a farewell to Malazan
I just read Steven Erikson’s Gardens of the Moon, the first of ten volumes in what he calls The Malazan Book of the Fallen (eight have been published so far). Erikson is obviously a very intelligent man and a much better writer than is common among writers of fantasy, but I won't be reading any more installments in the series. To explain why, I have to invoke Tolkien.
In a number of letters Tolkien responds to the very common view that The Lord of the Rings is about power by simply denying it. Rather, he says, the book is about “the Fall, Mortality, and the Machine.” To seek for power (including technological power: “the Machine”) is one of the ways we respond to our fallen and mortal state. But there are other ways: for instance, art. Even those who are not mortal, but are fallen — in Tolkien’s world, the Elves — are driven by the impulse to make beautiful things, and indeed their desire to make beautiful things can cause them to fall. (As is told in The Silmarillion, this desire leads them into tragic alliances with Morgoth, the Satan of Tolkien’s world.) Their very artfulness can also lead them into a kind of preciousness, an aestheticism that courts moral exhaustion.
Tolkien was also deeply interested in the varieties of friendship, and the ways in which friendship can be a consolation and a comfort in a broken world. This is not unconnected to what I have just said, because friends also help one another to stay healthy — morally as well as physically — and for those of us who are fallen and mortal, such help is a great benefit.
All this is not to say that Tolkien doesn't have a great deal to say about power, only that power is not at the very heart of his concerns, and his treatment of it only makes complete sense in the context of these other fields and values.
By contrast, Steven Erikson, as best I can tell from Gardens of the Moon, does not appear to be interested in anything other than the many varieties of power: physical, psychological, magical, political, spiritual. In his world there is no art, unless you consider as art certain varieties of magic — say, shifting a person’s soul from a human body to a wooden marionette. But this is really just the exertion of a (temporary) power over death. And once I decided that I wasn’t going to read any further in the series, I decided to cross the Rubicon — that is, check the Wikipedia pages of the next few volumes for plot summaries. I turned away from the computer with a great sigh of relief that I didn't devote any more time to Malazan.
I would add, while I’m making enemies, that I think precisely the same is true of George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series. (I’ve read two of those, which I think you’ll agree makes me an expert.) Like most of Tolkien’s other descendants, Erikson and Martin have taken up his portrayals of world-shaking battles and the strategies and political machinations that lead up to them, but seem not to have been receptive to anything else the old Master was up to. But what makes Tolkien still unique is his determination to weave his battles, and his inquiries into power, into a larger picture of what sort of life is good for human beings to live. To but it as briefly as possible, that’s a life in which art and friendship may flourish.
Now, a contemporary writer may not share Tolkien’s vision of what makes for a good life. Fair enough; but in that case I’d like them to give me some sense of what their ideals are. Of these exhaustive and exhausting anatomies of power — it’s Foucault’s world; they’re just playing in it — I have had more than enough.
As a lawyer who tends to read like a philosopher, I’ve benefitted from your book on Lewis and Vigen Guroian’s work in terms of appreciating fairy tales (both new and old, if Lewis and Tolkien can be broadly so construed) both didactically and aestetically. It has been quite enriching (even refreshing) when reading to my daughters every night works that I have forgotten or would not have otherwise read.
— Randy · May 11, 10:54 PM · #
Although I agree about the general philosophical foundations of Erikson and Martins’ series (I’m at the 6th in Malazan and possibly on permanent hiatus from Martin after Feast for Crows), I think the comparison is unfair. You say Marin and Erikson are Tolkien’s descendants but that is true only in the fact that they write medieval fantasy, and the similarities end at about the point where you recognize that both stories involve copious use of swords and the occasional (very occasional in the case of Martin) Magickal Spelle. If one were to expect that writers of medieval fantasy were to routinely inherit Tolkien’s themes one would be setting oneself up for a hard lifetime of disappointment. I would argue that you should be no more or less likely to find Tolkienian themes in a random detective or romance novel. The appearance of swords does not enhance the likelihood.
For a recommendation, you might enjoy Stephen R Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. They are dramatically different from Tolkien stylistically (from the far edge of the mythic to the far edge of the temporal), but approach similar topics of agrarianism, corruption, and power.
