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A review by yak_attak
Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson
5.0
Gardens of the Moon is a great book, a troubling introduction, but one with awesome imagination, vista, characters, plots, and though it's slightly brought down by Erikson's initial attempts at juggling something so large, it serves as a fantastic entry into the canon of epic fantasy.
Deadhouse Gates, on the other hand, is where he shows his teeth. Somewhere in the 9 years that separated the writing of the two books, Erikson leveled the hell up. Or Ascended. Here we are book 2, and immediately things are stronger, poignant, subtly crafted and impossibly cool. Book freaking number 2 into this monolithic saga and already we're at All-Timer status.
I may be just a little bit biased.
Jumping to an entirely new part of the world from book 1, and introducing (mostly) a new cast, we're inundated even further with detailed cultures, factions, characters, and motivations to the point where it swamps even the already titanic Gardens - in many ways this is an even more complex book than the first, but somehow Erikson's managed to hammer out his style and prose into something damn simple, laying it all out for you in philosophical grandeur. The characters are far more engaging and present this time around, and each of the main PoV plotlines, weaving in and out around each other easily have call to be a fan favorite.
The single, sole minor quibble I have here is that, now that I know what's going to happen, it does feel like the first third takes its sweet time setting things up and letting them play out before the floodgates open. But since this gives Erikson space to play in and expand the world in a way the series would be weaker without, and since each of the meticulously crafted plotlines pays off brilliantly by the end... Fuck, I wouldn't change a thing.
And this is my.... 6th? favorite book in this series. Yeah. Read Malazan.
Deadhouse Gates, on the other hand, is where he shows his teeth. Somewhere in the 9 years that separated the writing of the two books, Erikson leveled the hell up. Or Ascended. Here we are book 2, and immediately things are stronger, poignant, subtly crafted and impossibly cool. Book freaking number 2 into this monolithic saga and already we're at All-Timer status.
I may be just a little bit biased.
Jumping to an entirely new part of the world from book 1, and introducing (mostly) a new cast, we're inundated even further with detailed cultures, factions, characters, and motivations to the point where it swamps even the already titanic Gardens - in many ways this is an even more complex book than the first, but somehow Erikson's managed to hammer out his style and prose into something damn simple, laying it all out for you in philosophical grandeur. The characters are far more engaging and present this time around, and each of the main PoV plotlines, weaving in and out around each other easily have call to be a fan favorite.
The single, sole minor quibble I have here is that, now that I know what's going to happen, it does feel like the first third takes its sweet time setting things up and letting them play out before the floodgates open. But since this gives Erikson space to play in and expand the world in a way the series would be weaker without, and since each of the meticulously crafted plotlines pays off brilliantly by the end... Fuck, I wouldn't change a thing.
And this is my.... 6th? favorite book in this series. Yeah. Read Malazan.