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.

(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.

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

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!

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.

So this may seem an odd one. Due to my commute, I always read these books in 45 minute chunks, which at my reading pace is almost always exactly right to read one chapter. It's perfect.

However, I am halfway through Bonehunters and the chapter length has changed. Standard chapters now take me an hour, and I'm in the middle of Chapter 7 which is absurdly long.

Do the chapter lengths shorten back again? Or do they stay at the new longer length?

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.

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...

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?

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.

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!