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A review by blodeuedd
The Wurms of Blearmouth: A Malazan Tale of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach by Steven Erikson
3.0
I do confess that I have never read an Erikson book, but I always wanted to try one. Now, well I did not exactly start at the beginning. And I have no idea what Bachelain and Korbal have been up to before, but that does not matter. I never felt lost. I just walked into an adventure that began and ended in this novella.
How to even explain this? It's like Pratchett meets Gormenghast meets something very dark (I have not read those Grim authors yet so I can't compare). There is dark dry humour, people have silly names and no one is nice. No one.
There is a big cast of characters for such a short story. Bauchelain, Korbal and their servant arrive after they have been shipwrecked. And then a lot of others follow them for different reasons (money and more.) And then there is the village and keep of course. I liked the village, as much as you can like people like that. We have the tax collector, the cat who hates the tax collector, the old guy who lives at the beach and sends travelers to their doom. The woman who owns the brothel, her daughter who wants to become a whore, the constable who sends strangers to the keep to die, the man who is dead but not dead, and of course the Lord of the Keep who is quite the tyrant.
They are all insane, murderous, lecherous killers. But I laughed. There was this one scene with the woman who owns the brothels and trust me, you have not seen that before.
This was a fun and rather strange novella. It's a village that you do not want to venture too, and characters you do not want to meet. So luckily I can read about them and experience them that way instead. And as I have not read Erikson before I have no idea if the rest of his novels are like this. But from what I have seen he might keep this dark humor to B and Korbal's tales. They are perfect for it.
How to even explain this? It's like Pratchett meets Gormenghast meets something very dark (I have not read those Grim authors yet so I can't compare). There is dark dry humour, people have silly names and no one is nice. No one.
There is a big cast of characters for such a short story. Bauchelain, Korbal and their servant arrive after they have been shipwrecked. And then a lot of others follow them for different reasons (money and more.) And then there is the village and keep of course. I liked the village, as much as you can like people like that. We have the tax collector, the cat who hates the tax collector, the old guy who lives at the beach and sends travelers to their doom. The woman who owns the brothel, her daughter who wants to become a whore, the constable who sends strangers to the keep to die, the man who is dead but not dead, and of course the Lord of the Keep who is quite the tyrant.
They are all insane, murderous, lecherous killers. But I laughed. There was this one scene with the woman who owns the brothels and trust me, you have not seen that before.
This was a fun and rather strange novella. It's a village that you do not want to venture too, and characters you do not want to meet. So luckily I can read about them and experience them that way instead. And as I have not read Erikson before I have no idea if the rest of his novels are like this. But from what I have seen he might keep this dark humor to B and Korbal's tales. They are perfect for it.