Tag Archives: Books

What’s wrong with Erikson’s prose?

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I finally started reading “Gardens of the Moon”.

Through the pallor of smoke ravens wheeled. Their calls raised a shrill chorus above the cries of wounded and dying soldiers. The stench of seared flesh hung unmoving in the haze.

On the third hill overlooking the fallen city of Pale, Tattersail stood alone. Scattered around the sorceress the curled remains of burnt armour — greaves, breastplates, helms and weapons — lay heaped in piles. An hour earlier there had been men and women wearing that armour, but of them there was no sign. The silence within those empty shells rang like a dirge in Tattersail’s head.

For all the smells and sounds surrounding Tattersail, she found herself listening to a deeper silence. In some ways it came from the empty armour surrounding her, an absence that was in itself an accusation. But there was another source of the silence. The sorcery that had been unleashed here today had been enough to fray the fabric between the worlds. Whatever dwelt beyond, in the Warrens of Chaos, felt close enough to reach out and touch.

On the plain below, the bodies of Malazan soldiers covered the ground, a rumpled carpet of dead. Limbs jutted upward here and there, ravens perching on them like overlords. Soldiers who had survived the slaughter wandered in a daze among the bodies, seeking fallen comrades.

Just at page 60 as writing notes on the wiki is taking quite a bit of time. I probably read on forums and blogs more about Erikson and his series than all the words written in the first book. So I know well what to expect, the criticism and so on.

One aspect people complained about is the prose. I also found those critics often enough to believe that they are actually founded.

But I’m failing to understand what is that people don’t like. I expected the writing to be more uneven and crude than what I found.

Scott Bakker on worldbuilding

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What a kickass interview:

As a diehard grognardian world-junkie myself, I obviously disagree.

Worldbuilding either is or is not “necessary” depending on the effects the writer is hoping to achieve. Of course Harrison would say that worldbuilders, such as myself, are trying to achieve the wrong effects. Detailing a world beyond the technical requirements of the story, the implication is, simply turns readers into literary shopkeepers with inventories to keep and no meaningful choices to make. Thus the frightening psychology: apparently the worldbuilder’s goal is to cretinize their readers, keep’em dumb and distracted so that they can be better exploited by the powers that be.

For Harrison, who is an avowed post-modernist, the reader should be continually confronted with the performative as opposed to the representational function of language. They should be reminded (apparently over and over and over) of the power of words to spin realities, to the point where the work becomes a multifarious, promiscuous, meaning event (albeit one that is too often generated by the most mechanical of po-mo tactics, elision). Forcing the reader to draw whole characters out of fragments, narrative arcs out of discordant events – to “fulfill their part of the bargain” – this is the true way to make the reader an active part of the process, and so a critically minded, enlightened citizen.

I don’t know whether to laugh or yawn anymore. For better or worse, readers without literature degrees tend to hate this stuff. They like coherent characters and stories and settings. So when you start screwing with “representational expectations” (in other words, unilaterally rewriting the “bargain”) by and large all you end up doing is preaching to the choir, writing for people with literature degrees, which is to say, for people who already share your values. In other words, you simply end up catering to their expectations. You become an “upscale” version of the very commercial entertainers you continually denigrate.

We’re hardwired for this shit, which is why you see the same pattern repeating itself over and over in every sphere of cultural production. Every sphere has a self-styled elite who both identify and flatter themselves via their values, then criticize others for not sharing those values. “Our values are the values and you guys are losers because of this and this and this…”

Also some infos about the upcoming duology, now a trilogy (first book probably not out before 2009):

Well, I can’t say it’ll be a duology anymore, because in the course of writing it ended taking a parallel form: the story breaks into three natural parts. The first book, The Judging Eye, does the same kind of frame-setting work that The Darkness That Comes Before does in The Prince of Nothing – only without the super-steep learning curve! The second, The Shortest Path, will be a travelogue, much like The Warrior-Prophet, and the third… well let’s just say we’ll be a long time cleaning the fan! One difference, I think, is that the relative lengths of the books will be inverted. The Judging Eye will be the shortest, and I anticipate the final book will be far longer than The Thousandfold Thought, which picked up on the doorstep of Shimeh. This could complicate things, since I would like to include an updated Encyclopaedic Glossary. Maybe I’ll have to break down and do a separate omnibus – but that just feels like a cash grab. Cheesy.

