writer writes, the more the writer realizes just how manipulative language can be.
Musing on it, though, I don’t know if Deadhouse Gates opens by taking anyone by the hand, unless it’s to snap a shackle on the wrist (which, actually, is pretty accurate); but I knew the opening scene was evocative, and the first few lines – to my mind – still stand as among the best openings among any of my novels.