Felisin Vs the world (of characterization)

Collecting some comments I wrote in the Malazan series re-read at Tor.

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Tyrion or Jaime or Sansa in GRRM’s series where there’s more transition that leads to personality changes and development.

Oh, I so disagree. Martin, in those cases and more, just expertly pulls at heart strings. Whatever he does with a character is VERY deliberate and very precise.

If even one reader develops antipathy for a character like Tyrion, then it means the book failed. There’s nothing truly open to interpretation if not the illusion of it. Martin always chases an effect as is typical of Hollywood/western writing. Nothing can be accidental or uncertain. Which is why he writes and rewrites incessantly till the experience isn’t absolutely perfect and works the way he wants for everyone. The book is built to be successful when EVERY reader has the exact same response to it.

Tyrion is one of those characters whose negative traits are cleverly exploited to ADD to his sympathy. It’s anti-hero done in a trivial way (written and executed well).

With Felisin instead Erikson creates a character that can trigger a different response depending on how you approach her, and there’s no “right” or “wrong” way to get the character. I’m not more “right” than you saying that I loved Felisin. Erikson doesn’t shove the reader in a specific direction that “feels” natural but that is instead carefully defined. It’s not on rails. Whatever you draw from that story is up to you, a subjective emotional response and all the “truth” about it, you keep it to yourself and no one can say you’re wrong. The character arc has nothing of the typical uplifting destination, and a lot of true ambiguity.

People always tell say they love gray characters when what they love is to read heroes who are “gray” only in a slight, but pleasing, nonconformity that feels very “hip” and “modern”.

Martin is a great executor and a very good writer. But it’s all pre-chewed material.

I also kind of chuckle when I see that “maturity” is taken as synonym of wisdom and moderation. But it very rarely is. Maturity only defines someone more broken than another. It’s just a collection of the number of pieces you’ve shattered into and how deluded you are about them.

Nope, you’ll rarely get to put the pieces back together. And that’s is valid both for Felisin and everyone else in the real world. Well, besides fantasy stories. In fantasy stories you can.

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When I started to read the prologue of DG it was right after finishing the last page of GotM, I was well aware of who Felisin was and also of the fact she was going to be a major character in the next book.

The prologue starts with a very cinematic scene. You can see the camera panning while following the Hood Priest. The Priest is the initial focus of the scene and the PoV follows it as it walks toward its mysterious destination. Only after this initial set-up Felisin comes into play and we discover that it’s instead her PoV. We see the Priest approaching right toward Felisin, who’s merely an observer of something that seems to have gone “wrong”. Feelings of foreboding, the slaughter, the season of Rot, the mule, but still no mention of how this is going to be related to the plot (or to Felisin, she’s still out of the scene, out of perceived threat).

So up to this point Felisin is an external/passive observer. It came to me as a total shock that she was chained with the others. You have this Priest walking toward someone or something. Felisin wonders if it’s really her to be the target. But for the reader this becomes about discovering that it’s her the *victim* already. There’s no way out. We have been shown a Felisin chained right from the start, without any hope to get free. The fate is sealed.

Usually we see a character who faces danger and struggles to find a way though. We read anxiously how the story develops. It builds tension. Here we are thrown in a situation in which “possibility” is crushed. The chains locked before the first written line but the reader’s realization comes with delay, and in the text is completely understated, almost tangential. The scene is then followed by an escalation of brutality that shows clearly that there’s no way to turn back. It’s a path carved deeply into hell and the more you go down the worse it is. Even if you find a way through and up again the price you’ve paid would be already way too much to find any sort of absolution or justification in it. The threshold has been already passed and the reader somewhat forbidden to experience any sense of hopeful possibility.

What’s worth saving is already irremediably lost.

I’m still awed by the prologue and how it works spectacularly on its own. In two pages the reader goes through the feeling of having chains locked by having Felisin only entering the scene last. It’s her PoV right from the start but Erikson structures the scene so that the perceived PoV is completely overturned as one reads. From a side we have a cinematic scene, from the other we have an effect that is basically impossible with a camera, since the PoV would be already “bound” to the character.

Erikson uses cleverly everything that is unique to the writing medium. Even a small scene like this is brilliant not just because of what happens, but in how it is carefully structured and narrated word by word. Defiant of expectations, and ambitious.

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Whichever way you look at it, I don’t like the idea—it makes me deeply uncomfortable.

I guess it’s worth discussing. On your blog you posed the question whether “rape” can be “art”. The discussion is broad, but also quite straightforward from my point of view.

What’s the purpose of a book? Flatter its reader with edifying stories and encouragements?

Is “art” whatever we enjoy, and non-art whatever we despise and contemn? Is art exclusively self-congratulatory?

The point here is that the book will tell its story. The book has EVERY right and legitimation to tell its story without censorship. It’s the reader who decides how to personally weigh what he reads.

So should a book just tell a story that makes its readers comfortable and content? Nope, all stories are legitimate as long there’s someone who wants to hear them.

At the same time not feeling comfortable with a story and refuse to read it, is a personal and legitimate choice that should always be respected.

So I really won’t support the idea that criticizes Erikson for tackling certain themes that may hurt common sensibilities. Every reader can make there a personal choice whether or not to read it, but one can’t attack a writer for writing outside certain expectations.

Writing, as part of culture, MUST break through imposed or perceived barriers and limits.

And I write this not because someone has stated the opposite, but because that idea always lingers in these types of discussions.

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I think it is too ingrained in some people to be judgmental about her trading sex for favors in the prison camp. Or the drinking and smoking scenes, just because we tend to frown on that as a modern society

You can as well stop that first line at “it is too ingrained in some people to be judgmental”. That’s enough.

I’m very, very uncomfortable even thinking of JUDGING Felisin personally. I feel it very wrong and perverse.

I think personal choices are always to be respected because the external point of view is so hypocritical and partial. It’s too easy to nitpick from the outside about the personal choices someone else makes. It’s haughty and arrogant.

Felisin makes choices that are solely about her. She hurts herself in some cases. She never deliberately takes action against someone else (at least up to this point).

So, whatever is her choice, I would always respect it because it’s not a restraint on someone else’s choice. Maybe not approve it, but respect it.

People shouldn’t tread carelessly and be judgmental over pain and trauma of others. It’s a delicate topic.

Even posing the question whether one of her choice is “right” or “wrong” is about taking a truth out of it and rationalize what can’t be rationalized.

Disciple of the Dog – Scott Bakker

The pain with this book more than reading it is trying to write a review. How to frame it? It left me reeling for sure. There are a number of ideas explored that seemed to echo with some my own thoughts pre-existing the book, this further reflected toward the end of the book by a strong in and out of text deja-vu whose implications are far too tangled for me to make any sense of them (I should also try to second-guess some that Bakker did, that would bring a whole new level of complication). Just to say: the book messed a bit with my head. But that was almost expected, knowing well the kind of writer. The blending in and out of character, in and out of the book, and between facets of different characters echoing each other is a prevalent defining trait.

