Dust of Dreams (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #9) in The Bridgeburners

Oct 11, 2009 seak rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2023-tbr, 2011, 2022-tbr

There's a warning at the beginning of Dust of Dreams from the author himself explaining that until this point in the series, there has never been a cliffhanger, but in order to finish this insanely huge series, the penultimate volume in the Malazan Book of the Fallen is the first and only to do so.

Throughout the book, I was prepping myself for lots of buildup with no payoff in the end. Every other ending to every other Malazan book has blown my mind more than anything I've ever read. Erikson's e ...more

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Sep 04, 2009 Lori rated it it was amazing

I'm too emotionally drained to write much. And I thought the other books preceding this was dark! Nihilism pervades. I have no idea where Erickson will take us in what follows. Just what does he mean with all this talk of ending the world? Wiping it clean of corruption and evil so we can start again? Karsa does not appear in DoD, and isn't even mentioned, but I was constantly aware of his upcoming role. And yet, and yet, in the smallest gestures of comraderie, he gives us a slight hope.

I'll try ...more

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Apr 25, 2010 Duffy Pratt rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy, shared-world

This is only the second book I've read which contains the author's apology for having written an incomplete book. The other was Martin's A Feast for Crows, where Martin apologized for delivering only half a book, and promised that the next half, with all the characters we liked, would be out in another six months. (Martin delivered on that promise, but was a little bit late.) Erikson also apologizes for publishing a half a book, and excuses the existence of some cliffhangers on the structure tha This is only the second book I've read which contains the author's apology for having written an incomplete book. The other was Martin's A Feast for Crows, where Martin apologized for delivering only half a book, and promised that the next half, with all the characters we liked, would be out in another six months. (Martin delivered on that promise, but was a little bit late.) Erikson also apologizes for publishing a half a book, and excuses the existence of some cliffhangers on the structure that became necessary by having such a huge last book in mind.

Let's forget the comparative writing speed for a moment and focus on the presence of cliffhangers. (Warning: there are spoilers herein for both Malazan series and Martin's series. Thanks to Rob for alerting me to this. Read further at your peril.) Martin has taken to ending every book with nauseating and pointless cliffhangers, and he's even adopted the tactic for almost every chapter. Erikson, on the other hand, has little or no need for cliffhangers. He keeps us so disoriented and confused on a regular basis that we might not even recognize a cliffhanger of his. Here, I spotted two genuine examples: First, Bugg has been summoned, and he's pissed. Second, Quick Ben appears to have been blown up, but its not confirmed and probably isn't so, or if it is so, its still not the last word on him.

Otherwise, this book felt similar in structure to the other later books. We get introduced to some new folks, and have little or no idea why we should pay attention to them or care about them. Here, there is the Snake, the group of ghosts that are now bound together in another ghost's soul, the K'Chain Che Maille and their human destraint, and the White Face Barghast who are now led by Tool. I know many people get frustrated with Erikson's insistence on bringing in even more new characters, and whole new cultures. At this point, I accept this as his method, and roll with it. Yes, I share some of the impatience to get on with the characters we already know and love. But then I realize that, at least with many of those characters, there was a point in the series that I was a little annoyed because Erikson was introducing me to them, instead of sticking with the characters I already knew and loved.

Furthermore, given the rate at which Erikson kills off his characters, there is at least some reasonable demand for the introduction of new ones. Martin made his career on killing off Ned Stark, and then killing Ned's wife and son at the Red Wedding. But Martin couldn't keep Caetlyn dead, and hasn't brought himself to kill anyone else important since then. (And please don't tell me you think Jon is actually dead, at least in any way that will last.) Erikson also has brought back more than a handful of dead guys, but he's way more merciless in killing off major characters. In this book, the death toll is pretty shocking.

Erikson has often provided two climactic scenes during the first books of these series. Because this was only half a book, I was expecting a single climax. But, on this point, Erikson's apology was unnecessary. Here, there are two, and arguably three, climaxes. First we get the coup with the White Face Barghast, and the subsequent hobbling of Hetan. These passages rivaled the grossest parts of the entire series, in some ways even worse than the description of the cannibalistic hordes of the Pannion Seer. Worse, because the stuff with the Pannion seer always seemed to me to be the extreme extrapolation that a fantasy writer has the license to use. The hobbling, on the other hand, strikes me as being all too human, and I can imagine that some tribe actually practised it. In some ways it's comparable to the Hindi practice of burning wives upon the death of a husband.

