“Ding, ding, ding,” the bell rings and the referee declares me the winner. I’ve just gone twelve rounds with “Toll the Hounds”, the latest 923-pages addition to the “Malazan Book of the Fallen” saga. At the start we both ran circles around each other; me trying to catch it, and TtH cunningly evading my every move. In the sixth round I got tired and felt nearly beat by my opponents complex strategies and unfamiliar fighting technique. But I did not despair – I knew I could win if I just bit in ’till the final run-down. And that I did, though I’ll allow that it was a close run thing this year.
I had “Toll the Hounds” as my frontrunner for the Best Book of the Year prize and expected to be just as blown away by it as I was by the previous installments. I envisioned epic battle scenes, intricate plots and ploys and an ending to rival the what had come before. I had, in other words, high hopes for this one.
Colour me underwhelmed…
This book takes us back to where it all started in “Gardens of the Moons”. Darujhistan, the city of blue fire, and Black Coral, the Tiste Andii capitol and high-seat of the Son of Darkness, Anomander Rake, serve as the two centres of the story as Erikson weaves yet another story into an epic convergence that will rattle the entire world with its consequences.
For the sake of disclosure, I will now repeat the fact that I hold “Memories of Ice” and “Deadhouse Gates” as the two most accomplished works in the Malazan series, and the “Chain of Dogs” story-line is perhaps the greatest epic fantasy story I’ve ever read. Other Erikson works have come close to matching these books, but none have made same impact on me as those previously mentioned. I remember thinking that “Reaper’s Gale” came pretty damn close, and the ending of “The Bonehunters” was also something that stands out in my memory as quite extraordinary.
But there is a book in this series that is notably different in its story-telling, and that is, in my opinion, the poorest book of the series: “Midnight Tides”. And it just got a neighbour in “Toll the Hounds”, which shares many of the same problems as MT had. With these books, Erikson tried a more literary tack than he’s used to, and while I approve of the notion that an author should challenge his abilities and not write the same book over and over again, I don’t think “Toll the Hounds” is a what you’d call “a very successful experiment”.
It’s first and most obvious problem are the many dead ends that are devoted too much time, and those plot lines that actually bear fruit, could’ve been made a lot tighter. A good editor would probably have chopped of nearly three-hundred pages of this book. It should be noted that this isn’t an unusual problem for an Erikson book, but the this time I didn’t feel like they actually were very relevant to the rest of the book, save for their metaphoric worth. I should also mention that a good deal of the characters that appear in this book don’t seem to do much, save from partaking in Erikson’s trademark philosophic musings.
And that’s probably where this book strongest. It’s thematically tighter than anyone since, well, “Midnight Tides”, but it doesn’t make your hair stand up on your arms like Erikson managed with, say, the faith of Itkovian or Coltaine, or even Beak for that matter. I think this is a very personal book for Erikson, who clearly must have been thinking a lot about grief and loss during the writing of it.
Don’t misunderstand me – there are a fair share of Awesome Moments, and the book is heavy with the PoV’s of “Kruppe” (who serves as the narrator of the Darujhistan-story), “Iskaral Pust” and “Anomander Rake”. The ending is of course very good, all though its also probably one of the shortest and least epic convergences yet. I guess you could say that while I enjoyed several parts of this book, it never managed to excite and enthral me the way previous installments have managed. Which is too bad, but every author should be allowed an occasional miss-step in an otherwise impressive body of work.
7.5/10
Next up for Erikson is “Dust of Dreams” (TBR July 2009…?), the ninth and penultimate novel in the saga. SE has gone out and said that DoD will have a cliffhanger ending and that the entire book will serve as a build up for “The Crippled God”. He’s also signed a contract with Bantam for two additional trilogies set in the Malazan world. One will most likely be about the life of Anomander Rake and the second will be a sort of continuation of the unresolved plot threads from the ten-volume Malazan saga. We will also be getting at least 6 more novellas about our two favourite necromancers…
Lastly, I have little notification about Ian Cameron Esslemont’s Malazan series. As some of you might know, I’ve received an ARC of ICE’s first book in the series (“Night of Knives” notwithstanding), “Return of the Crimson Guard”. I couldn’t bring myself to finish “Night of Knives”, which is a very short Malazan novel by any means of comparison, but I had high hopes for RotCG. Sadly, they didn’t come through. I’ve now read the first half of “Return”, and so far the writing has been absolutely dreadful and, in my mind, nearly unreadable. So if you’re wondering why there never was a review of that book, now you know… I’ve also decided that I won’t be touching anything ICE writes ever again, as it seems clear to me that the guy has absolutely no skill as a writer.
