“Ding, ding, ding,” the bell rings and the referee declares me the winner. I’ve just gone twelve rounds with “Toll the Hounds”, the latest 923-pages addition to the “Malazan Book of the Fallen” saga. At the start we both ran circles around each other; me trying to catch it, and TtH cunningly evading my every move. In the sixth round I got tired and felt nearly beat by my opponents complex strategies and unfamiliar fighting technique. But I did not despair - I knew I could win if I just bit in ’till the final run-down. And that I did, though I’ll allow that it was a close run thing this year.

I had “Toll the Hounds” as my frontrunner for the Best Book of the Year prize and expected to be just as blown away by it as I was by the previous installments. I envisioned epic battle scenes, intricate plots and ploys and an ending to rival the what had come before. I had, in other words, high hopes for this one.

Colour me underwhelmed…

This book takes us back to where it all started in “Gardens of the Moons”. Darujhistan, the city of blue fire, and Black Coral, the Tiste Andii capitol and high-seat of the Son of Darkness, Anomander Rake, serve as the two centres of the story as Erikson weaves yet another story into an epic convergence that will rattle the entire world with its consequences.

For the sake of disclosure, I will now repeat the fact that I hold “Memories of Ice” and “Deadhouse Gates” as the two most accomplished works in the Malazan series, and the “Chain of Dogs” story-line is perhaps the greatest epic fantasy story I’ve ever read. Other Erikson works have come close to matching these books, but none have made same impact on me as those previously mentioned. I remember thinking that “Reaper’s Gale” came pretty damn close, and the ending of “The Bonehunters” was also something that stands out in my memory as quite extraordinary.

But there is a book in this series that is notably different in its story-telling, and that is, in my opinion, the poorest book of the series: “Midnight Tides”. And it just got a neighbour in “Toll the Hounds”, which shares many of the same problems as MT had. With these books, Erikson tried a more literary tack than he’s used to, and while I approve of the notion that an author should challenge his abilities and not write the same book over and over again, I don’t think “Toll the Hounds” is a what you’d call “a very successful experiment”.

It’s first and most obvious problem are the many dead ends that are devoted too much time, and those plot lines that actually bear fruit, could’ve been made a lot tighter. A good editor would probably have chopped of nearly three-hundred pages of this book. It should be noted that this isn’t an unusual problem for an Erikson book, but the this time I didn’t feel like they actually were very relevant to the rest of the book, save for their metaphoric worth. I should also mention that a good deal of the characters that appear in this book don’t seem to do much, save from partaking in Erikson’s trademark philosophic musings.

And that’s probably where this book strongest. It’s thematically tighter than anyone since, well, “Midnight Tides”, but it doesn’t make your hair stand up on your arms like Erikson managed with, say, the faith of Itkovian or Coltaine, or even Beak for that matter. I think this is a very personal book for Erikson, who clearly must have been thinking a lot about grief and loss during the writing of it.

Don’t misunderstand me - there are a fair share of Awesome Moments, and the book is heavy with the PoV’s of “Kruppe” (who serves as the narrator of the Darujhistan-story), “Iskaral Pust” and “Anomander Rake”. The ending is of course very good, all though its also probably one of the shortest and least epic convergences yet. I guess you could say that while I enjoyed several parts of this book, it never managed to excite and enthral me the way previous installments have managed. Which is too bad, but every author should be allowed an occasional miss-step in an otherwise impressive body of work.

7.5/10

Next up for Erikson is “Dust of Dreams” (TBR July 2009…?), the ninth and penultimate novel in the saga. SE has gone out and said that DoD will have a cliffhanger ending and that the entire book will serve as a build up for “The Crippled God”. He’s also signed a contract with Bantam for two additional trilogies set in the Malazan world. One will most likely be about the life of Anomander Rake and the second will be a sort of continuation of the unresolved plot threads from the ten-volume Malazan saga. We will also be getting at least 6 more novellas about our two favourite necromancers…

Lastly, I have little notification about Ian Cameron Esslemont’s Malazan series. As some of you might know, I’ve received an ARC of ICE’s first book in the series (”Night of Knives” notwithstanding), “Return of the Crimson Guard”. I couldn’t bring myself to finish “Night of Knives”, which is a very short Malazan novel by any means of comparison, but I had high hopes for RotCG. Sadly, they didn’t come through. I’ve now read the first half of “Return”, and so far the writing has been absolutely dreadful and, in my mind, nearly unreadable. So if you’re wondering why there never was a review of that book, now you know… I’ve also decided that I won’t be touching anything ICE writes ever again, as it seems clear to me that the guy has absolutely no skill as a writer.