Customer Reviews

Dust of Dreams: Malazan Book of the Fallen 9

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When i saw that this book was coming out 6 months earlier in the UK than the US, I called my brother in Ireland and told him to pick it up there and send it on to me ASAP. It arrived 5 days ago, and at almost 900 pages it was just a joy to behold. I managed to finish it in 4 days and the reson it took so long ;) was that I just wanted to savor it as much as possible, especially after the foreword warning about cliff hangers. And let me say up front, this book has some nail-biting cliff-hangers!
I absolutely love this series! Sure, it is difficult to follow sometimes and frequent trips to previous volumes are required to jolt the memory of this character and that event (in fact, i am now re-reading Toll the Hounds just to make sense of some things I read in DoD). But the way SE can bring all these disparate story lines together still amazes me.
As I alrady mentioned, this book is a hefty tome, 900 pages of battles, philosophy, plots and betrayals, and I was captivated from the first chapter. Characters that were distant memories suddenly returned, and the story arc of the K'Chain Che Malle was amazing and left me questioning many of my preconceptions. There is a lot of philosophical banter among the characters, but this is a hallmark of SE and I have come to appreciate some of the gems he manages to introduce.
It's hard to say much more about this book without adding spoilers, and I don't want to do that. But suffice to say that this book is everything I hoped for and I await with bated breath for the conclusion of one of the best fantasy series of all time.

Book 9 of 10 in Steven Erikson's acclaimed Malazon Book of the Fallen starts out with a caveat. This is NOT a complete story arc. Be WARNED!

With that, it was excellent with a much different feel than some of the previous books. The beginning shot off like a canon - you felt blurred and a bit confused dealing with all new characters in all new settings.

During the bulk of the reading however, it dealt with many more mundane side stories and was a little more "boring" than previous books. (see caveat above). The characters muttered and muddled about talking about death and war and peace and had little soap operas about this and that. You saw people you never expected to see again and they did unexpected things. Then there was a horrific violent scene or 3 that set the dark tone.

Then the convergence. Which in previous books had lots of death and violence and gods and ascendents. This one did too, I suppose. But it almost happened as an accident. And worst of all - you don't really know who died! No resolution for us, dear reader. Well, not much really - just more questions.

If you hate cliffhangers - you really might want to wait till the second half of the book (The Crippled God - Book 10) comes out. After all, you have spent up to a week of your life reading this series, don't wreck it now! If you can't wait, read it slowly and digest thoroughly.

I'm a long time fan of this series, and still consider Deadhouse Gates to be one of the best fantasy novels I've ever read. But the downward trend in characterization, coherence, and common sense that has become increasingly obvious the last few books has really become too much in Dust of Dreams.

It's boring. I found I had to skip ahead vast amounts, usually in vain, to find some action to grab my interest, some attempt at humor that was actually funny, or some explanation of why I should care about yet more new characters inexplicably introduced in the ninth book of a ten book series.

It's pointlessly depressing. In past books, characters we cared about often had bad things happen to them for reasons tragic, ironic, or at least serving the plot. Those made me choke up, made me care, and sometimes made me righteously angry at other characters in the book. Good stuff. Here we have a lot of death that seems purely random and serving no purpose at all. Did anyone at all care about the Barghast after their only significant appearance in the third book? Of course not. Was anyone calling out for their reappearance in book nine? Endless pages describing stupid internal squabbles? Their ultimate fate, and the simply disgusting treatment of Hetan? I kept hoping to find something to tie this inexplicable interlude into the larger plot involving the Malazan 14th Army or the machinations of various gods and others, but it's not there. I can only guess Erikson couldn't get an S&M novella about primitive tribal cultures published independently and folded it into Dust of Dreams as some sort of misguided form of "artistic" expression.

It's not well integrated into the overall story. New characters/nations/factions, most of whom are boring and pointless even here and can't possibly be necessary to the completion of the series in the next book; "new" supposedly extinct races, for the 193rd time, with no foreshadowing whatsoever in previous books; and random flailing around by those actors we did know about from prior efforts in the series. I have no doubt whatsoever that I could write a two page synopsis of the events in this book that would enable one to transition smoothly from book 8 to book 10.

No one's motivations make sense. In the middle of this series I developed a strong distaste for the philosophizing that was overly dramatic and masturbatory to aspire to the title "sophomoric," but this books makes me wish it would come back - then at least I'd have some explanation for why anyone would choose to do the things they do in this book, and, even less explicably, why others follow them. (I'm looking at you, Bonehunters.)

