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Title: The Bonehunters (The Malazan Book of the Fallen | Book 6) |
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Review of The Bonehunters (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, Book 6)
- The Seven Cities Rebellion has been crushed. Sha'ik is dead. One last rebel force remains, holed up in the city of Y'Ghatan and under the fanatical command of Leoman of the Flails. The prospect of laying siege to this ancient fortress makes the battle-weary Malaz 14th Army uneasy. For it was here that the Empire's greatest champion Dassem Ultor was slain and a tide of Malazan blood spilled. A place of foreboding, its smell is of death.But elsewhere, agents of a far greater conflict have made their opening moves.The Crippled God has been granted a place in the pantheon, a schism threatens and sides must be chosen. Whatever each god decides, the ground-rules have changed, irrevocably, terrifyingly and the first blood spilled will be in the mortal world.A world in which a host of characters, familiar and new, including Heboric Ghost Hands, the possessed Apsalar, Cutter, once a thief now a killer, the warrior Karsa Orlong and the two ancient wanderers Icarium and Mappo--each searching for such a fate as they might fashion with their own hands, guided by their own will. If only the gods would leave them alone. But now that knives have been unsheathed, the gods are disinclined to be kind. There shall be war, war in the heavens. And, the prize? Nothing less than existence itself...Here is the stunning new chapter in Steven Erikson magnificent Malazan Book of the Fallen--hailed as an epic of the imagination and acknowledged as a fantasy classic in the making.
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Comments for The Bonehunters (The Malazan Book of the Fallen | Book 6)
- Posted on 2008-04-22
A step backward except the last 200 pages
Mignight Tides was probably the most polished book of the series so far. It had a tight well laid out plot structure that defied all the "Erickson needs an editor" comments.
Sadly, Bonehunters is a probably the worst edited book of the bunch. Plotlines are often dealt with in 2 page chunks and after reading 5 different plotlines in 15 pages, there is just no emotional payoff for a lot of the book. In this way, much of the book is very disjointed and you wonder why the author and editor didn't simply combine ten of the two page chunks into one 20 page chunk to give the reader some continuity.
Erikson also invents 15 or so characters with no purpose and gives them a perspective. So instead of reading about a particular plot point from Fiddler's point of view, you get the plot from 10 different just introduced sodiers that you never hear from again. I guess Erikson was trying to experiment by showing the events from varias points of view, but it did not work. I did not care what these throw away characters had to say or what happened to them.
This brings me to the last 200 pages of the book which were just fantastic. Finally, we get a continuous sequence of events with familar characters including a deadly chase through a major city in the empire.
Why Erikson couldn't write the whole book like this, I have no idea.
Anyway this is a very flawed book, but if you've made it this far in the series you will read it as I did because you love the world Erikson has built. Stick with it through the low points as the end of the book is a huge payoff for slogging through the worst edited book of the series.
Score: 3
- Posted on 2008-03-05
Kitty litter box lining...
A truly worthless story and what could have been a good story, winds up being what could only be called psychopathic's bad acid trip.
I am utterly amazed at how awful Erikson writes. He has no focus making it hard for any reader to follow. I've an idea...GET A PLOT! GET A CLUE! No wonder no one knows who you are or buy's this rubbish. The multiple senseless plot lines, a vast cast of meaningless characters whit no cohesive rhyme or reason... Despite his lame attempts Erikson pulls off another book of mindless go no where drivel. What is truly amazing is that someone actually prints this stuff. He was UNable to keep the story flowing, UNable to have a plot, UNable to pull any kind of meaning out of this entire book.
His world is so completely unbelievable, he seems to have fallen into Jordan's trap of forgetting to get to an ending or why.
You will most certainly be disappointed with this book, and you will probably find that this book is the worst kind of fantasy ever found in print. Worth only as lining for the cat's litter box.
Don't waste your money!
Score: 1
- Posted on 2008-01-19
A truly epic and colorful world...
