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4.1 AVERAGE
4.1 AVERAGE
This only serves to solidify Malazan's claim at being one of the best fantasy series ever written.
First read: April, 2014
Re-read: May, 2016
First read: April, 2014
Re-read: May, 2016
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
adventurous
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
3.5 stars for my first Malazan spinoff!
I didn't review most Malazan books because I get tired reviewing books in the same series, but I figured I'd write a little for this one. I read Malazan over the course of 1.5 years ending in February (with some other books mixed in) and it is certainly one of, if not my favorite series. With all the noise surrounding Forge of Darkness, I became very tempted to dive in as my first foray into a Malazan book separate from the main 10 Book of the Fallen series.
“There is but one god, and its name is beauty. There is but one kind of worship, and that is love. There is for us but one world, and we have scarred it beyond recognition.”
I won't go into too detailed of a review, so there will be no spoilers. But first I will touch on the main selling point of the Kharkanas trilogy - the fact that is a prequel to the Malazan series and its focus is the beloved Tiste race. Listen, you're not going to get hundreds of pages of Anomander Rake and Silchas Ruin PoV. They have their role, of course, but Erikson does not use PoV like that. And this is a strength of this book, as well as the crux of the main weakness. I say that because there is a lot to sift through that is not very entertaining, while other chapters that deal with certain characters are awesome to read through. Many of the weaker PoVs deal with various military commanders in 1 of like 6 separate armies, and all of these commanders will show up, be mostly not spectacular, then disappear for a couple hundred pages. This of course would leave most readers confused, and probably disinterested as well. Some of them made their mark, but there were plenty that blended into the background, and that was quite a bit of the book.
“A civilization for ever within easy reach of a blade had little to boast about.”
Another huge talking point for this book is the heavy handed philosophy that Erikson wields. To any seasoned Malazan veteran, this will come as little surprise. However, this is more like Toll the Hounds level of philosophy ramped up to 11. Personally, I'm quite the fan and it didn't bother me too much, but I think anyone would find their focus wavering during a page here or there of it. Just something to keep in mine. I also want to mention that this is probably the darkest book I've ever read. The content is not for the faint of heart.
“Faith is a personal accord between a lone soul and that in which it chooses to believe. In any other guise it is nothing more than a thin coat of sacred paint slapped over politics and the secular lust for power.”
For all this, I found myself enamored with a lot of the meat of Forge of Darkness. Constantly, my perspective on minor and major details of the Malazan series were warped in a mind bending matter and this was always a moment of deep satisfaction. Because of this, my favorite PoV was Arathan, son of Draconus. Through these scenes, details of the Azathanai were brought into the light and those details ripple through many layers of the series. And these perspective changes are present right from the maps that preclude the text, to be honest. And they were not just for the Azathanai, of course. Familiar faces from the Tiste race (and others...) showed up everywhere and it was cool to get more on them.
“We are all interludes in history, a drawn breath to make pause in the rush, and when we are gone, those breaths join the chorus of the wind. But who listens to the wind?”
If you are a huge Malazan fan that loves Erikson's prose and foams at the mouth for all details of this magnificent world, I'd say you should pick this up. I fit the criteria and I did so, and I enjoyed it to the point where I will be diving into Fall of Light the week I completed Forge of Darkness.
I didn't review most Malazan books because I get tired reviewing books in the same series, but I figured I'd write a little for this one. I read Malazan over the course of 1.5 years ending in February (with some other books mixed in) and it is certainly one of, if not my favorite series. With all the noise surrounding Forge of Darkness, I became very tempted to dive in as my first foray into a Malazan book separate from the main 10 Book of the Fallen series.
“There is but one god, and its name is beauty. There is but one kind of worship, and that is love. There is for us but one world, and we have scarred it beyond recognition.”
I won't go into too detailed of a review, so there will be no spoilers. But first I will touch on the main selling point of the Kharkanas trilogy - the fact that is a prequel to the Malazan series and its focus is the beloved Tiste race. Listen, you're not going to get hundreds of pages of Anomander Rake and Silchas Ruin PoV. They have their role, of course, but Erikson does not use PoV like that. And this is a strength of this book, as well as the crux of the main weakness. I say that because there is a lot to sift through that is not very entertaining, while other chapters that deal with certain characters are awesome to read through. Many of the weaker PoVs deal with various military commanders in 1 of like 6 separate armies, and all of these commanders will show up, be mostly not spectacular, then disappear for a couple hundred pages. This of course would leave most readers confused, and probably disinterested as well. Some of them made their mark, but there were plenty that blended into the background, and that was quite a bit of the book.
“A civilization for ever within easy reach of a blade had little to boast about.”