I’ll try to introduce things. This is a lean book, 249 pages, written in first-person by a private detective that at once fills the canon and pushes it beyond extreme. Bakker is the kind of writer that when sees a boundary pushes down on the accelerator. What’s absolutely banished and tabu is any idea of moderation or compromise. But in the beginning we have the broke and cynical private detective with his filthy office next a filthy road, who fucks his secretary and is a smartass all around. Very anti-hero. Very pulpy, very effective in positioning itself in a category easily recognizable. The story in the book will be about investigating the case of a missing attractive young woman that was caught in a religious cult of weirdos who think the world is about to end and that everyone of us is only playing a role on the stage of a fake theater. All Matrix-like (including the technology, but don’t focus on this distracting element). The catchphrase supposed to sell the book is: “Imagine being able to remember everything you’ve ever experienced.” That’s the peculiarity of our detective but, voided of its implications, only sounds as quirky and not all that potentially intriguing. I’m sure the cult’s belief is much more seductive for the occasional reader.

Coming from this perspective the core of the book is in how the two aspects feed and become mirrors of each other. We have different layers that repeat the same idea, we have parts of the books that repeat, we have characters that repeat, and we have “repeat” as an concept thoroughly developed. Having a “perfect” memory here isn’t the meta-device for the unreliable narrator, its implications are much more far reaching and pervasive. It messes with reality, it lifts a veil, it reveals what one won’t be able to endure and adapt to. It’s a door. Once you pass through the threshold there’s no way of coming back. It’s THE enlightenment:

“Psycho? What do you think happens when God – the God Almighty – lands in your brain? You think you stay sane? Read your Bible, bitch. All his vessels crack. All of ’em!”

Only that is one, of the many, false trails. One twisted mirror. A hint of truth dressed as the blatant lie. It puts in the seed of suspicion and lets it soak. This books actively manipulates you, and it does it blatantly as more subtly at the same time, without you noticing it. One consequence of having a perfect memory, the one that is the most representative of its unsettling potency, is about the perception of “people”, as I already described it:

We, “normal people”, perceive expressions and attitudes of others like something transitory, while the people themselves are real and come first. But for him, his perfect memory makes him recognize the same expressions and attitudes across different people, to the point that it’s those expressions that he recognizes and categorizes, while the people themselves become transitory. People that appear as collections of deja-vus and known patterns. People that repeat. Masks. Oblivious actors playing a role, rehashing over and over.

The perfect memory is a bug in the system. An error. A joke the nature played on him. Birth defect. As a human he simply does not function correctly. But what if this condition reveals a truth that wasn’t supposed to be disclosed? What if this truth is too painful to endure? What happens if you lift the veil of reality and watch in horror what’s beyond? What if there’s no way to pull it back down and pretend you haven’t seen anything? “All his vessels crack.”

Bakker is more known as a fantasy writer. “The Prince of Nothing” series I’ve recently started to read. Facing Disciple Manning, the cynical detective of this book, is the same as facing Kellhus, the prophet from The Prince of Nothing. In the prologue of that book Kellhus meets Leweth, a guy living a solitary life in a forest. In the short time they pass together Kellhus “lifts the veil” on Leweth’s life and makes him realize that his life was all built on lies he fabricated by and for himself. With that realization comes the death.

Ignore the Merge sign long enough, and sooner or later somebody gets killed.

Truth destroys, it doesn’t heal. Breaks you. Forgetting is healing. Even the idea that “truth” is desirable is a conceit, a lie we tell ourselves. The point is: we are hardwired to be stupid, to be hypocrite. Hypocrisy implies a certain amount of forgetfulness. To forget all those things that can’t be manipulated to our own advantage. The brain shields from truth, it has safety triggers so that we can lead a functional life. Truth instead has the power to “dislodge”. The insight you gain is dangerous and may well destroy you. Once it’s done there’s no Matrix-like blue pill that can save you. You stop working the way you’re supposed to, think out of the frame and you’re doomed. You bit the apple from the Tree of Knowledge: God hates you. (Hint: David Foster Wallace didn’t survive himself, Hal in Infinite Jest freaks out once he becomes too aware and can’t sort things anymore. People break all the time when they start seeing too much. Insomnia is the state of the mind when it works too well for its own sake.) Living with a perfect memory corresponds to see the horror, without pause. Every instant. You can’t filter, sort, select, reinterpret. You can’t find a way out that makes life and suffering bearable. You can’t find meaning, belief or excuse. There’s no place to hide from yourself.

Reading this book is like having a face down directly with Kellhus. With the difference that you do not have a Leweth playing as a filter, here Kellhus/Disciple talks directly with you and his “social commentary” will stick needles in your skin. He is an ass, he is egocentric, he is arrogant:

I sit in perpetual judgment.

But it’s through understanding that you see all the flaws as necessary and justified. Stepping back, it’s like Bakker himself is trying to pick flaws in his reasoning, try every possible perspective to find a breach, whether through cold reasoning or through defiant irreverence and constant scorn, but the result is all the same.

“The Framers” is the name of this religious cult and their belief becomes a very slightly distorted version of what Disciple represents. They have two opposite stances, him and the cult, appear as adversaries of opinions, but soon you’ll see how the two different perspectives overlap and match almost perfectly. Disciple sees people as actors and collections of deja-vu. Self-deluding machines who build their own conceits and prosper in false belief. The Framers believe that everyone is an actor with no perception of the actual “true self”. The difference is merely in context and visualization. Where Disciple stops at showing the conceit without providing answers, The Framers “dress” it and contextualize: the world is about to end and we live a dream as the only way to escape.

I’m aware that Bakker’s first effort out of the fantasy genre, Neuropath, was criticized because it was too much “theory” and not enough story and characters. As if reading like a textbook. What Bakker achieves in this book is about soaking the theory into something concrete and available as direct experience. You don’t have to chase the writer through pindaric flights that are hard to follow, everything is grounded in the matters at hand, contextualized, practical and pragmatic. This book drops all frills and decorations, all diversions and derails, it goes straight to the point. Its strength is in the lack of hypocrisy that is built-in the narrative voice. The writing is teeth and nails, it goes for the bone. It’s stripped of everything superfluous and that way it’s much more effective and searing than his fantasy series. It goes to the point in the first three pages, that work like a manifesto for the rest of the book. This to say: it can’t feel any more authentic and direct. It pulls no punches.

On the other side, the type of journey isn’t that of typical thriller even if all the elements of typical thrillers are all present, done cleverly, and fully delivered, including a number of surprises and reversals in the last few pages (20 pages from the end one feels hanging from too many threads, but they are all wrapped up neatly, while also leaving space for thought once the book is finished). It’s still heavy in introspection and the plot itself moves slowly. Most of the surprises that build the bigger block of the book are all on the very subtle side, while true surprises that bend the plot only come to enliven the finale. What drives the book and makes it so brilliant that it won’t possibly bore is the “insight”, the depth and incisiveness of observation, and, especially, the sense of humor that holds all of this together. A sense of humor that is obviously nailed on the character, so filled with cynicism, awful puns and shocking, outrageous commentary.

I’d say that this is one of the most, if not the most, extraordinary books I’ve read. Literally. Extra-ordinary. Far from whatever you may have read up to this point. You just can’t find (easily?) a book like this and I can imagine it won’t easily find its public. Not everyone likes to be punched right in the face. Many, and it’s not a fault, read to be lulled, Bakker instead messes with you and tries everything he can and then more to shake the reader. His writing is subversive to the core, outrageous and irreverent. Filled with venom. Disciples says as much: “I’m not safe. I’m poison.” And he doesn’t do this as a tease, but because it’s true: you’re warned. This book lifts a few veils, it all depends if you really want to see what’s beyond. There are risks. It isn’t fun, and it’s not pretty. There is also a dearth of answers.

