Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Memories of Ice (Malazan Book of the Fallen), 30 May 2006
This is definitely the best of the three books so far.
It would be too difficult to describe the story line here, because it involves so many plots and sub-plots and shifting back and forth between them, but which all do come together, as always in Erikson's books, to a final climax.
As always, there is so much happening in Erikson's books that it is difficult to keep up, remember all the names and the different sub plot lines. For a book that comprises nearly 1,000 pages it was impressive that my attention was grabbed from the beginning and I found it extremely difficult to put the book down right up the end. It was fast paced, loads of action and very eventful through out. Many of the old characters from the first book (Gardens of the Moon) were back in this book.
You begin to learn so much more about characters like Quick Ben the mage, Whiskeyjack, you learn more about the significance of Paran, it was also great to find out a bit more about the enigmatic Amandor Rake. There are also a host of new characters. This is the first time that we are introduced to the sinister Bauchelain and Korbal Broach. They are the main characters in Erikson's short novellas. I did want to find out more about them, but I still don't understand how they progressed the story. I guess these characters and many others just shows how VAST and EPIC the Malazan series of books are. At times it is difficult to maintain an understanding of all that is happening.
This is definitely fantasy, but not like the usual `run of the mill' fantasy books out there. There is no mention of Elves, dwarves, etc. However, Erikson has created in the Malazan series a world that has never before been even hinted at in any of the fantasy books I have ever read before. The scale and scope of the stories so far seems vast in that they encompass not only people but also, different geographic cilivilisations and races that are non-human in nature. The books describe histories that are hundreds of thousands of years old, it includes Gods and ascendants. It is a world where the gods also play an active role and have their own motives and characteristics. It is a dark, very savage and barbaric world that no other fantasy novel I have ever read can has been able to match (perhaps Donaldson's Thomas Covenenant Chronicles). The story, the grand scale of events and world building are truly epic and this is one of the few times that no one would be able to argue with that statement.
Praise to Erikson for his amazing imagination that has enabled him to create such a vast world and in such detail. He is obviously getting better and I have noticed the improvements in the three books so far. He is obviously one of the handful of top fantasy writers out there (Tolkien the master, Martin, Jordan and Hobb). I hope that he continues to improve and that I (as well as all other readers) continue to read and enjoy his work.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
High Energy writing of the highest order, 6 Mar 2002
A fabulous work, loaded with gods, violence, vengence, war, intrigue and surprisingly humour. Welcome back to the waking nightmare that is the world of the Malazan Empire. Wading through layers of deceit and intrigue, we find the Malazan army trudging South ostensibly to fight the Pannion Seer, a crazed religous zealot. But (and there is always a but) beneath this lies the machinations of a crippled god, along side it lies the hopes of other gods, weaved through it is the desire for absolution of entities long dead powered by an ancient curse. Along the way we meet new characters, Lady Envy been especially good, accompanied by the supreme Seguleh warriors (much to their disgust). Remarkably Erikson holds it all together, and even through such a maelstrom of events makes you care about the central characters, from major players like Whiskeyjack, right down to the common soldiers of the Bridge Burners. In typical Erikson style the story comes together beautifully and violently at the end. I won't give the plot away, but it left me surprised and shocked; high energy writing of the highest order. The only fault I can find is that sometimes Erikson's passages can be a tad too opaque, who said what to whom and why is not always as clear as it could be. In other words sometimes teh sign posts could be a little larger. Five stars.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
rich and original, 28 Jan 2002
By A Customer
I stumbled across erikson on a trip to europe, eagerly looked for more on a return to US and found he had no American publisher! Ridiculous...I hope soon to be corrected. This, and its predecessors, are masterful works of a gritty, complex heroic fantasy. carefully plotted, well written and genuinely original (unlike most fantasies that steal from a mix of king arthur and tolkien, this is really something new and different). far better than the drowning morass of silly scenes and characters robert jordan's later books have been reduced to, the only comparable current writers are george rr martin and thomas harlan, and erikson is handily superior to both. heartily recommended
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