Matt

Be careful with this book.

If you love unambiguous morality, where white is blinding and black is despicable, where the good guys can in good conscience slaughter the bad guys, knowing themselves unquestionably in the right, Malazan may not be for you.

If you love knowing exactly how everything in the world works, because wise old men explain it all to ignorant young Chosen Ones in excruciating technical detail, leaving no mystery mysterious, Malazan may not be for you.

If you love following a troubled, complex hero through a world of 2D cut-outs that serve only to reflect or contrast with our hero's struggle, Malazan may not be for you.

If you love simple, tidy answers to complex problems, served up on a shiny platter with little need to think deeply about them, Malazan may not be for you.

Erikson's writing can take a bit of work. Tracking the many POV characters can take a bit of work. Keeping up with the shifting cast, locations and storylines between each of the 10 books can take a bit of work.

I said be careful with this book. If you stick with it, if you gather clues and hints about the world, the magic and the characters, if you learn to love an author who trusts your intelligence and spoon-feeds you nothing, if you allow yourself to be moved by his stunning, emotional prose, if you get to the end of the more than 3.5 millions words and can't wait to read it again, well, it may just change the way you think about epic fantasy as a genre. So be careful. You may come to see the genre as Erikson, and everything else.

A tense and exciting conclusion!

After a very enjoyable 1st book, and a somewhat slow second book, the Chanur series up the tension & stakes dramatically in this 3rd book. A wild and enjoyable ride!

A bit less enjoyable than the first novel, but still interesting worldbuilding, fascinating alien species, and exciting interspecies political manuevering.

Severian's travels continue with plenty more surreal WTF episodes. What's going on? I'm not quite sure, but I'm enjoying it.