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A review by mathman329
Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson
4.0
2022 Book Review - Book No. 18: “Deadhouse Gates (Malazan Book of the Fallen #2)” by Steven Erikson
Date started: 9/7/22
Date finished: 10/6/22
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️(would recommend reading this series to anyone who likes high fantasy)
Spoiler free review: A couple of years ago, a friend had recommended this series to me with the weighty distinction as the greatest fantasy series of all time. It was daunting to think about starting a 10 book saga where the mass market paperbacks of more than half the series are over 1,000 pages each, but I finally dug in and read Gardens of the Moon, the first entry in the series, last year. After really enjoying that, I was excited to jump into Deadhouse Gates, which again was teased as being one of the best books in the series.
It would take a novel simply to explain everything that happens in this story and analyze some of those things, so I won’t be able to do that here. What I can talk about, though, after reading the first 2 novels in this series is the depth of the Malazan universe and what makes it so enjoyable. This world is full of warriors and assassins, priests and mages, gods and demons. The way they all interact and angle for their end goals propels the intrigue and the story forward, sometimes with dire outcomes. The universe is robust enough that few characters or locations appear in both novels, making this feel like part B of our introduction to the Malazan Empire. What does carry over, though, are some of the gods and their meddling with mortal affairs. We also get to experience more warrens, the realms that mages draw their power from and are home to some of these gods. Through the first 2 books, I am most intrigued with the way these beings function together and the way Erikson develops their characters.
I realize this is possibly the vaguest book review of all time, but all I can ask is that you trust me when I say it’s excellent fantasy writing. There’s political intrigue, epic quests, and deity interference the likes of which Martin, Tolkien, and Gaiman are known for. My biggest hope is that the rest of the series lives up to the hype of the opening books, especially Deadhouse Gates.
Date started: 9/7/22
Date finished: 10/6/22
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️(would recommend reading this series to anyone who likes high fantasy)
Spoiler free review: A couple of years ago, a friend had recommended this series to me with the weighty distinction as the greatest fantasy series of all time. It was daunting to think about starting a 10 book saga where the mass market paperbacks of more than half the series are over 1,000 pages each, but I finally dug in and read Gardens of the Moon, the first entry in the series, last year. After really enjoying that, I was excited to jump into Deadhouse Gates, which again was teased as being one of the best books in the series.
It would take a novel simply to explain everything that happens in this story and analyze some of those things, so I won’t be able to do that here. What I can talk about, though, after reading the first 2 novels in this series is the depth of the Malazan universe and what makes it so enjoyable. This world is full of warriors and assassins, priests and mages, gods and demons. The way they all interact and angle for their end goals propels the intrigue and the story forward, sometimes with dire outcomes. The universe is robust enough that few characters or locations appear in both novels, making this feel like part B of our introduction to the Malazan Empire. What does carry over, though, are some of the gods and their meddling with mortal affairs. We also get to experience more warrens, the realms that mages draw their power from and are home to some of these gods. Through the first 2 books, I am most intrigued with the way these beings function together and the way Erikson develops their characters.
I realize this is possibly the vaguest book review of all time, but all I can ask is that you trust me when I say it’s excellent fantasy writing. There’s political intrigue, epic quests, and deity interference the likes of which Martin, Tolkien, and Gaiman are known for. My biggest hope is that the rest of the series lives up to the hype of the opening books, especially Deadhouse Gates.