There’s more to read beside these quotes.

New kids on the block

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On Westeros boards there’s a fun thread of the kind of “Who’s stronger, the Hulk or the Thing?” Just about new fantasy writers.

Abercrombie is dominating. See? My opinion can’t be that crazy if it’s so widely shared.

Can’t comment about the others since I haven’t read them. But I really doubt they can top my preference.

By the way, there’s still Scott Bakker who may still have wiped em off (considering what I’ve read on that forum), but he wasn’t as recent, so out the poll.

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Mediawiki needs this

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Mediawiki is the engine of the well known Wikipedia, that you can download to make your own specialized thing.

I installed it because I figured out that I could keep my notes about Erikson’s books (I started now) better organized. I know there’s already a wiki for it, but the first page I opened was filled with spoilers.

So I decided to install one here locally where I transcribe my notes. Then I also thought how it could eventually be made useful to others. Because in the end it would bring the same problems of the other.

My idea is not too complex, but I wish to know some php programming to make it work. Basically you use a “cookie” on the browser with the user preferences. These preferences are: book read, and page. The idea is that Wiki only shows all the informations that are part of what you read. For example if you are at page 300 of book 4, you’ll see all that is known till that point, with the rest hidden.

And on the side of the wikipedia you make this work with simple syntax, so that you write down on the wiki adding page and books tag. So for example you are writing an entry about a character and divide each section with updates and new information with a book & page tag, so that this ideal module would them display only “safe” infos.

Now I’m wondering about a compromise, to obtain a similar result, but without php programming…

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Shadows Linger – Glen Cook

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Second book of a trilogy, but also part of a series of ten books in total. I didn’t comment the first book, but I read it. It was wonderful.

In order to explain what I think about this second book, I have to explain a few things about the first, because I started reading with some expectations and those expectations had a weight on my opinion about the book. The fact is that I loved the first book. For its setting, its pace, its structure. It’s from many points of view a “perfect” book. Every piece fits together and it’s masterfully planned and executed. In 310 pages Glen Cook wraps up an epic campaign that other authors would pan for thee books of 600+ pages. And this without leaving you feeling like you missed something.

The structure (first book, not this one) is probably the very best quality and what sets the book apart. Seven chapters, about 60 pages each. Each of these chapters are “standalone”, in the sense that you could read one in the middle of the book without feeling like you are missing a piece of the story, and so can’t understand what the hell is going on. Each also has its start, development and conclusions. So each chapter feels like a novella on its own. This isn’t all, the real quality is that not only the story is wrapped up perfectly around this structure, but that each chapter/novella adds plot elements and characters that contribute and move steadily onward the overall story that spans the whole book. It feels as modern as possible, like it happens now with the most successful TV series, that need, from a side being self-contained to be accessible to who didn’t follow every episode and remembers every detail, and from the other plot elements that link all the episodes together, giving the series its continuity and overall development. So no stalling. The Black Company follows the same principle and Glen Cook executed this masterfully in this first book. It couldn’t have been plotted and structured better. I had a few minor complaints (like how some “spoilers” were handled) but they are just small details toward the end.

I consider that book exceptional because it’s as steady as possible. There’s no slacking, no slows down, no weak parts. In 310 pages the author shows how he has perfect control over his story. And it’s very good, with plenty of unexpected and clever twists. With an end that doesn’t disappoint. The story could have just ended there, but it didn’t.

