The Malazan Book of the Fallen

I've spent the past five weeks rereading the Malazan Book of the Fallen so that I could read the tenth volume with everything fresh in my mind. On the one hand, I'm glad I did it, because that tenth volume wouldn't have made all that much sense without all those details handy. On the other hand, this is a really, really problematic work of fiction on a bunch of levels and I don't necessarily even like it. I've reviewed all the individual books in some detail on Goodreads, and if you've read them that may be of interest to you, but this post is going to talk about the series as a whole. It will have a bunch of spoilers, and I'm not marking them or anything. Read at your own risk.

A little background, for my non-fantasy-epic readers. The Malazan Book of the Fallen is a ten-book fantasy series that sold for a notable amount as a package deal. It's often compared to A Song of Ice and Fire (the Game of Thrones series) and that's not a bad comparison. Malazan has much, much more magic and a wider scope - less politics, many more gods, more trench fighting and fewer knightly duels - but they're definitely in the same general part of the genre. The last book was published this year. I had read the first nine more or less in a row a couple years ago, and decided to reread them to both confirm my severely mixed opinions about the series and also to be in decent shape to read the newest. (I did the same thing for the latest ASoIaF book, and will likewise do it for the last Wheel of Time novel in the spring. Yes, this is for fun.)

First, the good stuff. It's a deeply complicated series that more or less pays off in the end - it's really an impressive feat of worldbuilding. Many, if not most, of the characters are believable at least and remarkably well-rounded and deep at best. The characters are put in various dangerous situations that feel genuine and offer many, many emotionally wrenching moments throughout the series - the Chain of Dogs plotline, if it were offered as a novella, is one I would probably order everyone I'd ever met to read. And those moments generally echo throughout the series - they're not just tearjerker setpieces, they have realistic consequences, particularly to the characters who witness or endure them. While the writing is occasionally a touch overwrought, it's generally appropriate to the setting and the dialogue matches the characters well enough that in a later book a character can make a joke about "talking like a marine" that was hilarious without having to go into any detail.

Erikson also has tons of female characters, and they're generally just as well-developed as the men. (There are plenty of one-note bit characters of both genders, and the female ones grate a little more for me, but that's probably to be expected.) I've seen at least one criticism that his women are just men in a dress, but I don't think that's true - sure, his female soldiers read as soldiers first and women second, but the men do, too, and the nature of the soldier is a major theme explored throughout the books. There are plenty of female politician-types, assassins, women of various species that aren't quite human, prostitutes, scientists, witches, etc, and they are both memorably female but also just well-rounded characters.

He has a noticeably large number of queer characters and handles them well, for the most part. There are a bunch of lesbians who pass unremarked and have love lives that don't stand out - some have lovers die tragically, some have a bunch of casual sex, and at least one couple settles down to live happily ever after. The gay men don't have it quite so good - either they're so unremarked that I didn't notice them, or there's really only the nelly stereotype who can't figure out the mechanics of having sex with a woman. (This is more weird and less appalling in execution than it sounds, but it's still not exactly a positive portrayal.) There are a bunch of bi characters, too, of all sorts - the woman who likes sleeping with other women but doesn't fall in love with them, the tribal warleader who pretty much bangs everything willing, the straight woman who will happily have public sex with another woman just to watch her audience squirm. The topic is in general handled naturally, and I very much appreciate that.

There are a lot of good things going on in this series, and I would recommend fans of epic fantasy read it, except. And that except is big enough to warrant its own post.