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mattdavenport 's review for:
House of Chains
by Steven Erikson
8.4 - Very Good
A very very good continuation of the Malazan story, and that's what it felt like, a continuation of an overarching story that I'm enjoying more and more. The writing continues to get better every book, reaching pretty clear-cut top-tier author level, and Erikson continued his master-class in intricate plot-weaving and world building. I at least enjoyed every single POV, and I really enjoyed Karsa, Fiddler, and basically any time Cotillion made an appearance. The introductory section following Karsa was different for the series, but (having been warned ahead of time), I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. The inevitable clash between the Malazans and Shaik's Apocalypse following the events of Deadhouse Gates was really well done, with tons of top-tier themes, symmetry, and arc-fulfillments. That being said, this book probably had the least-epic ending since GotM; it was very muti-faceted with a lot of cool scenes but nothing on a huge scale. Additionally, while I continued to enjoy reading it, I never reached the "I can't even think of putting this down" feeling of 9-10 star books, and the book continued to also lack the top-tier characters that I really need for that level of enjoyment too. So in all, no really big flaws, nothing (that I personally prioritize) was amazing, but all that encompasses a fantasy book was consistently "very good".
A very very good continuation of the Malazan story, and that's what it felt like, a continuation of an overarching story that I'm enjoying more and more. The writing continues to get better every book, reaching pretty clear-cut top-tier author level, and Erikson continued his master-class in intricate plot-weaving and world building. I at least enjoyed every single POV, and I really enjoyed Karsa, Fiddler, and basically any time Cotillion made an appearance. The introductory section following Karsa was different for the series, but (having been warned ahead of time), I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. The inevitable clash between the Malazans and Shaik's Apocalypse following the events of Deadhouse Gates was really well done, with tons of top-tier themes, symmetry, and arc-fulfillments. That being said, this book probably had the least-epic ending since GotM; it was very muti-faceted with a lot of cool scenes but nothing on a huge scale. Additionally, while I continued to enjoy reading it, I never reached the "I can't even think of putting this down" feeling of 9-10 star books, and the book continued to also lack the top-tier characters that I really need for that level of enjoyment too. So in all, no really big flaws, nothing (that I personally prioritize) was amazing, but all that encompasses a fantasy book was consistently "very good".