— sidereal · May 11, 11:04 PM · #
sidereal, you’re disagreeing with Martin himself on this one, who has repeatedly mentioned his debt to Tolkien (and his frequent re-readings of LOTR), and equally often has said that LOTR marks the beginning of modern heroic fantasy, to which later writers are responding. And Erikson and his friend Ian Cameron Esslemont came up with the Malazan world as they were playing Dungeons and Dragons, whose debt to Tolkien I trust you won’t deny. Even China Miéville, who despises Tolkien, says that it’s imposible for anyone writing fantasy not to be influenced by him, even if that influence takes the form of wanting to refute him.
I have read the Covenant Chronicles, and have mixed feelings about them; maybe someday I’ll get around to writing something about that. But its been years . . . well, decades since I’ve read them, so I think re-reading is in order before I make any comments.
— Alan Jacobs · May 11, 11:20 PM · #
It wouldn’t be the first time!
There is no doubt that any writer of medieval fantasy (especially of the epic warfare slash high fantasy subgenre) is going to pay the proper respects to Tolkien, who towers over the genre (though it is tiresome to hear people saying he ‘invented’ it). But acknowledging the heritage is not the same thing as exploring the same thematic territory, and certainly tracing a lineage to Tolkien back through Dungeons & Dragons of all things will certainly erase any direct thematic legacy. I have played much D&D, and can confidently state that the influence of Tolkien there is almost entirely stylistic. I think it would be similar to acknowledging the influence of Lovecraft on modern horror without assuming that a mass market horror novel would explore similar themes of madness and forbidden knowledge.
All of which is to say, I suppose, that I still believe it’s an error in expectations, that mass market high fantasy’s only guarantee is swords and sorcery (if Martin and Erikson even count as high fantasy. . there isn’t quite the good/evil distinction that high fantasy usually calls for. Call it postmodern high fantasy), and that a search for work that explores Tolkien’s themes is probably best performed socially, rather than through dust jackets, etc.
On Covenant, I would be very suspicious of anyone who didn’t have mixed feelings about them. They seemed to be designed to invoke mixed feelings.
— sidereal · May 12, 12:03 AM · #
Alan-
A wonderful (and wonderfully concise) discussion of Tolkien’s moral universe. That said, while I haven’t read Erikson, I do think you’re doing Martin a disservice.
One of the things that makes Martin stand out from a frequently dreary genre is that he isn’t merely pillaging Tolkien. Where Tolkien’s world was built on his deep knowledge of European mythology and philology, Martin’s is built on his own knowledge of medieval European history. That history, with states built on dynasties and dynasties built on domination and exploitation, is largely centered around power. Indeed, Martin can sometimes read like the fantasy version of Charles Tilly.
But power is not his only theme. I would argue that justice is equally as important. Notice that the Starks are consistently depicted as ruling justly, and Martin writes their story as tragedy. By contrast, there is no indication that the Lancasters, who rule through force and fraud, are his preferred model (one reason to keep reading is to see how their mode of Machiavellianism plays out amongst one another).
Honor, loyalty, and mercy certainly get their due in Martin’s telling, and his heroes — insofar as they are heroic — display it under great duress. The fact that the world they live in has little time for such virtues, and that such virtues hardly ensure worldly success should not be seen as Martin’s last word on the subject.
Finally, his use of multiple narrators makes it difficult to impart a single view to the author, but I would add that it does allow him to explore the difficult and partial nature of justice. Each character feels compelled to justify his actions and it is not always clear whose account is the true one (this becomes especially relevant in piecing together the events that occurred prior to the start of the first book).
I think reading the third and best entry in the series might change your mind about Martin. Of course, seeing as he’d rather blog than finish up the next book, I should probably be excoriating rather than defending him.
— David Polansky · May 12, 01:18 AM · #
I’m going to back up sidereal here, I don’t think you’re really being fair to Martin. Obviously, he owes a debt to Tolkein, one that any worldbuilding author of epic fantasy has to admit, but his themes aren’t Tolkien’s. Tolkien’s world is fallen, and its inhabitants are, for the most part, intensely aware of that fact. The Elves especially live in acute awareness of their fallen status; they know what they have lost, and hope to regain it. Song of Ice and Fire is not about characters negotiating a fallen world, and trying to make it better, it’s about a world which never had anywhere to fall from. It’s a world devoid of anything approaching the numenous. For that reason, it is much more about politics, and consequently about power (or vice versa, I’m not sure which way the cause and effect flows). In a world without any sense of the divine, the only way to effect change is through politics. This isn’t an inherent evil, unlike in Lord of the Rings, where politics is the ugly business the good have to dirty their hands with in order to gather a coalition to vanquish evil.
