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Hannan Mosag, Tiste Edur's Warlock King

"Our reaction was anticipated, for these are the games the Letherii would play with our lives.
Shall we do as they intended? Of course.
There can be but one answer to their crime. And thus, by our predictability, we serve an unknown design."

Michael Page, dear narrator, would you please be so kind and decide will you pronounce the name "SilCHas" with a K, as in Key or with a CH, as a Chapter.
I mean, I don't mind any of those two options. Just, perhaps, don't use both. In single sentence.

Bah, physical copy is for hearing-sensitive savages like myself...

"I am no critic.
Merely a humble observer who, when able, speaks on behalf of the tongue-tied multitudes otherwise known as the commonality, or, more precisely - the rabble.

My meagre gift, therefore, lies in the communication of an aesthetic framework upon which most artists hang themselves."

“We humans do not understand compassion. In each moment of our lives, we betray it.

Aye, we know of its worth, yet in knowing we then attach to it a value, we guard the giving of it, believing it must be earned.

Compassion is priceless in the truest sense of the wold.
It must be given freely. In abundance.”

To this day, I'm still confusing Korlat with Kallor...

This is Korlat



And this is Kallor



I know... I am my own worst enemy... :/

'Tell me, do you ever find the voice of a river unsettling?'
'To the contrary, I find it calming.'
'Ah. This, then, points to the essential difference between us.'

Or

Whiskeyjack: For the 100th time, dress is black and blue, damn it!
Rake: It's golden white!

Maybe I'm having too much fun here...

"I am the bearer of Fener's grief. I am my vow incarnate. This, and in all that follows.
We are not yet done here. I am not yet done.
Behold, I yield to nothing."

It never occurred to me before how siege of Capustan resembles Fatih's siege of Constantinople in 1453.
With Shield Anvil Itkovian and Mortal Sword Brukhalian being Byzantines and Gruntle being Giustiniani, Genoese Captain.
Though, Ottomans weren't cannibals, but, that's now trivial... :D

Huh... The more you know, I guess...

"Gods, look at these idiots.
Got a mage wearing his dead mother's hair and every time he opens his warren we get attacked by snarling squirrels;
Got a sapper whose bladder must be a warren itself since I ain't seen him wander off once and it's three days now at the camp;
Got a Napan woman being stalked by a bull that's either blind or sees something more than we do when he looks at her..."

Savage.

K'Chain Che'Malle

Many authors in their books tried to implement things they were passionate about beside writing.

Tolkien did with linguistics, Martin heraldry, Rothfuss currencies (really, Pat?)...

Erikson, among many things, tried to think a way of making dinosaurs even more awesome.

Ahhh... chills!
When you get to that moment when you realized for the first time how this is something else; when it shakes you in your core;
when you know that the book and the series gripped you so tight in its arms it will never release you (hence the 4th read, I guess).
When you see how deep his characters are. How real they seem.

"She has stolen my life!"

Chills. Every time.

"I yield to no-one."

A bit snobbish there, dear T'lan Imass. Deservedly. But still...

"Look you sour excuse for a man - I caught supper!"
"Supper for a monastic rat, you mean? I could inhale that damned thing up one nostril."
"Fish soup. Flavour-"
"That's just great. I love mud-flavoured soup. Look, the thing's not even breathing - it was probably dead when you caught it."
"I banged a rock between its eyes, Gruntle-"
"Must have been a small rock."
"For that you don't get any-"
"For that I bless you."

Has anyone ever counted number of characters in dramatis personae of this thing?
Just for fun - I did.

116.

And knowing Erikson, there are no cannon fodders in his books. Everyone will get at least one sentence to say.

"To a blind man his entire body is a ghost. Felt but not seen. I raise invisible arms, move invisible legs, my invisible chest raising and falling to unseen air. So now I stretch fingers, then make fists.
I have always been solid - if not for deceit perpetrated by my own eyes."

Felisin murmured. "Maybe If I go deaf you'll disappear."

"There is little good in people. Little good."
"Yet it can be found. All the more precious for its rarity."
"You'll find none here, Historian."

And so crossing through the Chain of Dogs begins. This is going to squeeze out every emotion I have... and I'm already drenched by Felisin's story...

Joys of reading, am I right?

"Heboric's grief and anger at the price she paid had been difficult to ignore, filling her with shame.
But it had paid for their lives, and that was a truth that could not be questioned."

Ahh, F.... Everyone was so quick to judge, so quick actually, that the point of complete absurdity was in the fact how it was more important who would condemn you quicker and harsher - instead to try and understand you.

It's time to wrap this up. In Jaghut style.

One of the joys of multiple rereads is that at some point you'll change your perspective.
Perspective where, once obvious, most-of-the-time-over-the-top-bad-ass heroes, will be seen as villains.

#dogslayer

But, damn, here he looks bad-ass as f....

Kalam with Quick Ben in his "They see me roooolin'..." pose. :D
Terrifying indeed. Especially when bodies start dropping like flies from the rooftops.

Seriously though, never imagined city of Darujhistan as Paris with Notre Dame in background.
Sweet.

“Do all Imass think about futility?”

Onos T'oolan aka Tool. Undead philosopher. Proof that, when you have enough of imagination, you can make even zombies interesting.
Also, I love little details about Adjunct Lorn here. (right)

Bloody and gore R version of this image and Kalam's (left) updated look.
Sorry is unfortunately cut off from the picture... :/ But Whiskeyjack (right) and Ben Adaephon Delat (top center) are spot on!
Too bad we never got an official art for Tattersail. :(

"The best life is the one the gods don't notice. You want to live free, boy, live quietly." - says Whiskeyjack to young Ganoes Stabro Paran.

Good thing he didn't said that to a certain fishergirl.

Finally!

OK, Goodreads, I need your help.
I'm updating ratings of books I have read, so that means plenty little stars will be on my update feed.

My question is: Is there a possible solution where I won't spam community with these updates? Like, can I rate them, but without them showing on my update feed?
I tried to uncheck 'add to my update feed' option and it doesn't work.

Any help would be much appreciated.

"Wheels. Wheels groaning in the dark, accompanied by the rattling of the chains."

Maybe it's too soon to say this, but one can easily start Malazan Book of the Fallen series with this trilogy. Especially those who struggled with complexity of Gardens of the Moon and were possibly turned away by it.

Then again, if you have to read trilogy to start ten book series - is it worth it?
Definitely! But again, I'm bias...