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Messages - mostly.harmless

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31
The No-God / Re: Achamian as the most powerful sorcerer left alive in the Three Seas.
« on: February 03, 2019, 11:57:49 am »
A bit late to this party. My take on the womb-plague/ark function and purpose:

There are hints that originally the Ark had insertants to start up the concept / device (whether it was called no-god then or not we can't know) to reduce the population to 144k. Why or how 144k we don't know.
Ark falls, device breaks and Inchoroi and Ark badly damaged/decimated.
Stuff happens. Including the innoculation.
Shae gets involved and figures (or assumes?) some stuff out.
Helps A&A rebuild the no-god.

To me the no-god is what stops the cycle of souls and effectively allows war / disease to reduce the population. No births and dead is dead. So the no-god needs to remain active for long enough to achieve that, otherwise you face a global war to keep trying to achieve 144k.

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32
General Misc. / Re: Tragedy Series
« on: February 03, 2019, 11:30:53 am »
Love it!

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33
Literature / Re: Steven Erikson (The 3.5 million word journey?)
« on: December 20, 2018, 03:15:14 pm »
Quote from: Wilshire on December 20, 2018, 02:28:49 pm
Quote from: mostly.harmless on December 20, 2018, 01:16:16 pm
Quote from: Wilshire on December 20, 2018, 01:06:36 pm
Rejoice is on my shortlist. Hoping for it to be one of my last books this year.

Quote from: mostly.harmless on December 19, 2018, 09:35:11 pm
Quote from: BeardFisher-King on December 19, 2018, 09:26:29 pm
A new Steven Erikson novel is out in hardcover. "Rejoice, A Knife In The Heart", a first-contact story. Looks interesting.
I went to a signing here London, UK when it came out a few weeks back.
Then quickly read it. I liked it a lot. It's not Malazan, it's not willfull child, but its own thing.
It's sci-fi set in today's world, not decades down the line, and that made me care more, I think.
The contemporary criticism is not subtle, but that doesn't make it less relevant.

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Jealous. I purchased one signed from Goldsboro - not the same as getting it signed though. Will probably sell it later.
Its the first signed book I have
One guy brought a whole duffel bag of all his Malazan books hah

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Well congrats!
The first time I saw Bakker, I brought TJE and WLW. The last time I brought like 2 copies of every TSA book. An uncorrected proof and a 1st/1st. You gotta take advantage of these things :D.
Also, jealous of that..

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34
Literature / Re: Steven Erikson (The 3.5 million word journey?)
« on: December 20, 2018, 03:14:46 pm »
Quote from: Wilshire on December 20, 2018, 02:28:49 pm
Quote from: mostly.harmless on December 20, 2018, 01:16:16 pm
Quote from: Wilshire on December 20, 2018, 01:06:36 pm
Rejoice is on my shortlist. Hoping for it to be one of my last books this year.

Quote from: mostly.harmless on December 19, 2018, 09:35:11 pm
Quote from: BeardFisher-King on December 19, 2018, 09:26:29 pm
A new Steven Erikson novel is out in hardcover. "Rejoice, A Knife In The Heart", a first-contact story. Looks interesting.
I went to a signing here London, UK when it came out a few weeks back.
Then quickly read it. I liked it a lot. It's not Malazan, it's not willfull child, but its own thing.
It's sci-fi set in today's world, not decades down the line, and that made me care more, I think.
The contemporary criticism is not subtle, but that doesn't make it less relevant.

Sent from my LYA-L09 using Tapatalk


Jealous. I purchased one signed from Goldsboro - not the same as getting it signed though. Will probably sell it later.
Its the first signed book I have
One guy brought a whole duffel bag of all his Malazan books hah

Sent from my LYA-L09 using Tapatalk


Well congrats!
The first time I saw Bakker, I brought TJE and WLW. The last time I brought like 2 copies of every TSA book. An uncorrected proof and a 1st/1st. You gotta take advantage of these things :D.
Yes, and now I know, I only brought Crippled God this time.
To be fair, if it was Bakker I'd have brought more :) these are the only two authors I'd go to these things for (since Banks is dead anyway..)

