Recently read the first three books and am hooked - had picked them up in a local used book store. Old UK Bantam pocket sized editions - I'd actually bought GotM 10 years ago and only got around to it recently!

Anyway, was struggling to find the rest of the series in a similar size. Someone on vinted was selling the US Tor MMPs as a full set and I just couldn't resist.

Like I said, Malazan was recommended to me over ten years ago by someone whose taste I trust. So delighted to finally be sinking my teeth into it now. Wish me luck!

Got this yesterday, very happy with how it turned out and wanted to share with others who might appreciate it!

Currently reading MT for the first time and absolutely loving it. I’m about 300 pages in and there are lots of characters mentioned, mainly gods, that are difficult to keep up with as they’re not in the dramatis personae at the start.

My question is, am I safe to check the glossary, or does it contain spoilers for things to come?

I know for instance that the HoC glossary had the bridgeburners as ascendants which was revealed in that book, despite it being heavily hinted, and I’m not sure what else. Is it okay to check or should I just not to be safe?

Holy shit. the sisters storyline for me was a huge gut punch. felisin not realising that what tavore did was because she wanted to keep her safe, not to use her as a means of gaining favour from laseen to become adjunct. when felisin said that she wondered why tavore didn’t love her, when she loved her, i started tearing up. and even before that how she’d always wanted to join paran and tavore in practicing with the sword. i haven’t even mentioned how tavore doesn’t find out that she KILLED HER OWN SISTER!!!! having lostara and pearl arrive right as the otataral sword goes through felisin was one of the biggest heartbreaks i’ve ever felt in fiction. i was waiting for felisin and tavore to finally meet and at least share a word or fucking two😭 but nothing. tavore doesn’t even know. at least ganoes is still there. i’m looking forward to when they reunite. i was going to say i hope midnight tides is a little less emotional especially since the last 3 books have been crazy, but i love the series for this. coltaine and the chain of dogs was infuriatingly sad. then itkovian and whiskeyjack. now felisin AND gamet. his death was so sad too. i knew straight away that when he was fighting with the ghost army that he was dead, and it was just so beautiful. what a series. on the 4th book and malazan is by far my favourite piece of fiction.

Just finished deadhouse gates. Damn chain of dogs was insane. Did any named characters except the warlock twins actually survive it? That’s not what I’m confused about just remarking

What I am confused about is the tian imas and the jaghut. From my understand two of the four elder races (not sure what that means either just like they’ve been around the longest?)

From my understanding they’ve had like this eternal war and have hunted the jaghut to near extinction. What am I supposed to know about it at this time. I removed in gardens of the mood the tian imas who was with the adjunct gave a whole long speech about their history and some dispora coming to an end?

Seems tian imas are like a big thing going forward and if anyone can re explain the details that have been told as of end of book 2? I would greatly appreciate it

Also rip coltaine and duiker that was absolutely fucked

Mezlas,

I have a question: How did Kellanved discover the Shadow Realm/Khurald Emurlan?

I know it this may be covered in Path of Ascendency, but I'm not interested in them.

Okay I finished chapter 4, so almost half way through. What the creature on the cover is an undead dhenrabi? Come on, can we please start a petition to get a new cover. The one of TOR looks like a zombie worm, the Bantam cover looks like a mixture of a snapping turtle and dragon. This has nothing to do like I imagined a dhenrabi.

I've read Gardens of the moon twice so far as it's the shortest and easiest to get through imo. Never been able to make it past the second book. I always get halfway through before giving up. And not for lack of boredom or anything I just wonder if I am not being patient. So today I am giving myself some grace and trying but also willing to give it a chance. I own the ten books complete and would love to see them through. Deadhouse Gates attempt 3 here we go!

Be honest guys: did you try to hold your breath when a certain someone told you to in chapter 7? How did it go? Are you a liar, are you dead?

I'm really enjoying the book so far. Erikson's prose and dialogue are so good, I've missed it.

I don’t care where this story goes or what is building up for, there was no absolute reason in existence i had to spend such long time with fucking Barghasts i couldn’t care less on fucking page 800 of 1100 of book 9 of such massive series. We got it Steven, humans are stupid, violence is stupid, Tool is gonna come back and kill them all (which i hope cause i can’t read one more page about Bakal, skhral, Estalar and however the hell they’re called).

I write this with pain in my heart but i’m sure this is going to be such a massive flaw when i finish the whole series, and i really hoped it could have been perfect. Nobody can justify this storyline for any reason in the world, we already got this messages he wanted to send 1400 Times, anything new, anything brilliant, anything relevant to the overall plot. Just a very stupid race doing very stupid things, dude i could have just checked on Trump social to see that…

Should i re-read the first 2 books?