I don’t know if more books were planned from the beginning, the flow of the second book isn’t perfectly smooth, but still coherent enough to not give the feel of something artificially excused. The real problem is that the structure that made the first book wonderful, was completely discarded for this sequel. Instead of long chapters and self contained stories, we have this time a linear plot developing through the book, and organized with very short chapters (often just 4-5 pages) and an attempt to do different POV. I honestly didn’t like this choice as it gives a too fragmented feel. On the other side the chapters are so short that you keep turning the pages and read more as the next “exit” point is just two pages away, and the end of one chapter always making you wish to turn the page and look for other developments.

Gone the mastery of the structure, but also gone the overall “feel”. No more the militaresque campaign, but a bend toward a “spook”, supernatural theme, leaving you with the impression you are reading a fantasy version of Dracula. I was disappointed because I wanted more of the same, and instead I found something much different, with a plot much, much less inspired and deep. In fact I was much deluded by this second book, but as I went on reading it captured my interest more.

The first 2/3 of the book present two plots, one encapsulating the other. The book wasn’t a complete disappointment because I think Glen Cook achieved his purpose. This purpose was to make readers care more about the inner plot, instead of the outer. Without spoilering much, there’s an “outer” plot still about the Lady and the Dominator fighting each other, with the Black Company caught in between, just trying to survive and choose the lesser evil. With the Dominator rising his castle near a small town lost up the north of the world, forgotten by all. The “inner” plot is instead about the day-to-day miserable life of the people of that town. These two plots initially made distinct also geographically as the scenes with the Company happen at the other side of the world, also used to show how the Lady uses liberally the Company, tossed from one side of the world to the other. You start reading with all the hype once again on the Black Company (the first scene is superb, from the point of view of kids to return the reader the sense of wonder and badassness of the Company), but progressively the focus moves toward those who look like minor characters, and that instead become major ones. In fact Glen Cook artificially zones out the Black Company itself to narrate a “covert” operation with just a few members of it, that are “flown” far away. So there’s already here the will to move away from the theme and execution of the first book.

Even in this case, though, the trick that holds the second book is the same of the first: small things affecting big things. Just applied to a different context. The whole coolness of the first book was “watching” the normal men of the Black Company walk among much powerful beings. Giving the impression of gods walking among men. But gods made of flesh, powerful and intimidating, but with their own weakness. And then the fun of watching clever men fuck with the power of these gods. Because you shouldn’t underestimating the Black Company. This shift of power and point of view from the bottom was what made the first book awesome. In the second book this theme is applied differently, there’s less the same kind of direct confrontation, but the mess-up that feeds the story is still about some smallish acts that generate a disaster. Just think at the miserable people of this lost town, just thinking selfishly how to survive the next winter, stealing money to each other, all caught in their personal dramas… While a black castle is growing just over their shoulders, growing on their filth and miserableness.

And then you have the climax: huge glowing balls rolling around, invisible giant feet stomping the ground, flying carpets airstrikes, eggs exploding into fire and a black castle made of goo and smelling pretty bad too.

Before it all happens, though, there’s another strong point of the book, that is the return of the Company into the scene. And also the demonstration of why and how they are cool: Get things done. Quickly. Efficiently. Competently.

Then the mess. And, as you may guess from my words above, a really weird mess. Even if helped by the strong realistic way Glen Cook has to describe things. While the scene presented is so surreal to be silly, it’s still described in a “serious” way that makes it still consistent and believable. Even if I have to say that the descriptions of the first book were more inspired, beautiful and better written. The prose of this second book in general has a slight dip in quality.

Those five immediately encountered the portal from elsewhere that expelled the cold breath of the infinite. They all perished.

And once again it’s interesting the contrast. The weird magery stuff from a side, and the concreteness, down-to-earth approach and mindset that the Company has.

Another aspect I was thinking about but that isn’t underlined in the book, is how there’s a sort of meta-fiction. The book you are reading that you have in your hands, exists also in the fictional world as a physical entity. In fact it’s written in first person, and the protagonists writes and “records” what happens, as it is his other duty within the Company, the annalist. So sometimes there are references at how the book itself was saved from danger. Because it’s implied that if you have it in your hands, then it would have been saved somehow. As if the Company really existed.

