“One day, perhaps, you will see for yourself that regrets are as nothing. The value lies in how they are answered.“

Beware there will be slight spoilers for Deadhouse Gates here by simple virtue of the plot.

First a short summary of this book. House of Chains mainly takes place back in Seven Cities where we left of from Deadhouse Gates. A new Adjunct to the Empress has been chosen and has put together a new army and they set out to face Sha’ik’s rebel force in the heart of the desert. Meanwhile internal conflict threatens that rebel force and new players in the long game are introduced. 

So out of the five books I have read so far this is my least favourite. It’s not to say it’s bad because it’s clearly not, I enjoyed it and I consider it a good book, but it comes right after two brilliantly executed books and it suffers the comparison in my opinion. There is also the fact that I actively despised one of the most important character so my opinion is negatively biased here.

I’ll start with what I didn’t enjoy. My biggest issue is that one major new character we are introduced to. Objectively he’s a very interesting fantasy character but I absolutely hated him in the beginning so having to read a whole 200 pages from only his perspective felt dragging. Thankfully there is a lot of character development where he is concerned and I’m starting to actually enjoy reading him (and seeing everyone constantly underestimate him despite growing evidence that he should definitely NOT be is quite fun). I also had issues with the other new characters because they felt very distant and I did not understand the whole plot they were involved in. Now having already read the next book I can only regret not having paid more attention whenever they were center stage and I’m already looking forward to a re-read so I can enjoy them without all the confusion.

Another thing that left me hanging was that while there is a resolution here it’s not what you come to expect to so it felt a little lacking. Almost like this book was a filler to set everything into motion for the bigger picture. My opinion of this specific aspect will most likely change as I advance in the serie but it’s how I felt when I first finished the book so I suppose it’s relevant. Though on the other side it was relaxing to not have all my feelings messed with with this ending.

Alright so what I enjoyed! The new army we are introduced to is filled with great characters and personalities, there are so many little moments reading about them that I loved (that scorpion fight please) and those truly make the book. A lot of character developments regarding some old-time favourites and of course our favourite High-Priest Iskaral Pust’s now legendary non-sensical monologues (only in appearance non-sensical, I could never disrespect him like that) that I adore.

Also a short shout out to the Tiste Liosan, thank you for making laugh by sheer virtue of stupidity and pedantry, that was great.

As always the world building is great, we see new possibilities regarding magic abilities that I’m very excited about and all of the stuff about battle strategy and the daily life of an army is fascinating to read about. The banter between the soldiers and the growing camaraderie are the heart of this book for me. And the one thing that I loved the most here, how things that happened in the previous books and seemed incidental are now incredibly relevant. It’s all starting to come together, I think I finally have an idea of where this is all going and I’m so so excited for it. Watch me go back to that specific comment when I’m done and realising how wrong I was about everything… I can just feel it already.