Started: June 14
Finished: July 20
Notes: For more than a decade now I've been a big fan of the Malazan series of fantasy novels, a group of books shared by two authors, Esslemont and Steven Erikson, though I've read mostly Erikson and only one Esslemont book. The one Esslemont book I read was good, though I prefer the Erikson material, but I thought I'd check out another from Esslemont to see if my opinion holds. Plus I love the Malazan books, so there's that.
Mini review: Several armies, mercenary groups, mages, gods, etc. all begin to gather on an island that's half desert and half jungle in order to ... what? I'm not exactly sure. It's all quite a mess. Malazan novels are always quite complex, but unfortunately Esslemont doesn't quite have the talent of Erikson. Oh, the writing here is more than solid in and of itself, and the plotting is fine though confusing, but the characterizations are sometimes lacking and the motivations are far too obscure. It helped that I've read many of the other Malazan books, but it didn't help enough. This wasn't a boring read, exactly, but it did tax my interest levels far too often. Still, it's a Malazan novel, so it always draws my interest.
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