Honestly, this is a big part of the appeal of Song of Ice and Fire to me. It’s not clear that any of the factions is on the side of justice, though there are members of each whose causes seem just. There isn’t a just Orc anywhere on Middle Earth. I don’t think that’s a fault with Tolkien, it’s just clear evidence that what he did is very different from what Martin is doing. So I agree with your point, that Martin’s series is very much about power, in a way that Tolkien’s isn’t, but I’m not sure why that’s a fault. He asks questions about the proper way to exercise power, and about what it’s like to live as a powerless person in a world where there is no clear path to redemption that Tolkien doesn’t.In fact, though you may be right about art (I have to think about it a bit more), I think you’re dead wrong about friendship in Song of Ice and Fire. This is one of the few concerns that Martin does share with Tolkien. Friendship and family are the only consolation anybody in the series has. One of its key themes is the navigation of the tensions between friendship, family, and the pursuit of power in a world which isn’t broken, because it was never whole, and where worldly power matters, because it’s all there is.
— Jesse A. · May 12, 01:33 AM · #
I really must strongly echo David Polansky’s defense of George RR Martin. Even though the series shows signs of going off the rails, at its best it’s a meditation not simply on power for its own sake, but on the compatibility of power and honor.
— rd · May 12, 01:40 AM · #
first, i appreciate alan jacob’s comments on fantasy. his viewpoints are always illuminating and provoking.
second, i think it’s somewhat ridiculous to ignore martin’s own admitted attempt to mimic tolkien. specifically, martin wants to create a “low magic” universe which relies less on magic-as-a-rule-based-system, and more where magic is spare but unpredictable. on the other hand, martin’s world also focuses more on the “small folk,” and the mixed natures of the protagonists than tolkein’s (though if you read some of the material in the silmarillion there is more shades of gray).
third, i tend to agree that comparing martin and erickson is not fair. i had a have had a hard time with malazan for the same reasons as alan did. on the other hand, with martin it is important to remember that there were two broad story arcs unfolding over time. specifically, there is the larger arc which is magical, fantastic and mysterious involving the movements in the north against dark powers in a classic good vs. evil sense. but proximately there is the very real machiavellian conflicts between humans which are fundamentally about power politics (though as noted by some commenters, the starks exhibit a sense of civic honor which the lannisters seem to lack). the second arc is clearly tightening up and in the spotlight early on in the series, while the prologue for the second arc is still unfolding.
finally, it’s not right to say that martin’s world has nothing of the numinous. that’s the very reason why magic is spare, to make it numinous and not pedestrian, and the details like the children of the forest are left somewhat unexplored. the return of dragons means the return of magic, and the books will eventually become much more focused on the epic good vs. evil narrative and suffused with magic, at least that’s what martin claims. additionally, the emergence fire god westeros and the powers which resemble what you might read of in the acts of the apostles clearly manifest a non-materialist sensibility (martin has admitted that the rise of the cult of r’hlor is well analogized to the rise of monotheism).
— razib · May 12, 02:01 AM · #
Once Alan writes about the Thomas Covenant series, which I last read on the schoolbus but have stuck with me, I’ll finally have something to talk about in these threads.
— Matt Frost · May 12, 02:12 AM · #
I do appreciate these thoughtful comments. Just one point about Martin: all I can say is that in the first two books I didn’t see enough other than power politics (including, especially, intra-family power politics) to make me want to read any further. As I said, I’ve just had enough of that kind of thing over the years. Whether the writers get it from Tolkien or not, I just wish they’d broaden their conceptual scope. Fantasy can do more than it is commonly made to do.
And this is the thing about these vast fantasy series: if you’re going to weave your story over six or ten or twelve books, you — and your fans — can’t be surprised or resentful if someone drops out after one or two. There’s only so much time and energy you can expect people to invest. Two books into Martin’s series I realized that I simply could not have cared less what happened to anyone who was still alive, nor did the world he was making show any signs of developing into something I wanted to explore. De gustibus and all that.
Matt, I’ll be there for you, man. One of these days.
— Alan Jacobs · May 12, 02:30 AM · #
I would argue that Erikson is also about varieties civilization and their respective strengths and weaknesses. Also a world in which the gods are just as fallen as the mortals if not more-so. I personally rather liked diverse, chaotic, vibrant, Darujistan and think in many ways it is held up as Erikson’s ideal in the later books.
In some ways, I think Malazan is more of a critique of Tolkien and even to an extent DnD, than a conventional descendant (critics certainly can be descendants). The closest things to elves a creatures of the dark and the demigods of light are not friendly types. The closest equivalent es to orcs tend to be treated with some sympathy and their more ‘civilized’ enemies tend to try to exploit them.
I personally love the series, but I’ve got a political science degree. Studying power is what I do. I think on the whole you have a fair critique and as I now read the seventh book I think that given your reaction to the first book, you’re quite right to put them down.
I have a somewhat harder time identifying Martin’s ideal, although he certainly does love his feasts. I think he tends to look more at family than friendships, but some unusual ones do arise. I think Razib is correct that there are two broad story arcs, one more Erikson-like and one more in the traditional realm of Tolkien. If the first two books didn’t do it for you, I can’t imagine the third changing things. The fourth might, but hard to say until it’s out.
Regardless, I am a fan of both series, more of Erikson, but I think you reject them on the basis of a reasonably fair description of their nature. For that I thank you, because it gives me a better idea of what draws me to them.
— Greg Sanders · May 12, 02:49 AM · #
fourth might, but hard to say until it’s out.
you mean fifth :-) i suspect that that book 5 is going to still not focus much on magic, but i bet martin will have a “gap” chronologically after this so that the protagonists grow up, and we’ll shift more to arc #2.
— razib · May 12, 03:21 AM · #
razib: Ah yes. Sorry. Epic fantasy tends to run together for me.
You may be right about the magic. Regardless, I’ll be reading it for Tyrion. :P
— Greg Sanders · May 12, 03:30 AM · #
Actually, isn’t 5 almost exclusively focused on the doings of Daenerys and her dragons over in the east? Which, incidentally, I think is worth calling arc #3 until such time as it likely merges back with razib’s arc #1. My understanding is that what became Feast for Crows was originally a massive tome that the publisher asked to be broken down, so Martin broke it into the events occurring in Westeros, which became Feast for Crows, and the events in the east, which became #5. All of which is to say, I think #5 will have a lot of magic :).
— sidereal · May 12, 04:46 AM · #
Because there wasn’t anyone left alive. Hah! Martin’s as ruthless with protagonists as anyone I’ve ever read.
— sidereal · May 12, 04:51 AM · #
I’m not sure why you’d only read books with thematic importance. You’d be robbing yourself of all sorts of great reads that aren’t hugely significant but are definitely a lot of fun. Lord knows Harry Potter didn’t break much new ground philosophically, but I liked reading them anyways.
On a related note, I think Tolkien is frankly a bit overrated. His creative genius in creating a unique world is undeniable, but his world is remarkably flat and un-nuanced (entire races of pure evil?), and I find it remarkably difficult to read whole chapters of his turgid paeans to the local greenery. My favorite authors owe him a great debt, but I still skim the Lord of the Rings – and I read pretty much anything.
— Jameson · May 12, 05:35 AM · #
@Sidereal: Not true! He hasn’t gotten through book three, so lots of people are still alive…for now. Myself, I love both the martin books and the Malazan novels, but I don’t think I have anything to say about Jacobs’ critique. I guess he just has a different sensibility, which is unfortunate, seeing as I think that these books are clearly some of the best fantasy I’ve read. Just wondering Alan, have you read The Name of the Wind? the rest of the trilogy is written but unpublished, and I found the first book quite enjoyable.
— Zeke · May 12, 06:21 AM · #
There are many reason not to like Erikson or Martin, but it seems silly to not like them because they do not deal with the same themes that Tolkien does. It is like not reading Borges because he doesn’t address Dread like Kafka does or not reading Pynchon because his works do not focus on obsession like Moby Dick does. Judge Martin and Erikson on their own merits and not the thematic concerns of a third author. You view Tolkien’s major themes as meditations on how individuals deal with their mortal and “fallen” state, I think that you would hard pressed to claim that this question is even raised by Erikson or Martin. They both seem to be concerned with what happens when individuals get trapped in a web of history, which is a different question altogether.
— belsherj · May 12, 02:07 PM · #
Everyone has already said the majority of what I was going to say, so instead, some housekeeping.
1.) Yes, Martin acknowledges his debt to Tolkien, for the same reason that a symphonist has to acknowledge Beethoven. How could he not? But he also specifically says that he drew greater inspiration from medieval history and historical fiction, an inspiration that seems pretty obvious in his books.