This is not the worst book in the world, but it is the worst book in this series so far, a title I sincerely hope it retains after the release of book 10. This series has overall been interesting and sometimes extraordinary. If you've been a fan before, you should still read this book. Just don't feel the need to take it too seriously or read it all. Skimming will lesson your pain considerably.

I quit Jordan's Wheel of Time series at about book 8 because the author had an annoying habit of introducing new characters faster than he resolved the plot lines, and you would get maybe 2 pages on one plot line you liked before it would switch off to something else and not return for hundreds of pages. When the storytelling diverges among too many points of view, it becomes difficult following anything.

Erikson does this in book 9 of the Malazan series, but you just have to plow through it, like you endured book 1 of the Lord of the Rings, or you put up with Pawn of Prophecy. I get the impression Erikson starts at the climactic conclusion, then follows each contributor to the final battle to its origin, and writes the story in reverse. The end product is an introduction to many seemingly unrelated story lines that leave you confused as a reader as to where the author is going. I think in books 9 and 10, he has the conclusion in book 10, but diverges the story back to origins in book 9, so there is no payoff in 9, but there is in 10, and you get cliffhung in 9. I am about 6/7ths done with this one, and only am keeping going because my friend who is on 10 assures me the payoff comes.

Now some of this is just plain Erikson, for instance any recounting of anything Malazan involves hopping about the PoV of every grunt in the army...that is just his way of telling things. The Malazans are interesting and funny so it is not very cumbersome when he does this there, but in other parts of the story in which you find yourself asking "who were these guys again?" and "how does this possibly bear on the other story lines?".

As usual Erikson's world is rich and varied, with layers upon layers of civilization in his works. He has his deep thoughts moments which I find interesting. His run on sentences are fewer in this book than when he started in book 1. IF you have gotten to this point in the series, you are going to see it through.

Yet another great entry in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. I can't believe it's coming to an end after the next one!

I am very disappointed in this installment of the Malazan series. This is by far the most incoherent and confusing volume of the series. It's almost like SE had too much material for one book but not enough for two, so he invented several completely pointless tribes to write about random characters that seemingly add zero value to the overall story.
There were a couple of major developments, enough to keep the pages turning, but the phenomenal characterization seen with Bugg, Tehol, Karsa Orlong, etc. is missing in this book.
I sincerely hope book 10 is more like books 2/3/4 than books 8 & 9.

There are a lot of non-traditional aspects to Erikson's writing - this novel in particular. Some folks will find fault with this; but, I find myself rereading and enjoying new insights on every page throughout the novel. Each page has a masterful piece of insight into the human condition. In that aspect, it reminds me of the Prince of Nothing series. However, where the action and intrigues of that series falls short this one delivers. Erikson can write with the same fluidity and impact as Robert Howard when it comes to action and battle lust. Notably, there were times when following the seemingly endless story lines did feel a bit like watching John Carpenter's The Thing flopping rudimentary appendages all over the place - but, the gist of this novel does appear to be embracing Chaos and it is admittedly half of a larger volume. I am optimistic that everything will tie together in the end. In the meantime, T'lan Imass - what up with them dusty dreamers this time?! I eagerly await the concluding novel.

You've come this far, so keep going. Only two books to go but in reality books 9 and 10 are one continuous book. This is the best reason to keep going because this also wasn't one of the better books of the series. But this still means it is better than most Fantasy books out there. There are a lot of parallel stories as usual, but here the stories do not get tied together. And remember, only 2 books to go to complete the series.

If you've liked the other Malazan books (and if you've made it this far I'm assuming that you do), you'll like this one as well. Erickson just doesn't ever seem to lose steam, unlike other fantasy series that make it past a half dozen books. The characters and storylines are still compelling without feeling contrived, my only lament is that there is only one more book coming after this one.

I'm not much of a literary critic and also don't give away spoilers so I'll basically just leave it at "I loved it".

Dust of Dreams, the ninth and next to last book of Steven Erikson's series of The Malazan book of the Fallen, is as exciting and full of surprises as all of the books that preceded it, despite the fact that it ends in a cliff hanger. As I read each new book of the series, I was always asking myself how Erikson could possibly top himself in the next book yet he never once let me down and such is the case with Dust of Dreams. Full of familiar characters and places it also has plenty of new people places and things to meet while at the same time it is starting to bring all the loose factions of the previous books together for what I can only imagine will be one heck of a HUGE finish with the publication of the final book of the series, The Crippled God. In other words, all Erikson fans who have read and loved the first eight books will not be disappointed by this book, unless its to be sad that the series end is in sight but don't let that stop you as the Dust of Dreams is one of the best of the series!