God’s greatest trick was convincing the world that belief was hard.

The Red Tree – Caitlín R. Kiernan (revised version)

Another attempt at polishing the review I’ve written. I usually adjust a few things after I post one but in this case I was less satisfied than usual because I gave too much importance to certain aspects and almost ignored others that I think are more important. The biggest problem was that I wrote my comments just an hour after finishing the book and I started to understand the book better while writing those comments, which caused them to be even more rambling than usual. So I’ll do some cut & paste and restructuring.

The framework first. “The Red Tree” is a supernatural, horror, psychological journey that borrows heavily from the long and solid tradition in the respective genres and whose best parallel in themes, atmosphere and development is Lovecraft. It is not conceived or delivered as an homage or imitation, it’s not a book existing in a “shadow” of something else, nor it is one that uses conventions to break out of their prison and open on a new, “modern” world. What it achieves is about recovering the deeper and most powerful elements of that tradition and reveal that they are not dusty, opaque and antique, but still alive today, relatively uncompromised. The book is structured in a way similar to Danielewski’s House of Leaves, with nested texts, stories within stories, and dreams that leak into reality. So it’s up to the reader to take an active role and second-guess and interpret/rebuild what is going on. The basic form is the diary so everything comes through an unreliable narrator and a fragmented narrative that can leave gaps of days and then only re-interpret and fictionalize what happened. Without another authoritative point of view the reader can only cling to the voice of the diary, trust it, and go through the most unnerving parts as in a first-person narration, making it quite effective. All this is at the same time simplified and complicated by a strong meta-narrative. If one gives a look online (and yes, you’re supposed to, I’ll explain why) would discover that Caitlín R. Kiernan has more than a few analogies with Sarah Crowe, the fictional writer of the book. Both are lesbian writers who had to deal with the death of their partner, both suffer from epileptic attacks that add another dimension of precariousness to the story. I don’t want to delve further because I feel like invading a personal space and the boundary between reality and fiction is best left blurred. Yet I think a reader should be aware of this layer as it offers a way to better understand the implications and the origin of the book. No book prescinds from its writer, and here this fact is particularly important.

The semi-autobiographical story is about this alter-ego fictional writer, Sarah Crowe, who is fleeing from her former life in Atlanta to rent an house in the countryside of Rhode Island. Without the motivation or the focus to start writing a long postponed novel, she begins instead keeping a diary mostly to describe some weird, unpleasant dreams that are haunting her. After exploring the basement of the house she discovers an incomplete manuscript next to an old typewriter. The manuscript is written by “Dr. Charles Harvey”, a name she’s never heard, so she “googles” it and finds out it belongs to a professor who “was on an extended sabbatical from the university, supposedly writing a book on the evolution and propagation of fakelore”. A professor with “an interest in urban legends and occultism” who lived in that house for three years, and died in the property by hanging himself. The title of his manuscript and research is the same that is shared between these three layers, “THE RED TREE”. Title respectively of Kiernan’s book, of Sarah Crowe fictional diary, and of Harvey’s unfinished manuscript. Soon the bits of legends Sarah reads seep into her reality and slowly build an estrangement from the “real” world. This red tree being a huge oak tree not too far from the house, becoming Harvey’s former and Sarah’s current obsession. One doesn’t even have to speculate the woman will likely share the previous tenant’s fatal destiny as that is already spoiled right in the introduction of the book. It’s a descent into madness when the solid reality under one’s feet starts to crack and give way. The “abscess” that opens and swallows, and that one’s too frightened to look into.

The ideal spook story would then end with a plausible rationalization that explains everything but with the supernatural element still very possible and not completely fended off. The reader left wondering if it was all true or not, and so the resulting haunting ambiguity. All this stays true to this book. While I was reading I kept waiting for some reversal of canons that would bring novelty and would justify the great praises the book received, but that didn’t come. Or it didn’t come from the direction I was expecting it. The story stays well within the canons, it’s not a “modern” interpretation in its structure. It doesn’t drop some classic conceits: it appropriates the canons. And that is where it hits. It’s about looking straight into the darkness and understanding it. The horrors of the book are always perceived and off the page, just out of the corner of the eye, never completely undeniable. The idea of movement, of sounds, of impossible perspectives. As a teenager I fed so much on the horror genre that nowadays it hardly has anything to offer. The “psychological” horror is a concept that I know quite well but it is how it is used to determine its power. Whether or not the “roots” feed on something true or just a weak conceit. The strength of this book is about knowing those roots and, instead of obfuscating, reveal the original darkness that can’t be defeated by modernity. That it’s still not even notched today. Whether it’s written by Lovecraft of Kiernan, the source is the same and ageless.

I try to avoid spoilers and I’ll say that by the end of the book I was busy trying to put together the pieces of the puzzles. Turning the last page doesn’t mean closing the lid. The book won’t be done with you and will continue to haunt. You’ll have to deal with contrasting interpretations and contradictions, with pieces that don’t fit or that you can’t place. Maybe, if you like me have a necessity to strictly define a space, feel frustration because the story defies control and because rationalization is here antidote to comprehension, as it would be in a dream. The book requires and forces a certain readjustment to be understood. But it is important to say that these details of the plot are just a surface. The desire to pin down even the smallest thing. The overall purpose, I think, would be clear. The real explanation is one that contains the different ones within, because at the core there’s the human soul, and the darkness within. What one does or doesn’t make of it. What you can’t push down and deny or forget.

Sarah’s isn’t alone in this journey, and of this I was thankful since it would have risked of making the story too oppressive and hostile. The wonderful strength of the writing is to be appreciated the most in the description of human relationships, and all the meaningful complexities that come out of them. Constance, a character sharing certain sensibilities with Sarah while also being almost her opposite, will soon join her in the house and the relationship building between them is maybe the best aspect of the book. A relationship devoid of idealization as Sarah’s character is cynic and caustic, often her attempts to reach Constance leading to both of them getting hurt and further apart in spite of necessity. Sarah and Constance won me before everything else and I was wondering how the book would proceed if I continued to be so weirdly biased toward the mundane while having very little interest for the supernatural aspect. I think that this effect was intended because it’s from those relationships that the meaningfulness of the story is entirely derived. Consequences. On the foreground stay these characters, their relationship, their truth. There’s some sex, written well for once, not too graphic and yet not embellished or mystified as it always happens. It should be better to say that there’s honesty, and that sex is part of that honesty, and, being that, it becomes extremely important. The language is modern and tight, the voice surprisingly authentic. There’s no use of classical language or rhetoric or fancy flourishes. It doesn’t read like a dusty old tome. This even affects the plot, while Sarah can be seen as the typical solitary character stranded in a mysterious house, she still has internet, looks up things she needs, goes back to the town and library various times, receives calls from her editor who asks if she’s well and is progressing with her book, travels on a car for a couple of days with Constance. There are no artificial boundaries to contain Sarah’s story, if not those entirely made by herself. I even interpreted this “freedom” of breaking through certain rules as a hint to the reader: explore, look things up online if you feel like missing something. The book can be as well enhanced by what’s outside. Do not worry to step out of the page. The darkness will be kind enough to follow you.

