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Title: House of Chains
Title: House of Chains
Series:
Malazan Book of the Fallen #4
Author:
Steven Erikson
Rating:
4 of 5 Stars
Genre:
Fantasy
Pages:
1044
Format:
Digital Edition
|
Synopsis: |
Plot Line One:
Karsa Orlong, a young Teblor, sets out
on an adventure with 2 of his friends. They discover out in the wide
world that the Teblor are enslaved and an insular people. Karsa vows
to become the warleader his people needs, even if he has to fight
each and every Teblor. Along the way he gets involved with Leoman of
the Flails and becomes Shaik's bodyguard. Read Deadhouse Gates to
see how that turns out. At the same time, the Teblor gods reveal
themselves to Karsa and he bursts the bonds holding his people
enthralled. Karsa's plotline ends with him becoming the Knight of the
House of Chains and everyone who knows him saying that the Broken god
will regret doing so.
Plot
Line Two:
Adjunct
Tavore sets out with a green army to subdue Shaik's Rebellion, not
knowing that Shaik is now her younger sister Felisin. The green army
has a handful of seasoned warriors, one of which is Fiddler, who is
now going by the name Strings. Shaik the goddess is trying to control
some bit of magic and in the process control the desert Raraku. The
desert rebels and lots of ghosts rise up and destroy Shaik's army.
Tavore's army does a tiny bit of fighting, but more mop up than
anything. Tavore kills Shaik in single combat, never realizing it was
her sister Felisin.
Plot
Line Three through Fifteen: (actually not kidding, really)
Tisten
Liosan, white skinned bastards, are looking for their god
Osric/Osserc/etc. They get they're butts handed to them on several
occasions and decide to go home.
Various
Imass do various things, like chasing after renegades, fighting with
Liosan's and defending the true Shadow Throne.
Cutter
and Apsalar take service with Cotillion and end up going their own
separate ways because they love each other too much to hurt the other
with the duties they have to perform.
Lots
of other stuff that had no immediate import and might not have any at
all. Impossible to tell.
|
My Thoughts: |
I am at the point
where I am disgusted at Erikson's choice of storytelling mode. He is
fragmenting his overall storyline just because he can. I can't assign
a real motive to this mode of telling, so I'm going to call him out
for just being a jerkwad.
Each successive
book that I go into this Malazan re-read it gets harder and harder to
overlook how deliberately obfuscated Erikson makes his story. A good
story will only go so far and he's fast approaching that breaking
point where I give up in disgust. When I was originally reading this
back in '10, it was at this book that I basically gave up trying to
keep track of what was going on for a synopsis because the story
fragmentation really started to spread here. I am no longer seeing
this approach as a positive thing like I originally did.
This was an
engaging story and that is the only thing going for it. Part of that
was because the first 23% of the book dealt strictly with Karsa
Orlong and getting him from when he was a wee young lad of 100 or so
to where we met him in Deadhouse Gates. He's not a
particularly bright or likable fellow but at least I was able to
follow one complete story narrative for a long period of time.
I was having a hard
time giving a crap about some of the storylines because they were
such small fragments of the overall book. How do they tie in? You
mean I have to wait for 3 more books to find out? No thank you.
The philosophizing
got a little ridiculous. Felisin the younger, an adopted waif by
Felisin, is kidnapped by one Felisin's major allies, a twisted
wizard. He destroys her. Sexually, emotionally, psychology. And when
she gets rescued and is secretly recovering, she waxes loquacious on
the subject of how her mother needs the wizard and so her rescuer's
vengeance needs to be put on hold. And she is 14. I just about threw
my kindle on the couch at that. Girls who are raped and tortured
don't calmly discuss why their attackers are justified or how the
greater needs of a geographical area outweight their own personal
needs.
My main issue now
is when does the story no longer outweight the twin sins of soapbox
preaching and story fragmentation? I am going to do my best to read
the whole series, but will definitely be noting the point where the
balance finally does tip.
★★★★☆
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