The Royal Library of Alexandria (SP Book Discussion)

[Mirefox]

After about a decade of putting it off, I finally just read Gardens of the Moon, which is book 1 of Steven Erikson’s 10-book Malazan Book of the Fallen series and I don’t even know what to think.

For the most part, the writing seems fine. An author’s tone or prose can often make or break a book for me and I was never put off by Erikson’s writing style.

The story, on the other hand… This world is rich; rich in history, rich in politics, and rich in culture, etc. This is an eclectic fantasy world with gods and demons and immortals and dragons and the undead and magicians and bug people and everything else under the sun. The problem, though, is that you are thrown right into the middle of it with little to no explanation of anything. So while I think I enjoyed the read, there was definitely a lingering confusion just about every time I read about something new.

I’ve looked at reviews and they aren’t very helpful. Some people don’t like the book for the reasons mention and far too many positive reviewers seem to impugn the intelligence of those who don’t like it. There seems to be a whiff of a superiority complex to a lot of the Malazan fans that I find off putting.

So now I am at a decision point. Do I charge forward into the dense series or just let it rest after the first book? I am undecided as of right now.

Has anyone here read this book or have any thoughts about the series as a whole?

[OhBollox]

and far too many positive reviewers seem to impugn the intelligence of those who don’t like it.

Yup. That’s the whole approach of the books, they chuck you in at the deep end and you just have to read more to work it all out. This then leads people to feel they’ve earned something those that haven’t read the books haven’t earned. I can see why that assumption exists (it still happens to me concerning non-fiction), but it’s not a good look, nor a particularly encouraging way to get people into the books.

I read a few and my interest slowly waned, but they’re popular enough there must be something to them, he said, hopefully. I can recommend them much more than Wheel of Time, for instance.

There’s a small set up at the beginning that covers the nature of evolution, but aside from that, this is a remarkably focused work, that gently guides you on a tour of cephalopod development, including cognition and intelligence, and never treats you like an idiot. It lays out what we know and can surmise, and what is merely suggestive, about animals that are instantly familiar from their behaviour, rather than their morphology. Much like crows and dolphins, the more I look into how smart they are, the more I feel for and respect them. While there have been some legal measures to bring them in to ‘honorary mammal/vertebrate’ status, after reading this I wish those protections went further.

[OhBollox]

I picked up books 1-4 of the Drop Trooper series by Rick Partlow and found myself slowly drawn in against my will. The books regularly commit sins of extreme convenience, as a future conflict between humans and aliens is carried out largely between infantry forces, as nuclear weapons are eschewed so as to avoid MAD, and automated weapons are forbidden by humans and aliens alike. The last major conflict on Earth was nuclear, and partly autonomous, which makes sense, but the complete eradication of China and Russia does not. Presumably Russian/Chinese characters would have been difficult to write? Anyway: the aliens have an overriding religious imperative, and operate according to levels of fanaticism the humans find bizarre. Their architecture is strange, they live in hotter climes, and at this point I was holding the tablet at arm’s length and frowning with distaste.

That said, however, there’s a nice grunt’s eye view of the conflict, and there are some interesting snippets amongst the ‘it’s just airborne assaults in spaaaace’ parts. The prose is quite staid, however, and I don’t think Partlow has the necessary skill to either detail the drudgery of working a maintenance-intensive job on par with being a tank crewman, alongside the intensity of what is essentially infantry combat but at high speed. It kills quite a lot of the battle scenes as a result, because the prose plods along at the same pace. Being part of a rigid institution is communicated quite well, though, and those sections are immediately recognisable.

The main character is a little bit bland, and suffers from the usual protagonist flaw of just being too damn good. It’s very rare to find a soldier who is as able a commander as they are a fighter, and as a result the only real internal conflict is too-carefully managed. He leads from the front, until promoted, then he commands, but he does so well enough that his lack at the front isn’t particularly felt.

Not a bad series of books, by any means, after all I’m still reading them, but part of that is they’re inoffensive and easy to read. There’s a more interesting story that would have been much harder to write, somewhere in there.

[feederofgoats]

Sorry I missed this when you first posted, but given the scale of the Malayan series I doubt you’ve got through them all yet so it might still be useful!

