The Crippled God (Malazan Book of the Fallen #10) ★☆☆☆☆

February 5, 2019January 26, 2019 ~ Bookstooge ~ 35 Comments

crippledgod (custom) This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: The Crippled God
Series: Malazan Book of the Fallen #10
Author: Steven Erikson
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 934
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Adjunct Tavore and the Bonehunters separate from their erstwhile allies as they make a 3 pronged attack on the heart of the recently arisen Forkrul Assail empire, which holds the Crippled God’s heart. Along with gods, various elder races and even the dead, all conspire to set the Crippled God free to return him to his own world and thus begin the healing of their own world. The Perish Grey Helms turn traitor and massive amounts of people die.

At the same time an Ototaral Dragon is resurrected and set free. She is the opposite to all the other Eleint, dragons, who are at heart forces of chaos while she is a force of utter negation. The embodiment of Chaos, known as Tiam begins to manifest but the Ototarol Dragon is chained thus setting the Eleint free from their own frenzy, which dissolves Tiam’s hold over them and dissipates her own Manifesting.

Lots of other things happen.

Tavore and the Malazans and their allies are able to free the Crippled God and he returns to his own world. Shadowthrone and Cotillion hint at each other that everything has been part of an even bigger plan but mention zero details or anything concrete.

As good an ending as one can hope for with the author’s known penchant for deliberate obfuscation and outright misdirection.

My Thoughts:

I read over my review from 2011. Eight years later, not one single thing has changed in my mind about this book. It is remains a piece of trash where the author masterbates to his own supposed cleverness with words and is nothing but a dung heap of rubbish pseudo-philosophy.

I finished this and all I could think was “Why did Erikson even bother writing this?” The battle scenes were incredible and show that the skill in writing the first book was no fluke. Which makes my question even more pertinent, as it means he wrote such pointless reams of words on purpose. FOR NO PURPOSE.

What a killjoy way to end a series that started out so promising 2 years ago. And this re-read did not change my mind about the series overall, as I was hoping it would. Well, it does reinforce that I’ll not read another book by Erikson, no matter what. He wrote this book and ended the series this way, he doesn’t deserve any more of my money, time or attention. I almost feel like I’m doing a disservice to book bloggers everywhere by even bringing attention to his name now. Bleh.

★☆☆☆☆

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Dust of Dreams (Malazan Book of the Fallen #9) ★☆☆☆½

October 12, 2018September 30, 2018 ~ Bookstooge ~ 26 Comments

dustofdreams (Custom) This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Dust of Dreams
Series: Malazan Book of the Fallen #9
Author: Steven Erikson
Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 950
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

The White Faced Bargast, now returned to their ancestral lands, are hemmed in by the lands current sets of clans and misused.The Bargast are now led by Onos Toolan, a resurrected T’lan Imass. He is trying to change their ways but in the face of a hostile land, the Bargast reject Toolan’s leadership, kill him, hobble his wife and drive off his children. Toolan comes back as a T’lan (hence the Dust of Dreams). The Bargast face their enemies but everyone is destroyed when “something” simply freezes them all into little pieces. Toolan hunts down the survivors and kills them all to fulfill his vengeance against the Bargast. In doing so, he ignores a summons by Adjunct Tavore and the Bonehunters.

The Bonehunters are leaving Lether to head through the Wastes into a kingdom where a piece of the Fallen god is. The Adjunct’s plan is to destroy said piece. They are supposed to meet up with the Bargast (that obviously doesn’t happen) and the Grey Helms, a mercenary branch. The Bonehunters are accompanied by Brys Beddict and his elite guards from Letheri.

A Skykeep of K’chain Che’Malle origin, with the help of a lone surviving human, must find a Shield Anvil and a Mortal Sword if this set of K’Chain want to survive. They get Stormy and Gessler. They meet up with the Bonehunters.

Icarium is now a ghost and haunting a group of people who have found an abandoned Sky Keep. They begin to awaken the Keep, which was created just to destroy the short-tailed K’Chain, the Narruk.

The Narruk, who have a dozen skykeeps from another realm, invade the world of Malaz and end up in the Wastes. It is up to the Bonehunters and everyone else in the area to destroy them. But without the help of the T’lan Imass, the outcome is in doubt.

There is a huge devastating battle at the end and whole armies are destroyed. We don’t know who survives.

My Thoughts:

Before I started writing this review, I went and read my original one from 2010, just to see if my perspective on this book had changed. A lot of the time the years give me a new viewpoint and something I used to like I no longer do or something I hated I now enjoy. Unfortunately, the review from 2010 is pretty much exactly the same as what I’ll be writing here.