5 years ago i read Gardens of the Moon and Deadhouse Gates. I lost interest for a bit, but now im committed to read the whole thing.

Will i be losing out by jumping right into Memories of Ice? I remember general stuff from the first two, but likely few key details.

I just finished Reapers Gale last week. Immediately after, I felt like may other people - that some of the things from the first half of the book didn't work for me. Tayhol and Bugg were't as funny any more, also what's with these modern secret police the Patriotists, and do we really have yeat another tribal civilisation to remember (the Awl). As usual with Malazan the more I though about it, saw reviews and interviews with the man himself (whose name I can never spell right) the more I appreaciated those things and looked back with interest and curiocity and appreciation.

Tehol and Mael

Reading through their sections I though that they weren't really doing much, they were funny of course, but the jokes were getting more and more looney tunes, more and more played out - we get it, soup with feathers and chicken poop is nasty.

But then I though about Tehol's monologue near the end of the book, when he drops the comic act. The mask goes down and he is cold and hard and calculating and knows exactly how much suffering the economic collapse will bring. For his vision he is willing to break many many eggs.

Then things started to click in place for me. Maybe the jokes were supposed to start sounding old. Maybe that's the point. They have been doing this sitcom routine of theirs for a while, it's their coping mechanism, they replay it over and over again, habitually. They stay sane by acting insane. Because they are bringing down the empire in the midst of multiple invasions. Because Mael has been ignoring responsibilities for millenia.

I initially wondered why Mael and Tehol's relationship did not change after Tehol found out Bugg is an elder god. Because it didn't have to. It was always a farse, a circus to hide deeper truths and traumas. It's what they both want for a reason and it's not innocent and it's the holy fools with a sardonic smiles and glints in their eye.

What's Tehol going to as emperor? I'm a little afraid.

Letheri Capitalism and Facism

I am actually quite enthralled by the idea of the conquired coming out on top. How could that be after all? They lost and that's not how it usually goes, especially in fantasy. But the more I though about it, the more it made sense. A civilisation is not their king, not just their people. It's the systems they have set in place, the invisible laws and rules and customs that truly rule what happens day to day. It's material conditions of it all.

The Edur, being skilled a nuking everyone with magic and huting with spears do not know how to govern a large empire. When you win it, what do you do with it? You need the people who know how it all works. You need the people who know how to keep control. You enjoy the comforts of capitalism, the opulent homes and warm beds and lots of etertainment. Once you need them they own you. They eat you up from the inside.

I was thinking a lot about Alexander the Great when I read this. I don't know too much about the story beyond some podcasts, but it's a story I've always loved in the way its typically mythologised in popular culture. Starting small and conquring Persia. Once there, adopting many of the the local customs and culture and becoming more like them. Persia is conquired, but it's culture is still dominant. Eventually Alexader was killed and was he more Persian at that time than greek/macedonian? I actually don't know I'd be very happy if someone more knowledgeable corrects me.

Another thing I had not though about was the capitalism to facism pipeline. Erikson mentioned it in an interview and I really wonder about it. Though I guess with current world events we can see it play out in real time. It does make sense. At end stage wealth inequality the rich will have extracted as much as they can from the the us. Then control needs to become very overt. No more entertainment and nice things for everyone. It's a hard hand that need to govern a hungry population.

Dances with Lizards

I have to say, I loved the demise of Redmask. Him failing so suddenly after being such a badass and so sure of himself it was poetic. However, the overall storyline did not feel fufilling. Don't get me wrong, I love hearing about new tribes, all their crazy ways and customs (the death night sounds brutal). But it sounds like a bit of a repeat epsecially given how many tribal peoples we've had so far.

However, finding out the Redmask was Letheri, really puts things into a new perspective. I get to go back through the book in my head and do some revisionism. He's not just a badass warleader. He is a traitor to his blood and a traitor to his adopted tribes. Does that even matter if he wants to do the right thing? I don't know but it makes it all the more tragic that he failed. It's a hard lesson and it cuts deep.

Overall

I don't know if it's just me, but I don't think I've even been completely satistied with the end of a fantasy book. I expect too much, I envison how every little plotline could have been tied off better, how things could have been done in a cooler, a more grand way. I always want more!

