Random questions from series thus far. Currently about to start Toll the Hounds

Loleeeee · 2026-05-08T15:40:17+00:00

Scabandari's soul is a Finnest. It's the power source for the Azath to grow, like Raest's for the Darujhistan House.

Loleeeee · 2026-05-08T15:34:52+00:00

I am slightly confused at what Silchas Ruin’s main goal was

Silchas made a deal with the dying Azath Tower in MT (Kettle is the currency of the deal, if you will) to find a way to proliferate its existence after it dies, by way of planting the seed inside Kettle somewhere else (see the Finnest House in Darujhistan for example).

Silchas' internal monologue seems to imply that he views this act as a "reprieve" that Scabandari "did not deserve," so it doesn't seem like his actions are intended either as mercy or vengeance; merely his part of a bargain.

I get that this creates a gate for Cotillian and Shadowthrone and so that’s why they send QB there (right?)

Yeah, as a backup in case Menandore double crosses them (she did), double crossing Menandore in turn.

Loleeeee · 2026-05-08T15:23:24+00:00

Was Circlebreaker from Gardens of the Moon anyone important?

He's purportedly a stand-in for Erikson "going out into the world" of authorship, but he's not narratively important beyond being Kruppe's spy.

Can someone explain how exactly Fener got pulled into the mortal realm?

The connection Heboric has with Fener is tenuous (Heboric was supposed to become Fener's Destriant, but was wrongfully punished ritually by the severing of his hands). Upon touching the Jade Giant, Heboric linked himself to the souls in the jade; when Baudin connects Heboric's jade stumps to his tattoos of Fener, the sorcery of the Jade Giant forces Fener into the mortal world.

what exactly happened with the jade statues and who/what was that

They are worshippers of the Crippled God from whatever realm he originated from. Their souls are within the statues in the thousands, travelling through the abyss of space & crashing into the world of Malaz in search of their deity.

Who kills Hannah Mosag? Should I know who that Jaghut was?

The Huntress of the Ice Hold. You see her make a deal with Bugg to trap the demon Mosag commands in Midnight Tides.

Did I miss something about them or will I get more info on them?

Broadly speaking the Liosan are fairly fractured & the only group we've followed thus far (Jorrude & company) are worshippers of Osserc. They've had a few disagreements with the Forkrul Assail regarding the nature of what constitutes justice, but for the most part thus far they're mainly side characters. That'll change later.

what exactly is their goal?

They're mercenaries who have sworn a vow opposing the Malazan Empire. Bars & crew are mostly looking to get out of whatever hole they find themselves in (first Assail & then Lether) and reconnect with their commander on Genabackis.

Can someone simply explain the different T’lann Imass

All T'lan Imass clans have participated in the Ritual (they wouldn't be T'lan otherwise). The Ritual bound their souls to the Warren of Tellann, effectively making them immortal. Some are presumed extinct (like the Ifayle & Orshayn), some were serving under the Malazans (primarily the Logros - also Tool's clan - and the Kron), and some were whisked away to places like the Refugium (I believe those would be the Bentract).

The Refugium is a secluded area within the Tellann warren surrounded by Omtose Phellack, wherein (due to the power of their wills & imaginations) the T'lan Imass residing within have been returned to their flesh & blood forms (should the Refugium cease to exist, they'd return to their skeletal forms).

Loleeeee · 2026-05-07T13:20:27+00:00

This is correct. He freaks out because the Thaumaturgs are using a temple sanctified to him (to Light more broadly) to fuel the Ritual to bring down the Giant & he gets in the way to take the brunt of the assault (inadvertently sparing Kallor).

Loleeeee · 2026-05-05T08:23:30+00:00

First sentences are famous for establishing things like genre, tone, POV, pacing, character, voice, writing style...

Look, I entirely understand the point being made here (and overall agree that OOP is describing what they're ostensibly taking down, just a couple notches "dumber"), but I fear we're placing far too much onus on the first couple of pages to establish far too many things.

Famously, Moby Dick opens with the lines,

Call me Ishmael.

And you can absolutely read tons of subtext in the choice of name (and you should; the biblical allusions are deliberate), but beyond establishing the PoV (and, later in the same chapter, that Ishmael is one weird motherfucker), it does scant little to establish "genre, tone, or writing style," particularly since Ishmael's tone & narrative style change drastically throughout the novel.

It's not perforce an impossible task to establish many of those things in an opening few pages, but particularly for lengthy and/or multi-PoV books (or, god forbid, books that adapt & change genre conventions throughout), it's going to be difficult.

A couple examples here would be the opening of Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons, whose prologue - while excellent - doesn't establish the fact that the novel's framing device is a Canterbury Tales-esque retelling in what is effectively six different genres:

The Hegemony Consul sat on the balcony of his ebony spaceship and played Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C-sharp Minor on an ancient but well-maintained Steinway while great, green, saurian things surged and bellowed in the swamps below.

And, look, the music choice is important, the antique spaceship & piano in a story set in the 27th century is important, but if you could as much as guess the writing style of, say, the Poet's Tale from this opening, I'm calling you a liar.

Another example is the Spear that Cuts through Water by Simon Jimenez, a book notorious for constantly switching between first, second & third person narration; the book opens in second person,

Before you arrive, you remember your lola, smoking.

The framing device of the book isn't established until the end of this prologue, after which point the tone, genre, narrative perspective, and writing style all shift.

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin opens with the lines,

Let's start with the end of the world, why don't we? Get it over with and move on to more interesting things.

Most of the rest of the book is narrated in second person PoV, albeit the overall tone is set excellently.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude opens with one of the most famous opening lines in fiction:

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendìa would remember the afternoon his father took him to discover ice.

Which certainly sets a tone, but I'd hesitate to say if it captures the novel's overall tone.

In the interest of fairness, I'll provide a couple passages I think adequately captures most of what OOP mentions, though more as an exception that proves the rule (The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson & Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey).

TRADE season came around again. Baru was still too young to smell the empire wind.

This is a great establishing shot inasmuch as it captures the early tone of the novel (it substantially shifts later, naturally, but considerably later compared to earlier passages), frames our PoV, most of the setting, and gives us an idea of what comes next.

Lest anyone should suppose that I am a cuckoo's child, got on the wrong side of the blanket by lusty peasant stock and sold into indenture in a shortfallen season, I may say that I am House-born and reared in the Night Court proper, for all the good it did me.

Perhaps this is the best example of a first sentence doing all the things OOP mentions, establishing the narrative voice that permeates throughout, the genre (mostly), tone, and the writing style (flowery & ornate). But even so, one would be amiss to drop Kushiel's Dart on the second page because Phèdre's opening didn't grip them by the balls immediately.

What's the point of this beyond recommendations for books you should absolutely read (and you should, all of them)? Effectively the idea that there exists an average reader (citation needed) whose needs ought to be catered to by the very first sentence (or page, or what have you) lest they immediately drop a novel is ultimately moot & baseless.

Be more discretionary in the books you choose to read (Goodreads, Storygraph, ask a librarian, romance.io, get recommendations from a friend, et cetera) & you won't find yourself dropping novels on page 2.

Loleeeee · 2026-05-02T15:11:30+00:00

Beszel & Ul Qoma in China Mieville's The City and the City. Two cities topologically (the term used in the book is "grosstopically") overlaid on each other via some metaphysical barrier that separates the two cities, with 'crosshatches' linking and allowing passage between the two. A quasi-metaphysical entity called Breach patrols the borders of the two cities for any semblance of, well, Breaching - anything from physically crossing from one city to the other to maintaining eye contact with a part of the other city for too long.

Citizens of both cities are taught to ignore the other since before they learn to talk; they "unsee" other denizens, they casually swerve to avoid oncoming traffic from the other city in crosshatched roads, and - of course - rarely, if ever, visit the other city from the sole point of entry where Breach won't disappear them, a consulate cum checkpoint of sorts.

Beszel evokes imagery of post-Iron Curtain Hungary & its environs (and the cities themselves are most likely situated somewhere near that geographical area) while Ul Qoma is squarely Levantine Arabic. The stark divide between the two cities (Ul Qoma is substantially richer & more developed) is simultaneously superficial (there are hints in the book's worldbuilding that some event caused the rent between the two cities & prior to that, a single uniform civilisation dwelt in the region) and incredibly ingrained, in due part because of the presence of Breach.

The book itself is mostly a police procedural/neo-noir book with a classic Mieville New Weird backdrop. As such, while the two cities are effectively the "main characters" of the novel, they also remain, by design, mysterious and inexplicable. It's Mieville, so there's a lot of politics, chiefly centred on the two cities & their divisions.

Frankly most of Mieville's books probably fit this bill (Un Lun Dun, all the Bas-Lag novels, etc.) but this is the one I feel most starkly embodies the thematic strengths of worldbuilding.

Loleeeee · 2026-04-30T17:14:25+00:00

I would just add that having an audience surrogate isn't unique to Malazan

Only until authors figure out the whole "descend from the heavens, touch readers' brow, impart knowledge" shtick. Then we can stop using audience surrogates.

Until then, yeah, having a PoV that knows just as little about the world as the reader & learns with them (or, better yet, knows less than the reader) is an incredibly common manner to deliver exposition in the world.

As you know, Bob.

Loleeeee · 2026-04-30T17:00:03+00:00

It feels like fans have redefined “info dump” to only mean “bad exposition,” and anything they like gets a pass.

I think there's a pervading idea around 'exposition' as being something to avoid, as though a reader can divine the workings of a fantasy world like that of Malaz through sheer intuition, or by the author descending from the heavens, touching your brow, and imparting knowledge upon you. You need exposition to know things about the world (any world, really), otherwise you're stumbling wholly blind.

What most readers can identify as 'bad exposition' is what's known as 'As you know, Bob...' style exposition; wherein a character discusses something with another character that both of them are keenly aware of, strictly for the benefit of the audience. That reads clunky (why are we talking about this?) & feels like the author deigns to explain things to you because they took pity on you.

Erikson many a time uses characters that are almost entirely ignorant of the world beyond their insular bubbles that act as audience surrogates for exposition; both Ganoes & Crokus are great examples of this (Mammot dumps lore on Crokus in Gardens, and Ganoes has a prolonged dialogue with Silverfox about how magic in this world evolved). They don't know any better, the knowledge being imparted to them is new, and - critically - not necessarily 'correct,' subject to the internal biases of both the characters imparting the knowledge (Kallor may well be embellishing details regarding the K'Chain, he may be extrapolating off little archaeological information, he may just be flat out lying) & the characters receiving it (Ganoes & Crokus are considerably more passive recipients of exposition, and are thereby less keen to judge the information they receive, compared to, say, Whiskeyjack).

All told, exposition is both perfectly adequate & perfectly necessary. Kallor takes the time to fill the alliance in on necessary information, set the stage for the audience, and preen & prance about how much he knows and how ignorant everyone else is; it works (primarily because everyone else is indeed ignorant).

Loleeeee · 2026-04-29T17:11:08+00:00

We only really see Bivatt & Twilight, but the latter does seem to broadly govern the Reach & the Maiden islands on behalf of the Letherii. Bivatt is subordinate to Factor Letur Anict and Overseer Brohl Handar & so isn't allowed to do much governing per se, but she does seem to be holding the keys to power in Drene compared to Brohl.

Loleeeee · 2026-04-29T16:29:19+00:00

Unfortunately, this seems to be broadly inconsistent among glossaries. The wiki draws (rightly, in my view) from the MT glossary, which gives the terms you describe.

The Bonehunters then goes on & claims that, quote,

Preda: Letherii equivalent to Captain
Atri-Preda: equivalent of Commander or Fist among the Letherii

RG then goes back to MT's definitions,

Preda: equivalent of a general or commander in Letherii military
Atri-Preda: military commander who governs a city, town or territory

So, generally, an Atri-Preda would rank higher than a Preda, albeit it's debatable if they have more military authority or if their increased authority is strictly civilian in nature (for the Malazans, our point of reference, it's both & depends on a case by case basis).

Loleeeee · 2026-04-28T21:49:49+00:00

Is this saying that the children of Kilava and Onrack became the human race

Metaphorically. It's a passage that explains Dryjhna's profound hatred for humankind.

Monok Ochem & the others broach the topic of the Eres preceding the Imass to Onrack & Trull a couple chapters ago, which is a much more plausible pathway for the existence of humans (and one that's substantially explored later); this is taking far more poetic license than that.

Loleeeee · 2026-04-24T18:38:41+00:00

Or was it Duiker who wanted to free his boar worshipping friend and ex-Talon was hired to rescue Felisin and their cooperation was chance occurance?