I did read all of the books and finished them about 4 years ago. Ridiculously (and with hindsight mistakenly!) I read them all back to back which meant I didn’t read any fiction apart from this for a year or more! I wanted to see the whole story play out but just reading one author for such a long time is not something I will do again.

So what did I think of it? Some of the characters are wonderful and the key feature that you mentioned where you are plopped into the world with very little explanation leads to some incredible payoffs along the way. The timescale of the book means that some of the character arcs are wonderful and when characters die that you’ve been reading about for several books it packs an emotional punch (of course there are lots of characters!).

Overall, I’m really glad I read it. It stands alone as an achievement measured by the scale of the series (apart from Wheel of Time - which I was tempted to try at some point but now reconsidering after @OhBollox’s comment, given that I respect his taste in literature). There are some great characters and some really great ideas.

But I do think there are better individual fantasy books. And definitely don’t read them all back to back!

[OhBollox]

Wheel of Time is somewhat unusual for having: good books - five bad books - good books, which renders it essentially impossible to recommend. I can’t in good faith say to anyone “Oh, stick with it, it gets good.” because it doesn’t. It starts off good, and ends well, but I don’t think good bread justifies a shit sandwich. Maybe read the synopses of the bad ones on wikipedia? Really unfortunate situation.

[kennfusion]

Where I disagree with you on WoT is, if the the bread is worth the boring meat.

Yes, books 7-11 might be a tad slow, and should have been about 2 books.

I personally think the Sanderson books are fantastic. My general recommendation is, if you can make it to book 3, read the rest, be aware that you can probably skim 7-11 if you get bored.

[rinelk]

That’s good to know! I think I gave up around book 9 or 10, back when that was current. By the time the next one came out, I’d forgotten enough that I felt I should reread them all, and that just seemed exhausting for very little payoff.

But if the Sanderson ones are good, that gives me a light at the end of the tunnel.

[kennfusion]

Books 9 and 10 are the worst.

And while Book 11 is not one of the top books, it is the last book written by Jordan himself and I think it shows signs that he understood the complaints about 7-10, and is definitely worth reading before going into the Sanderson books.

[Hardco]

I went through same thing, giving up at 9 or 10 when they were current. Despite the tv show being mediocre at best, it inspired me to give this another go. The plan is to listen to the audiobooks for all of them. I’ve been enjoying it so far, but I’m only at the end of book 2. I’ll let you know in a couple years if I made it…

[kennfusion]

The Audiobooks are two of my favorite narrators in the Audiobook world, Michael Kramer and Kate Reading.

[rinelk]

Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy. Not overall bad, but it combines some sort of cool science with lots of politics, and constantly shifts perspectives between a large cast, some of whom are fun to read and some of whom are more of a slog. But my goal was to make Terraforming Mars and Ares Expedition more fun to play, and it did give me a chunk of associations to hang on the cards, so it did its job.

[rinelk]

Ryan North’s How to Take Over the World. Imagine a supervillain-themed button on Wikipedia which gave you a random article, then had the article rewritten by a funny fellow who is both relentlessly positive and deeply realistic. He’s just a strange combination of the affirmation of Mr. Rogers and the cynical disappointment with the state of things of maybe Daria? I don’t know, I didn’t watch Daria. But the sorts of people I’ve known who seemed to identify with that show give me an idea.

Anyway, I kind of like aimlessly reading random facts on Wikipedia, so I had low-intensity fun with it.

[Hardco]

I was a pretty regular reader of Dinosaur Comics in the early 2000s. I had no idea Ryan North did anything else after that. Reading his wiki, it’s nice to see he has had some degree of success since then!

[OhBollox]

Friend bought me this because I did him a small favour. Magnificent bastard.

Anyway, it’s classic Alan Moore post-Lovecraftian stuff. The hidden underbelly of 1920s America, complete with fishmen immigration, human sacrifice, and lots of fucked up violence and sex. Not for those lacking a strong stomach, but combined with Burrows’ art, Moore’s writing is as solid as ever, and it’s a palpable hit. Much like Neonomicon, which I loved, melding all your favourite Lovecraftian horrors into one unified vision and stuffing it into the setting of a wider society is masterful.