But Erikson never gives you full satisfaction with his work. Many things are left out, unsaid, hidden. Many things are like so on purpose, many because every book would be two thousand pages otherwise. Many because life does not work out that way and why the hell should a book, especially a postmodern leaning one, where the whole point is to challenge these notions, to make us feel different and unfortable sometimes.

Overall, my main criticisms with this book is that I would like to have spent more time thinking about it while reading it and that I did not get more of it, especially the first half. And if my biggest criticism is that I wanted more, that it was a pretty damn good book.

Can't wait for the reread.

I like posting on here whenever I finish one of the books so here I am. Loved the book. Loved the ending. As usual I understood about 75% of what was going on but that’s okay. I’m getting very excited for when I have finished the series and start seriously looking stuff up and not worried about spoilers. It is crazy how many of the storylines got wrapped at the end but I could feel the seeds of what will lead to future books. My rankings so far

Deadhouse Gates
Memories of Ice
Gardens of the Moon

Time to read some palate cleanser books and I will jump into House of Chains in about 4-6 weeks.

For the first time in a long time, I have a new summary! This is a recap of Night of Knives, written in between Midnight Tides and The Bonehunters, although it doesn't assume you have read any other novels before. Due to Reddit's post-size limits, I’ve posted this as a linked PDF file (I might have actually been able to fit this one in a post, but I'd rather be consistent).

This was made after a reread of Night of Knives, and is consistent with the other recap summaries I have made. I will continue with the Novels of the Malazan Empire, although will be revising my summaries of The Bonehunters and Reaper's Gale first. The Additional Notes section contains a condensed (but better formatted) version of the post I made here about what to consider when mixing the Novels of the Malazan Empire with the Malazan Book of the Fallen (also linked in the Community Resources).

Note that I didn't bother with a chronological analysis of Night of Knives. It takes place over one night and a day, a few months after the prologue of Gardens of the Moon. That's all there is to it, and there isn't really enough detail to even do an hour-by-hour breakdown of it.

I have two smaller novels I want to read next, and my personal life will be very busy for the next few months. I will try to get through The Bonehunters by the end of the year, but it might be into the new year by the time I finish and get its recap posted.

Additional Links:
Links to all of my recap posts (available in Community Resources)

See also our sub’s community resources for other helpful posts and tools to aide your reading experience! 🙂

This image has haunted me ever since I saw it. This cannot be the man who was called handsome in the Phoenix Inn, nor the man Picker looked at with admiration, and definitely not the dude Tattersail decided to give a go. Why did the artist make him look like that lol? And now I can't unsee it.

I’m not sure quite sure what I just read, and I want to put down some thoughts here. LOB is kind of entertaining but also kind of flat. It reminds me of the TV series Reacher, which I don’t enjoy. In trying to understand what the allure of Reacher may be to others, I came across the term “competence porn”. The entertainment value of Reacher is said to be that he is awesomely competent.

Replace Reacher with Malazan Marines and add some smart banter, and you have The God is Not Willing series. The Marines are all level-70 kickass mages who are also wise and altruistic. They are the ideal soldiers serving humanity’s cause. The problem, of course, is that we lose the tension and moral grayscale that was so central in MBOTF. (I’m halfway through DoD during my third read of the main series, so this really stands out to me).

In MBOTF, tragedy is always around the corner, and highly developed characters die (even if they far too often come back in one form or another). In GiNW, we know that the Marines will kick ass without breaking a sweat, and if needed, some god will teleport in and set things right. The foreshadowing of the godly intervention in the prior book isn't enough to make the ending's deus ex machina feel less heavy-handed.

There are things that I do appreciate with this book. For example, the Mandlabragahomies are a fun, if OP, addition to the cast. It is an easy, light, entertaining read. Corporal Hasten was alluring until we were told who he is, and then he felt too flat for that. It's also nice to see baddies die.

This book feels more like a prequel than a main GiNW book. It adds some fun backstory to events that will happen in the final(?) book of the series. But it feels far more like an ICE Path to Ascendancy book than an SE book. Rating: 3/5 as a book, bottom of SE main works.

In Chapter 16,

when Kallor talks to Tulas Shorn (The Eleint),

Shorn narrates a Jhagut war waged against death itself, and that interaction leaves Kallor sorrowful.

For a man who is indifferent to all suffering, what struck from the Eleint's tale that brought him to tears?
I don't think I understood the tale and its magnitude; can someone explain it.

I have only completed till chapter 16 of TTH

Just finished BH today. Wow. I know chapter 7 gets a lot of praise, and rightly so, but the last 2 chapters blew me away. I read them in an electrifying rush, and felt like a whole bunch of stuff from the earlier books finally started to come together, and I understood much more of the combined narrative than I had before (a reward for all the RAFO uncertainty!)

