Orb Sceptre Throne (Malazan Empire 4) [Hardcover]

Quick run through: better writing than the past three books, but still large chunks of stilted passages, "telling instead of showing", unsubtle characters and some moronic non-answers regarding the Tyrant. The Seguleh arc wavered at times between great, good and not good, while big portions of the Moon's Spawn storyline and Darujhistan characters' arcs were very good. ICE showed a nice willingness to build up and/or kill off some characters (although several of the fighting/war scenes were dumb - even for fantasy). The Shore of Creation storyline remains a question mark - much like the manner in which Greymane was used in Stonewielder.

Also, who in the eff is on the cover? It is literally Generic Fantasy Guy. Only realistic option I see is Corian Lim, who would be a truly bizarre choice as a cover character for this book.

ICE needs to find a more challenging editor. The talent and imagination is there, but he's allowed to be too complacent about not providing substance in crucial spots and the prose is not consistent at all.

I am actually considering jumping ship on this author and I'm an enormous Malazan junkie. This is four books, with three being full novels, by ICE and these problems are not going away. There needs to be a radical shake-up or he's going to chug along exactly as he's going right now.

With the Pannion Seer defeated, the Jaghut Tyrant Raest imprisoned and peace declared with the Malazans, the beleaguered citizens of Darujhistan are finally hoping for a time of peace and prosperity. Of course, this is the perfect time for an ancient force of unspeakable evil to escape from the barrows outside the city and unleash a new age of chaos and war across most of Genabackis. This war will draw in the Moranth and the Seguleh, the Rhivi and the remnants of the Malazan armies still stationed on the continent. Far to the south, treasure hunters are looting the crashed ruins of Moon's Spawn, searching for the storied Throne of Night, whilst in another realm hunters are searching for the missing High Mage Tayschrenn at the very Shores of Creation. But the fate of Darujhistan, Genabackis and maybe the world will rest in the hands of one fat thief and a bunch of Malazan deserters who want nothing more than to run their pub in peace.

Orb Sceptre Throne is Ian Cameron Esslemont's fourth entry into the Malazan world, expanding on the novels written by his friend and collaborator Steven Erikson. It's an interesting book in that, unlike Esslemont's previous novels which largely focused on new characters, this novel extensively features characters Erikson has used and developed in several previous books, most notably the curiously-dictioned Kruppe. This poses challenges for Esslemont, but thankfully he overcomes them with aplomb. Kruppe occasionally feels a bit off, but most of the other shared characters (Caladan Brood, Duiker, the ex-Bridgeburners, Torvald and Rallick Nom and more) come across very well.

The narrative is, as is typical with Malazan, somewhat disjointed, with several apparently unconnected storylines unfolding before converging at the end. This disconnect seems more pronounced than is normal for Esslemont and is briefly worrying, since he has far less page-time to play around with than Erikson (despite being almost exactly 600 pages long in hardcover, this is the one of the shortest books in the series). However, as the storylines move together and things start making sense, the book picks up a tremendous momentum. The second half of the novel is stuffed full of battles, plot revelations and character moments that are satisfyingly epic. By using elements familiar to readers from other books, Esslemont is able to imbue events with more meaning than would otherwise be the case. When four hundred Seguleh (the sword-wielding taciturn badasses of the Malazan world) show up, the reader knows that some serious carnage is about to go down, for example.

For this reason, Orb Sceptre Throne works much better for established Malazan fans than newcomers, particularly those who have already read Gardens of the Moon, Memories of Ice and Toll the Hounds. A number of plot elements stretching all the way back to Gardens of the Moon are expanded upon and backstory is (finally!) given for the Seguleh, the Moranth and indeed Genabackis as a whole. It's also nice to see some established characters given more depth and bigger roles than previously, such as Antsy, who becomes a major player in events at the crashed Moon's Spawn.

On the negative side, there's a number of story elements that are somewhat obtuse, either referring to storylines still to be detailed or referring very obliquely to events in other novels. Some characters fare better than others, and notably after the initial ferocious power and abilities shown by the antagonists, they seem to be caught a bit flat-footed by the forces arrayed against them at the end of the book. Also, it's confusing why Esslemont alludes to the fact that a fan-favourite character is still in the environs of Darujhistan when that character plays no role in the book (despite events being more than epic enough to attract his attention).

Despite these minor niggles, Orb Sceptre Throne (****½) is a well-written, thoroughly enjoyable addition to the Malazan canon. It is available now in the UK and on 22 May in the USA.

ICE is a great author and even though this is (in my estimation) the weakest of his output so far, this series and all associated with it remains the pinnacle of authorship in the fantasy genre.

Without giving away too much of the plot, there are some aspects of the Seguleh that were simply too hyped for ICE to sustain or develop, resulting in inconsistencies. The rationale of the Tyrant is also a begging question...I mean, we get the STORY of the Tyrant but who/what/WHY 'it' is remains to be addressed. And on the issue of gender, there is one 'turn' of gender for a very key character that seems to clash directly with Memories of Ice- I mean, either 2 VERY powerful beings in MoI were incredibly ignorant or this gender-bender was addressed as whichever manifestation it chose at the time. Even so, it makes no sense to me.

The Moons Spawn story was the best...that and the involvement of the remaining Bridgeburners. So there seem to be some very potent sorcerors roaming about as free radicals and that always gets my attention- sorcery is perhaps the main attraction in all of these books for me. :o) It raises many interesting prospects and questions about characters that we thought were out of play!

There are 2 characters here though that were mentioned for Lord alone knows what possible reason!! I mean, they were SO utterly irrelevant to the plot that ICE looked to have literally lost the plot there for a moment.

Return of the Crimson Guard is my favourite ICE novel- things developed brilliantly to an astounding climax with some shocking developments. A few threads are tied up here in this novel but again, we are cheated of vengeance in many ways. Ah well....let's write it down to the potential for redemption, ay??