Last thing about the style: as I said the book is written, like the first, in first person. But feeling like third. Even more so in this book than the first Glen Cook plays with this concept. It’s not present tense, as the events are “recorded” by the annalist, and this time there’s an attempt at different POV, so scenes where the writer isn’t directly present, and so written in third person. It’s a book written in first person but where the writer is not the protagonist, only an “observer” that, due to the context, is also sometimes present physically and doing things. It’s interesting.

All in all the book disappointed me because the militaresque feel I liked and the cleverness of the plot is mostly gone, replaced by an unimaginative spook theme that was kept throughout the whole book (instead of occupying just one chapter and then moving on, as in the first book). The writing is a bit worse, the structure and plot not as good. But at the same time it’s not as deluding as I initially thought. It’s as if Glen Cook started from an awful concept, but managed to still pour good things into it. I don’t consider this an exceptional book, especially because I keep comparing it with the first and in no way it can stand that comparison. But, on its own, I enjoyed reading it and the Company has still not lost any charisma.

Glen Cook has less aces up his sleeve, but he still knows how to play the game.

Books at my door!

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Not all of them since I’m waiting for Bakker’s one, but the Amazon shipment has arrived:

Mostly monothematic this month.

I usually buy the books in their US version from an Italian online shop, but in this case I wanted the UK versions of the Erikson’s books because they make a better product with overall better covers, and Abercrombie is also first published in the UK, so I got them together in one shipment from Amazon.co.uk.

Before They Are Hanged – Joe Abercrombie (440 pag.)

Second book in the trilogy. The first I already read and commented. This second one is supposed to be even better, and the third even better then the second (with the expectation of one epic battle as well), if you trust the usual reviewers. I do, and in fact I read Abercrombie because of the positive reviews and blurb on the forums. I wasn’t disappointed, in fact it was much better than expected and also the kind of book you continue to think about even after you are done reading. It’s just that good.

Receiving the book I was both pleased and disappointed. Disappointed because I got this huge version, while I have “The Blade Itself” as a much smaller book. This fooled me because I didn’t anticipate the difference as I thought I got the two books in the same format. Instead I didn’t. Both are “paperback”, but after a quick research I discovered that the paperback in the format I wanted isn’t even out yet. So now I have mismatched books, but it’s the same because while I could have waited to buy this book in the matching version, I wouldn’t then wait another year to get the third. I was also pleased because it’s a so beautiful edition. The image of the cover doesn’t do it justice. The words are like carved on the paper and there’s this magic circle in silver that is only visible on the picture if you squint a lot (and probably only if you know it’s there). The pages are also thicker. Looks meaner.

I have this stupid obsession over the pagecount/wordcount. Even if I know well that quantity means nothing, I still have a childish passion for huge books. So I was slightly disappointed to know this second book had “only” 440 pages instead of the 514 of the first. I want more! But then it’s not a smaller book, in fact I suspect the wordcount is about the same as there are just more words on one page. So it’s about the exact same size.

I’m tempted to start reading *right now* and I keep grinning thinking about the first book, but I’ll resist.

House of Chains – Midnight Tides – The Bonehunters – Steven Erikson (1015, 932 and 1202 pag.)

If I like to check thickness and wordcount, I can only be pleased of Erikson just by the sheer size. Soooo pretty massive tomes. And a saga of ten books, plus spin-offs. That’s another reason why I have to like him, there’s so much to read that I hope it will be all awesomely awesome. All three books use the exact same typeset, so the number of page is indicative of actual size. Not so much comparing them to other authors, as, oddly, there are just 37 lines of text on a page, compared to a standard of 40-42. So usually take about 150 pages from the total count to have an idea. Still impressive.