Another huge talking point for this book is the heavy handed philosophy that Erikson wields. To any seasoned Malazan veteran, this will come as little surprise. However, this is more like Toll the Hounds level of philosophy ramped up to 11. Personally, I'm quite the fan and it didn't bother me too much, but I think anyone would find their focus wavering during a page here or there of it. Just something to keep in mine. I also want to mention that this is probably the darkest book I've ever read. The content is not for the faint of heart.
“Faith is a personal accord between a lone soul and that in which it chooses to believe. In any other guise it is nothing more than a thin coat of sacred paint slapped over politics and the secular lust for power.”
For all this, I found myself enamored with a lot of the meat of Forge of Darkness. Constantly, my perspective on minor and major details of the Malazan series were warped in a mind bending matter and this was always a moment of deep satisfaction. Because of this, my favorite PoV was Arathan, son of Draconus. Through these scenes, details of the Azathanai were brought into the light and those details ripple through many layers of the series. And these perspective changes are present right from the maps that preclude the text, to be honest. And they were not just for the Azathanai, of course. Familiar faces from the Tiste race (and others...) showed up everywhere and it was cool to get more on them.
“We are all interludes in history, a drawn breath to make pause in the rush, and when we are gone, those breaths join the chorus of the wind. But who listens to the wind?”
If you are a huge Malazan fan that loves Erikson's prose and foams at the mouth for all details of this magnificent world, I'd say you should pick this up. I fit the criteria and I did so, and I enjoyed it to the point where I will be diving into Fall of Light the week I completed Forge of Darkness.
So, I am DNFing this book at page 315 (out of 662), but I'm still marking it as read because 315 pages is a lot of pages.
So, here are some vaguely coherent thoughts about this book:
Pros:
- As a fantasy book, this wasn't bad. I feel like it got the basic elements of fantasy and did them fairly well.
- Some of the concepts were pretty interesting, or could have been interesting, if the book was better.
- One of the characters was somewhat interesting (the one from the sea). I would have read a (shorter) book just about her (if the author was better)
Cons:
- It was kind of basic. As I said earlier, it got the basic elements of fantasy, but it didn't go beyond that.
- The worldbuilding was poor. Some of the concepts could have been interesting but they were underexplained. This could have been because this is one of the more recently published books in the series, but, considering it is the first book in the author's recommended reading order, it should make sense as the first book in the series. It did not.
- It was generally confusing. There were so many characters, most of whom were very similar (all very generic characters), and it kept switching between them with no indicators. There were probably 5 or more storylines, but I couldn't distinguish one from the other.
- Consent, sex and sexual assault: There was a scene (relatively early on in the book), where a character just kinda started having sex with another character who (as far as I was aware) was quite badly concussed and had just been woken up after passing out due to said concussion. There was no indicator that the other character consented to it, or that he was even in a state where he would have been able to consent, but this was just passed off under the assumption that he would want it. Apparently this is a problem in a lot of Erikson's books, along with him depicting sexual assault quite casually, so I really didn't want to get invested in a series like that.
All in all, this book had nothing to interest me, and a lot of reasons for me to dislike it. 2/10.
So, here are some vaguely coherent thoughts about this book:
Pros:
- As a fantasy book, this wasn't bad. I feel like it got the basic elements of fantasy and did them fairly well.
- Some of the concepts were pretty interesting, or could have been interesting, if the book was better.
- One of the characters was somewhat interesting (the one from the sea). I would have read a (shorter) book just about her (if the author was better)
Cons:
- It was kind of basic. As I said earlier, it got the basic elements of fantasy, but it didn't go beyond that.
- The worldbuilding was poor. Some of the concepts could have been interesting but they were underexplained. This could have been because this is one of the more recently published books in the series, but, considering it is the first book in the author's recommended reading order, it should make sense as the first book in the series. It did not.
- It was generally confusing. There were so many characters, most of whom were very similar (all very generic characters), and it kept switching between them with no indicators. There were probably 5 or more storylines, but I couldn't distinguish one from the other.
- Consent, sex and sexual assault: There was a scene (relatively early on in the book), where a character just kinda started having sex with another character who (as far as I was aware) was quite badly concussed and had just been woken up after passing out due to said concussion. There was no indicator that the other character consented to it, or that he was even in a state where he would have been able to consent, but this was just passed off under the assumption that he would want it. Apparently this is a problem in a lot of Erikson's books, along with him depicting sexual assault quite casually, so I really didn't want to get invested in a series like that.
All in all, this book had nothing to interest me, and a lot of reasons for me to dislike it. 2/10.
Way too confusing and I felt like the author wanted more of a broad picture then a much more character focused one.
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some dialogues are more like monologues in sequence but not enough to ruin the read.
A book about love, a story with so much love in fact that you begin to hate it as it keeps going and shows you just how destructive this one feeling can be when used as a justification.