_House of Chains: A Tale of the Malazan Book of the Fallen_
Steve Erikson, 2002
Two Line Summary: As always, a Glen Cook/Robert Jordan hybrid, but Erikson has mastered the genre. His main theme continues to progress, as well, not just his storyline.
Quick Rating: Well, God *damn*. But oh, man, this is gong to be a bitch to review positively without giving too much away.
This is the fourth of the ten projected Tales of the Malazan series. I've been reviewing them as I go along. Those who are fairly well along in the series will understand what the phrase "House of Chains" portends, and why it is a grim, grim title. There should be no spoilers here for them.
Those who have not read any of the books may find some spoilers here, but more likely than not they just won't quite know what I'm talking about. On the other hand, the reviews of the earlier books are archived on my blog, and those might make more sense. They're archived in Deja, too, and I'm enough of a completist to have fished the URLs out and poasted them into makeashorterlink.com:
Gardens of the Moon on Google and this blog
Deadhouse Gates on Google and this blog
Memories of Ice on Google and this blog
Now then, long time readers will already know (if they think like I do) that Erikson writes a good yarn, and he plays to his strengths in doing so-- the true sense of wonder in this book, as the rest, is the archaeological scale to the history and the depth of realization. There's really nothing else like it on the market that I can think of.
Long time readers will be pleased to know that this book is no different in its strengths.
_House of Chains_ follows three main threads of story (perhaps two, depending on how you want you tie things off) and a few smaller threads on the side. As is common for Erikson's books, these threads are tightly related each other, and when the volume comes to a close, it closes with a sense of finality: One story, complete in itself, has been told, even though that one story is a part of a much larger epic. It's a knack Erikson has had from the start, and if anything he's getting better at it the series progresses.
The first thread follows the exploits of a young barbarian warrior named Karsa Orlong, and his two companions. Karsa Orlong is not a sympathetic character. For the first hundred pages, he was so annoyingly bloodthirsty and narrowminded that I simply wanted him to die and be out of my misery so that we could get to the good stuff. To his very great credit, though, Erikson works enough of a transformation on Karsa Orlong to keep my attention. More: although he's never a sympathetic character (not even close, really) he becomes more and more compelling as the book continues. The world is larger than Karsa Orlong, and large enough by far to offer him a choice between losing his narrowmindedness, and losing his sanity and his life.
Very skillfully written.
The second and third threads follow directly in the wake of _Deadhouse Gates_ and the vastly moving tale of the Chain of Dogs. One of these threads is that of Tavore Ganoes, eldest of her siblings, and Adjunct of the Empress Laseen, sent to that wake to set right what has been made wrong. She is in one of the worst situations imaginable-- she is relatively young, new to her station, untested and indeed unknown as a battlecommander, and leading a corps of men shattered by events of the recent past.
The other is that of Felisin Ganoes, youngest of her siblings, now called Sha'ik, and a Prophetess of sorts of the Whirlwind Goddess who holds the sands of the holy desert Raraku. Where Tavore has with her the remnants of a former army, Sha'ik has with her a very strong army with a capable and proven leader... as well as a great number of followers, many of the powerful mages in their own right, and with their own hidden agendas. A position of power, but in a viper's nest.
Clearly, they fight.
And a minor thread I feel compelled to mention is that of a T'lann Imass renegade and a Tiste Edur renegade who come to travel together. I'm compelled to mention it because it's terribly important to the ending of the book, though I didn't understand why until the last fifty pages or so, and couldn't begin to express it without spoiling the whole thing.
The second and third plot threads are written... differently than Karsa Orlong's. Differently from the Chain of Dogs sequence in _Deadhouse Gates_, as well. The climax in those threads is less the final battle itself, as it is the revelations about the history of Raraku it brings along with it. It's a strange thing, when the revelation of history, geography and archaeology brings a bigger gut-punch and "Oh, *damn!*" sensation than a pitched, climactic battle.
But there it is.
Is _House of Chains_ better than _Deadhouse Gates_? No, not in my opinion. A little more polished, significantly better plotted, because of the way all the threads come together at the end. No characteristically bad Eriksonian love themes. But the fate of Coltaine in _Deadhouse Gates_ is just plain more gripping than the fate of Felisin and Tavore in _House of Chains_. You'd have to work very very hard to do otherwise, though.
The very good thing about this book, especially as part of the overall series, is the continuing and now evolving theme. The first three books (the second and third, especially) have been fairly strident in a message that I think is worth sending-- the nature of duty, of honor, of doing what you need to do when you're neck deep in shit and you're sure it's only going to get deeper. You do what you need to do, and keep on keepin' on.
Better, though, _House of Chains_ doesn't just send that message again. Much as I think it's a good message, I think I'd get bored after ten rounds at seven hundred pages each. This one deepens the message to what happens when you fail. What does it *mean* to fail? What does it mean to fail so badly you're broken, in mind, body or spirit? Like the earlier message, this one runs through the entire world. It's not important just for the little guys, or even the mortals as a whole. The Malazan world is so constructed that the answers to those questions affects the gods, and the world itself, as well.
They're dark, dark books.
But somehow, I can't walk away from them without feeling a little hopeful.