With this book Erikson has cemented in my mind that he is a real bag of crap. Out of 950 pages, the plot is only forwarded by maybe 200 of those pages. The rest is devoted Erikson spewing out depressing cant and nonsense. Complete and utter nonsense. When somebody does do something good and heroic, Erikson makes sure to piss on it by having other characters destroy the moment with their own regrets and melancholy and depression. Any possible good thing Erikson squats over and craps on with a diarrhea quality.

This is a junk book and once again, while the series starts out so awesomely with Gardens of the Moon, it has descended into a morass of soapbox preaching and what’s worse, extremely BORING soapbox preaching. I no longer recommend this series because of the last 3 books.

This is the level of bloviated writing that destroyed the sales of his Karkanas trilogy (which is stuck at book 2 and looks like it will never get finished). Thankfully, Ian Esslemont seems to be doing a good job of actually writing a real trilogy with a real plot and keeping the world of Malaz alive. I do plan on reading the last book in this series but after that, I’ll just stick to Gardens of the Moon if I ever feel the need to dip my toes into the world of Malaz. It just isn’t fun sticking my head under this faucet of filth.

★☆☆☆½

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Toll the Hounds (Malazan Book of the Fallen #8) ★☆☆☆☆

June 4, 2018 ~ Bookstooge ~ 39 Comments

tollthehounds (Custom) This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Toll the Hounds
Series: Malazan Book of the Fallen #8
Author: Steven Erikson
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 1299
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

I’m really struggling with this.

The Tiste Andii have a big part. Nimander and the young Andii, led by Clip, are on a journey to Black Pearl to pledge allegiance to Anomander Rake. During this journey Clip is possessed by the Fallen god and it is up to Nimander to stop him. Rake himself leaves Black Coral and faces down Hood himself and kills Hood with Dragnipur, thus bringing Hood into the realm of Dragnipur. This allows Hood to bring his armies of the dead against the forces of Chaos within that realm. Rake then faces Traveller, who is revealed as Dassem Ultor, First Sword of the Empire and not only dies in a battle with him, but is killed by Dragnipur as well. This places him in Dragnipur’s realm as well and somehow makes it possible for him to confront Mother Dark and convince her to take her children back.

Karsa Orlong and Samar Dev had been travelling with Traveller and are witnesses.

There is a lot going on in Darujhistan itself. Cutter and others have returned. The remaining Bridge Burners who run a bar, have a contract taken out on them by the Assassins guild. Rallick Nom and Vorcan both recover in the Azath House and get back into the thick of things. Gruntle ends up working for the Trygalle Guild and Mappo takes their services to try to get back to Icarium. Only Mappo and Gruntle get called into the Realm of Dragnipur to help lead the forces of the Dead against Chaos.

The Broken god is also making a play outside of Black Coral to subsume the newly ascended Itkovian, now known as the Redeemer. Using his own corrupted blood, a black addictive druglike sludge, he enslaves the high priestess of the Redeemer and it is up to a former Pannion Domin of all people to defend the Redeemer, who has chosen not to defend himself.

After the battle between Rake and Traveller, and the battle that ensued for control of Dragnipur, Caladan Brood emerged in control of the sword. With the help of the remaining Torrud Cabal, he destroys the sword with Burn’s Hammer, thus releasing all the souls still in existence within the sword.

My Thoughts:

Last time I read this, I called this a bloated piece of crap (to summarize). This time around, I have much more to say.

It IS a bloated piece of crap. At 1300 pages, this easily could have been pared down to 800 or 900 pages simply by removing the monologuing by every character about despair, hopelessness, the pointlessness of existence, etc, etc. I found myself skimming pages at a time and not missing any actual plot points. Erikson becomes as bad as Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged with the monologue by John Gault. Erikson gives full vent to his existential beliefs and in all honesty, it is horrible.

Lots of Christian theology and personal philosophy coming up, so be warned.

Sometimes, books can affect us in deep and profound ways. We always hope that it is for the better but sometimes it isn’t. This time around, it wasn’t for the better. Over the last 10 years I have learned that I am particularly susceptible to the weakness of hopelessness and despair. Whether in a sermon or in a book, if the negative is at the forefront, it will bring my spirit down and affect me physically. I can not live without Hope. That is part of why I am a Christian.

Erikson puts forth that Oblivion is the end of everything. Good, bad, right, wrong, all will end in nothingness. You can only witness existence and hope someone else will witness you as well. This directly cuts across the fact that God Himself is our witness. He has always been and He will always be. Oblivion is not the end of God, even though it is the end of humanity who are not saved by Jesus Christ. Our lives are being watched and recorded by God and we are not alone.