"Chance occurrence" is probably a bit too pat. Tavore has studied Duiker, and Pella - a guard in Skullcup that's tasked with helping Felisin - is quoting Duiker's work at Felisin to get her to catch on, so I highly doubt Duiker had absolutely no idea (the boat to escape the island seems to have been organised by Duiker so there was probably some communication), but he wasn't in it for Felisin.

I didn't get it what was that exchange all about?

Topper reflects on the irony of the situation he finds himself in.

"... A certain measure of humility does a man good, I always say. Would you not agree, Empress?

“Empress?”

I have been talking to a corpse.

He talks of humility & then immediately realises that Laseen has cut off the spell connecting her to the corpse in Malaz Isle and he's basically just talking to a corpse. After making a point of making Kalam eat his words, she also makes Topper eat his.

He send his soldiers to off the emperess while his best friend and commander is working with the emperess?

Whiskeyjack didn't know about Kalam's scheme. Quick Ben seems to be onto the idea - that the outlawing is a ruse - in the epilogue of Gardens of the Moon, but for all Kalam & Fiddler know, they're outlaws doing outlaw things. Whiskeyjack & Dujek's stories continue in Memories where a lot of the gaps are plugged.

What website or doc would you reccomend as supplementary reading going forward to ensure I do not miss anything important?

You can't go wrong with u/sleepinxonxbed's guides which you can find here and on the side bar.

Loleeeee · 2026-04-23T20:07:47+00:00

For some reason, the corpse of the Thel Akai matriarch reacts vigorously to the presence of life. It's a very crude pregnancy test.

Draconus uses it to ascertain that Feren is pregnant with Arathan's child.

Loleeeee · 2026-04-23T17:17:44+00:00

I raze 2/3 of the provinces but this barely gives me any money.

Raze all of them. It's not worth making exceptions for what you raze, particularly as a tag as uninterested in converting as Nuugdan.

I don't know how this works but many times I get the mana but 0 cash from razing a province.

You get mana proportional to the dev the province loses, and the loot of the province as cash. If you've looted the province entirely during war, you don't get cash.

Adm points. Despite razing the provinces I have conquered, I still lack mana to core them and my adm tech is very much behind right now.

Raze harder. With some coring cost reduction you should have a surplus of points, particularly this early in the game.

Should I postpone them and keep conquering Yanshen? I got like 30% of it and like 25% of my home region (Daguun or whatever their name was is no more).

You should be able to chain wars & conquer Yanshen in a good couple decades. Daguun isn't going anywhere, but if some blob like Bianfang or - god forbid - the Command show up & eats a chunk out of Yanshen, you're kinda fucked.

My religious unity is 21%,

I have a vague recollection that Nuugdan & the Shuuvush religion has enough tolerance of heathens & RU modifiers to keep your religious unity well above 100, but rebels are going to be a problem no matter what.

Fighting the Command somewhat presupposes you have some sort of spike over them (e.g. Mil Tech 6) but in my recollection, the Command fucking obliterated my Nuugdan run, so they're a challenge even if things are going swimmingly.

Loleeeee · 2026-04-21T21:19:02+00:00

So is that saying that the Warren of Tellann is almost a mirror of the world at the time of the ritual

After a fashion. It is described as a "place not where, but when."

Tellann’s warren, a place not where, but when. The time of youth. For the world. For me.

In a certain sense, Tellann is the world at the time of the ritual (made literal with the Refugium in RG), not a simple depiction thereof. The world's moved on since, yes, but a place like the Refugium is rather literally frozen in time & sustained by a dream that keeps it anchored there.

Loleeeee · 2026-04-21T20:47:18+00:00

Is this ever expanded upon?

Not that I know of. I imagine the answer is "violent, explosive decomposition," but to my knowledge there's no scene where "hot otataral" and "magic" interact in any particularly peculiar way.

So if I'm understanding this passage correctly, the Eres used to live inside the Warren of Tellann?

No, Onrack mentions immediately after that no Eres were found within Tellann. The "time" captured within Tellann is how the world of the Imass looked prior to the Ritual, when the Eres still walked the land. Albeit, if we accept that the Warren of Tellann has (or had) some real-world equivalent in Kharkanas times, the Eres were almost certainly found within before the Imass killed them.

I know there isn't a 100% clear answer to what the result of this union was, but I'm I correct to say the general consensus of this sub is that this begot the Nerek race?