As a second climax, we have the "battle" that occurs with the White Face Barghast, but is interrupted rather forcefully by the return of Draconus from Dragnipur. And then there is the final battle with the short tail K'Chain. A two stage battle, this worked as a set piece almost as well as anything else in the series. I didn't like it quite as much as the seige in Memories of Ice, the betrayal at the end of Deadhouse Gates, the mule confrontation in Toll the Hounds, or the Y'Ghatan section of Bonehunters. But those are all extreme high points for me, and the end of this book only lags slightly behind.

As an unfinished book, and a small piece of a much, much larger work, I have to say that I enjoyed this immensely. I don't think that Erikson needed to apologize at all, at least not for this work. At this point, I've come to expect Erikson to confound my expectations. And here, he again succeeded. (That raises the question: if you expect an author to confound your expectations, and the author suceeds, does that mean you got what you were expecting, or that you were confounded?)

ON REREAD 2024:

I enjoyed this less this go round. Part of the reason may be because I've been taking my sweet time about finishing this second re-read. Thus, the exact details of what has gone before are less fresh in my mind and that made this a little harder to follow.

However, having now read my earlier review, I think I agree with myself from 10 years ago. The climaxes in this book are excellent. The introduction of even more new characters and cultures is less compelling than before. And the hobbling is truly disturbing, even more so than the snake or, from Memories of Ice, the children of the dead seed. ...more

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Feb 04, 2010 The Crimson Fucker rated it it was amazing

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Ok鈥� I think I鈥檝e been reading this one for long enough鈥� here a review:

When I asked my main book picker for a book that had war on it and psychotic last stands鈥� i knew I鈥檒l get what I asked for鈥� lets face it the man can pick a book if you tell him what you want! What I wasn鈥檛 expecting is to get hooked the way I am with this series.

This book has so many characters that it will be retarded of my part to try to tackle em all and still manage to give the barely comprehensible reviews that I usually ...more

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Jul 04, 2010 Matt rated it really liked it · review of another edition

As Steven Erikson says in the introduction this is effectively the first half of a single massive novel that concludes the current Malazan sequence.

It therefore achieves a lot less closure than previous books and spends a lot of time moving people and plotlines towards the final convergence.

It overlaps in timeline with Toll the Hounds and the impact of the amazing ending of that book doesn't start to be felt till 3/4 of the way through Dust of Dreams.

There are some nasty cliffhangers - if you h ...more

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Aug 17, 2011 Iresh Liyanage rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy, favorites

Had this book been a little less lengthy, I would have given it 5 stars. Lots of discussions among the Bonehunters are used as fillers. Even though they are humorous, it makes reader wonder why the author just get on with the story. The Elder Gods' PoVs are really interesting and they somewhat make it up to those pages filled with soldiers' ideas on how miserable their lives are. I like my books wordy and meaty so I enjoyed this installation of Malazan Book of the Fallen very much. ...more

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Jan 03, 2010 Donald rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sci-fi-fantasy, epic-fantasy-series, read-in-2010

The first half of the endgame in the Malazan Book of the Fallen. Erikson delivers an excellent tale, bringing multiple story lines together, resulting in some interesting conflicts and some devastating results. The K鈥機hain Che鈥橫alle plot thread was particularly awesome. The book ends in a pseudo-cliff hanger, leaving us hanging on a couple of points until volume # 10 comes out.

While it doesn't rival for the best volume in the series it is a very solid entry and definitely a step up from Toll th ...more

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Sep 27, 2009 Jason rated it really liked it

Another good novel by Erikson. This one was a bit denser I thought then some of his previous books. To think that this is part 1 of 2 just staggers the mind. Yes, there is a cliff hanger in this book, but it is not to drastic of one. I do recommend that you are current with what all is going on with the series when you sit down to read this one. It's going to be a long wait until part 2, but well worth it. I do think I will revisit all the books before it comes out. ...more

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Nov 13, 2009 Carlos rated it liked it

Overall I liked this book. It had sections where I could not put the book down, and it had sections where I kept hoping it would pick up the pace. About a third of the book is filled with characters having philosophical musings about the meanings of life, struggle and war. This book is also the first half of the end of the series and leaves us at a cliffhanger. It was a good book but could have been much better.

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