Erikson also writes how everything good is essentially pointless since it is tainted in one way or another. God is not tainted. God is Good. Everything good flows from a Perfect God and it IS good because it aligns with His character. Erikson takes everything that is written on our very hearts as good and drags it through a shit hole and stabs it with a rusty butter knife all in an effort to show how it really isn’t good.

Sadly, it wasn’t until I was at the 80% mark that I realized how this was affecting me. My attitude was horrible about pretty much everything and the world seemed grey and blah even while I was objectively having a good time. I could have taken steps to counteract this much earlier if I had realized what was going on. I do plan on reading either Mark of a Man by Elizabeth Elliot or one of C.S. Lewis’s books immediately after this.

In the future, I will never read this book again. I also plan on waiting an extra cycle before attempting the next Malazan Book of the Fallen. I’m giving this book the “Worst Book of the Year” tag as well to help remind my future self to never even look at this thing again.

★☆☆☆☆

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Reaper’s Gale (Malazan Book of the Fallen #7) ★★★★☆

March 9, 2018 ~ Bookstooge ~ 21 Comments

reapersgale (Custom).jpg This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Reaper’s Gale
Series: Malazan Book of the Fallen #7
Author: Steven Erikson
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 940
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

The Edur/Letheri Empire continues to totter on. Rhulad Sengar, instrument of the Broken God, continues to fight against various champions and continues to die and be resurrected. He is cut off from his Edur family and allies by the Letheri beauracracy and it is really the Prime Minister who is running things.

The champions. Karsa Orlong has a plan and he can’t let Icarium get in his way. But after a confrontation in the streets, he realizes that Icarium has his own plans which do not involve fighting with the Emperor. Icarium unleashes an instrument of magic but something goes wrong and we don’t know if he survives the magical conflagration or not. Karsa faces Rhulad, treats like the boy he is, takes the magical sword and with the help of all the spirits chained to him, forces a path to where the Broken God resides. Instead of killing the Broken God, he simply rejects him and has the blacksmith who made the cursed sword destroy it, along with all the power invested in it by the Broken God.

Gnoll, the Prime Minister, has setup a secret police, the Patriotists. Their end goal is to destroy the Edur, take wealth for themselves and become the rulers in the shadow. Much like any secret police, they end up going to far and with all the other events going, the populace rises up and kills most of them.

Tehol Beddict, with the aide of his manservant Bugg who is the elder god Mael in disguise, continues his economic war against his own people. His goal is to bring down the whole economic system so as to bring about something different that can last. Successful in the end, Tehol becomes the new Emperor.

The Awl, tribal plainsmen, are the latest people under seige by the Letheri. With the arrival of a prophesied leader, Red Mask, who is guarded by two K’Chain Ch’malle, the Awl have a chance of not only surviving but of destroying the Letheri army sent after them. It turns out that the Greyshields were allies of the Awl against the Letheri but the Awl betrayed them and left them to die on the battlefield earlier. Redmask fails and his “guardians” turn on him and kill him for said failure. In his death it is revealed that he was an outcast Letheri and was simply using the Awl to get revenge on Lether. A handful of Awl children survive and are taken underwing by the newly arrived Barghast army which destroys the Letheri army. The two Ch’malle return to their matron, their reasons still a secret.

The Malazans, the outcast Bonehunter army, land on the shores of Lether and begin an invasion. Adjunct Tavore is as silent as ever and nobody in the army knows what is going on. Fiddler speculates that she is simply going after the Broken God and not just Lether. The Malazans split up and fight their way to the capital, only to find it already in chaos due to the Patriotists, Karsa Orlong’s killing of the Emperor, Icarium’s machine gone wrong and Tehol Beddict’s plans. They put Tehol on the throne and are set to go elsewhere, whereever Tavore decides.

There is yet another storyline dealing with a disparate group of Tiste Andii, Letheri slaves, Tiste Edur, Imass, Eleint dragons and the birth of a new Azath House. Dealing with betrayals from long ago, it has no direct impact on the overall storyline in this book and as such, I’m not typing up the details. This “summary” is already longer than most of my whole reviews.

My Thoughts:

My “review” from 2010 is a good 1 paragraph sum up of the book. Obviously, as shown by my summary above, there is a bloody lot more to this book.

While I enjoyed the storyline immensely, I have to admit that Erikson’s philosophy once again ruined what could have been a 5star book. Pages upon pages of selfish mutterings and hopeless thoughts and the dwelling upon of pain and hurt real and imagined, past and future. My main problem is that Erikson is great at pointing out flaws, in people, in situations, in institutions, in laws but then he doesn’t have his characters propose any solutions beyond “I will Endure”. He spends a section using his characters to talk about how the whole of existance itself was nothing but a betrayal by forces of chaos conspiring against each other. If Erikson thinks even half of what he writes, how does the man get out of bed each morning? He writes the true Existential Existance. It is pointless. That is depressing and it really brought home to me how much Hope I have being a Christian. Thank God.

