I finally finished the series!  Questions are answered!  Closure is provided!

OK, so… those things are technically “true”, but also mostly false.  SOME questions are answered, most aren’t. SOME closure is provided (random stuff like Whiskeyjack & Korlat).

I’m on the fence.  I mean, everything that happened was pretty badass and glorious and what not.  And I know Erikson is writing at least 6 more Malazan books (Tiste Andii prequel trilogy, Karsa trilogy) plus the 2 or 3 that Esslemont has left to go… but still.  I think, I mean the mystery that is Tavore should have at least been unwrapped a little better.  I mean, we get a couple little clues… she tells Gesler or Stormy in this book or Dust (I forget) that when House Paran lost its only son (Ganoes) – that event set her on this path.  But that makes not the slightest god damn of sense.  So I’m annoyed about that.

Gruntle’s end also didn’t really make any sense at all.  I mean.  Yeah.

Sinn’s made sense, I guess.  Grubb… well, he didn’t really use his power again after the bit with Icarnium.  Oh… ugh and Icarnium… the cycle just continues, REALLY?  And we still don’t know why even the gods are afraid of him.  Something about him being a walking gate into Chaos or something?  Man, out of all the running threads I really wanted Mappo & Icarnium to have some kind of resolution.

And Draconus & Errastus?  Knuckles & Oponn? That doesn’t seem like the kind of thing to be resolved in a Karsa trilogy, but I suppose it will have to be.

Don’t get me wrong, the book was great… but it still felt really unfinished.  I don’t know if that’s because Erikson was thinking he could fit Karsa’s arc into this book as well and left a lot of things to that or what.

The bit with Cotillion and the Crippled God was not explained to my satisfaction either.  I mean, we know what happened, but if he just needed to die, couldn’t anyone have killed him?

OH. AND.  Ugh.  I don’t get how this helps Shadowthrone and Cotillion.  Like, one of the longest running plot threads ever.  Getting rid of the Crippled God does what?  I mean, I can see how they might have wanted the elders dead (mostly Errastus?), but I’m… agahahhahahah SO MUCH TO PROCESS.

So.  Yeah.  That happened.  I don’t think I’ve ever had so many questions at the end of a series before.

FOUR AND A HALF STARS

Because it was awesome, and awesome exploded all over awesome, and way less people died than I would expect.  And Nefarius Bred showed up, kind of.

Bonus half star or so for being the capstone is a well, I don’t think I’m over stating in the least when I say fucking epic bit of fantasy.

I  seriously doubt anything will approach the scope of this for a long time.  Even Wheel of Time, which may wind up with a higher page count, is not on the same level when it comes to the sheer scope of what is going on.  I think, in the end, I like WoT a little better, but this series will definitely have a special place in the fantasy canon.

Afterthought: Did Silchas lie to the dragons?

Note: My book “reviews” really aren’t reviews so much as oddly angled commentaries, eh?

And now: back to our regularly scheduled Malazan reading.  Only one more book to go!

The middle 2/3 of this book was slow – perhaps purposely slow (and the author admits that it doesn’t follow “standard novel structure” or something like that in the intro), and therefor took me a while to get through.  The beginning and ending are solid in the sense that things happen but yeah, the middle wanders.  You definitely get a sense of the angst and aimlessness felt by the armies, especially in lacking knowledge of their purpose (seriously, wtf Tavore?).

More people get screwed over, some horribly (Onos…… :( :( :( ), some slightly less horribly.  OK, no, wait, no one who gets screwed over gets screwed over gently.  This is a hard world.  Where someone can get r#ped 20 or 30 times between pages.   Yeah… their story was so hard to read.  Jesus.  Rescuers die at the hands of random fate… armies are thrown together, tragically, by the same.

I’m curious who survived the finale.  We don’t get much.  I’d bet on certain people, but Erikson likes to kill off just about anyone… so I wouldn’t bet with any confidence.  Still, you’d think Tavore would make it, right?  I hope Quick Ben, Fid & Bottle made it… but I’m not holding my breath.

I don’t understand what the hell Icarnium was doing or how he wound up where he wound up doing what he done did… did he make new warrens inside himself?  Can’t wait for whenever we finally get his backstory.