The supernatural aspect comes up with more strength toward the end of the book, obviously, but it does so in an unexpected way. It’s the mundane to become horror, and it’s one own feelings to open on the pit no one dares look into. The darkness is the human being. Or, to quote Bakker, the darkness comes AFTER:

It’s only after that we understand what has come before, then we understand nothing. Thus we shall define the soul as follows: that which precedes everything.

Superstition. Everywhere and in everything, Leweth had confused that which came after with that which came before, confused the effect for the cause. Men came after, so he placed them before and called them “gods” or “demons.” Words came after, so he placed them before and called them “scriptures” or “incantations.” Confined to the aftermath of events and blind to the causes that preceded him, he merely fastened upon the ruin itself, men and the acts of men, as the model of what came before.

But there’s obviously some ambiguity, embraced by alternative interpretations and whatever you decide it to be. The darkness comes “after”, produced and shaped by men. Belonging to them. As well its opposite, the darkness comes “before”, something inhuman, eternal, absolute. Universal. Ageless. Meaning that Sarah’s hallucinations were real and used her as a vehicle. But at this point the journey has already become so personal for the reader that even the last answer becomes entirely personal. The descent into madness is proportional to clarity and self-awareness. That’s another unconventional and unexpected aspect of the book. The “unreliable narrator” is a device presented in a self-aware way, used to give the text that ambiguity that keeps the disparate interpretations plausible at the same time. But toward the end this unreliable narrator becomes the only authoritative guide. One assumes that madness corresponds to a loss of contact with truth, but here the whole meta-narrative becomes clear in the mind of the character and she even seems to mock herself for it, and maybe it’s this to provide a way to escape madness by sacrificing an envelope to it.

It’s quite an awesome book that should be read even outside its genre. I enjoyed the characters and the style of writing so much that I would have loved it with or without the supernatural aspects. I love how painfully truthfully it is written. A kind of desperation that destroys any attempt for embellishment or rhetoric. Even WITHIN fiction:

I am usually at my most brutally forthright when making shit up. That’s the paradox of me. And having lied, it doesn’t mean that I was necessarily dishonest.

A book whose stronger aspect is, paradoxically, the demystification. And, maybe, literature as a form of therapy. One of the most emotionally involving and authentic novels I’ve read.

First and Only – Dan Abnett

This is a lean book that took me to read way more than expected, mostly because it fits the “other read” while I was engaged with more meaty books. A debut, as a writer writing books instead of comics, and first in a rather long series made of standalones. This is where Dan Abnett started writing Warhammer 40K, accordingly to the internet not his best effort in the field, but a decent and solid one still. Optional as a starting point since one could start right with Eisenhorn or the multi-writer crossover of the “Horus Heresy” currently being published. Instead this specific series, whose opening volume is “First and Only”, is made of twelve books already released with more planned, but the number shouldn’t discourage as the story moves either through standalone stories or story arcs that are over in three or four books. There are also these nice & cheap omnibus that pack together those arcs in mammoths of 800-1000 pages, so you’re not chasing in frustration a conclusion that never comes. You can satisfyingly read just one and stop, or go on as far as you want, guilt-free.

Genre is military sci-fi. Common theme to the series are “Gaunt’s Ghosts” a specific regiment in the Imperial Guard faction and the ongoing campaign on Sabbat Worlds, whose name correctly implies dealing with Chaos and defining Abnett’s own playground. Gaunt being the name of their leader and main character/hero, Ghosts being the nickname of said squad (the story will give some insight into the choice of the name and origin). It’s effectively tie-in fiction, and so branded with prejudice, but the fact is that Abnett is a competent writer who can stay perfectly within the canon, know what his public wants, and deliver a successful product. There’s nothing bleeding edge, innovative, or breaking the boundaries of the 40K setting, but the execution is good and the book delivers what it is meant to. Abnett can understand and squeeze out of the setting all the specific tropes that make it interesting and fascinating, and can write it so that it doesn’t feel plain and spoiled by the game it’s based on. Meaning that the “canon” successfully empowers instead of trivialize and conform. That’s always the gamble, knowing the canon and so knowing the “range” of the possible story, tiptoeing within the strictly defined perimeter. Abnett proves then that you can have fun with those toys instead of creating new ones, that there are qualities within to exploit.

Writing a good book here pairs with giving a specific audience “tied-in” the canon what it wants. I’m not really familiar with the setting so I can’t comment if the picture Abnett gives is a faithful one, but he definitely seem to get the basics that make it work. WH40K is an apocalyptic setting about excess and exaggeration, but also about human traits and artifacts brought to the extremes. The potential for drama is high, but also the potential for something spectacular and epic and ultimately fun. In this book Abnett bundles epic infantry warfare with military/political intrigue, so while the plot goes through a number of setpieces/key battles on various worlds, there’s also an overarching story that links and gives meaning to these battles, leading to a culmination where the import of all happened before is finally revealed. Both of these story threads are handled well through a structure that alternates the main battles with flashbacks from Gaunt’s life that slowly build the character and plot, and why the reader should care about them. Every “block” adds a piece, chunking the story in an episodic way, in which each battle/chapter is brought to a conclusion, and then linked to the specific arc that starts and ends within this lean book (vaguely similar to the first Black Company book). This results in a tight structure and plot where nothing is superfluous and where the pacing doesn’t slow down. The aim is set from the first page and the pacing is resolute and constant. The “fun” is there on plain sight, the action scenes equally distributed, and you don’t have to wade through weak parts to get to it. If you enjoy the ride you’ll enjoy it on every page without being let down.

Daylight rolled in with a wet stain of cloud, underlit by the continued bombardment. The lightening sky was streaked and cross-hatched by contrails, shell-wakes and arcs of fire from the massive Shriven emplacements in the distant shrouded hills. Lower, in the wide valley and the trench lines, the accumulated smoke of the onslaught, which had now been going on for just about twenty-one hours, dropping two or three shells a second, curdled like fog, thick, creamy and repellent with the stink of cordite and fycelene.

Abnett is rather good at writing what takes the stage the most: action scenes and some spectacular setpieces. There’s a sort of unintended anticlimactic effect since the battles escalate in size and impact, but the first one is the most successful because it mimics some aspect of WWII, with infantry moving through trenches and trying to survive heavy bombardments. The perspective of those men caught in the mess just works and resonates with the real scenes one is already familiar with. Some acts of desperate heroism, some unlucky sudden deaths, sudden change of plans, last minute saves. You can see some canonical situations taken from a number of movies that are here reinterpreted in the new setting, all the while, but without pushing too much, trying to give a name to those soldiers, slowly learning their roles and a couple of personality traits for each. The recipe is well known, after all. At the end of the book I was still struggling recognizing who’s who and there’s no character that delivered substantial depth or anything more than two-dimensional, but I also don’t think the book tried to go in that direction. It’s relatively unpretentious and focused on the fun things. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and it is not even shallow. Characterization is proportional to its use and purpose within the scene. Some characters are even made for just one or two scenes, to then step out again (often dead). Fun, fast paced, straightforward, and with characters that are good enough to fit the situation and make it work. No more, no less.

