2000; 836 pages. New Author? : No. Book 2 (out of 10) in the “Malazan Book of the Fallen” series. Genre : Epic Fantasy (Wikipedia
calls it ‘High Fantasy’; same thing); Sword & Sorcery. Laurels : Top Ten Best Fantasy Novel of 2000
(SF Site). Overall Rating : 8½*/10.
The campaign was a success; the Malazan Empire
has won. The alliance called "The Seven
Cities" is now entirely in Malazan hands, their leaders deposed or worse, and all
who live in those cities are now subject to the will of the Empress Laseen. Her armies have fanned out throughout the
surrounding countryside, the vast deserts of Raraku, and woe to anyone with whom they cross paths. The price of even the slightest sign of resistance is death.
At least for the time being.
Because the reality is, the Malazan forces are few in number compared to the masses in the
Seven Cities area, and their links to the Empress and the capital city are
stretched to the point of being non-existent.
There are large masses of peasants in Raraku who seethe with subdued anger and chafe at the newly-imposed Malazan yoke.
In the swirling deserts, shadowy warlords
still lead wandering tribes that bow to no one. And of course, there are always the fickle
and squabbling gods to contend with. It
would only take a single spark to set the while region in flames, when the
Hunters and the Hunted may well find their roles reversed.
There is such a Spark and it goes by many names. The
Whirlwind. The Uprising. The Dryjhna.
The Rebellion. The Spark has
a face: Sha’ik, a woman, the leader of the rebellion, who is protected by
her zealot bodyguards, who call themselves "the Raraku Apocalypse".
It is in the Malazan Empire’s best interest to eliminate her at all
costs.
But if they kill her, will she stay dead?
What’s To Like...
Deadhouse Gates
expands the world introduced in Steven Erikson’s first book, Gardens of the Moon, which I read last July and is reviewed here. The action now takes further south, as
the Malazan Empire tries to cope with a huge grassroots uprising against its recent
conquests.
There are a slew of plotlines. The main
ones are: A.) Kalam and companions set out to kill the Empress Laseen. B.)
Felisin (who?) sets out to kill her sister. C.) The imperial historian Duiker and his companions seek safety by joining up with the remnants of the main Malazan army in the Seven Cities area. D.) Kalam sets out to deliver a
book to Sha’ik. E.) Mappo
and Icarium (who?) seek answers, although no one is ever quite sure what the questions
are. F.) Coltaine, the Fist of the 7th
Army, sets out on an impossible task: to relocate and safely deliver an insane number of refugees still loyal to the Empress, nicknamed the “Chain of Dogs”. Almost all of the aims of these plotlines change as the story transpires.
There are also a poopload of characters and Steven Erikson treats the
reader like an adult. He supplies three
maps (which once
again adon't show all the lands in the story) for reference sake, a four-page Cast
of Characters at the front of the book, and various other peoples, places,
ascendants, and assorted things in the back.
Beyond that, the reader is expected to keep things straight as he reads. I kept extensive notes.
The
tone of the book is dark and gritty.
War is hell on everyone it touches.
Good guys can lose and die, bad guys can win and live, and noble
aspirations do not increase your likelihood of surviving. Executions are bloody and graphic; civilians
are raped, children are slaughtered, and showing mercy to the enemy or civilians is unheard of. In short, this is not a book for
sensitive juvenile readers. Yet hope
persists even in the darkest of times.
There is an abundance of wit, which helps to balance out the gore. The characters are all various shades of
gray, and I always like that. Even
the gods are complex, gray, and oftentimes vulnerable. And although lots of characters die, that doesn't mean they won't pop up again somewhere.
I chuckled
at the cussing set-up: select a local god and add a body part. Some examples: Fener’s Hoof!, Togg’s feet!,
and Hood’s Breath! Other, more private body parts are also frequently used to form cuss phrases. I also
liked the Tarot-esque Deck of Dragons.
In a world of gods and magic, it was droll to see some of the characters
viewing fortune-telling as a con game.
There are quotes and/or prose to start each chapter, but those are one of the few things that didn’t wow me.
The ending is okay, but not spectacular.
Things end at a logical point in the saga, but it's little more than a lull
in the greater storyline, and many threads remain unresolved. This is not a standalone novel; Steven
Erikson assumes you have read Book One, or at the very least, will diligently look up new
characters in the front of the book.
There are 26 chapters covering 836 pages of text, but there are lots of scene-shifts in the chapters, so there's always a convenient place to stop for
the night.
Kewlest New Word ...
Refulgent (adj.)
: shining brightly.
Others:
Percipience (n.).
Excerpts...
Crokus dragged a
chair to the table, dropped into it and reached for the wine. “We’re tired of waiting,” he pronounced. “If we have to cross this damned land, then let’s
do it. There’s a steaming pile of
rubbish behind the garden wall, clogging up the sewage gutter. Crawling with rats. The air’s hot and so thick with flies you can
barely breathe. We’ll catch a plague if
we stay here much longer.”
“Let’s hope it’s
the bluetongue, then,” Kalam said.
“What’s that?”
“Your tongue
swells up and turns blue.”
“What’s so good
about that?”
“You can’t talk.”
(pg. 69)
“We’re being
hunted,” Kulp snapped, wrapping his arms around himself.
From where he sat
against a wall, Heboric laughed. He
raised his invisible hands. “Show me a
mortal who is not pursued, and I’ll show you a corpse. Every hunter is hunted, every mind that knows
itself has stalkers. We drive and are
driven. The unknown pursues the
ignorant, the truth assails every scholar wise enough to know his own
ignorance, for that is the meaning of unknowable truths.”
Kulp looked up
from where he sat on the low wall encircling the fountain, the lids of his eyes
heavy as he studied the ex-priest. “I
was speaking literally,” he said. “There
are living shapeshifters in this city.” (pg.
512)
“Quick Ben’s our shaved knuckle in the hole.” “Your what in the where?” (pg. 39)
I was expecting Deadhouse
Gates to be a sequel to Gardens of the Moon,
but that isn’t the case. A few of the
characters from Book One are here – Crokus, Apsalar, Kaslam, and even Moby –
but my favorites are MIA – Whiskeyjack, Quick Ben, Dujek Onearm, etc. This book starts a tangential storyline, and
I gather from the Wikipedia article that Book 3, Memories of Ice, is a continuation of the first book's tale.
At 836 pages, this is one of the shorter books in the series. Steven Erikson joins Brandon Sanderson and
the late Robert Jordan in adopting the habit of making each volume a bit longer
than the previous one. Of the remaining
eight books in this series, only one of them is less than 1,000 pages in length
I
have some serious reading yet to do in this series.
8½ Stars. The ending isn’t quite as climactic as in Gardens of the Moon, but Deadhouse
Gates was still an entertaining read.
Like Jordan and Sanderson, Steven Erikson can spin a lengthy, complex,
hard-to-follow story, eschew a wowee-zowee ending, and still leave the reader
thoroughly happy he read the book. It is a joy reading the work of a skilled writer.
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