Also, amazingly, I missed Karsa – what’s up with him and his kids?  Hopefully I don’t have to wait for the Esslemont book about Darjawhatistan to find out.

I feel terrible for most of the cast.  I think that’s kind of the point.  Can’t wait to see how it all blows up.  Bleeds out.  Burns.  You know… ends.

THREE AND THREE QUARTER STARS

Because it was good, but the goodness didn’t carry hard enough in the middle.

So.  300 pages into Dust of Dreams (Malazan #9) and this comes out.  I’d forgotten – I’m glad I put all the new book release dates  I care about in my calendar!

Anyway, I took a 10 or or so detour through Dresdenland on my way through Malazan – like I could wait another week to read this.  Hah.  Especially after the way Butcher ended Changes.  Balls!

I’m going to try and keep the spoilers here to a minimum and vague but I can’t avoid them entirely.

This book picks up seconds after the last one ended (sort of!  Wait till the end…) with Dresden being, well, dead.  Now, you and I know that he is only comic book dead – because Butcher is on record saying that the series has at least twenty books in it, and it seems unlikely that he would do them all with Dresden a ghost (but wouldn’t that be awesome/more ballsy?).  BUT, in the meantime we get to watch and wonder how he brings Harry back.

I mean, there are a ton of ways for that to happen in this world.  Hint: The way he does it it happens is the most obvious one.

What we get instead of a quest for Harry to return to life is, instead, what Harry thinks is a last hurrah for his eternal soul, sort of.  He’s sent back to Chicago with a task that, of course, he mostly ignores (although finds the answer somewhat accidentally) because his friends are in danger!   Duh.  So he goes around and charges into things and looks foolish a bit, as usual, then learns some stuff, as usual. I mean, we know the formula!  But it works!  It’s fun!  Homer this is not, you know?  This is “good times” reading, and it totally is.

Everyone gets more emo.  People actually say the word “emo”.  There are more Star Wars references.  X-Men & Star Trek, too!  Mort gets an upgrade.  Karrin gets her butt kicked and she’s OK with it.  Molly carries the weight of the world.  Harry finds a new ally.  We find out who killed Harry.  And, more importantly, who had him killed.

Oh, and Harry learns to stop and think.  Kind of.  He still mostly doesn’t, but he does sometimes.  I mean, he still mostly does what he would have done anyway, but  at least he does some analysis beforehand.

A couple bits about the climax didn’t make sense as I rolled them around in my brain.  Why couldn’t she just eat the other ghosts?  I mean.  Huh?  Also, why did she have to eat the specific ghosts she did?  Why not just the other huge horde of them she had milling around.

The “moral climax”, I guess, the decision Harry makes in the last section about coming to terms with what he is/will be also felt a little soft.  Like “He had to die to learn THAT?”.  It seemed kinda like basic knowledge.  I suppose I get why he died, from his side of things, but from a story angle I’m a little confused as to why that was necessary.    I’m guessing it’s because he learned a bunch about the spirit world in this book.  Not complaining, I’m sure it will all pop up again.

[edit: I guess it was probably to flush out the state of mind he was in at the end of Changes.  It's been long enough that it's not fresh in my mind, but I guess he was going to dark places and had to be reminded that he still had free will or something?  It doesn't stand out in my memory that he had forgotten that, or something... but maybe he was mentally consigning himself to be a monster, which would have allowed him to become an actual monster.]

FOUR STARS

Because it’s fun.  It’s what I expected, in a good way.

I forget how his brother’s (the lust vampire dude) thing with Justine works, but I suspect that the solution/final scene with him is going to be … mentioned a bit on the internet.

There will be some spoilers.  You have been warned.

First off, let me say that this was not the best book ever.  FOR ME.  I’m sure plenty of people will love it.  I think it works great as a piece of something larger but, for me, it did not work particularly well as a single book.  Me, as a reader, needed something more to latch onto at the end of the book.  I mean, the beginning and middle were pretty much what we/I expected – a bunch of politicking and pieces moving around on a giant chessboard, assembling themselves for the blowout that is the last book or two.  All well and good but… when Dany spends the entire book being a goddam idiot and doing nothing of substance (besides hopefully learning that she was an idiot), another main character is left in the middle of an assassination attempt, and the others are barely even heard from well… that’s not enough of an ending for me.

Don’t get me wrong, the ending works in the sense of the book as a piece of something larger, and the epilogue works in the sense of closing one chapter of the story “of the realm”… I guess I don’t really care that much about the realm, I care about the individuals that populate it.  And none of the ones I care about had an ending that made me feel any kind of satisfaction.

Selfish of me, I know.  But hey, it’s my reading experience.

NOTE:  The prologue works as a kind of replacement epilogue for one of the characters with *some* kind of meat in it for me if you want to look at it that way.  But it’s not quite enough.

There are some great observations and theories in the thread over at Anibundel’s blog (Thanks for having the party, Ani!), including several things that I missed – the identities of Abel & his women for one.  Yes I know it’s a huge DUH but the lack of a time sync between the chapters there lost me.  I’m still a little confused as to how he could have gotten in place before Stannis’ army… but I’m sure it makes sense and someone has a nice chronology worked out somewhere.  Also, the bit about some Freys getting eaten.  Man, I hope that one is true.

Here are a couple of my thoughts:

• The subplot with the Dornish prince could have been thrown out.  I’m sure it sets the stage for other stuff later on, but it was just a big bleh for me.  I would have much rather given that page space over to pretty much anyone else (even Davos! …although maybe not Cersei…).
• The title of the book is misleading in the most common reading.  There is very little dragon dancing (or even dragons moving in general).  The majority of the dancing is done by slaves and the dragons spent most of their time in chains.  Kate Cox pointed out another reading to me, which I think is much more applicable to the book as a whole – “dragons” are a form of coinage (Yes, I forget basic things).  And pretty much everyone in this book is scrambling for coin or throwing the weight of coin around in one way or another.  Hell, the Watch up on the Wall even have a bit of a subplot about their need for coinage.  Someone is killed with a (physical) coin!  And HELLO – is that a coin on the cover?  Or a shield?  If it’s a shield it’s still round like a coin!
• There was no Sansa.  I think GRRM did this as some kind of peace offering for what he does to the MCs that are present, but it wasn’t enough for me.
• Weird wordpress lag just erased my other two points, then I forgot them when I had to dart into the boys room (because it takes them 90 minutes to fall asleep…).  I promise they were genius!   <.<
• [edit: I remembered one!]  What’s up with Rhyllor?  He’s the only deity in this world that can actively grant prayers with power?  That seems REALLY REALLY fishy, doesn’t it?  My initial guess was that the religion was a calcified form of fire magic (ie there is no god at all, the rituals of worship taught the users how to access a flavor of magic) that became a religion during the course of the time when there wasn’t much magic.  The other two possibilities seem to be A) All the other gods are dicks/lazy/locked up somewhere or B) Rhyllor actually is the “true god” (with the “one who shall not be named” as his negative counterpart).  I would find this pretty funny, but it doesn’t “feel” right to me.

My one random prediction:  Jon Snow will skinshift into a dragon at some point.  If he doesn’t, then … I dunno, GRRM will have wasted a damn-shame-ton of setup.

THREE AND THREE QUARTER STARS

Because it’s still damn good, and a piece of something even damner gooder, and very well written, but it just wasn’t enough for me on its own merits.  It didn’t pull me through the pages like past volumes have – some of this could be due to age, or a change in my reading taste… but my enjoyment level is what it is.

It will round up to 4 stars on librarything (that’s not everything I’ve read, just everything I have in the house) anyway.

P.S.: Bolton’s Bastard needs to die with a quickness.  Preferably off-page.  He doesn’t deserve an on-page death.  I don’t think there’s any kind of torture or pain he could suffer that would be anything close to what he deserves, and I’d rather not read GRRM trying to write up something like that.  It would probably keep me up for a while.

I should have written this last night, before I started A Dance with Dragons, because now that’s mostly what’s on my mind… but let’s see what I can recall.

ARGH. WordPress 3.2.1 made my dashboard even less functional and obnoxious.  Wait, what?  BOOK?  Right.

OK.  This book was not awesome.  It was par.

Stuff happened, and I kind of cared, but mostly I didn’t.  I couldn’t exactly tell you why, other than that the opening was decent, but when they swung away (perspective wise) from Greybeard and Kyle it just lost me.  The parts with Iron Bars were still interesting, as I like the guy and feel bad for him because he keeps getting totally shit on… or, in this case, has someone wedge their hand in between his ribs and squeeze on his heart for long periods of time.

The fact that the book left Greybeard’s initial acquiring of Stoneweilder as well as the prophecy basically unexplained was a huge, huge detriment.  The resolution came basically out of nowhere (not totally, but enough) and felt stupid.  Plus, now we’ll never know what the Riders said to him?  I was hoping we’d find out wtf they are in the next book, but it looks like their plot is resolved here??

I’m really confused as to why and how exactly giant god woman ties in with the Goddess (who I’m *guessing* was related to the fall of jade giants/Broken/Shattered God…maybe?).  She had to know what the riders were after (and that they were indeed somewhat benign towards things outside their goal) – why in the world would she help the humans build the Stormwall?  I mean, I’m sure there was a reason, but the information given in this volume was sorely lacking.

All the stuff with Pyke was a horrible waste of paper.  They should (and would, I would think) have just killed him and been done with it early.  Why did ICE keep him around that long?  Just to show that yes, everyone was right?  ?

I was hoping to find out something about the Moranth here… but nope.

Hell, I’m not even exactly clear on what happened with Greybeard and the 6th originally… I think that info is all out there, but requires too much brain work for me to put together at the moment.  Google, here I come!

There wasn’t enough new info about the world of Malazan to justify the bland writing here.

I did really like Ipshank & Manask  – although I wish I’d gotten a better visual of Manask and his armor setup, not to mention whatever role they played in the original invasion.

Rillish was also good, but his interaction with Greymane was annoying – we find out in the end that they were both (?) operating under various misconceptions and it just annoyed me as a reader.  It’s a common enough writing trope (?), but it really didn’t work for me here.

Also… so much secrecy in the Malazan invasion plan as well as the Liberation Army (?) plans.   Like, seriously?  No one tells anyone anything?  While it might make for more suspense, it also makes for more annoyance.

TWO AND THREE QUARTER STARS

Because it was definitely not as good as Return of the Crimson Guard and while it might have been a little better written than Night of Knives, NoK was … more satisfying?  Maybe?

Also – the quality drop from Crimson Guard feels noticeable, but this could just be me.   I didn’t dislike the book, it just didn’t give me what I wanted.  The plot lines that were resolved were not resolved satisfactorily to me, and the background that I would have liked to have on some characters wasn’t there.

We’ll see how I feel about it after I finish The Crippled God (which might fill in some other holes).

[edited: updated a little.]

There may be more spoilers here than in my other Malazan review/rambles because there’s a lot to talk about and some of it would just look silly were I to dance around things.

Well.

This was a strange one, for a number of reasons.

First: The weird Kruppe narrations that open most chapters.  WTF?  They seem really, really out of place with the rest of the books. I mean, they work as a narrative device and aren’t terribly written, but they are kind of jarring when compared to the 7 or 8 thousand words that came before them.  Or were they in the other Kruppe books too?  Maybe I’ve just forgotten, or maybe they were less voluminous (“Kruppe-esque” even)?

It started with book 7, but now with this volume (book 8) I’m mostly just skimming the chapter intro poems.  They seem to be contributing less and less of interest the longer the series goes on.

If this were running on the Hallmark channel it would have been called “Reunions” or “The one with happy endings”.  So many happy endings it gave me the creeps… you know they’ve all got to come burning down soon.  Erikson can’t let happiness lie!  The sheer amount (in comparison to the other books) of relative happiness and people-NOT-dying at the end of this one reminded me of a line from an old X-Men story – something like “It’s always darkest before the dawn” (I think it was one of the Fall of the Mutants issues) – except in reverse like “It’s always brightest right before everything goes to hells”.  Seriously, it left me with a really strange feeling.

