The Bonehunters (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #6)
Steven Erikson
The Seven Cities Rebellion has been crushed. Sha'ik is dead. One last rebel force remains, holed up in the city of Y'Ghatan and under the fanatical command of Leoman of the Flails. The prospect of laying siege to this ancient fortress makes the battle-weary Malaz 14th Army uneasy. For it was here that the Empire's greatest champion Dassem Ultor was slain and a tide of Malazan blood spilled. A place of foreboding, its smell is of death. But elsewhere, agents of a far greater conflict have made their opening moves. The Crippled God has been granted a place in the pantheon, a schism threatens and sides must be chosen. Whatever each god decides, the ground-rules have changed, irrevocably, terrifyingly and the first blood spilled will be in the mortal world. A world in which a host of characters, familiar and new, including Heboric Ghost Hands, the possessed Apsalar, Cutter, once a thief now a killer, the warrior Karsa Orlong and the two ancient wanderers Icarium and Mappo, each searching for such a fate as they might fashion with their own hands, guided by their own will. If only the gods would leave them alone. But now that knives have been unsheathed, the gods are disinclined to be kind. There shall be war, war in the heavens.And the prize? Nothing less than existence itself... Here is the stunning new chapter in Steven Erikson magnificent 'Malazan Book of the Fallen' - hailed an epic of the imagination and acknowledged as a fantasy classic in the making.
No posts yet
Kick off the convo with a theory, question, musing, or update
Your rating:
How do you sum up your feelings on 1,200 pages in the middle of a series? The Bonehunters felt like a return home after Midnight Tides and an underwhelming (to me) House of Chains. The birth of the Bonehunters and their journey to the end of the novel may be my favorite storyline so far in all of the book. Following the fourteenth from an unconfident and tense group of disparate armies through the siege of Y'Ghatan to their stand at the end of the novel was just SO GOOD. The way Tavore is represented through other characters sussing her out made her involvement and motives so compelling, and I love where Erikson took her character and the story overall.
I'm pleasantly surprised in how much of the plot of this book I absorbed and understood (and even guessed one of the reveals??) compared to books 1 - 5. Having more of the storylines intersect as the book progressed helped me keep track of all the moving points of view and better see how they fit together and impact one another. In earlier books, it felt like certain plot points/characters/magic elements that were introduced wouldn't be relevant for another few books, but in the Bonehunters, there were more immediate payoffs that kept the story moving. Maybe because we had 1,200 pages to revisit them lol. Of course, there were aspects that still weren't resolved and characters that come and go out of seemingly nowhere, but that's a given in Malazan at this point.
My only two complaints about The Bonehunters are 1) I didn't care at all about the Cutter/Scillara/Felisin Younger storyline outside of Heboric, and 2) I didn't feel as though the overall theme of this book was as prevalent as others (Memories of Ice focusing on compassion, Midnight Tides dissecting family and greed). I do think, though, as I digest the entry more and think about it in context of the full series, I can see it becoming one of my favorites.
0
© 2024 Pagebound