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4.26 AVERAGE
4.26 AVERAGE
El primer tercio y el final son de MATARSE de buenos que son.
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Someone asked me what this book is about as I read it at the pool, and I literally could not tell them. How can you sum House of Chains, or Malazan in general, up in a few sentences? That experience showed the complexity and grand scope that I love about the series and what makes it so challenging when you feel like you aren't grasping the point of it all.
Specific to HOC, I'm very conflicted about this one. There are a lot of shining moments, but also a lot of slogs.
House of Chains' best quality is the buddy team ups and banter between all our favorite characters -Fiddler/the Bridgeburners, a Kelam/Quick reunion, Trull Sengar/Onrack, Lostara/Pearl . The banter is so so funny, but we also get these beautiful reflections on compassion, 'humanity,' vengeance, purpose, and fate. The flip side to this is that the middle ~400 pages of this book really dragged on for me. While I enjoyed the character-centric moments, it felt like the plot stalls a bit at their expense. Similarly, I loved Book 1 and the focus on Karsa. It showed Steve's writing off in a more focused way, and his subversion of expectations really keeps me on my toes. But then the shift back to multi-POV in book 2 was so jarring. This could also be a reflection of my poor memory of Deadhouse Gates having read it about 3-4 months prior. I had such a hard time keeping up with all of the moving parts, and with limited plot progression in some of the POVs it was like reaching way further back to understand the current revelations. This is a struggle in parts of his other works, but it felt especially notable in the middle of HOC.
I also like that each series installment has a general theme, and while heavyhanded at times, I loved seeing how Erikson represented (often literally) the theme of chains across different characters and storylines. The view of vengeance and hatred as their own chains via Felisin and Karsa was especially compelling.
In true Erikson fashion, we get new characters, new elder races, new info on warrens and gods and the first empire. I understood about 65% of it which I feel is as expected for a first readthrough.
I'm going to only take about 2 weeks off before Midnight Tides and see if that helps with my comprehension of that book.
Excited for what's to come!
Specific to HOC, I'm very conflicted about this one. There are a lot of shining moments, but also a lot of slogs.
House of Chains' best quality is the buddy team ups and banter between all our favorite characters -
I also like that each series installment has a general theme, and while heavyhanded at times, I loved seeing how Erikson represented (often literally) the theme of chains across different characters and storylines. The view of vengeance and hatred as their own chains via Felisin and Karsa was especially compelling.
In true Erikson fashion, we get new characters, new elder races, new info on warrens and gods and the first empire. I understood about 65% of it which I feel is as expected for a first readthrough.
I'm going to only take about 2 weeks off before Midnight Tides and see if that helps with my comprehension of that book.
Excited for what's to come!
adventurous
dark
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
So far my favorite Malazan book has been Deadhouse Gates. This made me excited to jump into this one as it continues on the continent that DG was on.
At first I was slightly disappointed that we got a new character POV that felt somewhat disjointed but that feeling quickly vanished and I got into this book real fast. In fact it was the first time in the series where I had no issue reading multiple chapters in a row.
Although this book has a higher page count than its predecessor it felt more condensed as I think it had fewer overall plotlines and it kind of made it flow better for me.
Although this book has a higher page count than its predecessor it felt more condensed as I think it had fewer overall plotlines and it kind of made it flow better for me.
While Deadhouse Gates as my previous favorite was an excellent book overall I had a particularly hard time with some of the chapters, the ones depicting large scale battles, House of Chains felt like a winner the whole way through.
Another little gripe I had with the series so far was a lack of emotional investment into its characters which became very apparent to me in Memories of Ice. I am very glad to report that this book provided a solution to this and its name is: Karsa Orlong!
Man that guy is a huge dick in the beginning of the book and just comes off as extremely unlikeable but damn his journey is gripping and his character development in this book is great. Yes, we spend a lot of time with him in this book (in fact the first ~25% is only his POV) but all of that build up is really paying off. There were at least two scenes where I went into an involuntary audible cheer so it is safe to say that I was invested!
This probably doesn’t say anything good about me that now my emotional anchor in this series is a raping, murdering, no nonsense Giant Barbarian but I hope I can at least somehow attribute that to Eriksons excellent writing instead of my depraved (?) personality?
I feel like I say this every time but it just seems like the humor is getting better and better each book. This has to be a symptom of character dynamics and relationships being explored and evolving and as a result we get lots of camaraderie and bantering as the characters reference all the insane shit happening around them resulting in a ton of laughs.
I also have to mention the ending which once again brought together everything beautifully and some things unwrapped in a very unexpecting and simply tragic way. The final two chapters might have been my favorites out of any Malazan book so far. This was a clear instance where lots of POV swapping was absolutely benefiting the story and it was just gripping. And I am glad that we didn’t get this huge scale battle that this seemed to be building up to.
Next Month: Midnight Tides. I already heard that this will be on an entirely new continent. Not super excited about that but certainly ready to be surprised.
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Welcome to the world of Karsa. The tale of the Teblor starts from this book, many many years before the events of book 1. And finally ends after the events of book 3.
House of Chains brings back some of the favourite missing Bridgeburners. If you've read the previous one, then you know what to expect. And yet, our Bridgeburners do not meet each other until the very very end, where Tavore, sister of Captain Paran, who is making a name for himself finally means the new Shaik, the scourge of the desert. Or the saviour, depends on the side you're rooting for.
But all of this still pales under the main story. Of the Teblor, who was once known as Toblakai, the reaper of children. This is the story of the Toblakai that lost more than their history. A man who single handedly can bring down an empire if he felt like it.
Meanwhile, the gods make their move. Or more importantly, the Crippled God has and he has decided that he wants a champion.
House of Chains brings back some of the favourite missing Bridgeburners. If you've read the previous one, then you know what to expect. And yet, our Bridgeburners do not meet each other until the very very end, where Tavore, sister of Captain Paran, who is making a name for himself finally means the new Shaik, the scourge of the desert. Or the saviour, depends on the side you're rooting for.
But all of this still pales under the main story. Of the Teblor, who was once known as Toblakai, the reaper of children. This is the story of the Toblakai that lost more than their history. A man who single handedly can bring down an empire if he felt like it.
Meanwhile, the gods make their move. Or more importantly, the Crippled God has and he has decided that he wants a champion.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
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
Memories of Ice, House of Chains
Deadhouse gates
Gardens of the moon
Deadhouse gates
Gardens of the moon