I Read Books: Deadhouse Gates

Deadhouse Gates

Several survivors of the previous book are making their way back from Darujhistan to Quon Tali, the heartland of the Malazan Empire. On their way is the sub-continent Seven Cities. As might be expected – there’s a prophecy and a seer and everything – the whole place is about to explode in rebellion.

There are also prisoners in the octoral mines – an ore that supresses magic and also has other effects – with connections to characters on the mainland and the first book. Coltaine, once a rebel against the empire, now a newly appointed general finds himself in the centre of it all, herding a refugee column (the chain of dogs), pulling off one miracle after another in a hostile land. Shapeshifters are infesting the planes of magic, chasing the path of hands. There are traitors everywhere, on all sides, as well as tribes and factions taking advantage of the situation for their own purposes.

It's complicated. Each strand weaves into each other, not quite naturally, but as though fated to happen, more than one god-touched woman is wandering the holy desert of Raraku after Sha’ik, the prophet of the apocalypse, has been killed and the rebellion is looking for a new prophet. Icarium, an amnesiac berserker, finds himself in the way of the shapeshifters at the moment when they need to be stopped. Some sailors escape into a magic warren to discover it flooded and a mysterious ship crewed by the dead, to turn up later when the chain of dogs have to cross a river. One character got resurrected in the last volume, here all of Coltaine’s warlocks are the reincarnations of those who were killed when the empress came to power.

There’s a couple of good jokes too.

Read This: A giant sprawling high fantasy novel that stands well on its own while deepening the plots, characters and settings of the first
Don’t Read This: I just wanted a fantasy Great Indian Rebellion, this is too much!