With so much going on, I had to simply sit back, enjoy each section as it was presented to me and not try to put it all together. Even though this is book 7 in the series, Erikson is still just giving us pieces of an overall puzzle that has a lot of missing pieces. Erikson knows the whole picture but is only giving the readers some of the pieces of the puzzle and forcing us to figure out what the whole might look like from the little we do know. Forcing each reader to become a literary archeologist or to give up the series in disgust.

Now, with all of that out of the way…

I still liked this a lot. When the various plots were rolling along, I couldn’t put this book down. The Malazan storyline didn’t start until past the halfway mark and I kept waiting for them to be included which I think took my attention away from earlier parts of the book. There was a Segulah woman as a champion but she never fought Rhulad. She escaped, which kind of disappointed me, as I wanted to see how she would have fared against the Emperor. Karsa was just an obnoxious twit the entire time and it was obvious that Rhulad couldn’t defeat him.

The whole Awl storyline almost more about the mystery of the K’Chain Ch’malle than anything else. For a species supposedly extinct for a million years, they’re surprisingly active. So where have they been hiding out? I also wondered who Redmask actually was. I’m sure there are two sentences in one of the earlier books that explains it but I suspect I’ll just go on the Malazan Wiki and find out. Why do all the hardwork when someone else has already done it?

Aaaaaand I just looked. No other references to Redmask. Just one of those loose puzzle pieces that Erikson likes to scatter about.

While the storylines are interesting and engaging, there is almost no point in saying “this was a good part” because somebody dies in every “good part”. Hence the name of the series. And yet I still read this series for a second time. Not sure if that means that Erikson is actually a really good writer or that I’m just a sick reader who needs help.

This was the last book in the series that I rated highly when I read them initially. I have a feeling that the next 3 will be just as bad the second time around. I am girding up my loins for that.

★★★★☆

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The Bonehunters (Malazan Book of the Fallen #6) ★★★★☆

January 18, 2018 ~ Bookstooge ~ 29 Comments

bonehunters (Custom) This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: The Bonehunters
Series: Malazan Book of the Fallen #6
Author: Steven Erikson
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 804
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Adjunct Tavore Paran continues her pursuit of Leoman of the Flails and the rebels of the Shai’k rebellion. Leoman makes a last stand at Yghatan and in the process of burning the city down as a trap also unleases a Fire Elemental, which kills all of his followers and about 1/3 of the Malazan army. The survivors march for the coast where they are picked up by Admiral Nok and begin making the journey back to Malaz City. They meet up with the Grey Shields who wield incredible magic and have huge boats. They have a run-in with the newly expanding Letheri/Edur empire and scare the crap out of them with a show of magic. Once back at Malaz it is evident that Mallick Rell and Korbolo Dom have been plotting, as they are now heroes and Coltaine’s memory is that of a traitor. All Wickans are now under threat of pogrom. The Adjunct is told by the Empress to hand over the Wickans and control of the Bonehunters (the malazan army) and the Grey Shields. The citizens of Malaz attack the Bonehunters and the Greyshields, stirred up by agents of Mallick Rell. The Adjunct returns to her ship with the help of Kalam and her lover but wades through a veritable sea of blood to do so.

Karsa Orlong is captured by the Edur as a “Champion” so that he may face Rulad Sengir, the Edur emperor.

Icarium is separated from Mappo Trell and a new companion is given him. It turns out all the companions are part of the Nameless, a group that wants to use Icarium’s rages as a weapon. Mappo betrayed the Nameless by being Icarium’s friend instead of pointing him in the direction the Nameless wanted him to go. Icarium and his new companion are also captured by the Edur. They are used in a skirmish against Shadowthrone and it ends with Icarium, unconscious, going through a portal to the Lether/Edur empire.

Ganos Paran, as Master of the Deck, faces down Poliel and chooses sides in the war of the gods. He ends up becoming High Fist of another Malazan army after all its officers are struck down by plague, including Dujek Onearm.

And there are at least 5-10 other smaller plot threads running through out as well.

My Thoughts:

There is a lot going on in this book. And to be honest, that is the only thing that stopped me from dropping this a 1/2star. Because here is where the Existential Moralizing really begins. There were a couple of places where characters would talk back and forth for pages and the problem is that I couldn’t skip any of it because Erikson will throw in a line or two about some revelation or other plotline that is really nice to know. You know those Christian books where you get preached at instead of being told a story? Well, Erikson does that here with his own brand of suicide inducing despair filled philosophy. It’s done in really bad taste, as I felt like I was having a razorblade shoved down my throat.

