The ending. God That ending.
I am a slow reader. And I mean glacier-in-slo-mo slow. AND I like big fat books. Oh the irony. And the inconvenience. So as a result I read a very few books every year.
I don't have the luxury of picking up whatever new series catches my fancy. I read a lot of reviews and only take up what I think I'll absolutely love. This is a rule I broke when I started on the Malazan Book of the Fallen.
People either love this series or find it frustratingly hard to get through. I had no idea which group I'd fall into. Gardens of the moon left me tilting towards the latter. I gave up on the book around midway. Took a break, read Name of the Wind which I loved, got back to it and finished it. The ending was good. Kinda great even. There was a lot of Bad-Assery all around. That was cool. There was just.... too little heart I guess. Or if there was it got lost in all the chaos.
I don't even remember what made me decide to follow it up with the next book. But boy, am I glad I did
Deadhouse Gates-
By now I was getting used to Erikson's style. This book got me invested in the new characters and settings with relative ease. There were at least four different story lines moving together. Basically groups of people in different situations. Occasionally breaking into more groups or melting into new ones unexpectedly.
What Erikson does brilliantly here is that he keeps every thing constantly moving. Yes some parts were a bit of a slog. Some parts were a bit confusing. But before I knew it I was out of that place and somewhere else. And I'm not talking about jumping to another POV. Each story line in itself is constantly moving.
As a direct result of this a lot happens over the books considerable bulk. A LOT. When there's build up to a battle, we get a battle. The strategy, the implementation, basically every moment of every skirmish, not just the description of the soldiers and the final body count. True, I may not remember all the banners and sigils, but I'm not sure I mind so much.
So even though the whole story is people moving around a big bad desert (with a few detours into awesomely eerie warrens) things never get boring. Ok maybe it does in a very few places. But never for too long.
And the ending...
All the story lines reach some sort of a resolution. But one of them really really grabbed my heart and squeezed till it hurt. And the bruise remained for quite a while. I've never wanted so much to participate in a story before. If only so I could slap a certain person to death for being so stupid. And another for being so god damn vile. I would have shed a few tears, if I wasn't so shocked at what was happening.
If the ending of the series as a whole comes even close to the ending of this book, then I've made a great decision to read this series however long that might take me to do.
I am a slow reader. And I mean glacier-in-slo-mo slow. AND I like big fat books. Oh the irony. And the inconvenience. So as a result I read a very few books every year.
I don't have the luxury of picking up whatever new series catches my fancy. I read a lot of reviews and only take up what I think I'll absolutely love. This is a rule I broke when I started on the Malazan Book of the Fallen.
People either love this series or find it frustratingly hard to get through. I had no idea which group I'd fall into. Gardens of the moon left me tilting towards the latter. I gave up on the book around midway. Took a break, read Name of the Wind which I loved, got back to it and finished it. The ending was good. Kinda great even. There was a lot of Bad-Assery all around. That was cool. There was just.... too little heart I guess. Or if there was it got lost in all the chaos.
I don't even remember what made me decide to follow it up with the next book. But boy, am I glad I did
Deadhouse Gates-
By now I was getting used to Erikson's style. This book got me invested in the new characters and settings with relative ease. There were at least four different story lines moving together. Basically groups of people in different situations. Occasionally breaking into more groups or melting into new ones unexpectedly.
What Erikson does brilliantly here is that he keeps every thing constantly moving. Yes some parts were a bit of a slog. Some parts were a bit confusing. But before I knew it I was out of that place and somewhere else. And I'm not talking about jumping to another POV. Each story line in itself is constantly moving.
As a direct result of this a lot happens over the books considerable bulk. A LOT. When there's build up to a battle, we get a battle. The strategy, the implementation, basically every moment of every skirmish, not just the description of the soldiers and the final body count. True, I may not remember all the banners and sigils, but I'm not sure I mind so much.
So even though the whole story is people moving around a big bad desert (with a few detours into awesomely eerie warrens) things never get boring. Ok maybe it does in a very few places. But never for too long.
And the ending...
All the story lines reach some sort of a resolution. But one of them really really grabbed my heart and squeezed till it hurt. And the bruise remained for quite a while. I've never wanted so much to participate in a story before. If only so I could slap a certain person to death for being so stupid. And another for being so god damn vile. I would have shed a few tears, if I wasn't so shocked at what was happening.
If the ending of the series as a whole comes even close to the ending of this book, then I've made a great decision to read this series however long that might take me to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment