House of Chains
Mar. 8th, 2014 08:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearThis is the fourth Malazan Book of the Fallen novel, by Steven Erikson, a series of truly epic proportions - ten books, mostly over 1000 pages each, cast of thousands, plot strands within plot strands - you get the idea...
I actually started reading this book on Christmas Day, but have been very easily distracted lately and read another three in between times and only finished House of Chains last Monday. This is not a suggestion of diminishing quality in the series - far from it, this book had so much incredibly important plot stuff in it, that I'm still reeling, and it was fully as immersive as the previous three.
Yet again, it started with an entirely new group of characters, one of whom became vitally important to the denouement. But it still had some old favourites as well, along with so many different factions that it was, as ever, difficult to keep track or remember details of what had come before. This latter quality of the books isn't off-putting, though - even when I can't quite figure out what's going on, it's still really, really good. What I particularly liked about this one was that it culminated in a conflict that has been building up for some time - and there were sympathetic and unsympathetic characters aplenty on both sides. I had no idea what was going to happen, or which side I wanted to win, and what actually transpired was genius in its complexity, pathos, tragedy and triumph.
I am in awe of this writer and loving the fact that I still have six more books to go!
I actually started reading this book on Christmas Day, but have been very easily distracted lately and read another three in between times and only finished House of Chains last Monday. This is not a suggestion of diminishing quality in the series - far from it, this book had so much incredibly important plot stuff in it, that I'm still reeling, and it was fully as immersive as the previous three.
Yet again, it started with an entirely new group of characters, one of whom became vitally important to the denouement. But it still had some old favourites as well, along with so many different factions that it was, as ever, difficult to keep track or remember details of what had come before. This latter quality of the books isn't off-putting, though - even when I can't quite figure out what's going on, it's still really, really good. What I particularly liked about this one was that it culminated in a conflict that has been building up for some time - and there were sympathetic and unsympathetic characters aplenty on both sides. I had no idea what was going to happen, or which side I wanted to win, and what actually transpired was genius in its complexity, pathos, tragedy and triumph.
I am in awe of this writer and loving the fact that I still have six more books to go!