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35
Literature / Re: Steven Erikson (The 3.5 million word journey?)
« on: December 20, 2018, 01:16:16 pm »
Quote from: Wilshire on December 20, 2018, 01:06:36 pm
Rejoice is on my shortlist. Hoping for it to be one of my last books this year.

Quote from: mostly.harmless on December 19, 2018, 09:35:11 pm
Quote from: BeardFisher-King on December 19, 2018, 09:26:29 pm
A new Steven Erikson novel is out in hardcover. "Rejoice, A Knife In The Heart", a first-contact story. Looks interesting.
I went to a signing here London, UK when it came out a few weeks back.
Then quickly read it. I liked it a lot. It's not Malazan, it's not willfull child, but its own thing.
It's sci-fi set in today's world, not decades down the line, and that made me care more, I think.
The contemporary criticism is not subtle, but that doesn't make it less relevant.

Sent from my LYA-L09 using Tapatalk


Jealous. I purchased one signed from Goldsboro - not the same as getting it signed though. Will probably sell it later.
Its the first signed book I have
One guy brought a whole duffel bag of all his Malazan books hah

Sent from my LYA-L09 using Tapatalk


36
Literature / Re: Steven Erikson (The 3.5 million word journey?)
« on: December 19, 2018, 09:35:11 pm »
Quote from: BeardFisher-King on December 19, 2018, 09:26:29 pm
A new Steven Erikson novel is out in hardcover. "Rejoice, A Knife In The Heart", a first-contact story. Looks interesting.
I went to a signing here London, UK when it came out a few weeks back.
Then quickly read it. I liked it a lot. It's not Malazan, it's not willfull child, but its own thing.
It's sci-fi set in today's world, not decades down the line, and that made me care more, I think.
The contemporary criticism is not subtle, but that doesn't make it less relevant.

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37
Philosophy & Science / Re: Free book: Unsnarling the World-Knot
« on: November 18, 2018, 11:27:11 pm »
Hmm, sounds interesting. Get a file not found error now with the buy button though. Maybe amazon can help me..

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38
General Misc. / Re: I think The Aspect Emperor is a pretty cool guy.
« on: June 29, 2018, 11:06:48 am »
Hahahaha

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39
Literature / Re: Tim Ferriss on How to Read 300% Faster in 20 Minutes
« on: April 23, 2018, 09:00:46 pm »
Quote from: Wilshire on April 23, 2018, 12:36:25 pm
I glanced through the article.

I think I tried something like this when I was younger, actually to help me with taking college entrance exams. The method I used suggested that you place a dot at the start of a line and a dot at the end, and basically scan your eyes from dot to dot. Once you get the feel for it, you can obviously go without the visual reference, and just scan from first word to last word. Same idea as the article, just a slightly different technique. Have not heard of or tried the peripheral vision thing.

It is extremely effective. I saw a dramatic increase in speed without much loss of comprehension, to the point where my score incrseased like 8 points - which, on a test that scores from 0 - 40ish, a jump form 25 to 32 is pretty exceptional.

To practice I sped read my favorite book at the time.

I'll say that the risk is going to fast and missing stuff. I don't do it because, as madness mentioned, I enjoy the process of reading. I imagine I read far slower than the average reader, but this doesn't really bother me much.

I'm also out of practice now so I'd have to practice a bit before I did it, but it does work.
Thanks for sharing Wilshire.
When I have time (hahaha..) I'll try this. As you say, reading is too enjoyable to do it for everything, but if I can speed up my reading for work stuff that's a win because I'll create more time for fun reading :)

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40
Literature / Re: Tim Ferriss on How to Read 300% Faster in 20 Minutes
« on: April 22, 2018, 06:08:02 pm »
Quote from: Madness on February 22, 2018, 02:27:53 pm
I've never really messed around with learning to speed read, I enjoy being engrossed over being technical but...

