I Read Books: Memories Of Ice

Memories Of Ice

We return to Genabackis to continue some of the stories begun in Gardens Of The Moon. Dujek Onearm and his host have been outlawed by the Malazan Empire and join forces with their former enemies to oppose the Pannion Domin.

The Domin is several things but amongst them it is a theocracy ruled by a Seer, where the population sometimes decides to march off to war, but aren’t supplied so feed on whatever they find including the dead of those killed in the war. (There are also regular and elite troops, fanatical but not the mindless wave). The leader of the latest wave is Anaster, a child of the dead seed, conceived when his mother mounted an enemy soldier and cut his throat causing him to ejaculate.

These are the bad guys.

There’s more bad guys. The Chained God, hinted at in the previous two books, comes on stage and starts to recruit followers. His plot is to go legit, to create a new House in the Deck Of Dragons, the House Of Chains, and he appoints a few people to become herald, queen, high king and some others, gifting them power. As a response the Deck appoints new master, who is none other than Ganoes Paran, Captain of the Bridgeburners, an elite ex-Malazan unit in Dujek’s Host.

The plot comes together when the Pannions lay siege to Capustan. What with various shenanigans and the complicated politics of the allied army – it’s led by Caladan Brood, who is an immortal with the hammer of the sleeping Earth Goddess, and includes the Rhivi, human herding nomads and Barghast, considered a different race to humans though they are able to interbreed as one lingering sub-sub-plot reveals, as well as the immortal Dark Magic aspected Tisti Andii and some other more-or-less mercenary troops – they’re late to relieve the city.

Amongst the Rhivi is Silverfox, who is three Malazan mages reborn, one of the whom was actually an Elder God, and is also the first T’lan Imass Bonecaster to be born in three hundred thousand years (Briefly: the T’lan Imass were a stone age hunter gatherer people who went to war with the Jhagut; when the Jhagut used their ice magic to cover the land in glaciers so no hunting or gathering could take place they used a magic ritual to make themselves into undead mummies who could continue the war forever.) This indicates the Second Gathering of the T’lan Imass will occur and she will decide their fate.

The city of Capustan, whose siege occupies the middle section of the novel, is ruled by a Prince and also by a council of priests known as the Mask Council. The Prince managed to hire a mercenary company, who are also a cult of Fener, the Boar of Autumn, the war god (though there are other war aspected gods too, it’s complicated). As we know from Deadhouse Gates Fener’s time as a god is coming to an end.

None of this fits together like clockwork, the intersecting interests and secrets and deep history cutting across each other in weird and often violent ways. No one can save Capustan, but in the end all the powers converging on it come to a conclusion of sorts.

Then the last third of the book attempts to tie off or untangle all these plotlines and it’s not as good.

Read This: For a some truly extraordinary (and grotesque) people and situations with unexpected solutions and conclusions
Don’t Read This: It’s the third book of extremely fat volumes and every chapter adds to the complexity of the lore, plots and even characters