This whole scene feels very different from the rest of the Bonehunters.

Two lonely people meeting at night on a ship, pretending they don't know about each other and talking freely about themselves? There's definitely much more to say about this scene but it's kind of hard to put it into words for me, but I'll reread it later and try to digest every part of it. I very much liked this scene and I wonder why Erikson made them pretend not to know about each other.

Returning fantasy reader here (10-year hiatus, Malazan pulled me back in). My wife is reading fantasy for the first time ever, started after I’d read GotM and oversold her on it 🙂

These are her notes. Five books in and the tabs have tabs. I’m just going through and mind-mapping everything.

so veterans: how do you keep track? Or do you care at all heh.

p.s. reading together and talking through each big moment and chapter is such a great experience. wouldn’t enjoy it half as much otherwise. Would recommend anyone to join some groups on read-alongs

Welp, I guess I'll continue my tradition of making a post here every handful of months whenever I get around to finishing another volume (I posted about Midnight Tides here). I don't know what I was expecting when I picked up Gardens of the Moon something like 3 years ago, but I feel like I'm finally starting to see what all the hype was about. The other books were good, of course, but it feels like things are *really* coming together here.

This book was actually one of my favorites thus far. I'd probably rank it as my second favorite behind Deadhouse Gates. The reason I liked it so much was because it had some really crazy imaginative sequences, and I felt like we were finally getting some progress on characters like Karsa and Icarium (even if nothing *really* happened there). The entire sequence with Y'Ghatan being ablaze blew me away, there were several times where I thought "okay, we're taking a bunch of people off the board here, right?" But then most of the main cast made it! It was really exciting, and that wasn't even half way through the book.

Apsalar has started to grow on me, which I guess is good considering how things went for Kalam in this one. I love the way Erikson writes assassin archetypes, and I think that those two characters have pretty much become the ones that I'm always excited to see on the page. The action sequences involving them were really fun, and I also think the image of this hunk of muscle blurring and taking down dozens of seasoned assassins is thrilling, if a bit over-the-top (which is fine, it's fantasy).

That being said, I was really sad to see Kalam go down the way he did, and by such a piece of garbage too. I get that this series isn't "Malazan Book of Survivors", but it was still disappointing. I could see that there was some interesting stuff going on with his body and I almost felt like Shadowthrone (or whoever that was gloating at the end) was teasing the reader with that last scene. Maybe I'm a bit slow on the uptake, but I almost feel like Cotillion and Shadowthrone are trying to set up some sort of counter-pantheon to go up against The Crippled God? Or something like that? The particular rules (if any) around how people ascend or how death can be cheated are still pretty fuzzy to me, and I'm inclined to imagine they'll stay fuzzy for me throughout the series.

I was also a bit confused with Laseen, and what exactly she's playing at. She seems to be aware that her advisors and those closest to her are vultures and can't be trusted, yet she's also content to let them completely hang Tavore and the 14th, which makes me believe that she doesn't have a choice and is, herself, trapped. I guess the message is that Empress is just a title? How are things *so* messy on the mainland when there's all this crazy stuff going on with Rhulad and The Crippled God and Karsa and Icarium and Oponn and whoever else I can't remember? What a wild ride.

Big shoutouts to this community and people who write up the various summaries and chapter guides. These chapters are super meaty and long and it's nice to be able to read a chapter, then make sure I've parsed it all with a guide. Thanks!

Anyone else get major Holden Caufield vibes from Filbin? Traumatized teenager projecting his BS on
everyone around him, a narrow nihilistic perspective of the world and a lot of growing up to do. Felt to me like Erikson’s repudiation of the edgy archetype.

LoB for sure has its faults, but the post-postmodern (post-post postmodern?) commentary throughout is a lot of fun.

Just realised upon a week after finishing TtH, Anomander Rake's last act nearly mirrors Iktovian's in a way.

Freeing a people of a great burden. Both sacrificing themselves in great acts of kindness.

What beautifully tragic poetry. Do you think this was intentional?

Gonna cry again...

After having thread some more steps into the dense world of magical fuckery, political plans within plans within plans, and grimdark action and magic systems that is Malazan, I am very happy to have found this series, the mixture of disparate plotlines that all converge into main conflict (wich i for now assume is Crippled god Vs Burn's alliance), high fantasy and metaphysical concepts (Dreamwalking, Worlds within Minds, magic originating from Corpses(?? K'rull's body being the source of all Warrens) as well as some good old violence and depravity makes for an extremely engaging read after all the pieces get going.

Would currently rank this as my second favorite after DeadHouse Gates, it took me a bit more to get attached to the characters, some, I ended up really enjoying and becoming one of my favorites int he series, the overall GOAT Itkovian. But it took me a while to "care" about him and his struggle, this book introduced a lot of new factions, races, interpersonal conflicts and untill about the Siege of Capustan, I was mostly reading for Tattersail/Silverfox, Quick Ben, Paran, Bridgeburners and Kruppe.

There where some new introductions that immediately grabbed me, Lady Envy and Ormulogun being a standouts, but some of the side-characters still feel a bit underdeveloped even after finishing (The necromancers, Hetan, Draconus, The Seguleh Trio, Undead Dragon Soletaken Imass), but I still enjoyed the flavour they added to the story, and I assume they will continue to be developed in the coming books, SOMEONE PLEASE KILL THE NECROMANCERS AND FREE EMANCIPOR REESE

It feels like a new phase of the story is about to start, there has definetely been a shift with the power levels and scales of the threats, Lady Symtal's Fete, The Tyrant and the battle at Pale feel extremely quaint compared to The Streets battles atop piles of dead bodies, undead dinossaurs with blade hands, Buildings of mangled flesh so dense that they insulate it against fire, 300 thousand Tenescowri circling Capustan crying out in murderous hunger, Moonspawn Shadow Nuking Coral and a lot of the inner workings of the world starting to be Unveiled.

Random thoughts and favorite moments:

Is the servant of Hood Baudain? Based on what he said about his previous assignment it seems like he was talking about Felisin.

I was living for any crumbs relating to Fellisin and 7 cities, very interesting to learn why Fener was brought down to the mortal world, makes me worried for Heboric, I cant imagine having a bit of the Warren of Chaos sealed into one of his hands being any good for his long term sanity.

Parran clearly seeing how Lorne was attempting to sabe Fellisin was very tragic, I do not doubt he will eventually cross paths with either of them and the drama will be very juicy is Lorne manages to learn about how Felisin turned out.

This and Deadhouse take place concurrently correct? The rat-bat familiar seemed to be informing the Daru in real time about what was happening during the fall of 7 cities, and also explains the large ammount of time it spent away from the group. I'm conviced its a Soletaken, but I wonder who he is.

Where the fuck is the Queen of Dreams?!, it seems like in a world where if you have enough power Thoughts = Material Reality the goddess of dreams would have her hands in all sorts of pies. Did she lose her power to make Burn Sleep? Is she somewhere in Burns dream holding the world up like Atlas?, The way K'rull looked at Kruppe during some of his scenes, makes me think that Kruppe is somehow related to her.

Another book, another bromance for the ages, Rake and WhyskeyJack's burgeoning short-lived friendship was a great read, and the scene where Korlat and another Malazan(was it Dujek?) look on from the darkness while being like "He made a friend, thats beautiful", was hilarious.

Even with all the darkness this book had, there was a lot of comedy, Emancipor Reese was a delight, as well as picker, the 2 bodyguards for Silverfox, and Kruppe always lit up my face.

