Steven Erikson - Deadhouse Gates - Review

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Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson

Deadhouse Gates is the second book in Steven Erikson’s Tales from the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, following Gardens of the Moon .

Star Rating (out of 5) for the Illiterate: * * * * *

Short Review for the Impatient: This book is long, complicated, confusing, but awesome nonetheless. Brilliant.

Longer Review for the Curious:
The first thing that hit me upon reading this book was that, even though I had previously read Gardens of the Moon , I still could not work out what was going on in the first 100 pages of this ‘sequel’. This is because Erikson adopts a writing style that places the reader in the same unfamiliar and confusing environment as his characters, forcing you to pay attention and try and figure things out along with the characters. Initially, this can be very disconcerting, but after a while, it becomes extremely rewarding. This book requires a lot of effort, but it is worth it.

Avoiding spoilers, Deadhouse Gates recounts events that occur after those in Gardens of the Moon , involving some of the same characters and locations, but introducing many new ones. I could identify three main plotlines (but many minor ones). One plotline follows the young girl Felisin Paran who is displaced from her nobleborn life to a life of depravity at the mines. Another plotline follows the assassin Karam Mekhar on his quest to kill the Empress. The main, and most memorable, plotline deals with Coltaine’s epic quest to save an enormous crowd of refugees.

One of the best things about this book is the way the characters are brought life. There are loads of characters to keep track of, but each one is portrayed in such a distinct way (right down to the way they speak) that you really get involved in each of them. Another good thing about these characters is that there is no real distinction between good and evil. Sometimes you find that you are rooting for characters on both ‘sides’ of a conflict.

Deadhouse Gates also reveals a bit more of the history behind the amazingly detailed world that Erikson has created. A big part of the problem with Gardens of the Moon for me was the fact that I did not understand the world, the various races, the political structures, and how magic worked. Much of this is still a bit murky to me, but enough has been unveiled to make me want to find out even more. In this way, Erikson’s universe is reminiscent of the other great fictional universes (in my opinion): Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, Lucas’s Star Wars Universe, and the Star Trek Universe. Erikson’s great strength in this area is his background as an archaeologist which has allowed to him to create a complicated but coherent history for his world (in the same way that Tolkien’s background as a philologist helped him create the languages of Middle-Earth).

The ending of Deadhouse Gates is jarringly brilliant. Like Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series, in this book, you really can’t tell what is going to happen next. Because there is no one main character, you can never be sure who is going to live and who is going to die (compare this to Salvatore’s Forgotten Realms books where, in the few books I have read, I can be pretty sure that Drizz’t and his friends are always to going to survive. I haven’t read all those books, so I could be wrong on that, but you know what I mean).

This book is not an easy read. But I would say that it is one of the 20 best books I have ever read.

 

Right, that's it, I'm finally going to set about hunting these things down

(Comparing Middle Earth, Star Wars and Star Treck together --- Blasphemy!)

 

Great review, now get cracking on the first book in he series so we can more easily lure people into the series! Hmm, I think we should badger Chandos into reviewing Gardens of the Moons.

I just finished my reread of Midnight Tides (finally as the reread was interrupted by a case of forgetting the book on the bus and having to buy a new one) and I can tell you HB that it keeps on going wickedly good.

 

Midnight Tides in next in the queue after the Da Vinci Code.

 

Have you read Memories of Ice and House of Chains already? Hmm, yeah, you did didnt you talking about Karsa in that other thread.

 

I would be happy to, and will put that on my list, Joacqin.