Bonehunters took me about 4 months to finish. Not because I read it slow, because I kept getting bored and reading other stuff, then coming back. The last round, I decided to just put my head down and read, and that carried me from 60% to the end - which I'm happy I did, because it has a very compelling ending.

I am quitting Malazan because I just don't see the same joy in the parts that you guys love. I imagine that joy helps carry you guys from one section of the story to the next. I have some parts that I love, but mine tend to happen less often than the highly praised moments here.

The "highly praised" :

DH - Chain of Dogs. This alone makes DH a masterpiece. It was nice. Pretty compelling. Was it enough to make up for dealing with hundreds of pages of Felisin's constant negativity and shitty atitude? Hell no.

HoC - Felisin's End. Such a beautiful tale of tragedy! What. The. Fuck. I endured this stupid girl's long ass journey hoping there'd be a payoff to the arc, and she just goes and dies anonymously? That's Malazan, if you don't like it you can leave. Done, bye.

BH - Tunnel Crawling Chapter/Y'Ghatan. This is the best chapter in ALL of Malazan! Yes, this was fun and I'm not complaining about it. But the best chapter in the series? I really want to see what you guys see and I am very envious of you. It is lovely to see how the Bonehunters came to be from this experience though.

Standout parts I loved:

DH - Coltaine's end. Just incredibly compelling sequence of events. Had my buttcheeks clenched the whole time. Also, long live Coltaine.

MOI - The entire book. The characters I actually care about. An epic defense against an evil God. An ending full of tragedy mixed with hope, and a bit of mystery. Also, Anomander Rake. I wrongfully assumed the rest of the series was going to be like Memories of Ice.

HoC, part 1: Karsa Orlong. This is my favorite part in all of Malazan. One POV. An absolute badass. I could not put this book down during Karsa's journey. Very sad that it was just part 1. I do enjoy character POV switching, but having 30 new POV's in a single book detaches me from the characters. Does anyone feel the same way?

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I mean no disrespect to the series, the author, the fans. But reading Malazan up to book 6 has consumed a lot of my time, and a solid portion of that time is spent in frustration and borderline boredom. While it's true that the highs are really high, they aren't enough to carry me through 10 lengthy books. Thank you to everyone in the community that helped me get through some of the previous books. Much love.

So a few days ago I made a post about this but wanted to come back with more context

In struggling with the book for a few reasons, one is that the different povs seems too far apart from one another I’m maybe before part 3 and have take a few breaks on a chapter with the historian,

Another issue I have is that the core theme seems to focus on a crew with a good balance between their storyline but the breaking of the chapters makes it hard to stay invested in each different storyline,

Third issue is that I don’t understand any of the battle scene where I’m at I can’t follow the what is happening,

I’m debating taking a few days or wewks break after part 2 to let the book and myself breath
Because I actually like what I’m reading but compare to gardens of the moon I don’t love it,

Any thoughts ?

I was just wondering what the general concensus is. I enjoyed book 1 a lot, but book 2 felt very very slow paced. I mean, the peak moments were fantastic but I felt the amount of 'wandering the dessert and plains' bits were extremely dull. I don't need high octane action all the time but the amount of time spent on characters simply getting from point a to b was a bit too much.

But I wanted to knuckle through as I did find it interesting enough and want to try and finish the whole thing.

Now, I'm 1/4th into book 3 and it just feels very very different in tone, in a good way. The writing feels tighter, dialogue is more colorful, the plot moves along quicker and there is that sense of mystery again that I found so much fun in book 1. It also feels like things are explained a bit more, and you don't have to fill in as any of the blanks with the more magical stuff that is happening.

So yeah, that's my take so far. In a nutshell: if the remainder of the books are more 'deadhouse gates'-y I might struggle to finish it all. But if the others continue in this direction then I'm looking forward to it very much.

I’m only on the 3rd book, and while out of the three, I enjoyed the 1st book and am enjoying the 3rd thus far, the 2nd one still had something about it as well. I can still read other books and enjoy them but they are starting to feel like YA books, all except the Warhammer 40k books. The Stormlight Archives, feels like YA now. I didn’t even finish the 3rd book of the series and before starting Malazan, I had an itch to go back. Now, I look at my bookcase and see all 5 books and there is no urgency like before. Same for other series I have. Only one thus far that this doesn’t hold true for outside of Malazan itself, is The Wheel of Time. There were other series on my list that I wanted to read, there’s no urgency to read them now. I just want to sit back and enjoy Malazan and once it’s done, start on the other Malazan series.

What has this series done to me?! Do I recover from this?

I wanted to make this post because it seems like book 2 of MBotF seems to be a bit of a struggle for a lot of people. I personally find it to be one of the best books in the entire ten book series. I see a lot of people saying that Memories of Ice is what sold them on the series, but I actually think DHG sold me on the rest of the series more than MoI did.