In another series, this might have been the final volume.  Except for the fact that, I mean, nothing is resolved – it only dealt with the issues it produced, more or less (and only some of them).  BUT, it really has a feeling of finality with all the weird happy-ish endings.

[It's funny, at any point before the last 200 or so pages I would have said the moral of this book was "No one that deserves it gets a happy ending, ever."]

The religious commentary that was the Redeemer and Anomander Rake’s life was interesting – I mean, I don’t find that subject particularly interesting at the moment, but almost every fantasy series has its take on religion, and this one was no different.  I didn’t really bother to process and digest any of the Redeemer stuff – maybe if I had been reading through the book alongside a friend or something, but by myself it was just a waste of brain processor time.  Rake’s was… a little different I guess.  Both seemed to offer pieces of the same puzzle: how a true god (worthy of worship?  or just worthy of the title?) should behave (Rake was one of the better savior updates I’ve seen in fantasy).   The added catch in the Malazan world is that worshipers can make their gods obey them with their prayers (see the rest of the series and how follows misuse and their deities)… but Rake, although he most certainly has the powers of a god, doesn’t seem subject to those same whims? I was a little confused about consistency of world there, but who knows.

I still have no fucking idea what happened with Mother Dark, or why she would bother to come back when she did.  Hopefully the last two books finish that bit of the pre-story up.

Also Osseric/Father Light (???) – his behavior (if he is indeed both of those people) still makes no sense with the little bit he was shown in Memories of Ice.  Although it didn’t have to be him that sent the Hounds of Light.  The way Light & the Tistii Liosan are so rarely mentioned, then pop up out of nowhere every so often is… interesting.

Didn’t Karsa already meet Traveller?  Then who was that dude assembling bones?  Oh wait, that was Urko Crust.  It’s been a while.  Huh. I *think* Urko is still alive (he was at the end of Return of the Crimson Guard, at least), I wonder if they’ll meet again?

It was nice to see Karsa get humbled 2 or 3 times in a row.  Not that anyone beat him in a fight – but to at least see him having to process that he is maybe not the badest-assest thing ever was nice.  I like the addition of his daughters and I wonder if that will change anything about his plans (the “destroy everything” plans) – it doesn’t look like we’ll get to see him start along that road in this series.

Hood as a Jaghut… how does this relate to the dead/soulless Jaghuts that Hedge found down there in the abandoned Jaghut layer of death?   Hmmmm.  And knowing that the Jaghuts went to war against death and one of them is Death?  I really hope we get the back story there.

Somewhere it mentions that stubbornness is one route to godhood, that seems to have been Dassem Ultor’s path.  That and the fact that he has worshipers?

Also, Clip should have died when the Dying God was dealt with.  Seriously.  Waste of space.  He’s the new Karsa from book 4, except with no redeeming characteristics.

The bits with Kallor were interesting.  Obviously that’s going somewhere…

The bit with the two Soletaken Tiste Andii was, odd.  The one who should have been most driven by vengeance didn’t follow, but the other did (and was easily killed – and not mentioned again?).   Also, Kallor’s curse someone means he’s an insane badass?  Lame.  He’s like the open beta version of Karsa (or you could say Karsa is Kallor 2.0, but I think it works better the other way because, at least thus far in the books, Karsa has … better character) in the sense of the whole indomitable will survival badass thing.

The bit with Gruntle getting ready to fight in that battle, then getting towed off because he was a shareholder earning  a snicker.

Random questions:

Who is the Elder god watching the final scene play out?  Draconus?  K’rul (it’s his temple… I’m still surprised nothing was done with that, I figured something would happen to Mallet & Bluepearl being buried there, what with all the blood that was spilled), Kruppe??

I was really confused by the bits with Vorcan & Envy.  I thought that was Envy’s villa & seat on the council (didn’t the bard come to visit her there??), yet when Vorcan showed up they called her Lady Varada?  Maybe I missed something and there were two different villas involved but I could have sworn they were the same.  Also, Envy and Spite’s behavior is… erratic, to say the least.  Both have been “heroic”, or at least done good deeds now, then they go all crazy when near each other?  Then decide to go for Dragnipur?  Wouldn’t they realize that they wouldn’t be able to do anything with it (if it held onto its original power, which I don’t think it did, but they didn’t know that)?  By “do anything” I mean that it’s strongly implied that one one but Anomander could bear the weight of the blade.