The prose is functional too. It’s not bloated and at the same time it gives some impressive and effective imagery. Battles on a big scale are a complicate thing to deal with, especially battles that have so strong fantastic elements. Abnett deals with all this with ease and familiarity, not betraying the fact the book is a “debut”. Action is crystal clear, never confused and keeping a pace that doesn’t disrupt the flow. I guess that’s the most important aspect in writing this sub genre of military sci-fi. With the plot filled with surprises and the mysterious aspects being well managed, the book is quite successful all over. The only quirk in the prose I don’t personally like is that it can be way too pompous and rhetorical, including the metaphors used and the uncompromising manly men described. “Subtlety” is something banished here, everything is upfront and direct and explicit.

Fire patterns winked in the russet darkness. Yellow traceries of venomous death.

The turret guns screamed into life, blitzing out a scarlet-tinged, boiling stream of hypervelocity fire.

The plasma guns howled phosphorescent death into the void.

One has to wait the final battle develop to get the big revelation about what it was that Gaunt and his Ghosts chased for all the previous pages. While I said the structure of the book is solid and well executed, this can also be a problem because it’s as if the import and meaningfulness of what happens is left hanging and undecided till the end. It’s hard to trust the book because one can’t say till the last 20 pages if it’s going to be worth it or if it will be an hoax. The pre-finale, after the big revelation is dropped, is painfully predictable, but there are a number of pages left and even if the plot seems to have exhausted its fuel, it keeps going on and keeps surprising, tying together every small subplot even too neatly, including a nice bow. The surprises continue to come till the very last line, so even if the whole conclusion is made by a number of scenes that all feel somewhat trite and cliche, the overall result is fun and convincing thanks to the good execution of those traditional elements and scenes. Like an action movie that doesn’t disappoint.

I haven’t read any military sci-fi before this book, so I can’t gauge how it may compare. I think it is well executed and its strength are in its deliberate focus on action and intrigue, making a reckless and fun journey. The battles excellent and varied, from huge showdowns of thousands of men to chainsword duels, described in vivid gory detail. The downsides are built-in the model, many of the elements that compose both the story and characters are cliche and drawn/taking inspiration from the multitude of books and movies that have something in common with the genre, but I wouldn’t point this as a “flaw”, since the use of these conventional elements is competent and well realized. Even if dipped in predictability in various points I wasn’t bored by the plot and the pacing was perfect. I only faltered about the trust in the book, since as I said the stakes are only revealed at the very end and so the reader is kept in the dark about some major motivations. Also consider that this is a starting point and, accordingly to other readers’ comment who read more than me, Abnett only gets better. Truly recommended for those who look forward to some pulpy military sci-fi with a fast paced plot and epic battles that rock whole worlds.

The Gunslinger – Stephen King

I began to read the book almost a year ago but got sidetracked after about 70 pages, so when I took it again a couple of weeks ago I had to restart from the first page since I had a very vague idea about the part I had read. Not that it got so much better the second time through, the story defies control and one has to struggle to distill from the book some form of logic progression. Reading this, day after day, feels like you never make any progress, which I guess is the point. There’s a direction, a sort of abstraction of the concept of the “quest” in its most absolute form. The endless, ultimate journey toward something that is perceived as the definitive “Truth”. Or better, this is the conceit, the Mac Guffin. Roland, the Gunslinger, on his journey toward a mythical, capitalized Dark Tower. Only that this is one book, part of a series. So for this single instance Roland is chasing after another Mac Guffin, the “man in black”, who, when caught, would hopefully point Roland in the right direction.

The starting point is not present. We see this chase when the chase has become a consolidated reality that seemed to go on forever. The beginning is a blur, a movement whose beginning was lost. It starts with a desert that represents the absence of a definite space and time. An infinity whose confines are misty and dream-like. The quest is a journey, but here it seems trapped in a stasis: the longing for something that can’t be achieved, the distance that never closes. I’d say it doesn’t even work as a “tease” because we can’t grasp anything meaningful of Roland himself or the object of his longing. Merely an assumption. You witness obsession without motives. One has to reach the very last few pages of the book to have at least a glimpse of what the tower represents. The story is not one built to entice the reader and follow along. The place is haunted and inhospitable, but it’s maybe in these traits that someone may find some fascination.

The introduction written by King himself is the most revelatory part. It explains the origin of the idea, especially its naive ambition. The rest of the book is, at the same time, talented, immature and pretentious. All together in a mix that represents the real quality to find here. There are no restraints typical of the established writer, no control of the parts, but this has the consequence of “freeing” the creativity and let it go wild and uncaring. The writing is powerful as it is naive. A core of talent as wordsmith mixed with the pretentiousness, egocentricity and impudence of the young. It takes itself so seriously that it builds a wall of detachment, not reaching out to the reader or gaining his sympathy or empathy. The place is haunted, all characters being like phantoms of momentary conscience, fading in and out, being themselves lost too and living aimlessly. There’s everywhere, on the characters and the places, a sense of nostalgia. Something missing or forgotten that can’t be pinpointed. Even if nostalgia should be a thing of memory. Everyone is missing something but without being able to remember what it was. Nostalgia of the future. A suspended and undefined state of agony.

The scenes are all dream-like, evanescent. Their symbolic meaning more important than the factual one, but at the same time esoteric and impenetrable. The book is filled with symbolic myths but nothing at all is explained or even placed into context. These are shattered lives, like glass whose pieces do not connect anymore. I guess the purpose is to to establish this mythology that will only start to make sense later and in retrospective, when the story will loop on itself. There’s already here the impression that the pattern has been repeated, that these characters are themselves victims that follow trails that are merely their own. Condemned to retrace themselves, only to forget again. It sounds, and is pictured, like a torture.

If anything, Roland is the only character who seems to have maintained some tangibility. Of self-awareness. Other characters are all hopelessly lost, unrecoverable. Roland seems the only one who produces a difference, sometimes catastrophically, but still a change or a disruption of that agony. When he exterminates a small town the feeling is one of gratitude for having put those ghosts out of their misery, but at the same time he certainly doesn’t win a sympathy in the reader. Roland is himself haunted and hallucinated way beyond any hope of recovery. We have no insight and so one cannot sympathize or understand. This first book works merely as a framework and I’m sure the character will grow toward something more human later on, in this first he stays obscure and maybe for this reason vaguely fascinating. A twisted, black anti-hero that plays maybe too much with being against the convention. A kind of anti-stereotype that is itself a stereotype.

