I'm nearing the end of the tenth and final book of the main series. With only about thirty pages left out of around 10,000, I felt like taking a short break to honour my favourite fantasy series--and my favourite fantasy author--with a review.
I started this journey shortly after the second novel was published. In the series opener, Gardens of the Moon, I discovered a promising author and a fantasy world that seemed different from anything I'd previously encountered. Clearly this was a very creative author, an accomplished world-builder, and I reckoned the series could be a worthwhile investment.
In the second novel, Deadhouse Gates, I discovered an author who was not only a world-builder but also a masterful storyteller. He had a gift for humor and horror and tragedy, which he wielded in ways I'd never seen. His palette was vast and nuanced, and I found he could do justice to more than just soldiers and gods. He destroyed lives, butchered societies, repeatedly betrayed my trust and my hope. But the rewards were as great as the punishment. I discovered to my pleasure that this world was more vast, more rich, more detailed than I could've imagined. I discovered that, for all his ruthlessness, this was an author who had a heart. Who loved the story we were sharing. He rewarded me with touching friendship, with loyalty, with harsh and satisfying justice. As he toppled societies he raised heroes, of which most other fantasy heroes were faint shadows.
Satisfying though it may have been, Deadhouse Gates was also exhausting. I approached the third novel, Memories of Ice, with hesitation. In this third novel I discovered an author who had just gotten started. He couldn't just create worlds and deliver fantastic action and humor. He wove stories within stories, spanning anything from minutes to eons, with each story giving meaning and color to the greater story that contained it. He pulled the breaks on his engines of horror and tragedy, but then directed them with finesse. Through perfect pacing he delivered one climactic event after another. Though much of this book was an orgy of cruelty and violence--though it was more macabre by far than the two preceding novels--the central themes of compassion and of forgiveness were well served. The betrayals were many and very hurtful, but there was a good vibe in there, and I felt I could trust this author.
Memories of Ice lent more depth and detail to the first two novels, and I felt like everything was about to come together. What more could this author offer except more of the same? Slaughter, humor and larger-than-life characters? Wasn't it time to begin wrapping things up? In the fourth novel, House of Chains, I discovered a devious and manipulative author who would not be constrained by my expectations. In this novel, he got personal, took us inside the hearts and minds of new characters the likes of which I simply hadn't seen coming. Deeply immersed in each member of this motley cast of human and non-human characters, I was shown this world anew. And, suddenly, I didn't know what to think about anything. Never mind who was good and who was evil. I didn't know what was good and what was evil in this story. What causes deserved my loyalty? Who did I trust? Who did I like? These questions, that had for me always been relatively easy to answer in the fantasy context, were now impossible challenges. The dry humor that permeated the entire novel made this uncertainty easier to bear, but the knowledge that I had no idea where this series was going was unsettling. In retrospect, I realise this novel is the one that first hints at the questions asked in the final novel, at the point of the whole series. I buckled down for a difficult ride.
But there's just no preparing for Erikson. In the fifth novel, Midnight Tides, I was plopped down onto a whole new continent, with a whole new cast of characters, a new set of rules, and with little sense of where I was in the greater story. I slowly realised that House of Chains was relatively far in my future, and I was therefore really very far from home. Everything was a little tainted, sordid, in this new place. Everything from little villages to the capital of an empire ruled entirely and ruthlessly by the idea of money. In this novel I discovered an author who was not above extensive and multifaceted social commentary, but who still treated his characters as more than mere mouthpieces for ideology. The ambiguity introduced in HoC flourished in this novel. Hopelessness, madness, treachery. It's a damned good thing that this book also provided more humor, more friendship, more love than did those before it. But where was this going?
I believe the sixth novel, The Bonehunters, marks a turning point for the series. From here on, everything begins to come together. I realise now how important the novel was for transitioning the greater story into the final act, but at the time I was relatively frustrated by the plot throughout most of this novel. The novels that follow, however, are the most satisfying novels in the series. The writing is tight, purposeful, challenging and varied without getting in the way of the story. By this point Erikson has written men, women, soldiers, gods of every kind, immortals, revenants, ghosts, sentient lizards... The pacing seems to take into account all the remaining novels. All the strands from the first six novels are woven together, and there is a clear sense of the inexorable race towards... towards... what, exactly? None of this feels pointless--with the possible exception of one story-arc--but what is the point? Why are the Bonehunters going where they're going, doing what they're doing?
I've spent much time over the past few years musing on the answers to my many questions about this series. I should have been musing on the questions instead. Every single book was preparing me for the questions I should have been asking, as well as for their answers. The clues were there, the nudges were there. The whole time I was being manipulated, though gently and with respect. I'm a little surprised to find that I'm not irritated by this, not frustrated by the unfair advantage the author has over me... but then, it has been a very enjoyable journey and an honest challenge--and almost every step on the road to its resolution has made sense. In the final act of this story, we are faced with one question that overshadows all others: what fate has mankind earned? But the jury's still out on that one...
It's rare to find an author in this genre who doesn't cheat, who doesn't take shortcuts, who neither underestimates his readers nor allows himself to be hampered by their limitations. Who quietly invites a little patience, faith, attention to detail... and offers for that investment handsome rewards. I think it's because of these qualities of Erikson that I find myself, at the end of this long journey, supremely satisfied. If you like fantasy, and if you're up for it, I warmly recommend these novels.