Erikson’s books also have the very best maps (and more than one for each book). I know the presence of a maps is debatable as there are both advantages and disadvantages, but in this case they probably help with the scope. You’ll be confused enough by the habit of Erikson of not explaining a damn thing that you don’t want to be confused by the geography and where-is-what as well. Just an example: the first book begins at the Mock’s Hold, on top of a cliff and in the city of Malaz. At the time I started looking for “Malaz” on the map for a long while without finding it. You would guess that the “Malazan” empire that gives the name to the series should be on the map. But it isn’t because it’s not even on the same continent the map in the book is about. Instead looking at other books you find out where Malaz really is, and, today in Bonehunters (book 6), I find a good map of the city itself. And while Erikson description were very good, it’s still refreshing to have a better and doubt-free look at it.

Does someone have the US version of House of Chains? Because as I expected looking at the maps online, that map is not printed exactly well, and it misses the central section. Since in the two US Erikson books I have the maps are printed better, I wonder if that map is too.

Anyway, I’m about to start from book 1. In the meantime I should also write some comments about that second book of the Black Company I just read. I can anticipate it was a bit deluding.

Oh, and the cover of Toll the Hounds is out. As I commented over there, I don’t like it much as it doesn’t present well the book. Looks too much like a spook/supernatural book. And Erikson needs something that shows the qualities of his books, so wide scope, scale, sense of wonder. Neither the US or the UK covers underline those qualities.

It also looks to much like the annoying Beast in that Witcher game.

No books at my door… Yet.

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It looks my monthly shipment of books will take slightly longer than expected.

On the tracking page the package seems lost somewhere into Germany. On flight and waiting for delivery I also have a package with the American hardcover first edition of “The Darkness That Comes Before” (the one with the pretty cover), and some drugs (well, not really) I bought from here.

The plan is that I finish the second book of the Black Company in two/three days (I keep delaying it even if I’m just 80 pages from the end) and then start to finally *work* on Erikson. I want to keep a good pace even if I still read very slowly by other blogs standards. About a book every month, fitting that second book by Abercrombie somewhere, so that I can then order Abercombie’s third and Erikson’s seventh at the same time since they have similar release dates (March/April). Then continue the epic reading task of Erikson up to book 7 and in time for the Hardcover edition out for June/July of “Toll the Hounds” (book 8), as announced. Which should also be out along with the huge tome of Esslemont also set in the Malazan world.

Plenty to read, and even if I still haven’t read anything to Erikson, I HAVE TO like it, because he tries to do exactly what I want from fantasy. And if he fails I have little hopes to find it somewhere else. Not that the genre is arid, see my recent comments about “The Blade Itself”.

I read that Erikson is already well into book 9, and expects to complete it even before book 8 is out. I think this is the first case EVER of a writer who not only respects the schedule, but that is AHEAD of it. I have high hopes that the series will be complete by January 2010, and, no matter of personal tastes, Malazan will surely be the most ambitious fantasy project ever realized.

There’s also this aspect I wanted to discuss. You may think that when a writer pushes out books too fast they will feel rushed. While a writer like, say, Martin, takes his time and rewrite endlessly chapters till they aren’t absolutely perfect. So you have this different approach. From a side books that are made to last, going as close as possible to perfection (art). And then books that are considered like “consumables”, so they need to be pushed out in time, see a sudden, short-lived success, and then disappear (commodities).

Well, I have instead a very high respect for those writers who work their asses off, and don’t wait for “inspiration” before starting to write a word on a page. Writing is still “work”. It’s fatiguing, and if you aren’t fatigued it doesn’t work. As a matter of fact, it’s almost a rule that those books that come out quickly in a series are usually the best, and those that get delayed, and then delayed more, almost always finish to disappoint and reveal a dip in the quality. This, I think, because writing is a matter of complete immersion. Either you lose your life to be completely absorbed by it, or it doesn’t work. There is no other way to write a book than your blood.

When it comes to books it seems in practice that more time almost never equals to better quality. But the opposite.