I feel like I used up half my words for this review just typing out the synopsis. Also, for all my complaining about the philosphizing, there is a really good story packed between it all.

I always wondered why Surly/Laseen/Empress let things go downhill so fast and after reading the two Path to Ascendacy books, it’s very obvious that she is afraid of “Hero’s” capturing the people’s attention. To the point that she allows someone like Mallick Rell and Korbolo Dom to advise her, as they are despised by the people. She was skilled enough to run things for awhile but in this book we see her pretty much throwing it all away and no real explanation is given. It is intriguing.

I think that is all I have to say really. You can’t jump into the series with this book and it doesn’t wrap anything up and it is so big, that I feel like throwing up my hands and saying “read it yourself, if you dare” to get all the plot threads. Heck, we’re teased with a possible invasion of short-tailed K’Chain Che’malle and 12!!!! moonspawns. Look how powerfully Anomander Rake used just one, I can only imagine the chaos and destruction 12 might cause. That is just one of a myriad of topics I didn’t even bother to really think about for this review. Trying to cover everything is impossible and it leaves huge amounts of room for re-reading, as your focus will be different each time.

★★★★☆

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Midnight Tides (Malazan Book of the Fallen #5) ★★★☆☆

December 2, 2017January 17, 2018 ~ Bookstooge ~ 18 Comments

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^{This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot, Librarything & by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission}
Title: Midnight Tides
Series: Malazan Book of the Fallen #5
Author: Steven Erikson
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 684
Format: Digital edition

Synopsis:

We follow the Tisti Edur [grayskinned Tisti] as they come into the world of Malaz. Fast forward several thousand years later and they have dwindled. They attempt to gain back their pre-eminence by declaring Empire and going against the only other Empire in the region. The main Edur stories center around the Sengar family. One of whom becomes the Emperor and the pawn of the Broken god.

We follow the human Letheri Empire as they attempt to subjugate the last remaining pocket of resistance to their Empire and way of life, the Tisti Edur. The main Letheri storylines follow the Beddict brothers. One is the King’s Champion, one is a dissolute genius who can manipulate money with barely thinking about it and the final Beddict was a former envoy whose knowledge was used for conquest and not peace.

Lots of little stories interweave between them all and a little more is revealed about the Broken god.

The conflict between Edur and Lether is the framework of the whole story.

My Thoughts:

This was a 4star story that was dragged down with the chains of Erikson’s pointless soapbox philosophizing hijacking his characters and turning them all into despair filled, spineless, wusses.

Why can’t the man just shut the phrack up and tell the story?!?!?

Gardens of the Moon was a fantastic story and there was very little pontificating. Maybe a small dab in the corner. This book, Erikson took a 5foot roller and bloody whitewashed the story with the crap. Every time you turned around another character was whining about their forsaken feelings and how they weren’t even worthy of having such degrading feelings because they were such infinitely unworthy motes in an infinite universe. It was pathetic and ruined the book for me.

The story, the clash between Edur and Letheri was great. A couple of magic battles, some mundane battles and then a showdown in the palace itself. All the while the Broken god is laughing to himself and furthering his own plans.

★★★☆☆

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House of Chains (Malazan Book of the Fallen #4) ★★★★☆

September 13, 2017January 17, 2018 ~ Bookstooge ~ 9 Comments

houseofchains (Custom) ^{This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot, Librarything & Tumblr by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission}
Title: House of Chains
Series: Malazan Book of the Fallen #4
Author: Steven Erikson
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 1044
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Plot Line One:

Karsa Orlong, a young Teblor, sets out on an adventure with 2 of his friends. They discover out in the wide world that the Teblor are enslaved and an insular people. Karsa vows to become the warleader his people needs, even if he has to fight each and every Teblor. Along the way he gets involved with Leoman of the Flails and becomes Shaik’s bodyguard. Read Deadhouse Gates to see how that turns out. At the same time, the Teblor gods reveal themselves to Karsa and he bursts the bonds holding his people enthralled. Karsa’s plotline ends with him becoming the Knight of the House of Chains and everyone who knows him saying that the Broken god will regret doing so.

Plot Line Two:

Adjunct Tavore sets out with a green army to subdue Shaik’s Rebellion, not knowing that Shaik is now her younger sister Felisin. The green army has a handful of seasoned warriors, one of which is Fiddler, who is now going by the name Strings. Shaik the goddess is trying to control some bit of magic and in the process control the desert Raraku. The desert rebels and lots of ghosts rise up and destroy Shaik’s army. Tavore’s army does a tiny bit of fighting, but more mop up than anything. Tavore kills Shaik in single combat, never realizing it was her sister Felisin.