34 Comments
Seeing as I quite liked Esslemont’s last endavour, I’m going to disregard your opinion on RotCG until I can make up my own… sorry.
As for ToH, I honestly can’t recall the individual books of the series well enough to draw much out of your comparison to the ones earlier in the series. I’ve read them too close together, and they’re too long and closely entwined. Sorry to hear you weren’t impressed. My poor memory in mind, “Midnight Tides”, as far as I remember, was a very good book written at least on level with “Deadhouse Gates” and “House of Chains” and better than “Gardens of the Moon”, feeling disappointing to me mostly because of the almost complete lack of previously established characters featured in it. Seeing as ToH won’t have that problem, I’m going to dare remaining cautiously optimistic despite your somewhat underwhelmed opinion of it.
“Our two favourite necromancers” – wait, Bauchelain is a necromancer now? I thought that was only Korbal…
great review Amras; the book seems to have a lot of elements of the Erikson’s storytelling that I can’t stomach too well anymore…ah well. I still have Reaper’s Gale and the ICE available to read before TtH, we will see.
Well, I certainly hope for ICE’s sake that I’m the only one that will feel it this way, and I wish him all the best. And of course, there’s no need to apologize, Loke
Here’s hoping “Dust of Dreams” is a lot better, eh?
You’re probably not the only one who will feel that way, but let us hope you’re in the minority.
Although I don’t agree with all your individual assessments, I do agree with the overall one. It was a good book, but I didn’t quite feel that Erikson managed to balance philosophy with action in the brilliant way he has done so far. The first 650, 700 pages hardly had any action (in the rather narrow, entertainment-coloured meaning of the word) at all (my favourites, DG, MoI and MT, have been the ones where there has been a bit of fighting — and thus a more easily detectable sense of danger for the characters — pretty much all through the novel), and when the climax finally came, it fell a bit short of the ones in The Bonehunters, for example (since it’s probably the one most clear in my mind).
Also, there were few new memorable characters introduced, and the old ones didn’t quite shine as usual.
It’s still Erikson, though, meaning that the characters are, even on a bad day, some of the most fascinating and fucked-up ones in our genres, and that they can out-joke anyone but possibly Locke Lamora.
His lack of action-philosophy balance wasn’t really a grevious error, either, as most of the philosophical musings were more or less interesting, if a bit basic, and the presence of Dragnipur, the Hold of Chains, and a shitload of more or less small allusions to the Realm of Hood, helped build a certain trepidation for the end throughout the book. And the climax, while not necessarily among the most awesomely executed ones, certainly was among the most cataclysmic, or at least disruptive, for the Malazan world’s cosmology.
Which, of course, is as brilliant as always.
Still, though, Erikson’s habit of withholding as much information from the reader, with conversations like this one:
“Servant, you must…”
“Yes, Master, I know, there’s no need to say more, but how will I…”
“You will use the…”
“Ah, of course, that one.”
“Go, then, Servant, and do good.”
“To hear is to obey, Master.”
… can be very frustrating, as he gives few or no hints as to what, exactly, the Servant is supposed to do. Obviously, the pay-off of this frustration is usually rather good, when Servant suddenly appears somewhere, pretty much out of thin air during the height of the climax, doing his Master’s bidding. As long as one is aware of this, the frustration isn’t as frustrating, but if one forgets, well, then the entertainment value of the novel might drop.
And suddenly, I find myself almost having reviewed the novel here. Expect a lot of the same to be repeated in the review over at Thus Spoketh. (Which hasn’t been abandoned, although it might seem that way; I’ve written three or four book reviews in the last month, I just haven’t posted them…)
Anyhoo, Amras, I agree with Loke on the whole ICE thing, as I obviously do on MT, so I choose to continue to look forward to RotCR.
“I agree with Loke on the whole ICE thing, as I obviously do on MT”
*does the dance of non-solitude*
“Although I don’t agree with all your individual assessments, I do agree with the overall one. ”
Damnit! Why do won’t you see things the One True Way?
“I agree with Loke on the whole ICE thing”
Yeah, I suspect most malazanites pitch their tent in your camp on this subject. It makes me jealous, ’cause I obviously REALLY want to like ICE’s writing, but… well… It can’t be helped. Especially when the unread proof I was sent (I choose to believe it was an unread, uncorrected proof and not the PS Publishing final edition) was riddled with grammatical errors and backwards phrasings that totally pulled me out every scene. Sure, an author is allowed to make mistakes while writing, but not, in my opinion, as many as ICE did with RotCG. The first hundred pages were so infected that I found one to two errors on every single page. After that it got slightly better, but the phrasings were always off. Hopefully the Bantam Press copy will be much better, but I’m not checking it out. I’ve lost all my respect for the guy.