When did Rake fight the Segulah (who wind up in Hood’s realm, not Dragnipur)?  It must have been before he got Dragnipur… but it is implied that he’s carried the blade for a long, long, long time.  Does that mean the Segulah society is like First Empire old?

Who the hell is Rake’s father?  I assume it was an Elient, since his children have Elient blood – or is Mother Dark Elient?  CONFUSED.

Why are the Bridgeburners in Hood’s realm?  I thought they ascended after death?  If all that means is they died really fancy, then why the hell did Erikson make all that drama about them ascending??

I still don’t get what exactly was going on in Dragnipur.  If Chaos destroyed the realm inside the sword, I guess that was supposed to mean that it would continue on past the sword and get everything?  But somehow moving the Warren/Hold of Darkness out of the blade fixed that?  Was it just that it would devour Darkness and that would be bad… or?  I need to google this shit, but I don’t want any spoilers… so it will have to wait.

What Throne was supposed to appear in Darujhistan?  I thought it was the Crippled one but that never showed?  Delayed to book 10?

I’m still confused as to what exactly these thrones do – let you command things (a la the T’lann Imass throne) – but you don’t need to sit on the Shadow throne to command the Hounds?  Yeahhh.  I want a DM guide for this world.

Whatever.

/end ramble

FOUR STARS

Because it wasn’t quite as good as the two books preceding it, at least in part to the way the tone shifted in those Kruppe narration sections.  BUT it still kicked crazy ass and all kinds of things happened and not everyone is dead yet.

Wow.  You know Erikson always has to be killing people (especially out of nowhere) … but some of them still hurt.  Especially because I think this one – the last one (one of the “big” ones) – does not come with the resurrection clause that has brought so many others back on the rebound (2 resurrections just in this book, but we knew they were both coming).

This book was solid.  Just solid. I tore through at least a third of it yesterday and stayed up way too late again to finish it.  So much buildup at the end that I couldn’t go to sleep without wrapping it up.  Icarnium’s bit was… odd though.  Of course not the end (since Mappo is still out there), but just oddly empty.

Anyway.  So this is the book where the Letherii/Edur empire (from book 5) and the Bonehunters/(ex-)Malazan plots and armies finally collide.  And, as with everything Erikson, nothing goes as expected.  Almost no one dies gloriously.  Almost no one.  One guy does and you really feel for him.  Main characters don’t seem to though – they just catch a knife in the back or something else tragic and “realistic”.

One thing that bums me out about this world is all the r#pe.  Seriously, 50 pages in and there were already 2 (with a couple more by the end).  Three of the ~major females (with significant dialogue or a plot arc) so far have been r#ped (one in book 5, the other two as mentioned).  I’m trying to think who *hasn’t* been.  Tavore – but we don’t know her background.  For the others it seems sadly more realistic to just assume they have.  Harsh world – yet in other aspects, genderwise, it’s much, much more egalitarian.  Is Erikson trying to make some kind of statement here?  Probably.  There are lots of statements in these books (but they work in context)… maybe something about the violence & lust innate in masculinity?

The best scene in the series so far was in this book.  The one in Tehol’s place when Janath wakes up.  I ?guess? some people don’t like Tehol?  I don’t know, something must be broken inside… finding a way to work absurdity into this series was a masterstroke by Erikson.  A little levity goes a long way in all this bleakness.  I mean, there are other spots (the 3 critters from the Crippled God’s island, Pust, other assorted bits), but this one works the best for me.

I really wasn’t expecting the fight between the second two parties that intersected at Bloodeye’s soul… I mean, they could have just talked it out and it would have been good.  Seriously.  Except that douche, Chip.  Seriously.  Ugh.  Although maybe the bit with the baby Azath might not have gone over so well.  Oh well.  I’m not a huge fan of happy endings, but I really felt like the two brothers that died deserved some kind of happiness together, at least a moment.

I wonder when the Bonehunters are going to run out of Moranth munitions?  I mean, it’s not like they can resupply anymore.

