Malazan: House of Chains by: Steven Erikson

 

Deadhouse Gates may have been a difficult novel for me to read due to illness, but it was a book which showed a clear direction for Malazan Book of the Fallen.  The series would not be following characters, but following a world, and House of Chains, the fourth book in the sequence, follows up that second book’s plot concurrently with Memories of Ice.  These are essentially two stories being told in parallel, and as such understanding Memories of Ice helps a great deal in understanding House of Chains.  The book is the longest entry in the series yet, clocking in at 1,017 pages, and begins in a rather interesting way.  Like the previous novels, there are several parties all having their connections, too many to fully detail in a review, but what House of Chains feels like more than anything is setting up of several chess pieces on a board where there is only one player, the evil player, the Crippled God.  The Crippled God doesn’t appear here, but his presence is felt, especially by the climax.  Steven Erikson devotes the first part of the narrative, over 200 pages, to chronicling a single character.  Apparently, this choice was made on a bet that he couldn’t follow a single character.  This may do this section an injustice, as going past that first section into the standard jumping between characters and plotlines doesn’t actually cause any sort of non-linear sequences.  The first part of the book leads right up to the point where the second part begins, and so on and so forth.  Erikson also doesn’t fall into the trap of making this part of the novel feel separate like a novella: the character it follows does have a large part to play in House of Chains proper and the events do have bearing on the plot of the rest of the novel.

 

Karsa Orlong is the character whom we follow throughout the first part of the novel.  Orlong is a warrior from Teblor and his story is one of a child attempting to grow up.  He is not a literal child, however, he is inexperienced and had an upbringing in a tribe of warriors.  He sets out with a crew to rape and pillage the area.  Now these topics are difficult to discuss and include in any book, and I have already discussed several stories where they were included, but not well, often mishandling them.  Steven Erikson doesn’t really do this, making the horrors Karsa Orlong performs throughout this section and the rest of the novel hold the weight of such actions.  This is not a character that is meant to be liked: this is a character who was cast out from his own family and does not hesitate to murder those he comes across.  There is an entire chapter devoted to these horrendous acts so the reader really can sink in just who this person is and what he means.  The rest of his appearances are rarely from his perspective, but the point of this first 200 or so pages is to watch Karsa Orlong cement himself as among the worst people in the Malazan world, before showing him fall.  Giving this character such a big fall, like Erikson does here, pulls a switch for the reader.  The reader can see that Karsa Orlong has a chance at redemption, which he doesn’t take, but (and this is a big but) he is a character who will continue to grow and make blunders.  It makes him a fascinating character to follow and honestly the standout of a very long novel where an uneven pace makes certain points difficult.  Coming right off Memories of Ice you would expect Erikson to keep that amazing pace going, however, each part of House of Chains feels fairly uneven, almost as if Erikson didn’t quite know how much he wanted to reveal here before changing his mind.  This is one of the factors which made reading this book take such a long undertaking.

 

The other “new” element brought to light in House of Chains really isn’t a new element.  Tavore Paran, Adjunct to the Empress, has appeared in each of the previous entries, however, it is here where the audience can really see what makes her tick.  She is power hungry and trying to crush several rebellions.  She also genuinely thinks what she is doing is right, but doesn’t know that the Sha’ik Reborn is Felisin, her own sister.  Between Tavore and Felisin there is this tension mounting throughout the novel, playing on a theme for each of the Paran siblings.  The Paran siblings have stories all about building towards power: Tavore is the one actively seeking it and falling to evil acts in that quest, Ganeos has it thrust upon him and attempts to avoid it, while Felisin is ambivalent and accepts what becomes of her role after carving her own identity.  It’s a theme of siblings and having the two sisters appear here, Erikson can build to a climax that ends a story.  Felisin, as the Sha’ik Reborn comes completely into her own as a person and has grown to be one of my favorite characters, if only for her appearance here.  The end of her story is incredibly satisfying and will leave the reader with a tear in their eye, yet her legacy will live on and the influence will be felt for books to come.

 

The path to ascendency is another of Erikson’s overarching themes and plots, and in House of Chains Cotillion and Shadowthrone each have a part to play in this novel.  Shadowthrone again is often in the background of scenes as a contender for the other player in the above chess metaphor, and it is Cotillion who gets the most involvement.  Cotillion has evolved almost into a trickster figure, popping in here and there to put in advice and nudge things along, apparently because he feels like helping.  As Apsalar and Crokus (who dons the name Cutter) walk their path and make their decisions throughout this novel, Cotillion is almost always there to get a reflection on the characters’ thoughts and actions.  That relationship is something that is spread apart and eventually falls apart at the climax, as both characters make several choices.  It’s almost a toxic romance, minus any romance or abuse, as they are clearly close but have different aims that draw them apart.  There are several revelations in their plot about Anomander Rake and the Tiste Andii in some of the novel’s more surreal sections, as there is almost a dive into the warrens and the magic system of Malazan.  Their story ends with Apsalar going down a darker path, against what should have been something of her own morals.  This makes an interesting parallel for Fiddler, who finds himself in the Malazan army as ‘Strings’, a pseudonym which is lampshaded several times throughout the book in excellent ways.  Strings is in survival mode, and that means for quite a bit of the book going against his own principles and working with an enemy, but still working for himself.  The final chapter in particular, for every major character, is something that Erikson pulls off beautifully.  It’s perhaps the best bits of Malazan Book of the Fallen thus far.

 

Overall, House of Chains is most definitely a step down from Memories of Ice.  There are higher highs, but there are lower lows.  This is a book that is stuffed full with character and themes and honestly Erikson has lofty goals.  The book is dragged by several scenes and an uneven pacing which makes the middle of the book incredibly difficult to bear.  It is a book that feels almost like more setup in places for the next book (or apparently the book after the next as the next one starts on a third plotline).  The characters are there and there are definitely higher highs, but it’s only about as good as Deadhouse Gates.  8/10.