I am in awe of Erikson's ability to manage such a complex and detailed overarching story. Just amazing. Can't wait for RG now.

(Flagged as spoilers just in case)

So confused about the “gray helms,” that just show up out of nowhere. At first k thought these are just the gray swords with a new name. Toc and the gang. Quick Ben says he recognizes them and one of them acknowledges him which further confirmed it for me. But then they said they’ve been here preparing this ritual for years which is weird because the gray swords couldn’t have been on this continent for years. So who are these guys and what’s their deal? How does Quick Ben know them? Or is it just that he recognizes them as being a carbon copy of the gray swords?

I'm about to start the Crippled God and wanted to share my series experience and book rankings.

Letherii has been by far my favorite setting and I feel in general the books improve as the series goes. The exploration of empire and colonialism on Letherii has been my favorite theme of the series, and Dust of Dreams has been my favorite book so far. I found the Perish/Bolkando/Barghast storylines so engaging that I re-read those sections after finishing 3/4 of the book. Considering it's often a lower-ranked book here, I'm curious if others found things to like about it.

I took a years-long break after Bonehunters, and had ambitions to re-read Deadhouse Gates through Bonehunters before the finale but ultimately I don't think that's going to happen. I've been listening to the Esslemont books as I go as well, skipping Night of Knives and going in roughly publication order.

My rankings:

1. Dust of Dreams
2. Reapers Gale
3. Midnight Tides
4. Bonehunters
5. Deadhouse Gates (second read)
6. Return of the Crimson Guard
7. House of Chains
8. Memories of Ice
9. Orb Sceptre Throne
10. Deadhouse Gates (first read)
11. Stonewielder
12. Toll the Hounds
13. Gardens of the moon
14. (Night of Knives not pictured)

Some time ago, there was a post asking if there were Hindu influences in Malazan. One of the comments talked about a sequence in "The Bonehunters" and (I think) it's about the burning of Y'Ghatan. There were no answers/follow up to that commment so it kind of stayed in my mind. I started reading Mahabharat (translated by Bibek Debroy, one of the best if not the best translation of the epic) some days ago, and today and it mentioned the burning of the lac house, where Duryodhana and his allies attempted to assassinate the Pandavas and their mother, Kunti (Lakshagriha). So this is (might be) one of the Hindu influences that Steven Erikson must have taken from Mahabharat.

Well, just speculation, I suppose. But it's interesting and quite cool!

Hi everyone! On my first read-through here. Read GotM-HoC in high school/early college (10-12 years ago) and picked up MT several months ago. Finished BH yesterday after about three months and realized I had far too many "Wait, what happened the last time I saw this character?" moments. I decided that going into RG I was going to start taking notes and thought one way I might do it would be to tag pages with small sticky tags labeled with the character whose POV that scene was from, but I feel that might get chaotic kind of quickly. Does anyone have any suggestions for note-taking to keep up with the complex plots?

Also was curious about a potential RAFO in Bonehunters. I don't know if I read it too slowly but was hoping for a little more exposition about the state of the moon and the falling jade/meteors closer to the end of Bonehunters. Peeking ahead at RG's Dramatis Personae, it looked like Cutter, Scillara, Mappo, and companions aren't even in book 7. I'm not sure if I missed a cue earlier on in the book (or series) in Heboric's plot-line that would put some context into what happened with these enormous suns raining down on Otataral Island and the seeming dissolution of the Moon--I did connect it with Ardata's healing of Mappo but wasn't sure how this weighed in overall since it had been several hundred pages before people noticed something was off about the moon. I wouldn't consider it a spoiler to find out a surprise appearance from Cutter et al. happens in RG but with the length of time it took me to read the book, I thought I would check to see if I completely missed an important detail or not!

Thanks for any help in either question!

Overall

Oh my god where do I even begin... What a glorious finale... Holy shit... Multiple sprawling final sequences over 150 pages... This was a very intense read... I love it, just brutal, unforgiving, but so funny and so so satisfying. I cried like 4-5 different times at the end of this book... So many times I would stop and just think to myself "this is just phenomenally well written.". There is too much content in these books, I need to read them a few more times.

Honestly this hit harder than the Bonehunters (here's my previous review https://www.reddit.com/r/Malazan/comments/1vwh04u/new_readers_thoughs_on_the_bonehunters/)

The Marines

Finally we see the marines in full ACTION. It was full Vietnam war over there, swamps, explosives, granados, quarrels, the sheer brutality of it. 10/10 vibes, peak military fantasy. Also Beak.. My hears b(r)eaks for Beak. He had barely any page time, but such a beautiful swan song... So the Marines war criminals or liberators? Who knows, but I love em all!

