No. 30 - Reaper's Gale

by Steven Erikson

Started: December 4
Finished: December 27

Notes: I couldn't help myself. I read so much of the Malazan series this past year, I just had to read the next installment. One big reason for this is because I've caught up to everything I head read before, so this book is all new material for me. I'm really looking forward to it. This is definitely my favorite modern epic fantasy series, at least until I find another, which I find doubtful.

Mini review: I honestly didn't expect to finish this one this year, but I managed. Anyway, this series has been accused of having too many characters and too many plots and sub-plots and of the author using deus ex machina too often, and I never really felt that until this book. At more than 1,200 pages, for the first time in this series, I truly felt it could have lost a bunch of pages, at least 300. And I finally got what some complainants meant by the deus ex machina because there were a few situations in the end where the "saving grace" was a little out of the blue, at least for the overall series if not for this one particular novel (ie. characters who had never been around before suddenly showing up in this particular novel to save the day in the end ... then only to disappear in one fashion or another). But, that being said, the payoff in the end makes up for a lot. This is still the best fantasy series I've read in a long time, and I'm looking forward to reading the next book.