Also, Quick Ben leveled up again.

FOUR AND A QUARTER STARS

Because it was 1250 pages of goodness.

[EDIT: Random plot thread: WTF was up with the Segulah that walked out of the Letherii capital near the end?  It said something about all the challengers being dead except Karsa & Icarnium - but then she walks out?  Why would a Segulah avoid a fight?  Did she decide it was rigged?  Would that matter?

Also: Re: the way to kill Rhulad: DUH.  Super obvious - at least the first step. I seriously cannot believe that no one tried that before.]

First things first: this was definitely an improvement over Night of Knives.  There was a ton going on (it was like 2.5x as long) and it even got to use some of the more familiar characters.  In fact… I’m amazed that what happened with the Empire happened here instead of in the “main” books.  Wow, I’m just… really interested to see how the “main” books deal with the kind of huge upheaval that happened at the end of this one.

OK, improvements being noted, I have a couple complaints:

1. Names:  This is a general … concern with all the Malazan books.  BUT.  In this book, someone thinks something like “Traveller – that’s a strange name.”  This someone happens to be traveling with people named Coots and Stalker and Badlands and used to work with people named things like Cowl and Shimmer!  Oh, and this someone’s name is KYLE.  KYLE.  The first “normal” (ie American style) name I can recall seeing so far.  And I’m pretty sure I’ve seen over 500 names by now.What I do know is that NO ONE, ANYWHERE in this series should be allowed to say that someone has a strange name.  EVER.  For serioustrue.

   Elsewhere, someone goes to pieces when they find someone named “Sorrow” like… like it fucking means something!?!?  It doesn’t.  Trust me, it doesn’t.  And, even if the author intends it to it still means absolutely nothing, given the context of all the other names in this series.
   

2. There was a scene that I found to be the most poorly written scene out of all the Malazan books thus far: the scene with the dude buried in the cask where Erecko [SPOILER].  If he was an Avowed he’d probably still be alive you don’t even check what the fuck?  SERIOUSLY.  Also, it totally wasn’t even clear WHY they were going to that continent until they got their anyway.  Maybe I missed a clued somewhere?  Possible, much of the reading was done with kids striking and climbing on me.

Other things of note:

• Laseen the cipher:  Incompetent ruler or insanely intelligent one?  General comment on the Malazan books.  I think you can interpret it pretty clearly either way, at least with the information I have available from books 1-6 & ICE 1-2.
• What is up with people unleashing ancient imprisoned things that will bite them in the ass?  I mean, is that like a standard method of dealing with things in this world???  See: Ganoes & the Deragoth, the Nameless and the thing that Ganoes needs the Deragoth to kill….
• Didn’t Osric’s son just free him back in book 4?  First major continuity fail of the series.  Confusion.  Are there two?
• OH.  And was “Temp” supposed to be “Temper” from NoN?  Because.  What?  Isn’t he bound to the Deadhouse area?

I’m kind of annoyed that Reaper’s Gale (next up) is set back in Edurland… reallllly want to see how Erikson follows/ties in what happened here.

Also, that last, what, 200 page fight scene… that was pretty epic.  Especially in the sense that it was just one thing after another after another careening around and into things.  The whole “power draws power” bit seems to almost be a law of physics in this world.

I totally didn’t realize that Ullen died until I spent a good 10 minutes trying to figure out who the hell Dissembrae was talking about in the epilogue.  I’m assuming it was Ullen?

THREE AND A QUARTER STARS

Because it was better than NoN, but still had some noticeable issues with the writing.  It’s like ICE is trying to write in the same style as Erikson – it mostly works but still feels really, really odd.

Also because Iron Bars is awesome and I want to see more of him.  Poor dude.

Oh.  This was good.  Very good.

An interesting kind of good… if only in contrast to the rest of the series.  The kind of good that can only happen in a series.  I mean, I suppose it could happen with enough build up in one book BUT this book is 1200 pages.  Sixth book in, and 1200 pages.  So I’m going to go out on a limb and say that it’s probably not like the kind of thing you would ever see in a stand-alone.  Or even in a trilogy.  Things have finally started coming together.  Violently. Duh, right?