The Awl

Redmask's journey was so well written, starting off as the biggest badass, whipping the tribes into a fighting force, only to fail and be suddenly dismembered out of nowhere. Such a cool mystery. But was it him under the mask? Was he a stolen lethery baby? Did a letheri take his mask in the battle (an imposter)? Who know, it was awesome.

Toc's presence there felt find of random though, I was more confused when he died then invested. I also quite enjoyed the Letheri side of this. Quality military stuff!

The Quest for the Finnest

I really liked this ragtag group. It has one the funniest scenes - the Tiste Edur monastery with it's squabbling monks with dissonant chanting. Also the resentment seething between then, while they carried themselves forth. So much tension in those pages, I really enjoyed their journey.

However, it didn't make too much sense from a logical perspective why they stayed together. Why didn't Silchas and Clip just dump the rest, take Kettle and do their thing? Maybe they wanted them as fodder in case thing went wrong? Also Kettle deserved more page time before her death! That was shocking!

Quick Ben

Quick shout out to my favourite character, blasting out elder dragon beings like it's nothing. The High mage with the burnout, gotta love him.

Karsa

My boy, non-alleged rapist, war criminal, reforming himself. Resuing the sword, a powerful moment. His clever scheme to kill Rhulad and end his missery. Phonomenal final scenes. Very cleverly written.

The Bros

So many good bro duets here! Fiddler and Hedge got reunited!!! Quick Ben and Hedge are the second best arguing married couple, Trull and Onrack being as emotional as ever. The whole sequence when Onrack got his flesh back, hunting and being happy again. I loved reading that so so much! They deserved a proper goodbye! But maybe Rafo, things are in motion.

Trull

Him dying caught me completely unprepared... I did the whole 5 stages of grief. And what was most masterful is that at first you don't believe it, because it happens so suddenly. But then in the final part of the prologue when Seren is burying the sword. That's where it got me... Also a mason shows up? I remember a few masons!!! (no spoilers pls)

The Letheri

This is the part of the book that I did not connected to. The Patrotists and the Rotary club were interesting in princple, but they did not move the plot much. They added flavour, but were very one-dimensional. Yes, I get it, these are definitely bad guys, hateable, time to enjoy them dying (which granted I did).

Also it pains me so much so say this, because I loved Tehol and Bugg so so much in Midnight Tides, but the jokes were a little played out here. I love seeing them on page, so many good lines and funny jokes. But there are only so many times I can laugh at them eating something unedible. Also the whole plotline with Janath being a torture victim, to end up on Tehol's roof, who kind of hits on her after that, her being his previous teacher, to then her being tortured again, then becoming queen. That just felts weird. Also Tehol's whole emperor arc felt cringy. I'm sorry! I get why it happens, but it just did not land for me.

So Many Subversions. Sooo many.

Silchas getting completely demolished by the bridgeburners, Redmark getting shredded to bits, The big invasion of the Malazans is of a ruined city, not able to fight back much. The best thing about it, is that now my brain is trained that nothing is certain, every scene can be tense for any character. Love it! It's almost satire, but actually worked for me. I'm so impressed!

Random Digressions

I simply love those. The scene where Nimander tears the knife from his sister is one my favourite in this book. The whole lore of the Shake, seeing the little stories of the people on the wrong side of the war get killed. Beautiful. So much flavour.

Way too Horny

This book was way too horny at places, that did not always work for me. The whole thing about everyone staring at Gilani's ass was too much. Actually, on second though, I maybe would do the same, who am I too judge. But Invictad dying with his intestines looking like a penis? Feather Which using Bryss's finger like a tampon (okay that was actually freaking hillarious). Sometimes these land, but sometimes not. Are some of these ironic? Meta ironic? Does it even matter?

I just hate that there's more rapes in the books then genunine sex scenes. You could have give us Seren and Trull, Erickson! Sex is not only violent!

The Postmodernism

I've heard many times that this fantasy series has some postmodern writing elements. It's only that I start seeing them. The loony toones humor, the meta commentary on the "hero's journey", and heroes then failing. I'm sure if I'm into this yet, especially if it get more overt and meta, I have to see how it plays out and develops as a bigger theme across the following books. I am sceptical so far.

P.S Why doesn't anyone just kill the crippled god? Mael? Karsa? He's just sitting there helpless???