In the end this book taken as a single entity is not generous and rather opaque, I didn’t get much out of it beside the fancy, dislocated atmosphere. Abstraction without substance. It closes, before setting up the sequel, with a trippy space journey taken straight out of ‘2001: A Space Odissey’, but here the meaning is painfully obvious and plain, revelatory of the fraud hidden behind. Containing just a promise of something more meaningful to be revealed later on, coinciding with the promise of the Tower and the conclusion of the series itself. It dresses itself as wise and resourceful but the conceit is evident. As Roland, I have no solid motivation to carry on with the hopeless and insubstantial chase. You need to entice me with with something more than mystical mumbo-jumbo and esoteric made-up terms. What’s actually there? A boy being sacrificed for ludicrous reasons, largely foreshadowed but delivered in a way so forceful that it defies every purpose that part of the story may have had. Follows a host of prophecies again grounded on nothing, neither abstract nor concrete, if not in offering bland hooks to the following book. Instead of building curiosity for the mysteries set within a context it may easily lead simply to irritation, with the man in black representing perfectly that feeling. Inhuman, inconsistent, pretentious and ridicule. His display of powers does not impress anyone and that part of the story is so inconsequential that it’s like watching animated puppets play a trippy script whose pages were thrown into the air and scattered.

What is good? The sheer talent and creative pretentiousness. The lack of restraints. The outrageous metaphorical descriptions filling the pages. ‘The artificial glow from the wet rock was suddenly hateful’. All this being not only something glaringly obvious in the text, but it’s King himself explaining it. “On being nineteen”. And the book has to be appreciated in regard of this creative, unhampered recklessness. The ambition and courage that coincide with carelessness. It becomes then, in potential, a strength if one considers the series as a whole. With the latter books representing a conciliation of all this with the wisdom and moderation that one can legitimately expect to come with the mature, more broken King. Coming to terms with his own creation and trying to tie loose ends in some sort of coherence and meaningfulness, maybe.

The rest is magic, or sleight of hand.

Night of Knives – Ian C. Esslemont

“Night of Knives” is the first novel(-la) written by Ian Cameron Esslemont set in the Malazan world co-created with Steven Erikson. It’s a much leaner book, 300 pages in the american Tor edition, compared to Malazan standard, and chronologically set between the prologue and first chapter of “Gardens of the Moon”, the first book in the series. Yet, the fans recommend to read the book only before the sixth because of some connections, while I decided to anticipate it right after the fourth, since “House of Chains” deals more directly with the matters of the Malazan empire and I wanted to approach “Night of Knives” when that strand of story was still fresh in my memory.

The content and purpose of the book fit as a retrospective: from one side we get to see what happened in the particular night Surly/Laseen claimed the throne of the Malazan empire while declaring the death of the previous ruler, Kellanved, who had been missing for quite some time giving Surly the opportunity to solidify her position. From the other, through flashbacks, we get a close-up of “The Sword”, the six bodyguards/champions around Dassem Ultor, champion of the Malazan empire, and particularly Dassem’s betrayal that was vaguely commented between Paran and Wiskeyjack in that GotM prologue.

Here comparisons between writers are impossible to avoid since we have two of them writing the same material and aiming for complementarity. So the big question is if Esslemont can match Erikson or at least stay relevant and add something worthwhile, with expectations being very high and not playing in Esslemont’s favor since it’s complicate to debut when the main series is already established and halfway through. That was also my main concern: trying to weigh Esslemont potential not just for this book, but also for the upcoming contributions. The first 50 pages were quite revelatory for me. Esslemont is a rather competent writer, the beginning of the book is well handled, solid prose, written and paced perfectly. There wasn’t anything suggesting it was a debut instead of the work of an established writer. I also thought the style was distinctive and not clashing or conforming to Erikson. Especially, I think Esslemont did a wonderful work on Malaz itself, the city. The place comes to life, the shadowy atmosphere rendered perfectly with its narrow, twisted alleys, the very quiet and suspicious people on the brink of insanity. From Mock’s Hold perched on the cliff (and the inevitable wink to Mock’s Vane), down to the sprawling ramshackle houses. It gives a sense of real place and I still now consider this the biggest quality of the novel. The town being the true real protagonist, interpreting perfectly the understatement of the conflict it gets tangled in. The true heart of the empire, yet far from the celebration of triumph or glory of a capital. It’s a haunted town everyone would get away from, sullying and miserable. So weak and vulnerable, yet caught in the eye of the storm and holding desperately. Reminds me of a place that would fit perfectly in a Lovecraft story, madness stalking behind every corner.

Speaking of tones and atmosphere, I think that, more than Erikson, Esslemont draws plenty and openly from Glen Cook. The whole novel echoes with the first chapter of The Black Company and even more with the whole second book, “Shadows Linger”. Lots of elements in common, the first chapter of The Black Company was similar to an horror story, with the company caught in an unusual situation and slowly drifting toward dread, discovering corpses everywhere while the town they were stuck in descended into chaos, the Hounds of Shadow in “Night of Knives” filling perfectly the role of the “forvalaka”. Same for “Shadows Linger”, also set in a gloomy small town, inside filthy inns and nearby mysterious places. Townsfolk involved in ominous practices that slowly escalate to a disaster. Inspiration here is not a flaw, since Esslemont uses all this competently and functional to the story he writes, without giving the impression of a diminished copy.

There are problems, though. Everything is set perfectly in those initial pages, but as the story progresses it also loses its strength. Instead of escalating it kind of folds without delivering its potential. From my point of view the problem is that Esslemont fails to switch gear when needed. There’s a moment in the story when the spooky “fairy tales” and legends descend, truly, on the real world. Kiska fits well as a POV there, because we have a naive perspective on a situation that is quickly transforming. But when hell breaks loose the story is stuck in the preceding naive tone and the dramatic intensity is underachieved or lost. Esslemont stays too much on one fantastic, dreamy level that is excused when the story is still in the build-up phase and what is to come has to feel distant, the menace being remote. But when it closes it lacks realism and the characters are still lulled by the writer, never at risk, never exposed outside their own cliche. They stay put, characters as devices, their perimeter containing them, and them carefully stepping to never dare becoming real characters. This is the kind of babysitting that never lets the story run wild and deliver. Somewhat like a cheat.

Kiska fails to become a real character, ideally she should be hammered out of her fancy fantasies (echoing Paran’s own “I want to be a soldier. A hero.”) and crushing on reality. She starts wishing to be the heroine, admirably skilled in her dreamy land, but she stays there even after. She glides over everything, undamaged, in truth, beside a few minor bruises. The kid outskills everyone else, she lives her dream in reality WITHOUT EVEN PERCEIVING THE TRANSITION. She enters and exits the novel with the exact same mindset, nothing learned. She’s lulled in her dream as the world comes to coincide with it, instead of her coming to grips with reality. She starts naive, and ends up with all her dreams fulfilled without even once confronting reality. Her role, as cliche, fits perfectly, if only at some point the cliche would be used to spring her (and the escalation of the plot toward dramatic intensity) to a whole new level. Instead the whole structure folds. We have these two levels. The low-ground perception of townsfolk, with all their superstitions, and then the crushing of the convergence, the Shadow Realm that descends on the city itself, becoming very real and tangible. The townsfolk barred in their own houses, praying the dream to end soon, the storm outside. Yet, on the level of the novel, it’s the “reality” that is lifted up to “fairy” level, with magic becoming magic, old wizened and long-bearded guys becoming wise wizards, the heroine being tested through riddles. Lots of blood, corpses everywhere, but it’s just tomato juice on redshirts, come the morning the bad guys are dead, the roads relatively filthy as usual, some fallen bricks and crumpled walls, heroes survived heroically, the heroine got her alluring, mysterious boyfriend. When do I wake up?