When I’ve got my greasy little hands on a Bantham one, let’s compare one of the ones you think was shitty, eh?
Yeah, why not.
I read a bit of Night of knives and found that hard to stomach. Just poorly written, and I do wonder why anyone would like it. It contained the first chapter of Return as well and that to me, seemed to be of similar quality.
On the other hand, I have many of the same issues with Erikson, who I find incomprehensible in his haphazardness.
Yes, I’ve noticed that you’re not the biggest Malaz fan in the world, Cali. It’s a hard series to get a grip on, and when you finally do, it’s not easy to hold onto, either. But in Erikson’s case I don’t mind doing it, because even though he can be overambitious sometimes, the guy knows how to tell an epic fantasy story and does actually know how to write. Take a look at “The Healthy Dead” and tell me that’s poorly written!
It sure as shit isn’t.
Esslemont, however, does not have the necessary talent to do something on this scale. It seems to me like ICE should stick to his world-building and leave the art to people capable of it.
So world-building isn’t art now? Holy smokes, Batman, you must really be awesome to be able to decide what forms of creative outlets qualify as arts and what forms does not.
Sorry, that was poorly put. Of course world-building is a form of art if you choose to look at it as a single thing. I, however, see world-building in the sense that ICE does it as just one wheel in the mechanism of a novel, just like pretty colours don’t make a good picture or nice pieces of wood make a cabin. It’s how it all fits together that makes literature art for me.
True enough.
With regards the world building, I agree with Loki: you have to look at it singularly. Why? Well isn’t that why Tolkein’s LOTR triliogy was so successful? If not for his world building (race, lauguage & geography) then would they not be just well written fantasy? To be frank, that trilogy bored the hell out of me.
But Amras, I do agree with your review (if not the rating). I think people will overlook alot of what went on in this book because of its slow style. But if you really think about it, Erikson tells you alot more than usual. A few SPOILERS here. I mean look at Kruppe: Since when did he so openly use his powers infront of Baruk (the whole wine thing), plus the narritive from his POV (for me) futhers the feeling that he is going to be a BIG player at the end. Plus what are those Segulah doin under Krul’s belfry?
If you really pick down to it, there is alot of information in this book that i think people are overlooking due to the pace (i.e. they scan read, instead of taking it in). I mean, am i the only one that liked Gruntle’s entrance (and possibly what it indicates)? And the first time we see a little reluctance from Karsa!
8/10 for me.
Crap, just looked at the title.
Apologies for the spoilers.
I don’t think he minds spoilers in the comments when you warn about them before you hand them out (which you did)
Hello, Shimi. Nice to see some new faces around here. I hope you’ll stick around
I disagree with you about LotR, because that book is a lot more than _just_ outstanding world-building to me. I could seriously write essays about what makes LotR the perfect fantasy book for me, but I can also see why it doesn’t appeal to a lot of people. I’m sorry that you didn’t like it.
And if we only disagree with a meagre half point in the rating, then I’d say that’s pretty good. It’s hard to fix the rating – one day it’s an 8 and one day it can be a 7, so I went for a compromise. You’re right about the stuff you mention though. I look forward to re-reading it before The Crippled God is released.
And don’t worry about the spoilers. I’ve made it clear in other posts that I consider the comment-area a spoiler-zone if the review clearly isn’t. I probably should make a comment-guide or something that mentions this, but so far I haven’t had any problems…
Ha ha, i suppose the rating is negligible, although re-thinking of how much actually goes on, and how much speculation (personally one of the big pros for this series) can be derived from this book (more so than any of the others), I may give it more. For example: what are the consequences of Brood doing his thing at the end?
Sorry of posing so many questions, i just need people to talk to about this book, as it seems my friends are taking waaaay too long to finish it.
Oh and with regards LOTR, I do think it is a very good trilogy, I just wonder: without all the groundwork would it have gained the same praise? Then again would it have been the same without said groundwork? Probably not. So the point is moot, and I’m back to the beginning . . . . .
Ah, but you know, if it’s speculation you’ve come for, you’ve really not gotten to the right fan yet. As far as the Malazan series go, I’m more than content with just going with the blows and seeing where it all ends up going. Ramifications and consequences are things that I only ponder if I find them improbable (if they happen) or too obvious. Other than that I just don’t have the brain capacity to hold all myriad aspects of this series in my head long enough to do anything useful.
