“If I’d known this was going to be a day for killing gods, I might have paced myself better.”

I’ll start off by saying that this isn’t my favourite quote of the book, but Tehol and Bugg’s conversations are too long to properly quote and I think this one delivers the general tone of the book quite well.

Anyway, Midnight Tides or Why Capitalism is a Disease^TM. I don’t think I’ve ever read a fantasy book that was such a sharp critic of capitalist societies, it really does not hold back. Quite interesting to see, and a lot to think about for sure.

Ok so let’s actually talk about what’s inside the book now! The fifth book in a ten books serie. We’re almost halfway through, 4000 pages of worldbuilding and I thought I had a general idea of where this was going. Of course, SE had to prove me wrong by doing what he does best, turn everything on its head and leave you questioning everything. New continent, new characters, new cultures, new set of gods and myths (sort of), new EVERYTHING because why the heck not right?!

There is, of course, the exception of one character that was present in House of Chains, but on a named cast of about 80-90 characters, it isn’t much. The story takes place on a distant continent (so distant they’ve never even heard of the Malazan empire), home to the Tiste Edur and the kingdom of Lether both of whom are fighting for much the same reason as previous books, imperialist tendencies (and seals because everyone needs a reason to start a war and braconning seals was a convenient excuse there apparently).

It’s a sort of prequel because it’s happening probably at the same time as the events of Garden of the Moon. Definitely before House of Chains. Reading the characters list I was honestly worried because I didn’t care much for Trull Sengar, the lone character showing up in any previous books, and a whole book on his backstory seemed a lot especially right in the middle of this already huge storyline. Of course I was wrong and this book was amazing. I shall never doubt SE again (but please don’t introduce a new continent/new set of characters again I can barely keep track of everyone and everything as it is).

So now that’s I’ve explained a bit more about this book, let’s move on to my opinion. This is yet another book where I have practically nothing bad to say. Maybe that the start was somewhat confusing because everything is completely different, so it almost feel like it’s a different universe except as you go along you can see all the pieces falling into place perfectly. And after close to 5000 pages we finally get some explanation regarding the way the magic system works! There is a lot of worldbuilding here and for probably the first time ever SE actually had a character spell it out for the reader instead of just have them act and you have to figure it out on your own.

The new characters introduced are some of the best of the whole serie, Tehol and Bugg are absolutely brilliant, they’ve bulldozed their way to the top of my list, only behind Kruppe (and I need a meeting between them + Iskaral Pust, it absolutely HAS to happen, the potential is all there!). And then there’s Rhulad and I was. In. so. Much. Pain. For. Him. Oh and Brys of course, he should not be forgotten. But mostly Tehol and Bugg, those two really made the book for me.

The actions scenes are as always brilliantly written. The magic here is out of the charts, the brutality of it all left me speechless at times. And then there is that one specific fight scene at the end of the book. I probably read that scene three times in a row just to grasp what i had just read. And I went back to it multiple times since. As far as one on one fight goes I can safely say this is my favourite one ever in any book.

The ending was not what I expected when I first opened the book because surprisingly (or not since this is SE) not a lot is actually mentionned regarding Trull and his House of Chains journey (which I really want to go back to and read-over now that I have much more insight on him).  Despite that I think (hope) most of the pieces of the global puzzle are now set for the bigger conflict to take center stage and I cannot wait for it.

Side note: what was it with the owls in this book? I know they’re going to comeback to haunt me later but I can’t figure out WHY they’re important.