Erikson’s work on the series can be summarized as: “Nothing is as it seems”. Here it’s the opposite: everything is as it seems. No subtlety, no tricks on perceptions, no layers. Leading to another consideration. Esslemont’s characterization is actually well done, at least in presenting the characters if not in their development. His overall style of prose, narration and characterization is traditional compared to Erikson, but “traditional” doesn’t mean “bad”. The introspection here is “full-on” and helps leading the narrative. You get into the characters’ thoughts in a way that you never find in Erikson. This meaning that this book can be more readable and accessible, even enjoyable. Erikson’s style, being infinitely layered, prompts you to put down the book and think about implications, Esslemont is more like the page-turner, pushing the story onward, curiosity taking the lead and the reader more involved in the destiny of characters. A more emotive/empathic approach of a character-driven story. The book can be read quickly and is quite fun but it stays on that level.

Thinking of “purpose”, the story is aimed to shed some light on a crucial point of the history of the empire. The book is filled with juicy details that can please the fans of the series. Lots of “fanservice”, which is a good thing. Yet, this is not a necessary read, nor a recommended one. Concretely, it adds nothing worthwhile. It uses and consumes without creating. We see lots of details about what went on, but they all seem disposable and none really clarifying. The real deep motives stay deep and unrevealed, deliberately untouched in this book. The betrayal of Dassem Ultor is a pivot of the novel, yet absolutely nothing is added to what we knew. We see it happen, but what we see explains nothing about what happened. Another instance of “everything is as it seems”, or there’s nothing more than what meets the eyes. Another big flaw being that the more is revealed, the weaker the story. Instead of enhancing and realizing complexity, it kills it. No surprises, no revelations that open new interpretations and scenarios. The few answers that come only close some dead-ends of the overall plot without producing anything. Lots of potential when it comes to Laseen, but the character is flat and hiding absolutely nothing. She’s merely there and passive, with the lack of active presence hiding absolutely nothing: she’s really doing nothing if not what is plain. Mystery that hides nothing. Same for the confrontation between Claws and Talons, reduced to a confused ninja battle between caped figures. Shadowy capes hiding nothing. Conspirators whose conspiracy is held on plain sight.

From this perspective the book is immature. Not again in the competency of Esslemont as a writer, but in failing to cross that line between adolescence and maturity and everything it represents. The falling of myths and naive dreams, the facing of failure or helplessness. The same done by some “fantasy” (as genre) trying to come out of its stereotype as “young-adult” escapist entertainment, whether it is George Martin or Erikson or whoever else, trying to open up the genre to a more mature type of narration, more complex, layered and unbound from strict conventions and types. “Maturity” or even modernity: no more absolutes, but points of view, layers, perspectives. This book fails to cross that border. The characters are caged into themselves, being plainly what they seem to be and within their narrow stereotype or functional role in the plot. In various occasions the story directly reminds of “young-adult” tropes (here straight from “Neverending Story”):

If she did succeed in returning, Kiska vowed she would head straight to Agayla’s. If anyone knew what was going on – and what to do – it would be her. Never mind all this insane mumbling of the Return, the Deadhouse, and Shadow. What a tale she had for her aunt!

And ending with:

‘Yes, I will. Thank you, Auntie. Thank you for everything.’
Agayla took her in her arms and hugged her, kissed her brow. ‘Send word soon or I swear I will send you a curse.’
‘I will.’
‘Good. Now run. Don’t keep Artan waiting.’

“Don’t keep your boyfriend waiting”. It’s then hard to lift the plot to dramatic intensity when this distance of perception never closes. Brutal fights are witnessed, but so alien and detached (or described through morbid badassness) that they never come real. Threat never getting close if not in a fake way. Kiska never falters, no matter how unbelievable is that behavior even for a prodigious child. Every impossible action or behavior excused by mere exceptionality. Temper, the other POV, is not different. Even here the character is initially very solid and well presented. A paranoid veteran hiding from his past. But all plot points are fortuitous and convenient, and even the flashbacks recount battles between invulnerable champions with a lot of useless redshirts around them. Halfway through the character moves from a well realized one, to click into his functional stereotype. When he exits the story he’s the hero who saved the day whose deeds remain unknown. Close your eyes and shadows become monsters crawling out from under the bed. You wake up, it was a dream. Esslemont fails to play properly with this and switch tone. Everything stays up there, suspended into adolescent mythology. The mythical story described exactly as the cleaned-up myth wants. Nothing being ever threatened or compromised.

The series is not powerful for its mythology and form, but because Erikson, as a writer, instilled meaningfulness into it. Made it relevant for what it has to say and the way it challenges perceptions. But Esslemont doesn’t seem to add something of his own. He delivers the story without delivering a purpose. If Erikson writes to reach far outside mere “escapism”, Esslemont stays strongly rooted into it. The story sits on the surface level, which I guess explains why the fans of Esslemont himself are often those who judge Erikson’s book as overlong and slow. Erikson digs deep on the level of meaning, is concerned about the reason to say something, is tormented for reaching out to the reader and shake him. Esslemont fails to have a drive in this novel. There’s no “necessity” of the narrative intent. Outside the entertainment value, being said or unsaid is the same. Why reading this book? Because it’s still a good read and if you are a Malazan fan you’d want to know more and enjoy the story, but I thought that the mysteries revealed would stay better mysterious and ambiguous. Instead of being revealed so plain. It’s a fun and well executed roller coaster if you enjoy Malazan mythology, but it’s still a roller coaster.

House of Chains – Steven Erikson

House of Chains is the fourth in the 10-books Malazan series. These days, these hours, Erikson is intensely busy writing the last chapters of the last book and bring to a close a journey of staggering ambition. Reading this fourth felt like standing on the shoulder of a very tall (jade-colored) giant. As with similar(?) long series it’s interesting to see the power-game, the ebb and flow of the single book compared to the others. When I was at page 700 or so (on a total of 1000) it dawned on me that this would become, with certainty, my favorite. 100 pages from the end the story proceeded resolute with a sense of finality and inevitability. Like the dramatic ending a movie whose sound is deafened, muted, so that the intensity of what you see comes out unadulterated and with all its power. But it is immediately past this apex, in the very slight and calmer descent that follows, the remaining 30-40 pages, that the more meaningful and stronger revelations are delivered, and the characters reached down for my soul. The book had already gauged his way as my true favorite and was set for a foreshadowed ending. I only expected closure and rest, yet the book still had PLENTY to deliver, and surprise me, and offer emotions to share.

These weeks I spent reading House of Chains were also the weeks of Lost ending season (the TV series), which lead me to draw certain parallels, both thematic and about the plot. Similarities are evident even on the superficial level, and on the forums I was explaining that I was watching Lost for some of the reasons I was reading this series of books. The staggering ambition, the exponential layering, the subversion and reversals in the plot, the continuous challenge to perceptions. The difference, as I already discussed, is that Lost always left me (and many others) unsatisfied. Even the very end left the plot unresolved. With the Malazan series instead it’s a whole different deal. Reading this book, at various points, I thought that if it was to end right there, in the middle of the narrative, it would still feel completely satisfying and accomplished. Erikson as an author is far more generous and I feel that what he does is always honest. I never once felt cheated. Which also leads to the broad theme of “truthfulness”, that Erikson fulfills for me. Reading this series is not an easy task for anyone, but I know that it largely rewarded my effort. It delivers all it promises, then more, far beyond expectations that continue to rise as the story goes and branches out to embrace what you don’t think can be embraced. I am humbled because I know that this is one rare effort that won’t likely be matched anytime soon, if ever. I’m glad that I find it so close to things that matter for me, at the core, and that I seek in a book. It completes what I think and I follow devotedly because it already proved aplenty that this journey is worth all the dedication I can give to it. This to say: Erikson, especially in this book, doesn’t lull and drag you along with vane promises. He delivers, page after page. The physical shape of the book, right there, weighting far more than you think. Worlds that the written word can open, and worlds that, deep down, feed on something true.