Erikson is an extremely dense writer. If you skim parts of his books you’ll inevitably miss something, usually something important. I’ve just finished Toll the Hounds and in a day or two I’ll start rereading it. I’ve done that with all of the Malazan books. It takes two or more readings to absorb all that’s there.
I must agree that ICE is a poor writer. I struggled to read Night of Knives. I found the writing style awkward, the plotting confused, and the characters one-dimensional. Erikson shows us what’s happening, ICE tells us. I haven’t bothered to read Return of the Crimson Guard.
Well, I had originally planned to re-read every single book in the Malazan saga before The Chained God gets released, but have since come to accept the fact that I probably won’t have time to do that. Which is a shame, since it would make the book so much more enjoyable, but what can you do? Hopefully a couple of days spent reading various boards and wikis will tide me over.
Good to see that there’s someone who agrees with me about ICE, though I have heard that the Bantam edition of RotCG is much better edited than the PS Publishing edition was, so I won’t dismiss him just yet. I literally obsess over grammar (I know it doesn’t show, ha ha ha), so a poor edit kills what could potentially be a mediocre book.
Thanks for the comment, Micheal. I hope you’ll stick around. There are bound to appear some actual reviews one of these days…
You who know these things, I saw RotCG at Outland today, in TPB. You know if it’s planned to be released in pocket soon or not?
7th of May is the Bantam release date of the ppb. Dunno if there’s going to be an American edition just yet.
Okidokies. Thankee.
Anyone actually read RotCG? Much MUCH better than the previous.
I haven’t, but that seems to be the general perception, yeah. Maybe I’ll pick it up some years down the line.
“Anyone actually read RotCG? Much MUCH better than the previous.”
I very much enjoyed the previous, so, that sounds fun. ^^
Well!
I have read all the previous comments and feel the need to throw some poo myself.
Has anyone tried reading the series in character sequence?
I know it sounds like a lot of work, however i have found it to be a bit more explanatory when you do so.
YES! MT was a bit over the top. I beleive if you look at the series in total you will find that sometimes you need to chill out a bit to appreciate the end result. Without MT i would have been backflipping through pages to find out why and most importantly, how some of the characters adopted their flaws and personal idiosyncratics. It was more of a ” this is what has been happening in the mean time” but it did add to the overall series.
I quess i am trying to say that i cannot fault the overall series precicely because of the lesser impacting novels.
i mean, lets’ face it. WHAT A SERIES. Not since i have read the Midkemia/Tsurranni mega-series have i been so enthused to buy a book on-line. And furthermore read it more than twice. Mara of the Acoma in conjunct with another author, is an enigma deserving of unadulterated worship. Or so i was made to feel.
A few names to inspire; Quick Ben, Korlat, (whom i think deserves more ink), Fid, the Krupestar, Bugg, Tehol, Brys, Rake, Ruin, Trull, Icarium, Non-Apsalar…. and lets not forget the ever inspiring KARSA!
I do not intend to offend, but, when did we stop reading for enjoyment and move to criticising what should be a relaxing and vocabulary enhancing past-time?
I find the comparison you make to Midkemia to be fascinating. In my mind, Feist is a vastly inferior author to Erikson, and comparing them thus has not happened much. But the comparison IS very apt – storylines vaguely linked together in the same universe but set in different places and, yes, in completely different times, making for a grand puzzle where the whole is better than the sum of its pieces… very good. I’ve never thought of this similarity between the two before, despite this very element being my favourite aspect of Feist’s books.
As for reading the Malazan books in “character sequence”, I’m not certain what you mean – but if you mean chronologically as the events of the books occur, then no, I have not, but I decided long ago that if I ever find time to re-read the series, I will.
“I do not intend to offend, but, when did we stop reading for enjoyment and move to criticising what should be a relaxing and vocabulary enhancing past-time?”
If you mean,” when did people start to criticize literature”, I think you’ll have to go back to when the first book was written, or maybe even earlier than that. I can totally picture some cavemen discussing the merits of the latest creation myth over the roar of the bonfire. It’s just a natural reaction to anything you encounter: You stop, you ponder it, try to figure out what the hell it is and how it could have been better, and then you move on.
I don’t think this frame of mind takes away your enjoyment, either. Everyone doesn’t like everything the same amount and in the same way, and understanding the whys and wherefores behind that can actually enhance your experience and broaden your parameters of what defines “quality”. I certainly enjoy classic works more now then before, simply because I understand more of what goes into writing such books.
Thanks for stopping by though, Roddles. Always fun with some passionate comments ^^
Agreed.