Tales from the Malazan Book of the Fallen

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Okay, I can't recall what book this is from or if I'm cobbling together a random assortment of facts which may or may not be accurate, but it's really not to big a spoiler if you have yet to read it.

Trake was the First Hero of the First Empire (first human, not Imass). Now there are several paths to immortality, or at least to living for a long long time. One is ascendency and another is to become soultaken. The empire decided that becoming soultaken would be much easier so they devised a rather large ritual that was designed to make them soultaken, I'm assuming it's the elite who took part, but it really doesn't say. But anyway, the ritual messed up, many if not all of the participants went mad and the d'ivers were created. This is were Gryllen and other powerful soultaken and d'iver's were created. Seeing what had happened, the T'lan Imass came in and basically wiped out the First Empire in order to control the madness and only the powerful (or lucky) soultaken and d'ivers escaped.

Now there are other soultaken people out there and some are ascendents such as Anomander Rake and Ossic so being soultaken does not mean you have ascended, but it doesn't stop you from ascending. Also there are other ways to become soultaken than the First Empire's ritual, such as how Buke became soultaken, but then again these could just be smaller versions of the same ritual or based off it.

Okay, it's late here and I've probably missed a few things, or messed up a few others. Again the usual, ask for clarification if you need it.

 

The start of House of Chains is great. How does he keep coming up with such distinctive characters? I'm trying to think if there are many truly evil characters in these books, or whether they all just have different motivations. Is Karsa Olong evil? I'm not sure.

I'm up to the bit where he's fighting fish.

 

Karsa is to say the least uncivilized and with a different set of morals than what are used to. He is however, by any moral standards an outrigth bastard and bunghole. I still really like and even sympathise with him.

There is one character which is as close to evil as you can by fantasy standards but even him have quite a good reason for being resentful. The crippled god.

Hmm, oh, I forgot, Kallor. The High King is pure evil.

 

Yes, Kallor is the only one I've encountered so far who would be evil. Not sure about Crippled God because he is still a bit mysterious.

The other thing I've been pondering is, who would be the greatest warriors in these stories. In each book, you encounter one or two super fighters.

It's handy that the Seguleh go to the effort of ranking themselves. That makes it easy to tell which ones of them are the best. But if you had to fit everyone else into the Seguleh ranking system, what would the table look like. Assuming no spells, where would Tool, Karsa, Gruntle etc fit in? My guess is that the Seguleh First would still be the most powerful but that is only conjecture because we don’t much about him.

 

Ooh, now this is a topic that I could have a lot of arguments about. Do you mean just a straight up sword fight, nor warrens at all or can they use any method at their disposal?

You also seem to forget about Anomander Rake. Even without his warren he is a superb fighter... and his sword would give him an even bigger advantage. He killed two of the hounds of shadow without any difficulty and it's said that nobody had ever killed them. Granted his sword seems to kill with even a nick since Paran thinks that the one scratch didn't look deadly.

Then there's also Icarium, who when he gets mad likes to destroy whole civilizations, but that's more a function of his warren. You never really see him in a one on one sword fight so his skill can't really be seen, but he doesn't seem to realize how powerful he is (the forgetting thing because he went mad after destroying that one warren and killing the azath house) yet he seems confident enough against any one.

There was also Corporal Blues who made a small appearance in GotM and you'll learn in further books (though through indirect sources) just how skilled he really is.

And of course there's Dassem Ultor who was "killed" before GotM but his body was never found. Knight of Death for years before his rising power pretty much scared Hood into trying to destroy him by taking his daughter or whatever happened with that. I'm not too sure exactly what happened, it's not something that I found all that interesting. Back on topic, personally I think Dassem is still alive and is currently living as:

***spoiler here if you haven't made it that far in HoC***


Traveller. And he pretty much walked through a bunch of Tiste Edur killing them all without taking even a scratch.


***End spoiler***

Plus there's always Brood who Rake seems to wonder if he could beat, but again that could be a function of his weapon. That hammer is just about as nasty as Rake's sword.

