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melx91's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
pbender's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
nikolai_k's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Something's happening. I need to think about it. I need to be listening. Listening, right now.
—Deadhouse Gates,
also: me, listening to the audiobook of Deadhouse Gates
Anyways, only five or six thousand pages more and, people say, I will get the metatextual key to what is being conjured here.
damjanotom's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
At first, Deadhouse Gates' intensity can be quite shocking and is most certainly intentionally so. At first this felt somewhat like torture-porn but as the book went on all of the events and the progression of each set of characters' arcs resolved into a nuanced reflection on the varied experience of living through and with prolonged trauma. Through this lens themes of war, grief, change, sexual trauma, and the roles of spirituality and information are all explored in ways that can often be shocking but felt nuanced nonetheless. Perspectives in character may have felt at first to be judgemental or disrespectful but provide depth to the discussion around the experience of trauma and how it changes those experiencing it and the way they interact and are perceived.
Outside of this, Deadhouse Gates presented some excellent genre stories including the main military fantasy storyline and a really engaging adventure storyline among others. A fairly heavy read with a lot of thematic meat on the bones but delivered through another tightly presented set of intertwined arcs.
Outside of this, Deadhouse Gates presented some excellent genre stories including the main military fantasy storyline and a really engaging adventure storyline among others. A fairly heavy read with a lot of thematic meat on the bones but delivered through another tightly presented set of intertwined arcs.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, Gore, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Sexual assault and Slavery
iangubeli's review against another edition
3.0
First part was good. Second part was aight. Third part was utterly unmemorable. Fourth part was incredible!
krste93's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
vivectelvanni's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Blood, Excrement, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail
theemptybookshelf's review against another edition
4.0
I’m marching on with my goal to read the Malazan Book of the Fallen in 2024. This time I have read Deadhouse Gates, Book #2 out of the ten mainline novels. It’s no secret that this novel diverges from the plot set up in Gardens of the Moon. Many tout this as a standalone sequel of sorts as we are transported to a different area of the world and introduced to a wide array of new characters.
It took a long time to get used to this, even with the small group of familiar characters taking up about a third of the plot. I knew what to expect from reviews and my own experience reading this book previously. However, I initially struggled because the investment I had made into the characters, locations and lore were mostly left behind. I know that we get back to things in the upcoming Memories of Ice and that everything here will become vital and necessary, but it was hard to practically start another new series again.
‘We are all lone souls. It pays to know humility, lest the delusion of control, of mastery, overwhelms. And indeed, we seem a species prone to that delusion, again and ever again . . .’
Once again we are thrown into the deep end and expected to simply know how to swim. The lore and varied names come hard and fast and we either keep up or lose the plot. I was quite lost and struggled through Part One, but as I grew used to who everyone was and what they were attempting to achieve this book became fabulous.
Once again my favourite character was Apsalar (Once named Sorry), and second to her was Felisin, one of the new characters in Deadhouse Gates. I must admit to being disappointed with Felisin’s character through the first section of the book, but after a while when things changed for her it improved vastly. The back and forwards between who was a certain character reborn kept me intirgued to the end.
Duiker, Fiddler and Kalam took up the majority of the POVs besides Felisin and out of those it was the historian, Duiker, who had the best sections. He introduces us to the Fist Coltaine and his Chain of Dogs. We got to experience the bloody, visceral combat through his perspective and it was awesome. Some of the scenes were so well realised that I felt like I was there with them, fighting to survive.
‘Why do the survivors remain anonymous—as if cursed—while the dead are revered? Why do we cling to what we lose while we ignore what we still hold? Name none of the fallen, for they stood in our place, and stand there still in each moment of our lives. Let my death hold no glory, and let me die forgotten and unknown. Let it not be said that I was one among the dead to accuse the living.’
I devoured the last 250 pages in one sitting as everything fell into place and the characters marched onwards towards their final goals. Yet, as we reached the end of Deadhouse Gates I was left feeling just a little disappointed. Obviously there are eight books to go in the Book of the Fallen so we are nowhere near the end of anyone’s story, but that ending just fell a little flat and lacked explanation.
Rating: 4/5
Check out the review on my blog here. And my full site here.
It took a long time to get used to this, even with the small group of familiar characters taking up about a third of the plot. I knew what to expect from reviews and my own experience reading this book previously. However, I initially struggled because the investment I had made into the characters, locations and lore were mostly left behind. I know that we get back to things in the upcoming Memories of Ice and that everything here will become vital and necessary, but it was hard to practically start another new series again.
‘We are all lone souls. It pays to know humility, lest the delusion of control, of mastery, overwhelms. And indeed, we seem a species prone to that delusion, again and ever again . . .’
Once again we are thrown into the deep end and expected to simply know how to swim. The lore and varied names come hard and fast and we either keep up or lose the plot. I was quite lost and struggled through Part One, but as I grew used to who everyone was and what they were attempting to achieve this book became fabulous.
Once again my favourite character was Apsalar (Once named Sorry), and second to her was Felisin, one of the new characters in Deadhouse Gates. I must admit to being disappointed with Felisin’s character through the first section of the book, but after a while when things changed for her it improved vastly. The back and forwards between who was a certain character reborn kept me intirgued to the end.
Duiker, Fiddler and Kalam took up the majority of the POVs besides Felisin and out of those it was the historian, Duiker, who had the best sections. He introduces us to the Fist Coltaine and his Chain of Dogs. We got to experience the bloody, visceral combat through his perspective and it was awesome. Some of the scenes were so well realised that I felt like I was there with them, fighting to survive.
‘Why do the survivors remain anonymous—as if cursed—while the dead are revered? Why do we cling to what we lose while we ignore what we still hold? Name none of the fallen, for they stood in our place, and stand there still in each moment of our lives. Let my death hold no glory, and let me die forgotten and unknown. Let it not be said that I was one among the dead to accuse the living.’
I devoured the last 250 pages in one sitting as everything fell into place and the characters marched onwards towards their final goals. Yet, as we reached the end of Deadhouse Gates I was left feeling just a little disappointed. Obviously there are eight books to go in the Book of the Fallen so we are nowhere near the end of anyone’s story, but that ending just fell a little flat and lacked explanation.
Rating: 4/5
Check out the review on my blog here. And my full site here.
corinnek's review against another edition
5.0
the fantasy world is not ready for a character like felisin. she's awful and I love her.
andrewrawr's review against another edition
4.0
What I liked:
Malazan has very rich, deep worldbuilding throughout. Its warren system and ascendants highlight a lot of what I like about the series. Without ascendants and such an interesting system, it would be hard to maintain the sense of epic scale that Malazan does. I would have loved for the glossary and appendix to be heavier, but I also love reading encyclopedias. Be prepared to be plunged in neck deep mercilessly, and prepare to be immersed.
Along with this, Malazan has an unsurpassed epic scale. It is a story of gods, ascendant magicians, brilliant generals, and ancient warriors. It is a story telling the rise and fall of kingdoms, cities, and empires. It doesn't do this through corny "And the fate of the universe you didn't know existed rests in the outcome of this swordfight!" nonsense, but through the constant development of the stories of the people behind these rising and falling powers. Malazan remembers at the end of the day a simple fact: at the head of every empire, every city, every battle, there are individual people making choices, and it is therefore people who dictate the fate of reality. Malazan is an exploration of those people. If I picked one thing that is the reason to read Malazan, it's that.
Along with having a lot of worldbuilding, there are a lot of characters. It's an 800+ page book (the Goodreads summary at the time of writing this is a lie, just like the cake), which leaves a lot of space for developing many of them, and I think Erikson does so well. Some of those characters seem superfluous, though, and end up cluttering the book. Taking some of the time the minor characters spend being minimally developed and devoting it to showing more of the relationships between main characters or fewer minor characters would have appealed to me more. Many of the characters were great, and so I wanted to spend more time seeing them developed with a less cluttered cast.
The plot moves forward aggressively, rarely ever stopping for filler unless it is important to develop something. This is the type of pacing I prefer in books in general. I don't like words that don't develop a character, move forward a plot, or explain the world.
Other observations:
Not gonna lie, many moments near the end felt like they came out of nowhere. Sudden drastic shifts in one character's personality, a choice by another that seemed far too easily swayed, a magical delivery service the reader had no reason to know existed, and so on smacked of deus ex machina. Other parts betrayed what I felt were character plot holes. It's possible I missed obvious things that would have made all of this make sense, and if so, I apologize for my criticism.
I got lost a bit on occasion. Maybe I'm silly for this, but I actually love world building info dumps, and I think a few more might have helped me understand parts of the plot better. I wouldn't be super surprised if I'm the only person in the world asking authors, "Hey, please do more info dumps!" though, so take that with a grain of salt.
Summary:
Like the first book, Deadhouse Gates is a testament to how epically scaled a book can succeed in being. It's a story of the wars and plots of gods, ascendants, an empress, and other people of power. Despite this, it never loses its humanity. Its people are people, with human desires and motivations. I recommend this for any fan of humongous fantasy epics, but I also suggest reading this series in order, starting with Gardens of the Moon. It will make a lot more sense.
Malazan has very rich, deep worldbuilding throughout. Its warren system and ascendants highlight a lot of what I like about the series. Without ascendants and such an interesting system, it would be hard to maintain the sense of epic scale that Malazan does. I would have loved for the glossary and appendix to be heavier, but I also love reading encyclopedias. Be prepared to be plunged in neck deep mercilessly, and prepare to be immersed.
Along with this, Malazan has an unsurpassed epic scale. It is a story of gods, ascendant magicians, brilliant generals, and ancient warriors. It is a story telling the rise and fall of kingdoms, cities, and empires. It doesn't do this through corny "And the fate of the universe you didn't know existed rests in the outcome of this swordfight!" nonsense, but through the constant development of the stories of the people behind these rising and falling powers. Malazan remembers at the end of the day a simple fact: at the head of every empire, every city, every battle, there are individual people making choices, and it is therefore people who dictate the fate of reality. Malazan is an exploration of those people. If I picked one thing that is the reason to read Malazan, it's that.
Along with having a lot of worldbuilding, there are a lot of characters. It's an 800+ page book (the Goodreads summary at the time of writing this is a lie, just like the cake), which leaves a lot of space for developing many of them, and I think Erikson does so well. Some of those characters seem superfluous, though, and end up cluttering the book. Taking some of the time the minor characters spend being minimally developed and devoting it to showing more of the relationships between main characters or fewer minor characters would have appealed to me more. Many of the characters were great, and so I wanted to spend more time seeing them developed with a less cluttered cast.
The plot moves forward aggressively, rarely ever stopping for filler unless it is important to develop something. This is the type of pacing I prefer in books in general. I don't like words that don't develop a character, move forward a plot, or explain the world.
Other observations:
Not gonna lie, many moments near the end felt like they came out of nowhere. Sudden drastic shifts in one character's personality, a choice by another that seemed far too easily swayed, a magical delivery service the reader had no reason to know existed, and so on smacked of deus ex machina. Other parts betrayed what I felt were character plot holes.
Spoiler
Why, for instance, would the otherwise seemingly competent Laseen make Pormquall High Fist? Really, everything surrounding Pormquall seemed like a giant hole to me.I got lost a bit on occasion. Maybe I'm silly for this, but I actually love world building info dumps, and I think a few more might have helped me understand parts of the plot better. I wouldn't be super surprised if I'm the only person in the world asking authors, "Hey, please do more info dumps!" though, so take that with a grain of salt.
Summary:
Like the first book, Deadhouse Gates is a testament to how epically scaled a book can succeed in being. It's a story of the wars and plots of gods, ascendants, an empress, and other people of power. Despite this, it never loses its humanity. Its people are people, with human desires and motivations. I recommend this for any fan of humongous fantasy epics, but I also suggest reading this series in order, starting with Gardens of the Moon. It will make a lot more sense.