/lit/ - Literature

>>11371297
>>11371390
>>11371401
I think the worst part is that I actually enjoyed the first book. It was fun, mostly self-contained fantasy story set in a bizarre world in the middle of a war, all centered around a sabotage mission that has varying levels of betrayal stacked all around it, which all converge around one location. Every person to belch about how great Malazan is always talks about how the first book is the weakest when it clearly has the tightest narrative. I recall reading that Erikson tried forever to get the first book published, and maybe that's what caused him to revise it and make it attractive for publishers, e.g. trimming the narrative fat and making sure pace is maintained. Characters are constantly making decisions, reacting to other characters' actions, changing up their plans at the last second, and it makes for an energetic read. Book two was considerably slower, and book three has been a plodding mess.

>>11371283
>Ganoes Paran, Quick Ben, Crokus Younghand, Fiddler, these are the characters who matter in the early books.

And none of them are particularly well defined or have character motivations of any sort besides "muh comrades" which is the staple for gritty military fantasy or whatever this is supposed to be. At least Crokus wanted to bang some noble girl, which was a fun motivation that got him into plenty of trouble, adding spice to the plot in book one. Of course, once he got over his crush, he ceased to have a personality altogether. He didn't even seem sad when his uncle (the guy who raised him) suffers a fate worse than death. "Alas, poor Uncle. I don't give a shit."

Let's see: Fiddler cheats at cards and "gets bad feelings" about things, Ben is twelve clever mages in one. And Paran. His defining characteristic is being that brooding young man who shakes his fist at the heavens and curses fate for being the fated chosen one. He does this in every fucking chapter, cursing the gods/fate/etc. It gets old fast, and Erikson lays it on thick, clearly pleased with himself.

The characters are flat with little to no character motivations and start to sound like one another after the first two hundred pages; the world is as bloated as a D&D setting with inconsequential details stacked alongside things we should apparently find astounding; the mechanics of gods/magic are inconsistent and work more as plot devices than anything else; what little motivations and personalities the characters do have will suddenly evaporate just to get them from point A to point B and railroad the plot forward.

But the story's only unforgivable crime is that it's fucking boring. I never thought I would say that in a book where giant zombie dinosaurs with scythe hands start carving the fuck out of people, but holy hell, this book is boring. It's a slog. I don't care about any of these characters and their awesome cool god-forged weapons that take up entire pages. Malazan is like reading a video game's wiki.