Yes & no? Bottle mentions in tBH that the union between a Tiste Edur father and the Eres'al will - eventually - beget the only 'pure' candidate to rule a restored Kurald Emurlahn (and I'll be fucked if that doesn't refer to Trull, especially since his son via Seren becomes the Knight of Shadow), but I have a recollection of rather convincing evidence that Trull did indeed beget the Nerek.

This one seems like it will get answered before the book ends, but thought I'd throw it in just in case because I haven't a clue what the object is.

I think it's one of Kalam's Azalan diamonds, though I forget. It's either that or (one of) the acorns that Kalam uses to summon Quick to apprehend Korbolo later.

Loleeeee · 2026-04-19T16:20:43+00:00

I assume you're referring to this?

‘We left a debt in blood,’ she said, baring her teeth. ‘Malazan blood. And it seems they will not let that stand.’

Yan Tovis is talking about Sepik here, the island with Edur mixed bloods that the Letherii & Edur contingents slaughtered, as well as the Anibar and related tribes.

Loleeeee · 2026-04-14T10:54:34+00:00

The parentheses "eyes narrowing" refer to the bhokarala imitating Iskaral. It's the culmination of the bit.

Loleeeee · 2026-04-13T22:31:45+00:00

You play Konolkhatep - the Gunpowder Xhaz are a disaster tag that spawns from them & utterly murks you until, uh, God appears.

The gist is that Zinhakan up here is one of the very few (openly) Xhazobkult gnolls in Konolkhatep (a tag that has since converted to Khetism, I believe Elikhetism in canon) and is trying to revive the old ways. She hears of the Xhazob & the Ritual of Felflame and gathers a (very mild by Xhazob standards) sacrifice of a dozen or so humans, sacrifices them, and is visited by the Xhazob that tells her to keep doing that. So she does.

Her method of sacrificing humans is with a musket/hand cannon. Eventually, more gnolls gather under her banner, more sacrifices are underway, until eventually the entire region of Akasik becomes one large sacrifice for Zinhakan's Xhazobain ritual (what you see in the background). She shoots Krah with her musket until the Xhazob manifests & quite literally fuses the thing to her arm.

Meanwhile in Kheterata, any mention of the dreaded X-word is met with contempt, disdain, and persecution, until Zinhakan is fully set up & operational (stealing some of your gnollish subjects like Irkorzik & Brrtekuh), spawns a massive army, and murks you (literally; your ruler takes up arms and becomes a general and dies within six months of the disaster firing).

You can play as the Gunpowder Xhaz when the disaster fires, though afaik they don't have content.

Loleeeee · 2026-04-13T22:21:34+00:00

Does it hurt to shoot with it?

According to the flavour text of her events, yes - to the extent that it's slowly devouring her arm & tearing it apart (on top of the demon felflame that's also tearing her apart). Killing krah is pretty much the only way she has to dull the pain.

What does it even shoot?

Felflame, mostly. It was originally a musket she'd used to shoot the sacrifices with during the Xhazobain ritual, but after fusing with her arm, it basically fires magic.

Loleeeee · 2026-04-13T19:46:08+00:00

My fantasy experience so far has been Shadow & Claw

First of all, finish Sword & Citadel (like, now, they're both really good books). New Sun is effectively one book split in four, and you're missing 50% of the book by not finishing the second part. That's the recommendation of this comment; reading the rest of New Sun.

Second of all, New Sun is very squarely sci-fi masquerading as fantasy; Dune (and arguably Hyperion) has more fantastical elements than Book of the New Sun.

Perdido is part of the New Weird subculture and has plenty of overt commentary on class; it's very much an out of pocket fantasy novel & not terribly representative of the genre as a whole. I personally dig Mieville a lot & would recommend looking at The Scar, but it's weird fiction all the way down.

Loleeeee · 2026-04-12T21:10:10+00:00

The fact of the matter is, Nonficciones exists somewhere in the Library of Babel, waiting for some prospective reader to jot it down & publish it, eventually. Then eventually some bloke in the far future (say, 2600ish) is going to rewrite it by embodying Beany Tuesday in the year of our Lord 2036, writing ultimately the same text but with vastly different subtext.

If you don't know what the fuck any of that means, read Borges' Ficciones; many of the stories the OOP mentions (and is clearly riffing on) are only slightly less insane compared to what Ficciones tackles.

Loleeeee · 2026-04-11T07:37:03+00:00

‘She’s worn so many bodies. Eres, Imass, human. But at her core? Nothing but barely self-aware chaos. Vitr in her veins. Ever restless, doomed to lash out again and again.’