I also noticed that my don’t-call-me-review of “The Blade Itself” was linked by Abercrombie himself. So I guess I’m losing my “covert”, low-profile purposes for the drift of this blog toward books. I like staying anonymous. On the other side I feel like I got more “validation” in two months writing sporadically about fantasy books than three years writing daily, and more competently, about MMOs. But then, who cares. Validation isn’t between the goals, and I’ll “reward” Abercrombie by being very harsh with his second book ;)

Anyway, to those landing here for the first time, remember that I’m not English native speaking. So I try to write as I can, hoping it can be at least interesting for an occasional reader.

Ugh

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Going from Abercrombie to the second book of the Black Company feels like crashing against a block of granite.

The prose… Glen Cook just seems to try very hard to not be easily readable.

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The Blade Itself – Joe Abercrombie

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Review in short:

Go buy and read it no matter of your personal tastes. This book won’t disappoint.

I have a bunch of notes scattered around and I’m not sure if I can put them together in a coherent way. In part because my opinion changed through the course of the book. I usually just need a few pages to form a good idea. 30 pages of Glen Cook’s Black Company were enough to give me a precise idea of what I was going to read, same for Donaldson’s first book in the Gap series (just to name two I’ve read recently). With this one instead it was different and only starting form Part 2 (about 200 pages into the book) I started to truly like it. Then it was a steady crescendo.

Some general infos: The Blade Itself is a first book in a trilogy already completed (the third book is due out soon in the UK) and a debut of a relatively young writer (early thirties). Kind of a “modern” fantasy. It has the different POVs written in third person but still as a subjective view, as is habit nowadays, and is (feels) very far from the “already seen”. Feels “fresh”, actual. The overall plot itself doesn’t shine in originality, but I think it’s a misleading element. I also read some reviews about the book before I start reading it and all of them said it was the old plot, old characters but with a funny and original twist. This is true but misleading. It’s not the way the book feels. It’s not just a critical approach to a tired and stale genre, it’s not a “what if” or a simple exercise revolving around a gimmick. You don’t have to have fantasy knowledge to appreciate the style Abercrombie gives to old ideas. Instead it stands on its own. This book is awesome and just doesn’t need and doesn’t want to be compared to something else in order to spill its own value. It’s not good in relation to something else, it is good on its own.

The point being that throughout the book I didn’t thought at this sublayer of wit. I didn’t felt detached enough to give it the cold analysis. Instead it worked on the emotional side. And moving toward the end I really cared for the characters, felt the story emotionally, and I couldn’t-care-less about the supposed academical exercise about “old fantasy cliches with new twists”.

I define it “modern” in the sense of mastery. Take for example the current TV series. Sometimes lacking in ideas, but the *writing* itself today is much more developed and effective. There has been tangible progress. The pacing, the sharp conversations, the wit. These abstract aspects taken from television carry over to this book. It is far from the archaic feel of Tolkien, of the evocation of distant worlds. It is instead modern, sparky, fresh. It is also written with the knowledge of the culture, so those kind of stereotypical situations that appear in the book are always surprising because you never know in which direction the writer will drive them. There was one review that said “It’s written with more wit than most writers use in their entire career” and it is true. There is no filler in the book and every page brings on something ingenious to the point that you wonder if the author can really keep up this pacing throughout.

So the pacing. When I started reading I was skeptical. Very skeptical. A new author, so I started to nitpick things, imagining flaws, criticizing in my head every page, every description. 100 pages in, I was not impressed. Funny, witty, yes. But not impressed. It seemed to go nowhere, the characters were interesting but I still looked at them with a very detached eye. I was amused, but not involved. You know, reading with a kind of air of superiority. The book didn’t seem that good. Felt a writer who was trying hard, but too hard. Like falling short of the point. Good try, slap on the shoulder.

Why it changed then? Is the remaining of the book so much better that it surprised me? Not really. There are no sharp turns or sudden improvements of quality. The book, as I said, is uniform and with a steady crescendo. What was different is that I started “caring” and felt there. I stopped criticizing, I stopped caring about picking (imaginary) flaws and just was carried away in the story.

