I Read Books: The Crippled God

 

The Crippled God

We reach the end of the Decalogy. The Bonehunters, Adjunct Tavore’s army, survived the apocalyptic, accidental battle at the end of the last volume, but lost many of their most effective troops, the heavies and the marines (the shock melee soldiers and the special, multi-use soldiers respectively).

The plot, or at least the intentions of the enemy are finally revealed. The Forkrul Assail, an elder race dedicated to justice, have taken control of the kingdom of Kolanse. Their magic allows them to control people with their voice (various ways of dealing with this make up parts of the novel) and their idea of justice is to kill people, or let them die, as this prevents them from doing wrong. They are attempting to tap the heart of the Crippled God, to give them the power to take over the world.

Alongside this the elder gods are unhappy with the way the world has gone, and so have released Korabas the Otataral dragon. Dragons are aspected, and this one’s aspect is otataral, the magic nullifying metal. It’s needed to balance magic. As every other aspected dragon is opposed to it, they will attack, either destroying it, and thus all non-elder magic, or so many dragons will appear (power calls to power as the series keeps telling us) that T’iam, the ultimate dragon will emerge and lay waste to the mortal world. In either case the newer gods will be cast down allowing the elder gods to rule a shattered world.

In addition, the Tiste Liosan, the light-aspected people, are trying to breakthrough in the realm of Dark, where various dark-aspected descendants and survivors have arrived just in time to stop them. They will probably ally with the Forkrul Assail if they succeed in leaving the realm of light.

Tavore has managed to gather a variety of allies, and she sends them off to attack Kolanse from the south, taking the survivors of the Bonehunters across the uncrossable glass desert. This gives time for everyone to have doubts, doubts if they can continue, if Tavore sent them away because she didn’t trust them or to spare them even if they would be needed, doubts that she kept her troops with her because this was a forlorn hope – a forlorn no-hope. Of course she has one more trick, one plan. She takes as much on herself as she can, and in return everyone else steps up to save the world.

A lot of the balls that have been put in motion arrive, the shaved knuckles produced, dead and undead return to life, or not but make an impact anyway. In part we’re paying off everything that has gone before, especially in Dust Of Dreams, the previous volume which notes that these last two form one unit. So there are reveals on reveals, the battles extended sequences of using everything we’ve seen, been told about and hinted at, followed by sheer grit and endurance. Everyone who’s still alive gets their scene, and some who aren’t have a go too. A satisfying ending? Sure, if you’ve worked through all that’s gone before, it’s pretty good.

Read This: You’ve read the previous nine volumes, it’s time for some actual conclusions
Don’t Read This: You haven’t read the previous nine volumes, or maybe you have and don’t care about any of these people
An Index: Of my notes on the previous nine volumes:

Gardens Of The Moon
Deadhouse Gates
Memories Of Ice
House Of Chains
Midnight Tides
The Bonehunters
Reapers Gale
Toll The Hounds
Dust Of Dreams