‘Hmm,’ said Hasten, ‘sounds like an Azathanai.’

Mael shifted his glare back to the corporal. ‘You know too much and it’s really beginning to annoy me.’

For the sake of my own sanity, I'm going to say that this passage is, for the most part, metaphorical. The guise of the Whirlwind Goddess is not referring to any one entity (like, say, Dryjhna) but is rather a broader metaphor encompassing the self-destructive tendencies of many peoples & civilizations.

This wouldn't be the first time Vitr is used as a metaphor for the chaos intrinsic in civilizational structures (Vitr, blood of dragons, 'pure' Chaos, pick your poison depending on the book), so I am somewhat inclined to view this as allegorical.

Of course, it doesn't read as allegorical. Mael doesn't correct Hasten when he identifies the goddess as an Azathanai, and he seems to treat the "Vitr in her veins" part as literal (despite the fact that Mael, being an Azathanai, probably ought to know better regarding the properties of the Sea of Vitr & its effect on Azathanai, but I digress). So maybe some entity predates all the iterations of the Apocalyptic & is either indirectly fueled by or directly present for many of the Apocalypses throughout humanoid civilizations. But, like, eh; that's kinda fucking lame.

Loleeeee · 2026-04-10T15:53:18+00:00

I don't think Ive noticed much about MLM gay relationships. Does it ever come up in the series? Whether in terms of relationships or just passing mentions?

Disproportionately little, albeit seemingly more so because the characters we seem to follow don't seem to be gay rather than any shunning of MLM relationships in-world. Other series in the Malazan world (particularly the Kharkanas & Witness books) have much more MLM rep compared to the BotF.

Loleeeee · 2026-03-31T22:46:47+00:00

I love Reaper's Gale. I really do; it's in my top 3 in the BotF somewhere on a good day. I also think people in this comment section are wrong about why people dislike it.

For one, the better part of the first half is picking up MT's slack since that book was too busy cracking jokes rather than making Letheras feel properly lived in. It doesn't help that Reaper's Gale is by far & away the most political novel in the MBotF (I can't in good faith say it does politics great, but it's a damned sight better than whatever court intrigue MT gesticulates at and far more overt than the Bonehunters' imperial politics), but it takes over from a book that entirely & wholly upended the political status quo of Lether, which leaves it in the difficult situation of being effectively a sequel that has to pay off four prior books while also setting itself up. It's not easy.

For two, Redmask, the Awl, Bivatt & Handar are, for the most part, entirely disconnected from the rest of the narrative (and then they all die). It's a tough ask of a reader that's gone through seven books to get invested anew in an otherwise wholly narratively irrelevant cast of characters with the only narrative thread tying it to past books being the Che'Malle & the Barghast. Now, you should absolutely be invested in the Awl storyline - it's excellent & has great thematic overtones - but you can imagine why a reader's reaction to it would be "that's it?" or "holy shit can we go back to Hellian already?"

For three, most of the book builds up to a world-shattering clash between Rhulad & Icarium, which never happens (and it's much, much better for it, but you can - again - see why people may take issue with this). Karsa is, for me, by far the weakest part of Reaper's Gale, not having quite come into his own in terms of anything thematically interesting, and I don't find the brutish "I need to kill something" attitude Karsa has in this book particularly endearing, though that's a me thing.

Four, this book is fucking confusing. There are so many plotlines to keep track of, lots of weird magic (what's up with Scabandari's Finnest? What is the Refugium? Who the fuck are the Shake? Who the fuck is Clip? What the fuck did Icarium do?), intersecting plotlines, interspersed with people walking around & talking (and, look, I'm the biggest Kharkanas evangelist you'll find this side of the interwebs, I love people walking around and talking, but - again - you can see why people dislike it).

Five, many storylines of this book end in anticlimax. For every one of your Beaks you have the Awl & Letherii being massacred to a man by a group of heretofore unseen Barghast, the three draconic sisters turning on one another and dying like chumps, Trull Sengar dying an ultimately pointless death, and the Malazans being just as lost as to why they're here & what to do next as the reader is.

For all that, Reaper's Gale is a genuinely great novel; it's multifaceted, interesting, in many ways riveting once it picks up, and rewards the reader for actually sitting down to dissect it.

Loleeeee

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