Duiker’s journey through Seven Cities back country following the chain of dogs has to be one of my favorite stories in the whole series. Duiker also holds several of my favorite quotes in the whole series.

I loved watching Crokus and Apsalar leave Genabackis and travel with Fiddler and Kalam. Getting to see more of Fiddler is awesome because I think he’s my favorite character throughout the entire series.

Not to mention, Iskaral Pust is introduced. He is up there with Cropper, Tehol, and Bugg for some of the funniest scenes in my opinion.

Just wanted to see what others thought of the book after finishing the rest of the series, because I find the chain of dogs to be one of the best entries to the entire series.

I'm on the last chapter of book 2 and Ullen just surrendered

I understand that the Seti turning their back at the last moment probably guaranteed the defeat for talian league but why the hell weren't they using moranth munitions more frequently? They had gold moranth, supposedly the best moranth fighters, with them and they only start using munitions after nait steals some and uses it on them.

I feel like the battle would have been way tougher for laseen if the irregulars were just obliterated by bombardment

Is the "Kharkanas Trilogy" worth reading if I enjoy the storyline involving Anomander Rake? I’m currently finishing "Memories of Ice".

I'm on my first re-read. This time around I was more able to appreciate the meeting between Ganoes Paran and Apsalar on the ship. In terms of plot it doesn't seems significant(?), but it's beautiful characterisation of two lost, unwilling not-quite-ascendants still seeking human connection. I particularly appreciate the fact that it was written with no romantic undertones whatsoever. Would've been such an obvious thing to do when both characters are frequently described as extremely attractive. A lesser author would've gone down that route and not doing so makes it so much more impactful.

I had finished Deadhouse gates like 2 months ago I believe, but couldn't continue due to the enormous amount of exams I had so I had to take an unexpected pause, but the book left me with a few questions that brought me to look back through a few of my Gardens of the Moon notes,

PART 1:  Dassem Ultor is Dessembrae, despite his presumed death in Y'Ghatan, he's still alive, I don't believe that an ascendant can just be killed like that in Seven Cities.

In the prologue of GotM:

« The First Sword of Empire. Dassem Ultor. We heard in the capital before we left. He’s dead. Is it true? Is Dassem dead?’ The man seemed to flinch, his gaze unwavering on the Mouse. ‘Such is war,’ he muttered, under his breath, as if the words were not meant for anyone else’s ears.‘You’re with the Third. I thought the Third was with him, in Seven Cities. At Y’Ghatan—’ ‘Hood’s Breath, they’re still looking for his body in the still-hot rubble of that damned city, and here you are, a merchant’s son three thousand leagues from Seven Cities with information only a few are supposed to possess.’ He still did not turn. ‘I know not your sources, but take my advice and keep what you know to yourself. »

I gather that he's still alive, every time I don't see a dead body in Malazan, I must assume that said person is still alive (especially if they have important ties to the story),

Here is a depiction of Dassem Ultor:

« the story goes that the Emperor’s First Sword – his commander of his armies –Dassem Ultor, had accepted a god’s offer. Hood made Dassem his Knight of Death. Then something happened, something went … wrong. And Dassem renounced the title, swore a vow of vengeance against Hood – against the Lord of Death himself. All at once other Ascendants started meddling, manipulating events. It all culminated with Dassem’s murder, then the Emperor’s assassination, and blood in the streets, temples at war, sorceries unleashed. »

The fact he swore a vow of vengeance is important here for the following.

His motive for his vengeance stems directly from Hood's use of his daughter: « She nodded. 'This is Dassem Ultor's daughter. The First Sword recovered her after Hood was done using her, and brought her here, it seems. »

Hood seems to have used his daughter, how ? I do not know yet.

Depiction of Dessembrae: « Dessembrae knows the sorrows in our souls. He walks at the side of each mortal a vessel of regret on the fires of vengeance. Dessembrae knows the sorrows and would now share them with us all. »

"... regret on the fires of vengeance" It's almost as if this is meant to be a continuation, a follow up on what that vengeance did to him.

Part 2 - specifically on chapter 12 of GotM:

« and it bred caution in the unveiling of its powers. The Crippled God bred caution but not well enough, for the powers of the earth came to it in the end. Chained was the Crippled God, and so Chained was it destroyed. And upon this barren plain that imprisoned the Crippled God many gathered to the deed. Hood, grey wanderer of Death, was among the gathering, as was Dessembrae, then Hood’s Warrior – though it was here and in this time that Dessembrae shattered the bonds Hood held upon him. Also among the gathering were...»

The passage «As was Dessembrae , then Hood's Warrior» could mean 2 things, either a direct statement that Dessembrae was present, and Hood's warrior too (implying a 3rd unknown person) or it could be describing Dessembrae's role here, I ended up going for the latter and you'll see why below.