Toc's section living among the Tenescowri was one of my favorite parts of the book, the entire Children of the Dead Seed, and Pannion Domin as a concept was extremely interesting to read, an empire made to only sustain itself on the border of its conquest, enslaving people with the intermingling of hunger, Violence, Despair and Sexuality. One thing i wished we saw the first "Embrasure" seeing how and why the people where so willing to become the Tenescowri and Children of the Dead Seed, although I assume Chaos warren corruption of the mind, or some "stuffing" like with the condors might have been a thing. Great Villain faction, and I hope the Chained Ones future gambits at taking control are as depraved as this one. 10/10 no notes, Annasarimbur Kellhus and The Consult would both be proud.

What is the Chained Gods end goal? Killing the elder gods? Taking the spot of the "Dreamer" by killing burn and make a world where he is in control? Out of all the gods he is the most interesting one and cant wait to learn more about his schemes.

Erikson can really paint a picture with his prose, since Gardens, his descriptions have always been really good, but one of his best was when Buke became a sparrow and saw the Siege from Above, that and the second meeting of the Imass had an immense sense of scale.

Hopes and predictions for House of Chains.

Parran blesses the Crippled god

7 Cities PoVs, either Shaik/Felisin or Lorne, although it would be fun seeing the conflict trough other perspectives.

Maybe Heboric becomes corrupted by TCG, or learns to wield the Chaos Warren in a non-destructive way.

Onos and more Imass PoVs, seems like the humans that killed 2 entire T'lan clans will be major players in the games of the gods and anscendants, could they be the Crippled God's second gambit?

Hopefully we get to see more Sorry/Apsalah and Crokus.

Also very interested in seeing how the nu-tenescowri evolve with reincarnated Anaster-Toc leading them.

Hasten to Dunsparrow when she noted her regret at a certain assassin's current status... " he's not dead woman! " Just found it funny that Hasten was so thrown that she just assumed he had died because he wasn't in the "business" anymore. Made me laugh. Also made it abundantly clear who Hasten actually is!

Anyone else with notable lines?

There is a new version of World of Warcraft launching next week, and today was the first day of character name reservations. I thought I was being clever by trying to reserve some Malazan names, but most of the ones that I tried were already taken within the first 5 minutes.

Quick Ben, Caladan Brood, Iskaral Pust, Icarium Lifestealer, Karsa Orlong, Kalam Mekhar, and more - all gone!

I ended up snagging Hannan Mosag for my warlock, and Adaephon Delat for my mage. I'm curious if anyone here locked in a good Malazan name!

Hello, heard lots of things about this series and i think it’ll be right up my alley. I bought a few of the books but i’ve come across one of the books is quite expensive. I like all my books to match in sizes and covers and i’ve also saw someone they’re reprinting them? where would i get the reprints and also are they the small ones or the “trade paperback” size? i prefer the trade paperback because they look better on my shelf. I wanna see the new art also that comes with the reprint. also what is the id number of the new reprinted set so i can look out for them. Thanks in advance

Just finished crippled god and feel underwhelmed. I feel like it was one of my least favorite books in the series and the ending felt so rushed/unexplained why certain choices were made. So many storylines, characters that felt so choppy in my opinion.

They steal the crippled gods heart and take it…. Where? Why?? The point of that was…?? Heboric comes back to save the crippled god, the bone hunters sacrifice all book only for Cotillion to come in and kill the crippled god? And fiddler, quick and kalam to be like “this was the plan” what!? Since when!? Then The Tavore and Paran reunion is like a paragraph.

FWIW I have 3 kids under 5 and my reading time has been so inconsistent so maybe that has something to do with it but I just feel so unsatisfied and disappointed which I was not expecting. I did love the Stormy and Gessler storyline though.

After 8.5 years, I’m just 14% away from completing TCG! I’ve spent the last two days reading in beautiful Oahu, Hawaii, what an incredible journey it’s been. The last two books might just be my favorites so far. I know a reread would be amazing, but I just don’t have the energy and time right now. These books have always been a bit of a challenge for me because of their length and depth.

First off, please no future spoilers when responding.

Secondly, like my title said, wtf...

Pormqual. Seriously, I have not been this angry at a character in probably decades. He did my boy Coltaine dirty. Just watching on that wall like a little (insert many bad words here).