2.) Book 5 is going to deal not only with Daenerys, but also with the concurrent events north of the wall, i.e., with John Snow, Stannis, and Davos. I think we get to learn what happened to Tyrion as well.
— Blar · May 12, 02:40 PM · #
Alan, I think you’ve hit, very precisely, the animating force of all but a tiny minority of fantasy literature: power. I haven’t read a lot of these books, but I’m geeky enough to absorb details about them through osmosis. I think the connection to Dungeons and Dragons is not a coincidence, and that probably a surprising number of recent fantasy novels had their start in table-top RPGing—certainly a larger and larger percentage all the time. This is significant, because DnD, being a <i>game</i>, is explicitly about power—what can I do? what can that thing do to me? Maximize the former, minimize the latter. Sure, some people enjoy RPGs as interactive storytelling, but the substance of the game—the mechanics—nearly always relate to the questions I just mentioned.
And I think this all spills over into fantasy literature in a way that’s really anathema to Tolkein (whose figure of Gandalf leaves most contemporary fantasy readers asking, “Wait, how powerful is Gandalf? If he can do [X], why didn’t he do [Y] when [Z] almost killed everybody?”).
— Chris Floyd · May 12, 03:05 PM · #
I’m glad that someone is discussing Malazan Book of the Fallen, even if ultimately you’re walking away from it. And I understand it’s a huge investment of time to enter a huge fantasy series and let it build.
I will say, I feel that Erikson does present more and more examinations of what life should be as the books go on. The sheer varieties of religion multiply, in the process examining what people gain from religion, both good and bad. And the theme of how people negotiate the bonds of friendship even when necessity and larger allegiances pull them in opposite directions becomes increasingly prevalent.
I’d suggest that Erikson’s greatest sympathies lie with the friendship above power, as the moments that promise something more than the mere exercise of power usually come from a sacrifice made for a friend or through teamwork. I would say the endurance of the Bridgeburners stand as an example to emulate in the series, and the way their stubbornness and simple loyalties overcome Machiavellian plotting and impossible odds.
— Robert Karol · May 12, 03:08 PM · #
I find it remarkably difficult to read whole chapters of his turgid paeans to the local greenery
It’s hard for me to understand how someone could slog through all 7 books of Harry Potter but be unable to make it through an occasional long paragraph or two (not chapters!) describing the landscape. People differ greatly.
I wish all the folks claiming that Alan is mistakenly looking for Tolkien in Martin and Malazan would read his last paragraph:
Now, a contemporary writer may not share Tolkien’s vision of what makes for a good life. Fair enough; but in that case I’d like them to give me some sense of what their ideals are.
— Michael Straight · May 12, 05:05 PM · #
Hey Alan, I just wanted to say that I finished Original Sin last night. Short review is, it’s an excellent book. Very smart. Bravo.
— Sargent · May 12, 05:34 PM · #
“I wish all the folks claiming that Alan is mistakenly looking for Tolkien in Martin and Malazan would read his last paragraph:
Now, a contemporary writer may not share Tolkien’s vision of what makes for a good life. Fair enough; but in that case I’d like them to give me some sense of what their ideals are.”
I was aware of this last paragraph and seems more of the same thing. Tolkien may address the question about what the “good life” consists of, but it isn’t a requirement of literature to answer or even raise this question. There are thousands of books that do not even touch upon the “good life.” Erikson and Martin shouldn’t be held to that standard.
— belsherj · May 12, 06:44 PM · #
So, belsherj, I’m not allowed to say what I’d like? — what my preferences are?
— Alan Jacobs · May 12, 06:50 PM · #
Your assessment of these books as mostly concerned with power reminded me of Lois McMaster Bujold’s definition of SF(&F) as “fantasies of political agency.” Also it resonates with something Orson Scott Card said in (I believe) How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy that the central question with which fantasy should be concerned is “What is the price of power?” Which is to say that I’m not very surprised that you found these books mostly about power, since it seems to be to some extent how the genre conceives of itself.
I don’t think you are being unreasonable in wanting something more however. (If you had said you didn’t want them to talk about power at all, that would be another matter, but as you say Tolkien’s work talks about power as well.) Books which tried to take Tolkien “good life” approach would add even more variety to the genre, always a good thing, even though a call to imitate Tolkien more is usually the opposite of what one hears.
