Toll the Review

Hi

So I just finished the 800-page haul through Toll the Hounds by Steven Erikson. This the eighth book in the Malazan Empire series (out of a planned 10 I believe).

I can’t even talk meaningfully about this series anymore. You can’t start here. Either you’ve been reading the Malazan books or you haven’t. Do I recommend the series as a whole? Yes, yes I do (start with Gardens of the Moon). It’s good enough that even through we return to characters I haven’t seen in over 4000 pages and 4 books, I still hitch up my pants and wade right in. But at this point I’m in it for the long, determined haul.

When this series finishes, I might go back over it with a couple of friends and a wiki to try and plot everything out.

In short, we return to the city of Darujhistan where this whole series started. Locals left over from when the series was last here meet up with a batch of newcomers drifting in from other parts of the series. Together they defeat a secondary evil (the way Sauroman was kinda the secondary evil to Sauron in Lord of the Rings), a major plot point or seven get resolved and the moon blows up. Quite a few people die along the way.

It’s still very good reading, but I’ll be so glad when I finish it.

later
Tom

Toll the Review

Hi

So I just finished the 800-page haul through Toll the Hounds by Steven Erikson. This the eighth book in the Malazan Empire series (out of a planned 10 I believe).

I can’t even talk meaningfully about this series anymore. You can’t start here. Either you’ve been reading the Malazan books or you haven’t. Do I recommend the series as a whole? Yes, yes I do (start with Gardens of the Moon). It’s good enough that even through we return to characters I haven’t seen in over 4000 pages and 4 books, I still hitch up my pants and wade right in. But at this point I’m in it for the long, determined haul.

When this series finishes, I might go back over it with a couple of friends and a wiki to try and plot everything out.

In short, we return to the city of Darujhistan where this whole series started. Locals left over from when the series was last here meet up with a batch of newcomers drifting in from other parts of the series. Together they defeat a secondary evil (the way Sauroman was kinda the secondary evil to Sauron in Lord of the Rings), a major plot point or seven get resolved and the moon blows up. Quite a few people die along the way.

It’s still very good reading, but I’ll be so glad when I finish it.

later
Tom