All I'm thinking is that Rake, get in your Cybertron moon-base, fly over to Aren, and use that massive sword of eternal torment and suffering on Pormqual asap. Red Wedding his ass. Family, friends, someone who said "Hi" to Pormqual on the street. Anyone remotely associated with him. Dead.

I cannot believe what a spineless piece of crap Pormqual is.

In other news, I hope Felisin meets her sister again. That should also be fireworks.

The storms that sometimes appear in the wasteland to kill people. Who is responsible?

I am not talking about the one Draconus creates when he returns(badass scene by the way)

Are the Nahruk responsible? The Elder gods?

Or is the Wasteland just dangerous?

(From a blog post I wrote recently).

First, we have Bugg, your personal AI assistant. A sea of knowledge lies behind his deadpan humour. Just be careful with what you ask for, he’s not exactly behind guardrails. You could have lunch at Kruppe’s Delights, near the Pentagon. The owner might come off as a bit weird, referring to himself in third person and all, but Kruppe assures you his pastries are worth the wait.

There’s also Hedge & Associates, a construction company. Great for knockdown rebuilds. And if you’re good with numbers, consider applying to Beddict Capital, an HFT firm. They’re so good, they made a killing at the Letheras stock exchange. But if you have an idea for a startup, you have to steer clear of Sengar Partners, the VC firm. The current leadership is known to be… unstable.

Out of shape? Get fit at Tarthenal Fitness, a gym network. Can’t step out but still need to do cardio? Try Simtal. Members-only, popular with government employees. Discretion comes standard.

The clever folks at Forkrul, the robotics company, are still figuring out the joints. They thought of calling themselves K’Chain Che’Malle at first, but somehow that felt too sharp. They’re good customers of Tool’s Hardware, part of the Imass Group of Companies.

There’s a boutique lights company called Thyr Luminaires further up the street. The owner’s partner runs a cybersecurity firm named Meanas Collective. And his brother has a curtains company, Rashan Draperies. Some people say there was also a sister named Mockra, but no one knows what happened to her.

I'm sure this is a story that has been posted here many times before but I finally understand how amazing this series is. I've tried for around 9 years to get into it, and even managed to make it all the way to memories of ice, but it just never really "clicked" for me. This time though, I think because I absorbed so much info about the Malazan world through osmosis, I have been able to read it and actually enjoy the story and the characters without having to go to the wiki every 5 minutes to look something up. I have found that this is one of the most well written and thought out book series I have ever read, and I'm only on the first re read of gardens of the moon. I was looking for something to capture my interest after I finished the entire first law series, and I have definitely found it.

I always thought malazan is very anime

Been a journey all right.

Started the series several years ago reading one of two a year. This year I read 7-10 determined to finally finish it.

It did not disappoint. Been reading fantasy for many years and this series has had so many incredible scenes.

It's not an easy read just because of the sheer scale of it all but it is so worth keeping going till the end.

Hello. First of all, English is not my native language, so if you spot some grammatical/stylistic mistakes, please excuse me. Malazan is one of my favorite epic fantasy series of all time. Over the past few years, however, I've noticed a significant shift in discourse and tone of this sub (for the worse), which I'd like to discuss:

1. All the "when book x gets good?", "50% into book y and it is a slog, please tell me it gets better" or other reaffirmation seeking posts need stricter moderation. In recent months, this sub has been flooded with these threads. Even in one day you'd see 3-4 of these pop up. Make a "general new readers Q&A/discussion" thread and pin it to the top. I know one of the reasons these posts stay open is because they, supposedly, increase engagement in an already niche place. However, I see people, some even longtime fans, actually leaving this sub because of this (just in the last month the amount of, both, members and visitors decreased by 7-8k; the 'Bonehunters' count went from 41k to 32k). It's actually quite sad and demoralizing. Why should someone ever visit this sub again, when a good amount of new posts are continuously like these? It gets extremely tiresome after a while.
2. Same can be said about the "After x amount of books, this is where I stop" posts. What's there to discuss? Reply "oh, please don't go, it gets good after x or y" or "ok, bye"? Seldom you'll change someone's mind. Absolutely pointless.
3. To those who might get a wrong impression, I'm in no way asking to silence people who have constructive criticism or may express subjective grievances. Quite the opposite actually. Although, some of these discussions may go a bit out of hand and descend into ugly 'war of words' that goes nowhere. Either OP will stubbornly not relent (for example getting a reasonable explanation/answer) or someone in the comments will bully the author of a post by belittling him/her (the infamous 'you're not smart' responses). Again, these threads need stricter moderation and once it reaches that boiling point, lock it up.
4. And now for the saddest part. Malazan is RIPE for discussion. Theories/speculations/mysteries, lore, world, history, narrative choices, military campaigns and logistics, thematic exploration and philosophy, characters, metaphysics and cosmology, etc. Unfortunately, these types of discussions are becoming less and less frequent. I understand, that not everyone has read all the prequels, sequels, Esslemont novels, heck, even, SE's main 10, but to see such lack of engagement in that direction is certainly depressing. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing 'first impressions' posts of those who are experiencing the series for the first time, but a Malazan veteran, like myself, would love to see more posts/essays that dive a little bit deeper into the works of SE and ICE. Alas, these are pretty much non-existent.
5. Shout out to the folks at r/Dust_of_Memes. Keep those memes coming.

Thank you for reading and sorry if some of my thoughts and opinions sound a bit harsh.

Just finished Reaper’s Gale. I generally enjoyed the ending, but one thing doesn’t make sense / resonate with me. When Trull dies(which is terrible to be as the reader), Hedge and Quick Ben are super angry and upset. Generally I think Erikson earns these kind of reactions, but those characters didn’t really know each other well at all. Quick calls in a favor with Hood for a guy he barely knew? I just don’t get that. Of all the deaths of people they’ve known, why are they so distraught about this one? Maybe I’m just forgetting something which is very possible.

I gave Dust of Dreams two stars out of five once i finished it. No other Malazan book was such a struggle for me: the plots felt disconnected, the buildup exhausting, the themes felt repetitive, most of the POV characters i didn't care anything about, and I couldn’t see where any of it was going.

Erikson’s preface warned me, though: this is the first half of one massive, roughly 2,400 page finale. Apparently, I needed to actually believe him.

Every Malazan novel to me had this phase where i kinda struggled to connect with characters, or accepting the new direction or environment the story was moving onto, but at a certain moment everything clicked, pieces falled into place and all of it was worth it, ALL OF IT.

Now I’m 160 pages into The Crippled God, and everything has suddenly clicked. All that buildup, sweat, and struggle is paying off. I'm loving every second in it, and any of it would be possible without the work done in book 9.

Sorry, Mr. Erikson. I should’ve trusted the process. Fantasy GOAT. And sorry to all of the bros i fighted beneath my posts, i can't stand with superficial comments... but... I UNDESTRAND IT NOW!!!! ONTO THE ENDING LESSGOOOOO

First time reader. I just finished Chapter 9 and I think this is where things started to really take off for me. The way everything builds to that scene with Toc, Lorn, Tattersail, and Dujek with Paran chilling in the Ward is just amazing.

I could not put it down!

I can't wait to finish this book and continue the series.

Since we know who hasten thenu is, do we think anyone we know from the prior books is shiny horribal? Wonder if they'd bring any of the old bridgeburners to protect dunsparrow

I am planning to re-read Malazan. I read it years ago and loved it, though I know it is an investment. I know I likely missed a lot in the first read so want to take my time a bit more on the second read. Any advice for keeping track of all of the threads without getting bombarded with spoilers on wikis and guides (It has been long enough that a lot of it will feel new again)? I found a thread on this from 5 years ago. Curious whether people’s go-to resources have changed since then. On the first read I only read MBotF, this time I want to expand to NotME as well.