We have a new (mostly) generation of Bridgeburners, and this time we see the formation – as opposed to just hearing about people talking about it all the time (Mott’s Wood & Raraku).  I had a feeling early about what the title phrase referred to, and I was very happy to find myself right.

Quick Ben is going crazy, maybe?  It was definitely interesting seeing him as a non-narrator this time through.  I want to call him an NPC, but that might be saying too much.  It was an interesting choice by Erikson and I’m curious what the reasoning behind it was.

Random things that bug me:

• No one shares intelligence!  Even people that are supposed to be friends.  Seriously!??
• There was at least one moment where someone hears something that changes their world (The bit with Cotillion, where someone tells him that everything casts a shadow into Shadow or something) but the rest of us have no idea why.
• Is Felisin Jr. just too lazy to fight what’s happening to her?  Yeesh.  Then again, I guess she never had much willpower or whatever.
• I still don’t get how the army “becomes” Tavore’s… in fact everything seems to imply that this is not what is happening.  It seems like just more of a case of them defending the Wickans??

Not much to complain about.  More people die, but that is to be expected by now.  I “like” (in the sense that it was interesting from a writing standpoint) how one of the deaths is just… well, being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  A character that is fairly powerful (I guess) just gets mowed down by some mid-level (in the grand scheme of things) bad guys who are after something else.

I really want to know what Mael did at the end of Midnight Tides!!!! Hopefully that pops up somewhere.  Also, every single thing that happens in this series seems to be setting the reader up for an unexpected ending.  Not unexpected in the sense of “That’s not who I thought would die!”, but more like “Oh, so that’s what this series was about…”  … or something.  The whole games within games within games and whatnot.

FOUR STARS

At least, will think on it more as I make my way through the series, maybe revise the rating.  I expect this to be the high point, but hope to be proven wrong.

I am seriously going to go back and wiki the fuck out of this series once I finish.  I’m sure I’m missing so many little (and probably some big) things – there’s just too much to keep in my wee little headspace.

[EDIT:

I still want to know what/who T'amber was before... what happened.  Not to mention why it chose HER!

And I'm not clear on why Lanseen would throw everything away for... nothing?  She's always seemed farsighted in the other books, but now she's ...not?

Also, it was interesting to see how the intended perception of (Lanseen's) Empire shifted over the course of novels 1-4 & 6.  It seems that now we're back to square/book 1.

]

OK, so it wasn’t much of a break, I finished this in an afternoon/evening.   Also, I’m betting that “Ian C. Esslemont” is not a pen name (Erikson is).  That’s just too much name to be made up.

ORIZIT?
DUNDUNthissstupid. Stop it!  Silly.

Right.  Where was I?  The book.

There’s not much to it.

The back cover copy should have just said “The night of Kellanved & Dancer’s ascension.”  Seriously.  I mean yeah, they barely get any scene time at all (a handful of lines), but that’s really why we came right?  To see what the hell happened?

Well, we still don’t really find out.  That kind of pissed me off.  They went back into the Deadhouse they’d lived in for years…and that did it?  WHAT?

So, other than NOT having the critical information that I was looking for and ALSO having some extended sequences about dudes riding ice that… did not make a whole lot of sense, especially given the epilogue scene (but that will surely be picked up on later, right?) was it OK?

Yeah, I guess.  It had some Bridgeburners.  But they were total dicks?  Except for one.  And we got some background on Dassem Ultor and how he went down.  That was cool.  And it was a fast read.  The two leads were… OK.  Neither of them very bright and driven… or perhaps consumed by their own natures.  Really not bad for a first book, especially when he kind of has/had to compete with Gardens of the Moon.

TWO AND SEVEN EIGHTHS STARS

Because I skimmed a lot because things were unclear (without being apparently crucial, a la Erikson) and some extended descriptions were uninteresting.  Or didn’t feel relevant.  Also, I may be unfair in my judgement because I really wanted to see things from Kellanved & Dancer’s perspectives.   Annnd I want to know wtf happened to make them gods.  Seriously.

[update before post:  I'm 200 pages or so into Bonehunters, and it has already referenced a few things specifically from this book, so that's interesting. ]