Malzahn Book of the Fallen discussion (spoiler ahead)

[Toho]

so I have read only about 150 pages and I still have no ing clue what is going on.
there seems to be no explanation of what is what.

the author seems to throw one thing after another to me and expect me to understand right away "yes right, the Dragon Deck" while I have no clue what in the hell I am reading about.

for example here is what happened, Parran got murdered by this girl who supposedly became a god. Parran was then stopped going to the after life by some chick and her brother.
they then leave once they speak by some guy who is a servant of Hood (lol). anyway after this sequence some guy by the name of High house of Shadow shows up now I don't know what happened or is happening from this point on but the end result is Parran is resurrected (body but not his mind apparently).
that is as far as I have gotten because trying to understand all of this is harder then the Canadian Corporate tax laws I am currently studying. no joke.

can someone help me through this book? I dont want to be spoiled anything so I avoid wiki pages like a plague.

this book is very odd, I just recently finished Wheel of Time series and it was great, I understood everything. Malzahn? no clue...

[GreyFox]

You should really use spoiler tags. It's the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, starts with Gardens of the Moon.

It does take a bit to get into, because you are dropped into the middle of things with no reference and no explanation as to what is going on. It's not like other books, where things are explained to you - it's up to the reader to figure things out as thing progress. Some things you won't understand until you get further into the series.

I love the books.

[Gaidin]

You should really use spoiler tags.

That's what the title of the thread is for. Meh. See your spoiler warning there.

But hell I can't even tell what book he's trying to read because he can't see fit to name it, and it's not like other series that I've read multiple times and can drop events into a book at the drop of a dime.

Eh. If he can't find and start with book one, no skin off my back.

[Manco]

You're not supposed to get it. And it gets even worse in a few of the other books until you finally start piecing everything together.
The entire series is one huge in medias res chronology, and the author isn't big on exposition.

Honestly, while I love the Erikson's imagination and his uncompromising writing style, it's a bit too heavy for me as well. I like my plots intricate and my worlds vast and daunting, but the way he goes about it is just grueling for a non-native English speaker like myself. I think I had to restart about 5 times before I finally managed to get through the first chapters (after which you get used to the lack of information and just go with the flow, hoping it'll become clear)

[Toho]

I have only just started the series, I though that would be obvious from my descriptions (and total lack of understanding of the world).
anyways yes its the first book (Gardens of the Moon) and I am only 150 pages in.
I have stopped here because I feel like I am skipping ahead without truly understanding the earlier pages is just going to spoil whatever is ahead.

also it is not only the fact that Erikson is throwing names and places at me endlessly but his description as well.
The passage that I paraphrased was about when Parran (the new Bridgeburner Captain) was killed by a girl named Sorry.
Parran was going to the afterlife (apparently Hood is the god of death's name) but was stopped by a woman and her brother.
now I do not who these people are buy I think they are gods as well and they speak with Hood's Servant who wants Parran to pass on to the afterlife but the woman (Goddess?) wants him to have a second chance.
almost immediately all 3 (goddess, her brother and Hood's servant) disappear.
now suddenly there is a guy called High House of Shadow and Parran is talking about some sinister plan that the Shadow will not know about if he does not save him (apparently someone close to Paran will die instead but not one paragraph ago he did not want to kill someone close to him but now he is pretty much begging for it)

this is pretty much where I am right now. Erikson is pretty unclear or rather cryptic in his writing.
So perhaps someone can give me a non-spoiler explanation of what is happening then I would eternally be grateful.

[GreyFox]

You're not supposed to understand right now. You'll figure it out as you progress. I'm afraid there isn't really a non-spoiler explanation for you.

[Gaidin]

this is pretty much where I am right now. Erikson is pretty unclear or rather cryptic in his writing.
So perhaps someone can give me a non-spoiler explanation of what is happening then I would eternally be grateful.

Well, uhhh...

That sort of ruins the point of an in media res series where half the point is the reader is supposed to figure this stuff out as he reads. You get names of places, people, and things dropped, but information not so much. Yet.

[Toho]

Can you just clarify if Hood's servant (claimed to anyway) and the High House of Shadow are the same person that Parran is talking to or that it is a different person entirely.

[Greymane]

Can you just clarify if Hood's servant (claimed to anyway) and the High House of Shadow are the same person that Parran is talking to or that it is a different person entirely.

Alright, I'll try to help without spoiling too much, but it has been way too long since I read these books (and by know I've forgotten most of it, it is indeed a very difficult and very long series ), so I don't know exactly what you know or should know by page 150.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The girl that murdered Ganoes Paran is named Sorry, as you know. She was possessed by Cotillion, the Assassin of High House Shadow. High House Shadow is like a faction in the Deck of Dragons. Think of the Deck as a card game with different factions, each with unique roles. There are kings, queens, knights, assassin's, hounds, champions, heralds, soldiers, the list goes on. This Deck has an impact on the 'real world' and the roles in the different factions are played by 'real' people. I'm not going to tell you how the Deck exactly works. Partly because I don't completely remember it and partly because most of it will become clear as the story progresses.