As to Tool, he was quite clearly beaten by Mok but in Tool's defense he did say how his tellann warren and his lifeforce was being drained. Perhaps this had an effect on his abilities. Plus now that he's alive again he may be faster, but injuries would definately effect him more. I'm assuming the T'lan Imass are a bit slower than they were when they were alive because of how the undead hunters were described as being a bit slower because they were dead.

As to Karsa, I do not believe he is really all that skilled a swordsman. He is very fast and strong, and one of the most stubborn characters in the story, but I'm not sure that he would last against any of the other really good fighters. Once he comes up against someone fast enough to avoid his blows without having to block any of them he may be in for a big surprise.

I wouldn't really be able guess where Gruntle would fit in. He is described as being a great fighter but nobody says his skills are super human.

As to ranking all those listed above, I really wouldn't know how to list it and actually I'm quite happy without knowing who is the "best." Besides the whole series seems to show powerful beings being brought down by seeminly normal people, such as Fener and some of the other characters. Any of the great fighters could be killed by potentially anyone.

 

Good point. Several of those fighters rely heavily on the power of their weapons (Rake in particular, but also Karsa and his bloodsword). Agree re Traveller, due to his ability to break Karsa's ribs without blinking. So guys like Traveller and the Seguleh would meet my definition of powerful fighters because they could kick you no matter what weapon you gave them.

Another one might be Apsalar who seems to be able to kill people swiftly with small knives, but that could be due to divine assistance.

Fascinating stuff though.

I thank Joacquin again for encouraging me to continue reading this series after I got demoralised from not understanding a word of Gardens of the Moon.

 

That was the Keeper, not Traveller. Keeper aka. One of the Curst Brothers, but I can't recall which one. The other was the captain of the ship Kalam took in Deadhouse Gates...

As to Aspalar, I'm not sure just how good she really is. Sure she has some of Dancer's skills, but she hasn't done anything that say Kalam couldn't do and while he is really good I don't think he could stand up to most of the people mentioned before.

 

Not in open duels. I am starting to believe that the Seguleh is more than products of intense training. As have been stated, they are able to stand up to K'ell hunters, the Tlan I'mass first sword or what its called and whole armies of regular soldiers. Wouldnt surprise me if there is a warren or something involved there somewhere.

I think Tool got a bad rep in his fights with the seguleh, he tried to not kill them or even hurt them badly when he fought them. At least the two first ones he only used the flat of his blade against.

Rake is the Seguleh seventh right? Frmo what I understand he got that title when he went to their island for a bit of sightseeing and got attacked and deposed of his attackers until he got tired of it and left.

I would say that Gruntle now after his ascension is one of the top fighters in the world.

Icarium is immensly skilled and powerful even without his maddened rages.

You are welcome HB, I couldnt let anyone who had started on the series to give up. The books are way too good for that and it appears that word is spreading. Too bad the books are damn slow in getting published in the US.

Karsa gets better and better, most of his prowess is really from being underestimated in large parts of the books and where he is fighting smaller beings. I do think that by the end of House of Chains that he is a swordsman to count on.

 

Oh, I'm tempted. Amazon.ca has all the books available in mass market form. Shipping rates to the US seem...eh...not too high--$8 per shipment + $2 per book. Now, if only the website mentioned whether those are canadian or american dollars.

*grumbles*

 

Who would have thought that amazan.ca would have prices in Canadian dollars.....

Joacqin, don't forgot that when the segulah went up against those whole armies they had Envy's sorcery to help them. From what is shown I'd say she is probably one of the most powerful mages seen so far in the series that isn't directly linked to the deck of dragons... then again I suppose she could hold a position in the deck but just not have it listed in the appendix.

 

Yeah, but who IS Lady Envy? I couldn't work that out.

Cool, Kalam has just made a re-appearance in House of Chains but I can't remember what the hell he was doing previously (two books ago) so it's a bit disorienting.

 

Envy is Draconus' daughter, you'll find out who her mother is in Midnight Tides. Being the daughter or an elder god I'd assume she is pretty powerful.

Two books ago Kalam was hanging out with Minala (At least I think that's how you spell that) in Shadowthrone's realm looking after all the children Apt had Shadowthrone save.

 

Hmm, talking of Draconus.....that whole business with Anomander Rake's sword. I don't understand a word of it. Chains and wagons and souls. None of it makes any sense to me.

