Book Review: “The Bonehunters”
- Series: Malazan Book of the Fallen #6
- Author: Steven Erikson
- 1203 pages, Mass Market Paperback
- First published January 1, 2006
At the beginning of this book, I told myself that it would probably be one of my top picks due to the return of many of my favorite characters. But then I felt like Erikson was putting on the skates after rearranging the pieces on the chessboard once again. I even began to waver on whether certain events were important or even significant (of course they were!). Until the night I was reading “comfortably” and the author decided to cheer me up in the rudest way possible – by, of course, putting down a favorite character (not for the first time). From then on, it started like an avalanche again. đ
After the slight detour via Tale Five, we return to the beloved Malazans.
A ward experiences a gruesome ordeal under the rubble of a city. But amidst the fire and bones, new old heroes are reborn, nicknamed “The Bonehunters”.
An exciting reunion takes place on the island of Malaz. Laseen will confront his helper with a decision that Duzek once made well, but now things are about to get a little bloody.
My rating for “The Bonehunters”
Fights, fights, fights to the point of fainting. In the water, on land, in labyrinths, in people’s heads. Gods playing with humans, humans reading the riot act to the gods, new scandalous alliances, ancient magic, love sparks/dramas here and there, laughter, tears, blood, bones, entrails, sand, lizards and rats. There’s no shortage of descriptions of offal of all kinds, but that’s no surprise.
They keep making all sorts of revelations that make you cry out, “Hey, come on, what’s this now”.
And as is usual with these books, the last 200 pages gave me a book hangover after I just couldn’t stop reading until I reached the end.
âGardens of the Moonâ by Steven Erikson Book #1
“Deadhouse Gates” by Steven Erikson Book #2
“Memories of Ice” by Steven Erikson Book Book #3
“House of Chains” by Steven Erikson Book #4
“Midnight Tides” by Steven Erikson Book #5
The Seven Cities Rebellion has been crushed. Sha’ik is dead. One last rebel force remains, holed up in the city of Y’Ghatan and under the fanatical command of Leoman of the Flails. The prospect of laying siege to this ancient fortress makes the battle-weary Malaz 14th Army uneasy. For it was here that the Empire’s greatest champion Dassem Ultor was slain and a tide of Malazan blood spilled. A place of foreboding, its smell is of death. But elsewhere, agents of a far greater conflict have made their opening moves. The Crippled God has been granted a place in the pantheon, a schism threatens and sides must be chosen. Whatever each god decides, the ground-rules have changed, irrevocably, terrifyingly and the first blood spilled will be in the mortal world. A world in which a host of characters, familiar and new, including Heboric Ghost Hands, the possessed Apsalar, Cutter, once a thief now a killer, the warrior Karsa Orlong and the two ancient wanderers Icarium and Mappo, each searching for such a fate as they might fashion with their own hands, guided by their own will. If only the gods would leave them alone. But now that knives have been unsheathed, the gods are disinclined to be kind. There shall be war, war in the heavens.And the prize? Nothing less than existence itself…
Here is the stunning new chapter in Steven Erikson magnificent ‘Malazan Book of the Fallen’ – hailed an epic of the imagination and acknowledged as a fantasy classic in the making.