With respect to the variety of the genre, have you read any authors other than Tolkien which satisfied your criteria? You mentioned China Miéville in one of your comments, would his work qualify? I ask not only because I’m interested in finding good authors, but also because few more points of data would help me see the line being draw here more clearly.
— Xelgaex · May 12, 08:10 PM · #
I think the criticism, Alan, was that in invoking Tolkien as the godfather of the genre and then comparing other authors negatively to him, it looked like you were arguing what fantasy objectively should be like. Your initial response to sidereal crystalized the impression that you were more interested in how Erikson and Martin failed to be proper “descendants” of the master. You are of course entitled to be more subjective.
By the way, having read and liked all the “Ice and Fire” books to date, your non-endorsement of Martin and Erikson leaves me wanting to look into this Malazan cycle, which I had previously not heard of. Truly the fruits of culture blogging are various and unpredictable!
— Blar · May 12, 08:26 PM · #
I am not an English literature expert but I am a reader of fantasy and I found this whole discussion incredibly interesting. A bunch of stuff the casual reader does not notice. It’s really a shame that Alan stopped where he did on Martin, the third book really is the best of the bunch, so I just wanted to echo that.
— WilsonF · May 12, 09:02 PM · #
Blar, I don’t see how I could possibly have been more clear that I was sharing my subjective preferences. Seriously. My debate with sidereal was about debts to Tolkien, not about quality at all.
That said, you may well like Malazan. It is an extraordinarily rich world in many ways. And what Greg Sanders says about Erikson’s portrayal of the culture of the Free City of Darujistan seems right to me, and a point I had overlooked.
Several of you have made me reconsider my abandonment of Martin. Maybe one more volume wouldn’t hurt. . . .
— Alan Jacobs · May 12, 09:33 PM · #
Alan, do not give up yet. Read the second book, Deadhouse Gates. Erikson wrote Gardens of the Moon years before writing the rest of the series; it is clearly the weakest in all respects. The next seven books are leaps and bounds ahead of what is in Gardens in every way. It is, bar none, the single best fantasy series I have ever read. Erikson explores far more interesting and complex moral, philosophical, political, cultural, and psychological territory in the subsequent novels. Midnight Tides (the fifth novel) might be the single best piece of storytelling I have ever read from a genre writer.
Martin, by contrast, is terrible: He’s about the process of his fiction rather than the content. He’d rather go into disquisitions on heraldry and the family trees of the various factions than give you a character to enjoy. Like Robert Jordan, he started off well in his first book and quickly lost himself in the world he created while forgetting the first rule of writing: if the reader doesn’t care about your characters, he or she won’t care how awesome what is happening is or how intricate the setting is. Erikson, by contrast, gets much, much better. He creates characters — almost all of whom are introduced in subsequent novels rather than Gardens of the Moon — that become compelling. The commenter above who noted Erikson’s theme of friendship is spot on. The single most compelling character, in my opinion, is Trull Sengar — a man whose most singular trait (among many) is his ability to fashion enduring and steadfast friendships in those he meets. The bond between brother and sister soldiers is hugely important to the Malazan series.
While I couldn’t give a crap what happens to George R.R. Martin’s characters, and gave up on Robert Jordan’s characters years before he died, I love the characters in Erikson’s series. Aside from Cormac McCarthy, Erikson is the only writer who has written a death scene that made me cry, the only writer who’s made me shout “No you fucking well did not!” at the book in my hands.
Seriously, give Deadhouse Gates a shot, and then come back and tell me I’m wrong.
— James F. Elliott · May 12, 09:37 PM · #
Must . . . resist . . . impulse to . . . go back to Erikson . . . Martin . . . Must read Litrachur instead . . . must . . .
— Alan Jacobs · May 12, 09:41 PM · #
Hell, I’ll buy you a copy of Deadhouse Gates to read! It will blow your mind.
Anyone else out there been reading R. Scott Bakker?
— James F. Elliott · May 12, 09:46 PM · #
Oh, and Sargent, thanks for the kind words about my own book. It’s an epic saga of men and gods, heroism and terror, love and hate. . . . If you like that kind of thing.
— Alan Jacobs · May 12, 10:06 PM · #
Alan, it’s a bit of a tangent, but have you ever read the Gormenghast novels by Mervyn Peake? They were written contemporaneously at Tolkien’s time. If anything, they’re even less concerned with power, and more with place and relationship, and how those things constitute a person. I’d say they owe more to Dickens and Poe than anyone else.