Meanwhile, House of Chains is great so far. Erikson clearly loves the idea of different races evolving, given the complicated evolutionary tree that some of the peoples of this land have been through.

 

Basically chaos is chasing after darkness (ie. "order") and if chaos manages to get darkness than all life will end and all will be chaos again or some such. It's explained more in Midnight Tides I think. But anyway, like Paran says in MoI... well paraphrased since I'm pretty lazy and don't want to look it up. "Before the Houses, there were Holds. Before the Holds there was wandering." Basically Draconus saw this wandering as just wandering instead of the migration it was, and so to help Mother Dark he crafted his sword and locked the Gates of Darkness inside it (inside the wagon). But chaos is still chasing after it so souls are needed to pull the wagon to keep it away from chaos. Basically the problem is that Anomander Rake has too much constraint and isn't killing enough or powerful enough beings to keep pulling the wagon, and as more of the souls become exausted and are thrown onto the wagon the pulling just gets harder and harder and so Draconus wants the sword to either be broken, thus letting the Gates go back to their wandering, or he needs Rake to kill a lot more people. Well actually he wants Rake to kill a lot more people as a short term solution, and then shatter the sword. Keep in mind that Draconus himself is locked inside the sword and who's to say that he just doesn't want to get out?

It's interesting to note that Paran sent two hounds of shadow through the Gates of Darkness...

I believe joacqin said earlier that Erikson is by education an archeologist. That would probably helps influence his love of civilizations evolving.

 

Hmm, but what exactly are 'chaos' and 'darkness'? It all sounds a bit too much like an episode of Sapphire and Steel to me.

Anyway, about halfway through House of Chains now. This book has got so many subplots going through it, every time it jumps to a new character, I have to backtrack to remember what that character was doing.

And I keep getting mixed up as to the difference between Korbolo Dom and Kamist Reloe.

 

One is a mage and the other is a high fist, both renegades from the Malazan empire. Not sure who is who, I think Dom is the fist and Reloe is the mage.

My impression is that chaos and darkness are the two primeval forces, chaos/energy/light and darkness/order/stasis.

 

I thought there was a third 'thing' called Shadow which was somehow linked to both Darkness and Light.

 

Looking at the Edur it appears that there is, but I dont think that is the same primeval force as light and darkness but something inbetween. It is all fuzzy as hell, we will soon need some advanced quantum philosopher in here.

 

Well, I've only had time to finish about half of book one, some 300 pp. So far, it is really still introducing what seems the major characters and their threads in the storyline, which shows signs of intersecting at some point.

Warning for those who have not read any of Book One, Gardens of the Moon: There are spoilers ahead. Read further at your own risk.

All of you are way ahead of me, so I have been trying to stay off this thread to avoid spoilers myself. But I will say this:

The book has a strong sense of the order of Justice, and that eventually Justice has a way of putting its hand into the lives of the players. Mortals, especailly those non-magic users, seem protected by both Justice, and/or "Chance" (Opom?), which although the twins are unaligned, seem to oppose the "evil" of the Empire. But as I've said, I'm only a short half way through the story, so this may change.

The lines between those good and evil charcters are certainly blurred, and to the point where it's a non-issue for the most part. Nevertheless, the Empress seems to have few loyal friends, and there is an anti-war strain that runs through the first half of this book. Thus, she is the heavy of the story so far, as she seems to be the cause of everyone's problems.

The gods don't seem to have all that much power, at least in the long run, over events. While they seem to have the power to appear and either kill off large amounts of people, or save them from Hood's Gate, they still seem to have a fear of mortals, as much as they fear each other and it prevents them from having a large impact on human events, at least thus far. Interesting exchange between the Elder God (can't think of his name) and Kruppe at the fire, which was the scene in the field at night. The elder Gods seem to be looking for a way to enter into human events again, but they seem to need someone like Kruppe's help to accomplish this. But Elder Magic seems a key for the magic users to gain an upper hand over each other, since all of them seem pitted against each other, for reasons that are not clear to me yet.

This is really a great book so far. Hopefully, I'll have some time to finish this in the next few days. If the gods are good.