House of Chains (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #4)
Steven Erikson
An alternate cover edition can be found here. In Northern Genabackis, a raiding party of savage tribal warriors descends from the mountains into the southern flatlands. Their intention is to wreak havoc amongst the despised lowlanders, but for the one named Karsa Orlong it marks the beginning of what will prove to be an extraordinary destiny. Some years later, it is the aftermath of the Chain of Dogs. Tavore, the Adjunct to the Empress, has arrived in the last remaining Malazan stronghold of Seven Cities. New to command, she must hone twelve thousand soldiers, mostly raw recruits but for a handful of veterans of Coltaine's legendary march, into a force capable of challenging the massed hordes of Sha'ik's Whirlwind who lie in wait in the heart of the Holy Desert. But waiting is never easy. The seer's warlords are locked into a power struggle that threatens the very soul of the rebellion, while Sha'ik herself suffers, haunted by the knowledge of her nemesis: her own sister, Tavore. And so begins this awesome new chapter in Steven Erikson's acclaimed Malazan Book of the Fallen.
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0Specific to HOC, I'm very conflicted about this one. There are a lot of shining moments, but also a lot of slogs.
House of Chains' best quality is the buddy team ups and banter between all our favorite characters - <spoiler>Fiddler/the Bridgeburners, a Kelam/Quick reunion, Trull Sengar/Onrack, Lostara/Pearl</spoiler>. The banter is so so funny, but we also get these beautiful reflections on compassion, 'humanity,' vengeance, purpose, and fate. The flip side to this is that the middle ~400 pages of this book really dragged on for me. While I enjoyed the character-centric moments, it felt like the plot stalls a bit at their expense. Similarly, I loved Book 1 and the focus on Karsa. It showed Steve's writing off in a more focused way, and his subversion of expectations really keeps me on my toes. But then the shift back to multi-POV in book 2 was so jarring. This could also be a reflection of my poor memory of Deadhouse Gates having read it about 3-4 months prior. I had such a hard time keeping up with all of the moving parts, and with limited plot progression in some of the POVs it was like reaching way further back to understand the current revelations. This is a struggle in parts of his other works, but it felt especially notable in the middle of HOC.
I also like that each series installment has a general theme, and while heavyhanded at times, I loved seeing how Erikson represented (often literally) the theme of chains across different characters and storylines. The view of vengeance and hatred as their own chains via Felisin and Karsa was especially compelling.
In true Erikson fashion, we get new characters, new elder races, new info on warrens and gods and the first empire. I understood about 65% of it which I feel is as expected for a first readthrough.
I'm going to only take about 2 weeks off before Midnight Tides and see if that helps with my comprehension of that book.
Excited for what's to come!
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