“Who needs tomes and volumes of history? Children are dying. The injustices of the world hide in those words.”

Pain. So much pain in this book seriously. I loved it but it was so painful. GotM was a good book but this is a whole different level of brilliant, SE truly comes into his own here and the story takes off in an unbelievable way. Truly one of the best work of fantasy I’ve ever read.

The premise of the book is quite simple, the continent of Seven Cities has had enough of the Malazan empire and rebels. And then, the rebel’s armed force chases the left-over Malazan army across this desertic continent. That’s mostly it. There are others storylines crossing over but this is the core of the book. And while, at first, I was a bit confused at the complete change in both characters and settings from GotM, I found DG very easy to get into. You’re sucked right into the story very early on and then it never lets up.

So my opinion of this book. I’ll go with the negative first because it will be very quick, I have practically nothing bad to say about this book. Out of the 4 main story arcs in this book, the one focused on Kalam felt a little dragging for me, especially because despite him having so much potential and doing amazing things the conclusion wasn’t particularly satisfying. Maybe it’s because he was one of my favourite characters in GotM but I was expecting more.

Now on the good stuff. Well everything else! More seriously this is a book that shouldn’t work because who wants to read 1000 pages about an army protecting (sometimes ungrateful) refugees while being chased across desertic plains for months? But it works brilliantly. There is not one moment when that story is unravelling that is boring or redundant. The characterizations are on point, there is real personal development and some of the newly introduced characters are absolutely mindblowing. Coltaine, much like Anomander Rake, doesn’t get a single point of view but it does not matter, by the end of the book you’re left in complete awe of him. And the fighting scenes…. the level of epic in each of them was something else.

There’s quite a lot of worldbuilding and historical references here and not all of it makes sense (it will in later books just not immediatly). There are some revelations that left me feeling very stupid for not having picked that up in book 1 already. You learn more about the few characters that did cross over from GotM and their own motivations. And aside from Coltaine who I’ve already mentioned the new cast is truly fantastic between Icarium & Mappo, Duiker and of course the one and only Iskaral Pust.

One thing on the Felisin storyline… that one was very difficult to read at time to be honest and it really made me uncomfortable which was the whole point I suppose. Felisin isn’t a likable character, the way she acts and even her inner monologues are frankly despicable sometimes. Thing is, you know why and how she ended up being the way she is so, while she’s hateful, I never could resent her for it. I just felt for her. And the way things develop and are revealed, it’s really heartbreaking. I couldn’t like her but I wanted to so much. Out of all the characters she’s one of most realistic and she’s very carefully written which is absolutely necessary in that case.

In a strange way this book is quite similar to old greek tragedies. From the start you know it won’t end well and the characters themselves are aware of it. It’s not quite spelled out but it can’t be made much more clear. But that’s not the point. The maddeningly slow descent into despair and hopelessness while never quite fully reaching breaking point is where this shines. I had to stop reading multiple times to just process what I was reading and my poor feelings. And then the ending… it left me reeling, there’s no other word for it. You have plenty of time to get prepared but honestly it’s not possible to be ready for what SE throws at you there.

This book will stay with me for a long time I think. It really was an Experience.

Sort of spoiler so be warned: another thing that I really enjoyed is how Icarium and Mappo end basically at the exact same place where they began. I love it when authors bring the story full circle so this was a very nice touch.