Plot Line Three through Fifteen: (actually not kidding, really)

Tisten Liosan, white skinned bastards, are looking for their god Osric/Osserc/etc. They get they’re butts handed to them on several occasions and decide to go home.

Various Imass do various things, like chasing after renegades, fighting with Liosan’s and defending the true Shadow Throne.

Cutter and Apsalar take service with Cotillion and end up going their own separate ways because they love each other too much to hurt the other with the duties they have to perform.

Lots of other stuff that had no immediate import and might not have any at all. Impossible to tell.

My Thoughts:

I am at the point where I am disgusted at Erikson’s choice of storytelling mode. He is fragmenting his overall storyline just because he can. I can’t assign a real motive to this mode of telling, so I’m going to call him out for just being a jerkwad.

Each successive book that I go into this Malazan re-read it gets harder and harder to overlook how deliberately obfuscated Erikson makes his story. A good story will only go so far and he’s fast approaching that breaking point where I give up in disgust. When I was originally reading this back in ’10, it was at this book that I basically gave up trying to keep track of what was going on for a synopsis because the story fragmentation really started to spread here. I am no longer seeing this approach as a positive thing like I originally did.

This was an engaging story and that is the only thing going for it. Part of that was because the first 23% of the book dealt strictly with Karsa Orlong and getting him from when he was a wee young lad of 100 or so to where we met him in Deadhouse Gates. He’s not a particularly bright or likable fellow but at least I was able to follow one complete story narrative for a long period of time.

I was having a hard time giving a crap about some of the storylines because they were such small fragments of the overall book. How do they tie in? You mean I have to wait for 3 more books to find out? No thank you.

The philosophizing got a little ridiculous. Felisin the younger, an adopted waif by Felisin, is kidnapped by one Felisin’s major allies, a twisted wizard. He destroys her. Sexually, emotionally, psychology. And when she gets rescued and is secretly recovering, she waxes loquacious on the subject of how her mother needs the wizard and so her rescuer’s vengeance needs to be put on hold. And she is 14. I just about threw my kindle on the couch at that. Girls who are raped and tortured don’t calmly discuss why their attackers are justified or how the greater needs of a geographical area outweight their own personal needs.

My main issue now is when does the story no longer outweight the twin sins of soapbox preaching and story fragmentation? I am going to do my best to read the whole series, but will definitely be noting the point where the balance finally does tip.

★★★★☆

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Memories of Ice (Malazan Book of the Fallen #3) ★★★★☆

July 16, 2017January 17, 2018 ~ Bookstooge ~ 10 Comments

^{This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission}
Title: Memories of Ice
Series: Malazan Book of the Fallen #3
Author: Steven Erikson
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SFF
Pages: 945
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

The Pannion Domin is a threat both martial and magical and it will take the combined forces of the outlawed army of Dujek Onearm, former High Fist of the Malazan Empire, and their former enemies in the guise of the combined might of Caladan Brood’s army and the sorcerous might of Anomander Rake and his floating city of Moonspawn.

At the same time, Silverfox [the fully grown woman encompassing the souls of 3 other mages] has called the T’lan Imass together again for the first time in over 300,000 years. She is the physical embodiment of an Imass magician and has the power to reverse the oath the Imass took in their war against the Jhagut. She refuses and this has fallout for her personally and for the forces of Dujek and Brood who were counting on the Imass to counter the undead forces of a race thought to be extinct, the K’chain Ch’maile.

All through this, the gods continue their own war. The fallen/broken god has declared war on the pantheon and he wants to destroy them all for bringing him to this world. Fenner, the god of war, has fallen and a new risen god, Treach the Tiger, has ascended. Old lost gods are finding their thrones and each god is choosing for or against the broken god. And amid the total destruction and war on the souls of the men themselves, it is revealed that this part of the story is but a small part of the overall narrative.

Now THAT is depressing.

My Thoughts:

First thing I noticed was that with this 3^rd read, I was able to not focus on all the shiny little bits and put the story together as a whole. In previous reads I found a huge disconnect from the leadup to the battle of Capustan to the final showdown at Corel. This time around there was no disconnect and the story naturally flowed without any jarring. It was really nice to UNDERSTAND the slightly bigger picture.

Erikson shows once again that he is a freaking master of writing. The battle scenes were incredible. Vivid, intense and brutal. You can feel the slippery blood, the complete exhaustion, the fear and the adrenaline rush. The interactions between characters was excellently done as well. There was NO cardboard, only flesh and blood come to life on paper. What’s more, everyone was “distinct”. They weren’t archtypes, or ideas, or variations on a theme. They Were People.