Now this may be a personal thing, but there are some objective considerations to make. The beginning wants to be fast and catching, but suffers of its own structure. There are a few different POVs as is typical of “modern” fantasy but the scenes are brief so you read very small chunks of different stories and this makes kind of hard to get involved and absorbed into them. It feels fragmentary. You need to wait at least 200 pages before some threads come together, till you discover that the small chunks all belong to the same plot, like branches of a river. On the other side there’s something “catching” even if you don’t know enough of the story, the characters and the scenes. That pays back and entertains while you wait to grasp what is going on as the situations are fun and witty, with characters sharply characterized and so dissimilar that it’s hard to favor one or the other. They are just impossible to compare and seem to belong to entirely different stories and styles (which is a manifest purpose of the writer: give each POV its own style, even in the writing).

So this fragmentation didn’t help to get hooked into the story. It’s hard to feel there when you don’t see “the point” and the scenes feel disconnected. At the same time, now that I read the whole book, I don’t think it’s a “flaw”. It’s just a structural weakness of what the author wanted to do, but I don’t think it could have been done better. It even becomes a theme in the book. Quoting:

If you’re going to travel with a man, and maybe fight alongside him, It’s best to talk, and laugh if you can. That way you can get an understanding, and then a trust. Trust is what binds a band together, and out there in the wilds that can make the difference between living or dying. Building that kind of trust takes time, and effort.

This is a autoreferential metaphor for the reader and the book, how both need time to slowly develop that kind of “friendship”.

The other particular aspect is that the book feels like theater. This is a strong impression that I had while reading. There are writers, think for example Jordan, that follow their characters all the way. The narrative is continue and it’s like the writer never leaves them. It flows in detail. Abercrombie is the exact opposite of this. The whole book is structured in relatively brief scenes, with one setting. You don’t get to follow the various characters, instead you have small slices of their lives, taken at critical points. You don’t get to follow them, you read instead just about key moments and scenes that drive the plot and character development.

This aspect is important because it defines a particular approach that you read about in every other review. You can easily detach the characters (live actors) from the background scenography, that is static. Often the scenes take place into a single room or another symbolic space, and when the scene is over the whole setting disappears and is replaced. Ceases to exist. Feels like you are watching theater, live actor with scenery in the background, with relatively short but significant moments represented. Like Shakespeare made fantasy and prose, but with the distillation of meaning, so that you get no “filler” that is typical of epic fantasy plots. Everything superfluous is chopped off.

It is meaningful because, as others would say, Abercrombie isn’t the worldbuilder writer. You aren’t here to read about secondary worlds with complex history, you aren’t here for that emergent layer. That’s treated as scenery. It’s just the set-up, where the strong point is instead about the live actors. The characters, the introspection, the witty, sharp conversations, the black humor, the sarcasm. It’s all very effective and gives the classic fantasy setup a refreshing feel.

The story starts spread out, then gets together, spreads out again before the end. In the latter chapters the writer does some showmanship, instead of binding one scene and chapter to one POV, he chains them. This is fantastic. You basically see the exact same scene from the various POV (so short paragraphs) that you got to know through the book. One after the other, in the same scene. There’s no repetition, you don’t get the next POV re-telling the same you just read, but the time is instead continuous, flows, and yet you see how much the different POV completely twists the perception of the story. This is pure mastery, from a side you recognize how each character definitely has an unique voice and is perfectly defined, from the other it makes the read compelling, never slogging, and all part of the crescendo.

I start reading and thought the writer was good but average. When I reached the end I simply thought that I don’t have any right to criticize him. He isn’t a good writer, he is one of the very best. He isn’t a young writer trying to do something with his first novel, he’s already a worthy “first tier”. He is no rookie, no need to improve. He is an excellent writer and surprising too.

