The Malazan Fallen discussion

Starting thread

Taking a moment from the story I have to say ICE has really grown as a writer since NOK. There's a lot less clunky sentence that I have reread to make sure I have the meaning. More and more he leaves little hints like SE vs spelling everything out for the reader.

Jhevel is obviously Leoman and I was correct last chapter in that the Queen was of Dreams.

Agayla smiled then, perhaps at her fears. ‘Yes. It will be a new order.’

The Queen of Dreams’ face hardened as she looked off into the distance. ‘Yes,’ she said, her voice taut with something almost like distaste. ‘Let us hope it will be a better one.’

Interesting. The thought has been new gods vs old but Shadownthrone has long been aligned with old gods. Here it would seem the Queen is of the new, does that put her in with TCG?

I can only hope Leoman runs into the Bonehunters in a future book and that Corabb gets a chance to gut him. Kiska was a character I had hoped would be explored and Agayla seemed a favorable character but now who knows. It's probably a gray area like most things in this world.

Rillish and Greymane both get sucked back into the Empire. Not so sure I'd be going that direction especially with Mallick the Merciful in charge. Both Suth and Yana have a bit of mystery about them. Interesting to see if they have hidden identities. Loved the joke well we could just take this little island of Seguleh here and the choked coffee reply of yes all 15,000 of us might take a fishing village.

Loved the deck being used to tie in some of the events of BotF and the gods.

‘Look here. The Great Mother Goddess. She has had countless names, though Lady is not one.’ The hand moved to another . ‘The Great Sky-Father this one is called, though Light is his aspect. Here, the Great Deceiver would push forward – not realizing that to succeed would spell his dissolution. Here, the Beast of War stirs again – what shall be the final shape of its rising? Here, the Dark Hoarder of Souls. He has my friend now – may both of them come to know peace. And here, the newcomer, the Broken God, watching and scheming from afar.’

The Azath's are waning plays into the theme of K'rul's blood thickening and the warrens becoming inaccessible.

Overall a really interesting chapter. I feel like this book and this chapter in particular are much more like the SE books in setup.

This is as far as I have gotten, so I'm at a bit of a slower pace. I assumed Jhevel was Leoman as well, so nice to have someone else on the same page. Just wondering where Whiskeyjack's sister is then and it is nice to see where those characters went since they don't appear again in the rest of Book of the Fallen series.

So far I can't really complain at all about Esselemont. I enjoyed NOK, loved ROTCG and this is picking up nicely where that left off.

And now realizing I just left my kindle in the freezing cold of my car. Better go get it and bring it into work before I kill off the battery!

Dunsparrow is a good point. I wonder if she'll show up at the right time to thwart Leoman.

I agree the books have gotten better. From the second half of ROTCG it's been excellent.