This, for me, has nothing to do with the notion of escapism. At least if you don’t consider escapism the illusion of the discovery of something meaningful, that matters. And so the thematic aspects. I guess that this couldn’t be more misleading. “Themes” make me think of very boring books that have nowhere to go and preach on banalities or feast on rhetoric. Or the celebration of some sort of morale. I have a natural tendency to oppose and refuse these things because I always find them trite or partial. Erikson instead makes these aspects very real and makes surface their contradictions. The narrative is driven by purpose, a lucid intent, that doesn’t lead recursively to itself, going nowhere. Turning a wheel that turns and turns but goes nowhere. Those themes, taken as abstraction, are always brought back to the ground. They don’t wander on a detached level, different from the plot. They are intricately woven and matter on a concrete one. The biggest revelations can please a reader just for what they are, the fun of following an engaging story filled with unexpected twists. The last 70 pages of this book are a frenzy of plot threads that get tied and resolved one after the other. And each, if not to be carried away by this surging tide, turning the pages, would make you look back with unprecedented clarity. The thematic aspects here bind the narrative.

‘The stigma of meaning ever comes later, like a brushing away of dust to reveal shapes in stone.’

The structure of this book is slightly different from the preceding ones. It starts with about 250 pages from a single point of view instead of jumping all over the place. I think this choice is perfectly placed. It’s not easy to have the story move again after the ending of ‘Memories of Ice’. Starting from a blank point, apparently unrelated, offers the narrative the possibility to gain momentum. Especially because all we learned through three books here becomes the cipher of what is going on behind the curtain of deception. An higher level of awareness that you have, as a reader, above the level of the narrow point of view. An second-level of observation that reveals a bigger truth, as you are yourself, as reader, deceived in turn, when you thought your position let you see clearly where the deception actually was. A clever trick indeed. But again, done to understand the story on a deeper level, and bring the reader right into it, with an active role. Not so many books do this. You may think this is some ‘mental’ stuff I imagined, but no. This is why I said the book is generous. It has not the esotericism and bloated pretentiousness of Pynchon, this book BEGS you to understand it. It doesn’t hide for the simple pleasure of obfuscation, nor it lulls lathering in redundancy.

‘In any case, to speak plainly is a true talent; to bury beneath obfuscation is a poet’s calling these days.’

Now this review is coming out rather abstract and vague, yet I’ve pages of notes about specific aspects but I don’t think I can go anywhere with them. This book offers a myriad of suggestions that you can taste and elaborate any way you want. Take for example the book of Dryjhna. It’s a story that starts in book 2. This is Erikson doing his typical play on some established fantasy conventions (and in book 2 he resolves it delivering a spectacular surprise). In this case the ‘book of prophecies’. We’ve had these plot devices dealt in every possible way in the fantasy genre. Here the running joke is that prophecies are left vague because through this very quality they can be pragmatically adapted to the changes of time. A way to keep them relevant and useful for those who actually wield that power for their own secular purposes. In the end prophecies are nothing more than excuses to exploit a population. But it’s the real revelation of the truth (or better, the deceit) behind the book that makes it ultimately worth saving. The book is revealed as a fraud, but this revelation makes the book valuable for what it actually is, which consequently infuses it of the power it lost. A full circle, but, as it closes, the power of the book goes from misplaced and false, to something true and valid. It got somewhat cleansed in the process. This I’ve just explained is a very minor plot thread, almost invisible. Maybe two pages in total name it, yet, by ways of Erikson, what this book (of prophecies) represents echoes with everything else that goes on the major level. Everything intricately woven together at different levels.

There are certain plot threads, on a second inspection, after the tide of the last 100 pages passed, that seem somewhat spurious. Though this is typical of Erikson as the plot branches out to previous and following books. They are the most obvious links. But the reason why they are there is because they are part of larger loops. They are meaningful in the single book, have an impact and purpose, but the story arc isn’t brought to conclusion right there. When I finished book 3, I thought that Erikson was at his maximum possible reach. Controlling so many characters and plot threads while delivering a so huge conclusion was absolutely spectacular. House of Chains is on a somewhat smaller scale and more personal. It continues directly from book 2 and draws from the qualities found there. Yet, this smaller scale was only apparent and Erikson shows here a stronger control of plot. He still improves. Book 3 had from my point of view a more uneven quality compared to the 2nd, even if as a whole it came out far above just because of its impact and staggering ambition. House of Chains shows a tight control and a clear intent. It is lucid in a way no previous book was. More effective and straight to the point. Every aspect I can consider is overall improved. The prose itself stays terse as is typical of Erikson, and gains efficacy. No wasted words, no lingering, yet also not as wasteful as it happened in Memories of Ice. On some of my notes I wrote how in books 1-3 we saw an expansion of the plot. An exponential multiplications of different factions and factions within factions. House of Chains instead represents a kind of contraption that doesn’t reduce the reach of ambition of the plot, but that actually leads to an absorption of the various branches into an unitarian mythology. The nature and truth of many things is revealed, and this revelation draws everything together. It all makes sense and even sheds more light on previous books in a way that makes them shine even more. Following books improve the previous in retrospective, add significance. Especially in this case for book 2, that was already excellent. House of Chains is an open celebration of Deadhouse Gates, yet this doesn’t put it in its shadow in any way. They just contribute to each other.

Want one flaw? Named characters lead the story. Yes, there are A LOT of them in that “named” list, but the terse style of Erikson lacks some naturalness if you care for it in a book. I’ve pointed this out in the past. There are no slices of life scenes here. No getting used to the characters or lingering with them for the mundane. This story has momentum and moves on. We don’t get to see what isn’t strictly relevant. Yet, this also means that these plots are sometimes too neatly wrapped up. Too coincidental and convenient. Everything pivots exactly where it should, and no matter how HUGE is the landmass itself, characters that travel seem to ineluctably constantly bump into each other. Sometimes it feels as if the “real world” is missing. As if the plot was eradicated from its natural place and made an example of. I doubt you could tell such story in a different way, though.

I loved this book. Not just because it has an excellent execution, but because I loved it also on a more personal level. The biggest mystery is how Erikson is able to gather the strength and will to start again from a blank page after such a huge showdown. I’m merely a reader, yet this was exhausting in a positive way. So much was brought to a satisfying closure. No idea where this will bring me next, but I have trust in the writer that it will be more than worth it.

The last few lines of the epilogue, in italics, are probably the biggest and more powerful revelation ever. Sustaining the whole series. (hopefully enough to keep Erikson himself afloat)