I am utterly amazed at how well Erikson pulled this book off. It has many avenues to lose focus and to make it hard for the reader, such as the multiple plot lines and huge cast of characters. Despite all this Erikson pulls it off amazingly. He was able to keep the story flowing and there was a ton of stuff going on as the plot lines are slowly converging, just as the God's and their mortal counterparts are in this book.
His world is so complete, bringing the reader into a history rich and self sustainable world. At first the world is very unbelievable, especially in Book 2. But Erikson sold his world, created a world where the anything can happen at any time, and it is expected to happen and believable within the structure of his world. Amazing. The characters are unique and the conversation and dialogue is real and believable.
With this the 6th book in the series we see a convergence of a bunch of storylines. We get to see Icarium and Mappo Runt in action. Karsa Orlong has a steady presence, as well as the typical Malaz figures such as Quick Ben, Kalam, Tavore, Ganoes and so on. Of the Gods we see many of them become more involved with the story, which makes sense since their role in Erikson's world is becoming ever more prominent.
You will certainly not be disappointed with this book, and you will probably find that this book is above and beyond all his previous books. I would highly recommend.
5 stars.
Score: 5
- Posted on 2008-01-07
Another Great Malazan Book
I am really in love with this series. I have not had such fun reading it since I first started reading Martins Song of Ice and Fire series. The book is deep into the series and its nice to finally see all the various characters start to meet and interact with one another. Erikson is truly a master at hiding what a character is truly doing and this book has lots of that again. I am looking forward to the next book!
Score: 5 - Posted on 2007-12-20
Not quite as good as Midnight Tides, but still excellent.
Steven Erikson, The Bonehunters (Tor, 2007)
Erikson weighs in with the sixth full-length novel (of a projected ten) in the huge Malazan Book of the Fallen series. We're now over halfway into the story, and as is to be expected, the ends of all these many threads start getting tied up. As much as I adore these books, I have to admit that Erikson's switching back and forth between storylines for a thousand pages at a time did get on my nerves a bit (and this is probably why my favorite books in the series have been the odd-numbered volumes), and seeing these plot threads getting woven together in one book is very welcome. That said, Erikson's social consciousness has never been closer to the surface than it is here; while he's successful in keeping everything within the bounds of the story here (unlike, say, Goodkind's Sword of Truth series from book eight onwards), one wonders if he'll be able to keep up the pace.
While there are many, many plot threads wandering through the book, the main thread that haunts most of the characters we meet is one of historical revisionism. (The second main thread has to do with the two unkillable characters we've met-- Icarium and Karsa Orlong-- and what is revealed as their fate. I'm surprised I didn't see this coming about halfway through Midnight Tides.) There are two major pieces of revisionism that happen here. The first concerns the Fourteenth Army, which was banded together after the Chain of Dogs and the massacre at Aren (in Deadhouse Gates, way back in book two) in order to go after the Army of Sha'ik (the confrontation we saw in House of Chains). With Sha'ik's army destroyed, and indeed the desert Raraku turned into a sea, the last vestiges of the rebellion, led by Shaik's right-hand man, Leoman of the Flails, flees the Fourteenth towards Y'Ghatan, a legendary stronghold said to have been the death of Dassem Ultor, the first great hero of the Malazan Empire. Adjunct Tavore is still looked upon with suspicion-- is she as much a leader as was Dassem Ultor? This is only part of the problem, though-- the second piece of history-revising is much larger in scope, and concerns the entire Chain of Dogs. It's possible that this particular plot-thread will be the most important we've come across so far; it certainly seems to be leading to events which could, in Erikson's wonderful writing, take us through four more doorstop-sized novels.
A few characters from earlier novels are conspicuous in their absence (especially Bauchelain and Korbal Broach), but despite the book being eight hundred pages long, there's more than enough for the dedicated Malazan fan to occupy his or her time here. Erikson's writing is as wonderful as always. If you haven't found your way into this series yet, I can't recommend it highly enough. ****
Score: 4