The other people mentioned in your posts are Hood, indeed the 'god' of Death (or ascendant, godhood works differently in Erikson's world, you'll find out in time), who is also King of High House Death, the Twins of Chance (or a single entity named Oponn) and a certain servant of Hood, who is probably just that. The other guy in that particular scene is the King of High House Shadow, Ammanas, or Shadowthrone, who ordered the murder of Ganoes Paran. Paran got sent back (in Erikson's world, things like this are possible) and is very much alive, body and mind.

To wrap it up, Shadowthrone, Cotillion, Hood and Oponn are indeed all ascendants, or gods, who have managed to get themselves a place in the Deck of Dragons. Paran got stabbed and was held back before Hood's Gate (the doors to the underworld, if you will) by the Twins of Chance, who then tried to bargain with Hood. Shadowthrone came in with his hounds to finish the job (and drove the Twins away), but Paran convinced Shadowthrone to spare him. As he did not bargain with Oponn, I presume he thinks that no one will die in his place, but I'm not sure honestly if someone did.

[Toho]

Thank you Greymane, despite not recognizing half these names and titles or probably remember them but now I understand what is going on roughly.
Thanks again.

[the_mango55]

I read the first half of the first book and that's all I could get through.

You're not supposed to understand right now. You'll figure it out as you progress. I'm afraid there isn't really a non-spoiler explanation for you.

Well, uhhh...

That sort of ruins the point of an in media res series where half the point is the reader is supposed to figure this stuff out as he reads. You get names of places, people, and things dropped, but information not so much. Yet.

Is that really a fair expectation for a series of 10 books totaling 11000 pages?. I mean if it's a two hour movie or even a 10 episode TV show I can understand, but I just don't have enough free time that I can devote so much of it to reading a massive book series I won't even know if I like until halfway through.

[GreyFox]

Is that really a fair expectation for a series of 10 books totaling 11000 pages?. I mean if it's a two hour movie or even a 10 episode TV show I can understand, but I just don't have enough free time that I can devote so much of it to reading a massive book series I won't even know if I like until halfway through.

It gets explained as the story progresses. You get hints here and there. In TV terms it progresses much like X-Files and Babylon 5 did. There are amazing sequences - the Chain of Dogs in "Deadhouse Gates", various other battles, the humour, the characters all make it a great series.

[Gaidin]

Is that really a fair expectation for a series of 10 books totaling 11000 pages?. I mean if it's a two hour movie or even a 10 episode TV show I can understand, but I just don't have enough free time that I can devote so much of it to reading a massive book series I won't even know if I like until halfway through.

Yes, if that's the style of the series and he's not even 200 pages into it. The books do a fairly good job of Show, Don't Tell. Much better than most series that make it to this size anyway. Or our friend can go back to or start reading David Weber if he likes.

[chilon]

Gardens of the Moon is really more like a prologue to the whole series introducing many important characters. While the series is dense and doesn't read fast like a Michael Crichton book the next books are a bit more coherent (even if more complex). Once you finish Gardens and get to the next three books they both are superb as stand alone stories but also do well to start understanding whats going on.

[Toho]

After Greymane's small explanation I am 500 pages in already and understand what is going on and who is who exactly. though I have to pay much more attention than usual books I am comfortable with.

though I dont understand by what you mean "stand-alone" stories. I though this was a continuous series and not a series of short-story novels all set in the same universe. So am I reading a continuous story or is it a series of short stories disguised as a long series?

[GreyFox]

though I dont understand by what you mean "stand-alone" stories. I though this was a continuous series and not a series of short-story novels all set in the same universe. So am I reading a continuous story or is it a series of short stories disguised as a long series?

He means that even if you were to read them on their own, with no knowledge of the rest of the series, you would still enjoy them immensely.

[chilon]

He means that even if you were to read them on their own, with no knowledge of the rest of the series, you would still enjoy them immensely.

Yes.

@Toho

The first 4-5 books mostly tell different stories with different main characters, there is overlap especially with all the Ascendants and Gods but the main protagonists are different as each book introduces a new set of players in the overall saga. You could mostly read any of the first 4 books (Gardens of Moon, Deadhouse Gates, Memories of Ice and House of Chains) in any order and not spoil anything really.

Around the 5th book (Midnight Tides) all the characters from the previous 4 books that were introduced start coming together and the larger storyline starts coming together.

One thing to keep in mind is that Malazan wasn't written as a story at first. The epic story derived from Steven Erickson and Ian Esslemont creating a world for 1980s dungeons and dragons like roleplaying sessions.

Reading the books you can almost imagine different players in their roleplaying game playing out the different mixes of characters.

[Finn]

Stick with it Toho, I did, and now I've read seven of them. Very good series which gets more interesting the further on you read.

[ShADoW]

Hah, I read the book 2 years back, and I felt the same thing as you OP. I was so confused and lost to what was happening, but was able to get the through the first book somehow, and didn't bother continuing the series. Another series I felt like that was the Black Company, lost and confused and only read halfway before giving up.

[ccllnply]

I could be remembering the wrong book now but doesn't the author put a note at the start saying that this is a very complex project he is trying to do and as a result readers will either absolutely love it or totally hate it?

Me and my best friend read pretty much all the same books yet he read this, loved it and finished the whole series in about two weeks (he's a ridiculously determined reader). I, on the other hand, read the first chapter, read about mages throwing fireballs across the battlefield at fortresses and immediately lost interest.