One critique I have on my notes and that I still find valid, from the perspective of the writing, is about the “retrofitting”. There are two different kinds of writers, those who give you just a summary of the action, and those who describe a battle blow by blow, precisedly described. Abercrombie falls in the latter and is rather good at it. Only flaw for me as a reader is that, while the action is consistent, I still had some difficulties to follow it, so had to reread a few passages to have them clear in my mind. The problem with this is a kind of uneven balance in the way he describes things. So sometimes there’s a lack of focus on what’s more important and not enough on some minor element, with the consequence that the “picture” in the mind of the reader comes confused if not corrected.

I can compare this quirk with Jordan as I recently read it. With Jordan I’m never confused. When I read I picture a scene in my mind, with the elements described. It’s something automatic. Sometimes I don’t notice consciously elements I put in my picture, then I go check and they are there in the text too. For example the book may described a scene in a big room, and I have it in my mind, then I notice the picture I have has the room with a domed ceiling. I don’t remember if I imagined it or read in the description but when I go checking the text I notice it’s there. As I said Jordan is always perfectly consistent. I never need to correct the picture I had, I never need to “reposition” characters on a scene because one I pictured on the right is instead on the left or behind. With Abercrombie instead I have some problems. While he is consistent, as I said, he is more confusing. Just as an example he may start to describe the rain in a paragraph, then describe the woods in the next. The characters are in the woods and it’s raining, but it’s more difficult forming the picture if you think of the rain, then have to add the woods. I’d give more “weight” to the woods. And this is a very small example of a writing habit that I found through the book and that not only applies to the descriptions, but also to the plot. The writer never gives more elements than those that are absolutely necessary for that immediate scene. Often you miss huge chunks of both descriptions and plots, that you read later in the book and have to “retrofit” into the Big Picture. It’s not a flaw per se, but I wanted to point it out.

In particular you can take one of the three major POV (but there are a bunch of characters in the book). Logen, as a main character, is vaguely described at the beginning. It’s like you see things in first person perspective. Wihtout a mirror you can’t see yourself (so Logen). And it’s in fact till the second half of the book that you actually have the character physically described. Through the reactions/eyes of other people. While this is again some writing showmanship, you also in this case have to “retrofit” things. You may have imagined Logen in your head in a way, but then only halfway through the book you have more elements that may contradict your arbitrary mental “image”. As a demonstration of this I didn’t like in a special way Logen, but in the second half of the book I was completely in love. One of the very best characters EVER. I was laughing out loud at some passages. He’s great. And yet he’s a kind of barbarian stereotype that you have branded in your memory, and yet he feels like something you never read before.

There’s also a very small POV. A party of characters. Just a few chapters here and there through the course of the book. But it is some of the very best shit I’ve ever read. The most fun fighting and BADASS party ever. I’m out of superlatives but these guys deserve more. Just a few pages and they deserve the price of the book, and I so hope they have more space in the progressing of the story. I don’t want to spoiler but once again they show how good Abercrombie is. Short scenes, a party of characters, and in just a few lines he gives each one splendid, awesome characterization. While the main, more complex POV had to grow on me, with these guys it was love on first sight. They are something special. It’s all about one word: charisma. And tons of it. Make you laugh, and some of the best, yet totally realistic fighting. Brutal, exciting.

So I think I’ve written down everything I have on my notes. The theatrical feel, top notch writer, focus on the character, great emotional involvement for me, but only starting with the second half of the book. Some (many) absolutely A-W-E-S-O-M-E characters, especially smaller ones (like Brother Longfoot and that “party”). One thing I forgot to point out, the “acting” isn’t overly realistic, but made slightly showy and excessive, exactly like theater works. At the same time the characters themselves are totally consistent with themselves, their situation and the setting. So while the whole pictures comes a bit bloated, it’s still absolutely believable.

Oh, and I have this image stuck in my head, Malacus Quai looking like Steve Buscemi.

By the way, the author has the best blog. Updated frequently, informative and funny.

Monday I order the second book through Amazon, along with more books from Erikson. But now I’m going to read something I already have on my pile. Still haven’t decided (likely the second book of the Black Company, as it is a short read).