I consider them both my favorite fantasy novels, and my favorite novels in general. C.S. Lewis also liked them, at least the first one. He wrote Peake a fan letter.
— Ethan C. · May 12, 11:26 PM · #
I’ve got to disagree with Mr. Elliott: I actually care greatly about the characters of Martin; obviously this is somewhat a matter of personal taste, but I still find the tragedies (since there are some who haven’t read all the series I’ll refrain from discussing the specific ones) to be resonant and characters like Tyrion to be compelling.
And, as everyone has noted, Martin is concerned with political power, ideals and its relation to power, and families and their relation to power. (the former is why Robb Stark is compelling; the latter, why Tyrion is).
— dth · May 12, 11:32 PM · #
Ah, dth, you’ve managed to mention one of the two characters that are actually interesting in the series (Tyrion, the other being Jon Snow, who is your fantasy archetype exemplar for the series).
— James F. Elliott · May 13, 01:31 AM · #
Ethan, the Gormenghast books are amazing — but it’s a real tragedy that Peake wasn’t able to finish the third book properly.
— Alan Jacobs · May 13, 01:36 AM · #
Can we all not accept as a given that Tolkein is a particularly good writer? Thanks.
— Sanjay · May 13, 12:50 PM · #
Yikes, Alan. I was just trying to explain why people, myself included, thought you trying to say something normative about fantasy. I see what you meant now, but I wasn’t the only one who misunderstood, judging by the comments.
I’ll definitely look into Erikson when I get some literature money freed up.
— Blar · May 13, 03:11 PM · #
Since this discussion has departed from Erikson and Martin already, I want to ask Alan if he has written anywhere about Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun. I just finished it, having read Alan’s mention of it in the thread on Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. Still trying to figure out what to make of it. It took a lot more “work” than I usually want to expend when reading escapist SF/Fantasy. I usually want to just get lost in the drive of the narrative and be pulled along without constantly having to reorient myself or being forced to follow frequent expository musings on big social issues or the meaning and purpose of life. But it kept drawing me back in.
— Karl · May 13, 07:50 PM · #
it seems to me that the erickson’s greatest strength as a purveyor of epic fantasy is precisely one that tolkien fails to address in any convincing manner: the uncertainty of moral (and any sort of absolute) truths. to a large degree, and this is not a criticism, tolkien deals in fables and fairy stories, where the morally correct outcome, the most just outcome, is clear. when a price is paid, one is never left uncertain that the greater good was or was not served. be it the small bore details of friendship or the larger issues of power and influence, one knows where one stands. of course, if one wants one’s fantasy to provide a sense of what the good life is, one needs to have an answer and certainty is the price one pays.
on the other hand, my feeling is that for writer’s like erickson (and others such as mieville) for quest is not to provide answers, but rather questions. it is true, especially towards the beginning of the series, that those questions are often broad, dealing with the fates of nations and armies and even races. however, it’s unfair to claim the erickson doesn’t tackle the vagaries of the more mundane, it just doesn’t do so to any great degree in gardens of the moon (i.e. read deadhouse gates). for example, without throwing in spoilers, i’d posit that mappo and icarium’s relationship in the later books functions as an extended meditation on the nature of friendship.
the malazan world has many more weaknesses than middle earth, it is a rather less coherent structure and the style slips into the generic every now and again. however, the project is far more ambitious. this is not a world painted in broad brushstrokes. the grubby minituae of everyday life are in fact grubby – people have sex, bodily functions exist there are ugly people. personally, i find all this rather charming, but, then again, i’m a woolly moral relativist.
it occurs to me that there is much more to be said on this topic (especially on the subject of that erickson owes tolkien – that dungeons and dragons point is a little misleading), but perhaps it’s best end the evangelizing and urge you to read a little further in the series.
— nav · May 14, 03:24 PM · #
One more vote for Alan Jacobs on Gene Wolfe. I’d love to read such an essay.
— Michael Straight · May 14, 09:03 PM · #
Nothing on Wolfe forthcoming, but I am writing an essay on Iain M. Banks for The New Atlantis. For those of you who like that kind of thing.
— Alan Jacobs · May 15, 01:47 AM · #
While I like Wolfe better, and essay on Banks might be more interesting. As long as it’s not about Ian Banks without the M.
— Michael Straight · May 15, 04:45 PM · #