SFF Readalongs led by Kitty G discussion

This is for discussion of Night of Knives by Ian Esslemont! Thank you all for joining me for the readalong and I would love to know how you found this one!

What did you rate it?
Do you want to keep putting in the Esslemont books (at the appropriate places)?
Was this a nice breakup from some of the longer novels?
Did you like the pacing?
What did you think of the plot and ending?

Feel free to post links to your video/written reviews below!

I rated this 2.5 stars only. It's clearly a prequel that didn't work for me (unlike the Riyria Chronicles).

I was actually thankful that it is short because I felt mildly bored throughout the book. The pacing was ok because the entire book covers just a single night of Shadow Moon but the characterisation fell a bit flat for me. Didn't like Kiska at all.

The epilogue was interesting though. A surprising twist when the Rider asked why the humans are killing them - it's almost ominous.

Will still like to continue with Esslement's books being slotted in at the right places. His other books seemed better rated so hopefully it'll get better, as far as I am concerned anyway. :)

TS wrote: "I rated this 2.5 stars only. It's clearly a prequel that didn't work for me (unlike the Riyria Chronicles).

I was actually thankful that it is short because I felt mildly bored throughout the boo..."

I agree entirely.

I remember when I read Night of Knives not being too bothered by it. It clearly wasn't up to the same quality that we got from Erikson. But that's okay.

The two big pieces of information I took away from this novel is first that it introduces Edgewalker. At least I think it does, he might've appeared in House of Chains, but I remember meeting him for the first time in this one.

The second and larger piece of information to take away from this novel is that Dassem Ultor was NOT killed at Y'ghatan like all were led to believe.

But right, beyond that I don't recall the novel being too remarkable. Temper is a good character. It was a different sort of Malazan novel than we're used to.

I've only read three of Esslemont's novels. This one and the next two: Return of the Crimson Guard and Stonewielder. Those are better books, but come with their own set of problems.

RotCG is the best out of those three, Stonewielder should've been a MUCH better book. Read Crimson Guard AFTER Reaper's Gale, not before like I did. You'll get a weird whiplash if you don't.

Evan wrote: "The second and larger piece of information to take away from this novel is that Dassem Ultor was NOT killed at Y'ghatan like all were led to believe"

I do not know why but I've always suspected/theorised that Dassem Ultor is not dead.

@Kaitlin, looks like we might need to move Reaper's Gale to August and Crimson Guard to Sept based on Evan's recommendation?

Well the thing about those two books is that for the most part, they're fairly unrelated. However, there are two pieces of information contained in both books that directly contradict eachother if you read Crimson Guard first.

The other reason is that Reaper's Gale follows The Bonehunters pretty nicely. It makes much more sense to take a break in Erikson's series between Reaper's Gale and Toll the Hounds.

Evan wrote: "Well the thing about those two books is that for the most part, they're fairly unrelated. However, there are two pieces of information contained in both books that directly contradict each other if ..."

Okay so I just finished the book and I have to say I agree with you all about the pacing of this book and the quality overall. I am totally fine with moving the books around so that we read RotCG after Reaper's Gale, I will do that in a mo.

I dunno if I was dim but I found the revelations of this book interested me a lot in terms of the ascension and the way that the characters were revealed to be other people etc.

I look forward to reading more of Esslemont's books, particularly RotCG as I have heard that's the best one. I hope it's a lot of fun as I think it brings back some characters we really like :)

I liked Kiska and Temper about equally. Neither of them I hated, but neither of them really connected with me. I am happy about Dassem Ultor being alive as that's intriguing, and the whole Edgewalker and Jhagnaut was all cool... just the pacing was 'meh'

3*s for me :)

I highly suspect that kiska shall be a certain beloved wizardess(tattersail)???? I'll admit that this book isn't as good as the other malazan books that I've read so far. But I'm hoping with each book going forward he will improve like Erikson did.