And that leads into the start of my issues. With the characters being so real, the hearbreak and despair and utter desolation that they one and all suffer is wrong. In previous reads, I was taken up with the story, trying to figure out how everything fit together. In being focused on that, the emotional side of things were glossed over. Not this time. The death of main characters hit hard. They weren’t alone but had made connections, so when those threads were cut, it was like a spiderweb quivering all over. No on person was ever alone in their anguish or loss. It hurt to read as it was so real to me.

The second, and far bigger issue for me, was the wholesale injection of existential philosophy in a huge way. Existentialism is one of the most depressing philosophies, in my opinion. In small doses, it provides a way for men to show their true grit against completely overwhelming odds. However, in larger doses, it can overwhelm the reader with utter despair and destroy your psyche.

It is probably apparent which happened to me.

By the end of the book I was dreading every instance where I saw italicized walls of text. That meant that some character was thinking and every thought of every character was nothing but despair and hopeless angst. It wore me down.

On my first read through of the whole series, it took me until Book 8 to feel this way. Since then, I’ve had some “experience” with the hard side of life and reading about despair and suffering isn’t theoretical anymore. Reading about suffering isn’t so fun once you’ve had a taste of it yourself. I think I’m going to be taking an extra cycle before dipping my toes into this series again.

More specifics about the story itself can be found in my Memories of Ice Readalong Updates.

★★★★☆

bookstooge

Deadhouse Gates (Malazan Book of the Fallen #2) ★★★★☆

May 6, 2017January 17, 2018 ~ Bookstooge ~ 20 Comments

Title: Deadhouse Gates
Series: Malazan Book of the Fallen #2
Author: Steven Erikson
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 868
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

I am trying to do this from memory, without looking at all my update posts. Ha.

A rebellion is brewing on a continent and is led by Sha’ik. It is foretold she will be reborn and lead the rebellion against the Malazans and blood will flow like an ocean. She dies.

A bunch of Malazans are running for their lives to make it to the city of Aren, a port city that is still under Malazan control. This group is led by Coltaine, a Fist and former rebel himself. He must lead 40,000 civilians and thousands of soldiers across a continent where everybody wants to kill them all. And the High Fist in Aren? Does nothing. A renegade Fist is chasing them with multiple armies. Coltaine gets the civvies to Aren, then dies with his whole army due to treachery by the High Fist. Who in turn is betrayed and destroyed, along with HIS army of Malazans. Not a good time to be a Malazan soldier.

A noble Malazan girl is imprisoned in a pogrom and sent to the mines along with some others. They escape, make their way through the desert, and the noble, Felisin, becomes Sha’ik Reborn. She also happens to be the sister of the Empresses’ right hand woman, Adjunct Tavore.

A group of characters from the first book come across 2 powerful beings, one of who is almost 100,000 years old but has memory problems. They follow a path to a Gate in an Azath House [hence the name of the book] which promises a path to ascendancy [godhood] for shapechangers. Turns out it is a trap for all the shapechangers to imprison them in the Azath House. The group gets lots of clues about lots of things and then goes their separate ways at the end.

An assassin is out to kill the Empress for outlawing his friends and their army from the first book. His adventures as he travels and then the stunning revelation that it is all a hoax and a plan to unite everybody against an even greater threat. He chooses to not kill her and goes his merry way.

Various characters are introduced and either die, have their storyline cut or just fade away. Or, they might be a major character in future books. You can’t tell.

That is it. All from memory. I’d like to see you do so well. If you want to check, feel free to click on these old Readalong Posts from Bookstooge and Dragons&Zombies.

My Thoughts:

This was a readalong with Dragons&Zombies. I enjoyed the process and having someone else reading the same stuff helped motivate me to pay attention and ask questions. That being said, I took more notes reading this than I have for any other book in years. Normally, I read a book and then write stuff up after. If I had tried to do that with Deadhouse Gates, I would have missed out on so much that I would have wondered what I had actually read. The problem is, once I started taking notes, it became obvious just how dense this book is. My usual review style can be likened to looking at some architectural plans for a skyscraper. This time, I wandered the building with DeeZee from basement to attic and explored all the nooks and crannies. I came away with 2 thoughts which left me with opposing feelings.

First, this was some spectacular writing. It is a tapestry of such fine story threads that it can be hard to keep them separate. In many cases, they aren’t separate, but interweaving in and out and around and Erikson keeps it all in the air and going well. You can almost feel the care and effort expended in the story.

Second, Erikson is a dickhead. There is no other explanation for it. In Gardens of the Moon we get dropped into a story without a lot of info, but that can be sussed out. Here in Deadhouse Gates, Erikson deliberately writes to confuse. What else can it be when you have anywhere from 2-6 points of view in EACH CHAPTER and almost no clue that you are switching pov’s except for a double paragraph break? It didn’t feel like he was out to tell a story and didn’t care if his readers didn’t quite get it all. It felt like he was gleefully obfuscating and confusing information just because he could. That doesn’t mean it is impossible or that you can’t figure stuff out, but taking a page of notes for each chapter is not what I want when reading Escapist Literature. So that pissed me off.