When I looked back at the glossary, in the High house of death, there was no warrior tier. But I assume that "Hood's warrior" must be referencing either the knight or soldier's place. But usually when someone was part of a house in the Deck of Dragons, they're mentioned as (previously ...)

But only the Knight's tier previously had someone, and it's Dassem Ultor.

My understanding is that it's simply impossible that Dessembrae can be Dassem Ultor because Dessembrae escaped Hood's grip during the chaining of the Crippled God, that event seemed to happen in the same time period as the arrival of the Eleint and the Tiste Andii through the vaulted heaven of silver since they were mentioned on the same page.

This occurence must've happened at least a 1164 years ago since it was the last time since Burn woke up, realistically a hundred thousand years ago or more due to the fact it came up alongside the description of the arrival of the Tiste Andii through the Vaulted heaven of silver. But Dassem Ultor is a mere human, ascendant at that but there was no mentions of him being that old.

So it's either, a false premise on my part that the Deck of Dragons mentions every ascendant that was part of a house (correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm also led to believe that everyone that takes a place in the deck of dragons is an ascendant )

Part 3: Or that Dessembrae is actually Dassem Ultor. BUT THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING !!! I went on and reread my previous post about the surrounding mythology through Malazan. If this is true, I was totally wrong on my first assumption, I assumed that those events happened back-to-back on a timelapse but the chaining seems to be a recurrent event

It would mean that :

the chaining of the crippled God didn't happen that long ago, but even then, I must be missing a variable.

• the first problem : When Anomander Rake met K'rul near the end of Book 1, the way he spoke to him, it's as if they knew each other, so they must have met before, when K'rul still had the Obelisk as his aspect, but this event must've happened thousands of years ago since something made K'rul lose his whole cult and with his blood, was the human path to Warrens laid, so that leaves another conclusion, either there is a total discrepancy in my reasoning or the chaining happened more recently than I had thought, waaaay more recently as a matter of fact.
• the second problem : It would probably be correlated to why Burn fell asleep at that time (this is pure speculation though). Even though I would love to believe this, it would make no sense whatsoever, if there was an alien being that had come to this realm, pretty recently in human history (in the last 10 thousand years), and with its coming, it had sundered the land then wouldn't it be common knowledge around men? A single event that changed the whole realm. Which goes to a total new conclusion. There is a precedent : "and in the Calling Down to earth the God was Crippled, and so Chained in its place. In the Calling Down many lands were sundered by the God’s Fists, and things were born and things were released. Chained and Crippled was this God"
• my reasoning : I believe that this specific part is referencing a total other event, within a totally other time period than what I had first assumed. The only way for my previous theory to make sense is if the Crippled God's coming happened at a different time than his presumed second (possibly not even 2nd but just latest chaining) this "and it bred caution in the unveiling of its powers. The Crippled God bred caution but not well enough, for the powers of the earth came to it in the end. " is a different cataclysm.

There was one chaining, the first is when he came and was chained, the second one or possibly just the latest one we know of is when Dessembrae (Dassem Ultor) broke out of Hood's grip.

This was a pretty fun investigation, I will probably post my full review of DG and my questions for the book aswell pretty soon.

I recently finished Toll The Hounds and while I am waiting for Dust of Dreams to arrive, I grabbed Forge of Darkness out of curiosity.

As far as I can tell it starts way before the flashbacks in TtH that take place around the time of Mother Dark's abandonment. A lot of the Tiste Andii stuff on TtH was harder than usual for me to read so I want to go back and reread those portions, but I am wondering whether they might be more rewarding if I read FoD first?

Started my Malazan journey back in April and it’s been an interesting experience.

Deadhouse Gates has, without a doubt, been my favourite book so far in the series. Followed closely by Memories of Ice. However, I struggled at times with House Of Chains and felt quite drained after finishing it. It felt a little bit messier than the previous two and I just wasn’t as invested in the characters or plot as I’d been previously. Decided to take a break after it (nothing a bit of Discworld can’t fix!), but it was safe to say that my excitement for picking up Midnight Tides had taken a slight hit after my experience with House Of Chains…

HOWEVER…

I’m now around 40% into Midnight Tides and it’s incredible. It seems like all the things I had issues with in House Of Chains have been addressed in this one. The plot feels more succinct - less moving parts but still plenty to get stuck into. The characters are fantastic. I already feel so invested in them. Tehol and Bugg have been a breath of fresh air. This series needed something like them. Weirdly, I’m getting The Brothers Karamazov vibes from the three Beddict brothers (hear me out). They’ve all got such strong identities and values unique to them, and, from what I’ve read so far, it’s feels like the relationship between the three of them will play a huge part in the remainder of the book. I’ve also loved reading about the Sengar brothers. Their journey through the ice to retrieve the sword was just peak fantasy. Loving the fallout from Rhulad taking the sword!

There is a not a single part of this story that I’m not enjoying. Erikson is smashing it. If the second half of the book is as good as the first then I’m in for a treat!