[Natus]

Don’t forget the hugely useful Providence Annotations website

I’m a fan of Providence, but I have issues with Moore’s constant use of sexual assault to depicts villainy/weirdness and there is a LOT under the hood. I would have missed a good quarter of the content without help. But the finale is worth it. It’s creepily…familiar.

[OhBollox]

I’m more at peace with Moore’s use of sexual themes than many other writers, put it that way. I don’t find any of it gratuitous, especially given Lovecraft’s non-mention of it, while at the same time trying to leverage it in his stories. Moore stands out because comics are still profoundly asexual thanks largely to the comics code. It does mean it’s an often difficult read, but it should be. It’s one of those areas of the mythos that has been put into a corner and more or less ignored or only alluded to (collections like Conqueror Womb are the exception, and I can only think of one or two writers aside from Moore who involve Lovecraftian sexuality consistently, Scott R. Jones being one of them).

[Natus]

Weird, Cthulhoid sex? Fine. Bizarre, “nameless rituals”? Sure. But Moore has a pattern in most of his works regarding sexual assault, so that’s harder to justify. I agree that it’s definitely an area for exploration, but Moore’s pedigree makes me uneasy reading it, and not in a good way.

[OhBollox]

I’d prefer Moore to include it, as it’s an incredibly commonplace crime, and often a sign of criminal or personal deviancy, rather than leave it out and pretend villains are, for instance, body hopping immortals who extinguish souls at will, but do not otherwise mistreat people. The sexual mistreatment of people is something Moore has featured, when Lovecraft/comics have not, and this makes him a lightning rod for opprobrium. The fact it draws puritanical ire, when murder does not, is irrelevant, to me.

[biffpow]

@OhBollox

I can only think of one or two writers aside from Moore who involve Lovecraftian sexuality consistently

There are not many, though it’s become more common in the last 10-15 years or so. Caitlin Kiernan is a good writer in the genre, and she has work that goes into sexual territory. The Black Wings of Cthulu anthology series also features stories in just about each volume where sex is featured (some of which are awful, admittedly).

All of that said, I have to be honest–I agree with @Natus regarding sexual assault in Moore’s work. If I knew nothing about Moore or hadn’t read a lot of his work, it might not make me feel uneasy, but that’s not the case.

As a separate point, do you think the total lack of sex in Lovecraft’s work makes the horror aspects sharper, because there’s less humanism to distract us from the weirdness?

[OhBollox]

As a separate point, do you think the total lack of sex in Lovecraft’s work makes the horror aspects sharper, because there’s less humanism to distract us from the weirdness?

Not personally. I think the lack of it is a mixture of the likelihood of censorship and Lovecraft’s own nature, but it’s a kind of cowardice that prefers to just not look at that aspect. Lovecraft was repelled by miscegenation and put that into his stories (cf. the protagonists who find out they are the product of such, especially when they resemble Lovecraft himself), women vanish or commit suicide when faced with such horrors, and so on. The pathology of the sexuality involved is part and parcel of what’s going on; no evil cultist is committing child sacrifice, necrophilia, etc, then going home and having satisfying missionary sex with their spouse, these are really aberrant people with destructive urges. I do understand it’s unpleasant to see it (even the Deep One graffiti in Providence is awful if you check it out), but on the one hand we’ve become so inured to murder it is no longer even worth a mention, yet sexual assault or rape occasions vast amounts of hand-wringing. The comics featuring genocide outnumber the comics featuring sexuality, by my reckoning, and those featuring sex crimes are barely a blip. That’s badly out of whack, by my judgement, and I see it as society, yet again, refusing to acknowledge sex crime even occurs, when it’s actually incredibly common. Providence features a man raping an underage girl. Every one of us probably knows a woman that’s happened to, whether we know it or not.

Every other aspect of Lovecraft’s creatures or people are horrific, and rightly so. Sticking a black bar over this one area is a glaring omission. I can’t see how it’s possible to justify a work of fiction detailing something that is inimical to human life and society in every way, except this one which we don’t talk about. It’s arbitrary.