When I first read it, my fantasy obsession was in full bloom, although it was not yet the lifestyle it is now. I proudly claimed to have "evolved" in my reading, starting from Tolkein/ Clarke/ Asimov to Robert Jordan to Stephen King to... and so on until I read Stephen Donaldson. (Aside: a retrospective from back then on the old blog: My Fantasy Bibiliospective).
I thought I had read everything there was to read.
As stupid statements go, that one was... really stupid, because with my discovery of"Gardens of the Moon", the opening volume of the series (from a hearty recommendation by Donaldson on his site), I was about to be blown away. Never before or since have I found anything that comes close in the genre for sheer scope of imagination, expert story-telling, or literary significance (yes, that old chestnut!).
The Great Re-Read
Now, with the tenth and final book in the main sequence coming out early next year, and the third ICE novel scheduled for release in November of this year, I thought this would be a fine time to re-read the entire series in a go, "as it was meant to be read", and to have every fact, every character, every plot-point fresh in my mind as I look forward to the conclusion of the tale.
I plan use this here blog to record my reactions in this re-read - to review these books objectively/ without bias is past me; I am an unabashed fan-boy. I am in fact now about a third of the way into reading the second book, so this introductory post is somewhat late... a reaction to the first book "Gardens of the Moon" will follow in short order.
What follows below is an introduction to the series for those interested...
The Books
The epic (no other way to describe it) is set in a world SE co-created with Ian Cameron Esselmont (ICE), who in turn has already published two books in this shared universe that provide background on major events in the "main series" or take up unresolved threads from it (they are published with the tag "A Novel of the Malazan Empire" to distinguish them from SE's sequence and can be thought of as prequels or offshoots or addendums to it). He has also authored four short novellas featuring two side-characters that have a cameo in the main sequence, and (as of now) plans to write two additional trilogies after the main sequence is done.
The main sequence books - each about 900 pages or so long - are:
1) Gardens of the Moon (first published 1999)
2) Deadhouse Gates (2000)
3) Memories of Ice (2001)
4) House of Chains (2002)
5) Midnight Tides (2004)
6) The Bonehunters (2006)
7) Reaper's Gale (2007)
8) Toll the Hounds (2008)
9) Dust of Dreams (2009)
10) The Crippled God (forthcoming in Feb 2011)
With ICE having thus far published:
1) Night of Knives (a prequel to the main series, 2005)
2) Return of the Crimson Guard ('offshoot to the series', 2008)
3) Stonewielder (forthcoming in Nov 2010)
The World
This is a huge, sprawling story set in a complex world filled with nuance. It can be read as a pseudo-history spanning perhaps a decade of active 'story time' with a back-story unfolding over several million years, and patchily recorded to boot. It is a Homeric saga, where gods and 'ascendants' (or godlings/ gods-to-be, sort of) influence and meddle with the affairs of a horde of species, native and alien to the planet all this happens on (we fans call it 'Wu').
The world-building is amazing, perhaps the most in-depth and consistent I have ever seen... this is a world two decades in the making that began as the setting for a role-playing game played by SE, ICE, and some friends on one archaeological dig or another. I am not much into 'gaming', but if it produces something so magnificent - color me interested!
Take for instance the geography: the tale occurs in three distinct story threads (well, ropes really) on three continents (mostly 'Genabackis' for books 1, 3, and 8; mostly 'Seven Cities' for books 2, 4, and 6; and mostly 'Lether' for books 5, 7, and 9; book 10 will be set in 'parts unknown'). There are at least three additional continents (Jackuruku, Quon Tali, and the enigmatic Assail) that are ICE's playground, and the first and last of those haven't been explored much yet.
The dramatis personae for the series alone would be of the size of a (really long) short story, and I often like to say it has more characters than the Mahabharat or Iliad or Odyssey. These characters belong to many different races: Human varietals (of myriad color, cultures, religions, and size - no hobbits though!) + 4 proto-races native to the planet + at least 3 invading 'alien' races from other realms + hybrids thereof. SE is a trained anthropologist/ archaeologist, and that shows in the depth and consistency of the racial structure and inter-relations of this world.
In the beginning of the series, SE was actively trying to undermine rather than embrace the cliches of fantasy literature, particularly the notion of the farm-boy who grows up to save the world and "absolute evil" personified by a 'dark lord'. He succeeded, to put it mildly. More importantly for me, SE and ICE have together smashed two altogether more important cliches - there is no sexism or racism (that I can detect) in this series.
Women serve in the army no different from men. There are matri-lineal as well as patrician societies. Some of the strongest, most powerful characters in the stories are women. There are ebony humans and blue and white and brown, but no one race is 'evil' or stereotyped. Tribes and civilizations are described with full bodied virtues and flaws, and are seen to be fleeting.
The arrogance of every civilization is described, along with the inevitable fall from grace - that fall is in fact one of the repeating themes of the series at every scale. I cannot tell you how much of a relief such a world is to someone who cannot help but notice the sub-text in Tolkein's "men of the west" vs. the corrupted "easterlings" or "elves vs orcs" or "Arwen pining for Aragorn" crap.
Given its complexity, keeping track of everything in my head as I read along required the aid of maps (provided) and notes and lists I made myself or explications I found on the semi-official discussion forums on malazanempire.com. At least in the beginning, this was essential - more so because very often SE makes use of unreliable narrators, so you are never quite sure if what you are hearing that character say is true, or only true 'from a certain point of view'.
This is not a series you read, so much as study, but to say the reward was worth it would be an understatement. I hope over the course of the next 10 posts or so, I share my next experience of this (and some of the reward) with you all...
3 comments:
Cheers, good to read a passionate descriptor with some insight!
Dude more!
Not one half assed assessment!
You're better than that!
@ Anonymous #2 - :) Thanks, and yes - there will be more I do have a GotM and DG review in draft.
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