This book tired me out and took every word I had. In the next book, Memories of Ice, I am going to have to find a way to deal with it differently, as I can’t write this much again for one book.

To end, I recommend this book if you want some complexity beyond imagining and don’t mind heavy doses of Existentialism. But for goodness sake, have some lighter reads lined up either during it or right after, you’re going to need them.

PS,

This was my 3^rd time reading this and it still felt like my first. I am also adding the “Best Book of the Year” tag. It really is that excellent even with my complaining and bellyaching.

★★★★☆

bookstooge

Gardens of the Moon (Malazan Book of the Fallen #1)

February 3, 2017January 17, 2018 ~ Bookstooge ~ 37 Comments

^{This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot, Booklikes & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission.}

Title: Gardens of the Moon
Series: Malazan Book of the Fallen #1
Author: Steven Erikson
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 688
Format: Kindle Digital edition

Synopsis: Spoilers!

The Malazan Empire, now ruled by Empress Laseen, is on the path of expansion through total war. The last Free City on the continent of Genabackis, Darujhistan, is the next city in the sights of the Empire. Wracked from within by politics and threatened without by armies and mages, Darujhistan doesn’t stand a chance.

Enter Rake, Lord of Moonspawn, a floating city, sorcerer supreme. Having allied with the Crimson Guard, might mercenaries and mages, Rake allies with the lords of Darujhistan to fight the Empire, but for his own reasons.

To counter this threat, Laseen has set into motion several plans, one of which is to find and unleash an ancient terror, a Jahgut Tyrant, a veritable god of power. Laseen means to pit the Tyrant against Rake and then to take down the weakened winner.

Enter the Bridgeburners. Loyal servants to the Empire and the old Emperor, who Laseen assassinated to become Empress. The Bridgeburners are meant for extinction, as Laseen can’t have anyone around who isn’t loyal to her. But the survivors are crafty, powerful and full of tricks of their own. They are meant to take Darujhistan and die, but they have other plans, plans of their own.

Unfortunately for everyone, there is a veritable cornucopia of gods, ancient powers and beings so old and so powerful that they might as well be gods. When humans can become gods, gods can become extinct and power is all, nobody can predict what will result.

My Thoughts: Spoilers!

(For clarity’s sake, I read this in June 2008 and again in December 2009. That link contains both my reviews in one review as Goodreads didn’t have a re-read option and when importing to Booklikes I didn’t feel like going through my 2000+ reviews and fixing “little” things like that.)

That synopsis barely scratches the surface of this book. In the forward Erikson tells us straight out that he will not be spoon feeding his readers anything and that he purposefully wrote things so as to make the readers work for connections. There are no obvious connections or explanations, there is Unexplained History of both nations and individuals and you are forced to hold on for your life or be thrown off the ride.

And what a ride this is! With this 3rd read I feel like I’ve finally got a little bit of a handle on this world. Since I have read the whole series, now I can begin to cobble it together. It helped that this time around I wasn’t expecting all the threads started here to ever be finished or to connect. I have also finally accepted that this is The Book of the Fallen, which means that this is about people dying, not people winning or overcoming insurmountable odds. And even if they do win and overcome those odds, odds are they are still going to die.

At just under 700 pages, I believe this is the shortest of this decalogy. In one way it is the hardest of the books, as you have to sink or swim in terms of the world. Everything is new and unfamiliar and you simply don’t know what is going on. In another way I found it the easiest of the books, as the action is relatively straight forward, the plot only slightly convoluted and the scope is kept pretty focused. When reading this for the first time you simply don’t know how big the world is that Erikson has created nor do you know that the various narrators are only telling you what “they” know. Semi-unreliable not because they’re trying to lie to you but because they have a very limited knowledge. Everything you learn in Gardens of the Moon is not necessarily true.

I added the “favorite” tag because this is the 3rd time I’ve read this and I still enjoyed the heck out of it while reading. It was a joy to read Erikson’s prose, because while he is not sparse in his writings, nor is he turgid and bloviated. He walked that razor thin line of not writing to much or to little.

One thing to note. The kindle edition that I read had several noticeable OCR errors. There was a character named Coll, whose name came out as Coil more than a handful of times. Same for a guy named Toc the Younger. He became Toe the Younger half the time. I checked my hardcover and those errors were not there. I also don’t know if those errors exist in the current kindle edition. I bought these when they first came out and promptly de-drm’d them and stuck them in calibre, so any updates would not have touched them. A potential issue if you’re buying digital copies.

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