A review by penguin_emperor_of_the_north
The Bonehunters by Steven Erikson

3.0

One of my recurring frustrations with the Malazan books is that a lot of the climaxes are very loud, they're exciting, something huge and dramatic is going on. But then I think about it for a minute and I realize a lot of the people are being dumb.

For example, back in Memories of Ice, the battle of Coral partly went so bad because the Malazans split their forces and Leeroy Jenkins'ed their way in and then the T'Lan Imass were forgiven or whatever. And, at the time, it was dramatic and tragic till you stop and realize everyone was being dumb. Otherwise some random magic crap happens.

And, in here the Battle of Y'Ghatan (roughly middle of the book) was similar. Like it starts out with that one sapper using too many explosives to blow the walls. When other sappers were in the area. And it's implied that he does this regularly. I strongly suspect that in real life a guy who acts like that would either get that behavior beaten out of him or he'd get fragged.

The battle itself was certainly impressive to read.

Spoiler

The city is filled with olive oil and set on fire after the Malazan army is committed to the assault which leads to about a third of the army being killed

. It made me think of stories I've heard of the urban warfare in Iraq with the fighting to clear out buildings, being attacked from all angles and explosions coming from all sides.

But the setup with the sapper and the way the fire started both frustrated me. The first for being just dumb and the latter for sounding like one of those random magic things.

Anyway, that event left a bad taste in my mouth about the book but the ending really redeemed the book to me. The running battle through

Spoiler

Malaz city

and before

Spoiler

the First Throne

were both cool to read. Give me a few days and I might decide something dumb or unsatisfying happened. But for now, it was pretty cool.

General spoilered thoughts about the ends:

Spoiler

I was suspecting that the Icarium storyline and Trull Sengar storylines would converge at the Throne but I wasn't expecting Ben to show up. And seeing how the battle seesawed depending on which way Icarium was facing (because of how much of a living weapon he is) was cool. And dang, I really hope Icarium gets to fight Rhulad in one of the coming books. And Monok Ochem turns into an undead gorilla (or other extinct ape), that was pretty cool.

Spoiler

The running battle through Malaz city was really cool too. Particularly, Kalam, Tavore and T'Amber fighting their way from the keep to the docks. Biggest shock was finding out that T'Amber was possessed (maybe?) by the Eres'al (who sounds like the spirit of a Australopithecus or other human ancestor). There was something weird going on with T'Amber from the get go but it makes you wonder when the last time she had control of her own body. I imagine shrugging off being stabbed multiple times was unpleasant

. But man, that was strange. Will be interested to see how that turns out to be relevant.

Anyway, about Empress Laseen's actions at the end:

Spoiler

I think there was enough misinformation spread about the Chain of Dogs that the traitors were able to position themselves as heroes and get the public in Malaz city and Quon Tali to be out for Wickan blood. And with Seven Cities being depopulated, Laseen is onboard with killing off the Wickans so their land can be settled by farmers (the Wickans sound like semi nomadic horsemen). Which I can see a certain psychotic, cynical logic to but if a character has to commit atrocity after atrocity to recover from the last atrocity, maybe you ought to rethink how you run things, huh? And for goodness sake, don't trust the traitors! Arrange an unfortunate accident or something

. That's mostly just me ranting about Laseen (bet money she's going to crash the empire) and making notes so I can remember what happened here when I'm puzzling my way through the next books.