My own self

A year and a month and a week ago, I was fifty pages into Steven Erikson's The Bonehunters. A week ago today, I finished reading it. This should give you some vague comprehension of how true it is every time I moan about how little fiction I read these days.

Of course, it's not all me. The long, at times almost tedious build-ups are what I expect from Erikson, he's never not done them. Still, when you have little go-read-spirit to summon, they don't help. I must say, though, Bonehunters was, in a way, better than others, despite my insanely slow read of it. This because it had a very grand convergence at the middle of the book (the siege of Y'Ghatan) as well as the traditional one at the end. This did mean that the end was less overwhelmingly awesome than some of the other books' endings, sure, but I felt it was still far sufficient to make it worth getting there.

The build-up before Y'Ghatan was the slow part, for me (it took me ten months - that's right, compared to a month and a half for the remaining 60% of the book), but it was not nearly as confusing, slow-paced or verging on uninteresting as, say, the first 20% of books one or two of the series. It was just Erikson being Erikson, and I kind of feel like anyone reading this series should expect that form of slow build-up by now. I certainly did.

Reading an online review the comment I wrote to which this post is largely based on, I realised that wow, yeah, there's a lot of philosophy and musings in this series. Unlike that reviewer, I barely noticed it in this particular book. Mostly, probably, because I find it interesting and appealing. I clearly remember noticing this stuff far more in Midnight Tides. The characters who do these musings are the clearly intelligent, far-sighted individuals (of which there are a lot, we get - thankfully - a vast over-representation of the skilled and intelligent in our POVs of the books) and to me, them having such thoughts when faced with this much pain and destruction seems logical or even inevitable. The few trinkets of wisdom or insight handed out by the less impressive or clever people are dependent on just that - being said by someone with a particular, narrow but often specialized view of the world. So I don't mind those either.

I kind of liked Bottle, the main new character of the book, though I tired a little of him by the end. Ganoes Paran kept growing more interesting in this one, though, which is very good, and we got more insight into Tavore and Laseen both, which is also awesome. Fiddler really shone in this one, and while Quick Ben has had better books, he's always a welcome addition. Kalam has had better books too, but he made up for it by the end. Finally, Shadowthrone and Cotillion really come to the foreground now, clearing up a lot of things, and generally being fun.

An issue with the series is how the exponential pathos that is Erikson's trademark is starting to undermine itself. Heboric's pain in this one, for instance, felt a little bit like it rehashed the fate of the Shield Anvil of Memories of Ice, only bigger and worse. Still, the tendency is still one that's infrequent enough that it doesn't bother me thoroughly.

A very welcome choice in Bonehunters was to bring the action and narrative back to the areas and people we're the most familiar with, after the trip to Lether in Midnight Tides. It also brilliantly sewed the plots of Midnight Tides together with the rest of the series, so that the upcoming volume taking place back on Lether seems less of a break from the ongoing story than it could have done.

All in all I thoroughly enjoyed and I daresay even loved the book, and I'm looking as much forward to Reaper's Gale as ever. I'm also really wanting to get my hands on The Lees of Laughter's End, the only novella set in the universe I still haven't read, and starting to look a lot forward to Esslemont's Return of the Crimson Guard. In short, my Malazan-enthusiasm is once again rekindled to a big, roaring flame. I hope it'll last so that my next venture into the universe will last less than a year.