Link.
Has anyone here experience with this? It just seems so fantastical. I have a hard time imaging it. Maybe I should just try it..

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41
General Earwa / Re: History of Earwa from Wert
« on: April 17, 2018, 11:27:36 am »
Quote from: Wilshire on April 17, 2018, 11:26:36 am
Quote from: mostly.harmless on April 15, 2018, 05:51:30 pm
Quote from: Madness on April 09, 2018, 11:15:55 pm
That's amazing, again, Wert.

I have quibbles but this time around they aren't worth interrogating because I am very much among the minority regarding interpretations of TUC's end.

Thanks for your work.
Interesting you say that Madness, there seem to be some points of contention settled in this summary.

Is this confirmed as accurate by the man himself?!

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Insofar as he confirms anything, yes. I'd say its at least as authoritative as the What Has Come Before sections in the books themselves.
Interesting.. :D

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42
General Earwa / Re: History of Earwa from Wert
« on: April 15, 2018, 05:51:30 pm »
Quote from: Madness on April 09, 2018, 11:15:55 pm
That's amazing, again, Wert.

I have quibbles but this time around they aren't worth interrogating because I am very much among the minority regarding interpretations of TUC's end.

Thanks for your work.
Interesting you say that Madness, there seem to be some points of contention settled in this summary.

Is this confirmed as accurate by the man himself?!

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43
General Q&A / Re: [TUC Spoilers] Tsinirû
« on: April 15, 2018, 01:51:44 pm »
I'm glad someone has time to connect these dots, very interesting.
So much is still unknown.

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44
The Almanac: PON Edition / Re: ARC (A Real Chopper): Prologue & Chapter 1
« on: April 15, 2018, 12:47:43 pm »
Sorry, 80 hour workweek threw a wrench in my plan to read this last week.

Prologue I is still the best (prologue) I've ever read.
Prologue II a close second as a character introduction so well done we're still mining it for hidden meaning and revelatory information.

I have no qualms with the Bardic Priest, that is, I don't think he is a consult agent. Not everything can have meaning and two survivors from the plague out of a whole household is a reasonable outcome (in my eyes). I think it's not auspicious to give a slot to the bard/priest. He fullfils two roles, so he's doubly useful.

The dunyain's arrival though. That is the greater mystery I hope to solve. A random (?) monastic order that just happens to find a sorcerously hidden redoubt (that 'even the no-god can't assail' - this intrigues me but I'm not sure what to make of it) asking for help.
I am not a big fan for the Consult having set this up, simply because it doesn't make sense at that point to do so. They're winning, the no-god is on his rampage. Why hedge your bets? If you know of your main antagonist's fallback plan, you take that out the moment you're winning or make your move to tip the scales.

Maybe the point is that it doesn't matter and it really is a coincidence. Chasing down the wrong rabbit hole.

Or maybe, and this is a big maybe, Seswatha made this his backup plan. Why on earth he would send monks though is beyond me. Maybe he thinks knowledge and study is power and this particular cult lend themselves well to being set on this path, and their values and ideas are the kind of ruthlessness the world would need if the no-god wasn't stopped? Like a nothing-to-lose-by-doing-it-anyway kind of plan. You set it in motion and it might pay off or you might never hear from it again.

Akka's chapter indeed feels clunky after those prologues. Almost as if they were written by a different person.  Nothing to add to what has already been discussed.

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45
Literature / Re: Steven Erikson (The 3.5 million word journey?)
« on: April 06, 2018, 06:49:08 pm »
Quote from: Madness on April 06, 2018, 02:11:29 am
Quote from: Madness on February 23, 2018, 03:06:54 pm
So...

If I were to be having a recorded conversation with Erikson, what would SA Malazan fans like to hear him speak on ;)?

Erikson's marketer isn't "releasing" this until tomorrow on his official author facebook page but I needed to link it on Malazan Empire regardless so that there was a notes thread: Fireside Conversations with Steven Erikson/Notes.

Thought I'd share with the Bakker/Malazan fans here.
Thanks Madness, added to the queue!

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