I’m kind of dreading writing this review. It might just be the feeling that this long 10 book journey is now over and a certain feeling of burnout that comes after concluding a very long piece of media but I think it is also because I was expecting to get one of my favorite books of all time here and I just wasn’t feeling that. 

Maybe I was just building up too much hype in myself in deliberately making this my final book of the year. Like some sort of “crowning reading achievement” for an awesome year with lots of great stories. And this in itself put me in a bit of a reading slump, not really wanting to pick up the book a lot of the time, but when I actually did I still felt good that I got over myself, if that makes any sense. 

But then we got to the actual conclusion and that final part has truly been something special. Especially the final two chapters certainly lived up to all the hype (hell, chapter 23 might be one of my favorite single chapters I’ve ever read) and all of that was just really epicly grandiose and during all of that we still get time for so many small and deeply moving character moments, it is just that the journey there wasn’t always great.

Some of this might have been due to the pacing. Was already not loving that as much in the previous two books and this one managed to feel even slower (until we got to the convergence). 

The biggest issue though was just that one story line that felt almost entirely disconnected from the rest of the book. It was the continuation from what were already my least favorite arcs in Reaper’s Gale and Toll the Hounds and all of that came together with a big conclusion in The Crippled God. And yes all of this gave us some pretty epic sequences with lots of vivid imagery that probably would come out amazingly on a big screen but I just felt very low investment with all the characters present there and the amount of time we spent with this story made it feel even worse.  

There is also the fact that my favorite character of the whole series (if you read my reviews, you know who that is) had very little screen time in this one. However his one big scene was super emotional and led to arguably the most epic sequence in the entire series. So that makes up for a little bit of that. 

I might have also found my new favorite character duo within the series, who played probably the most crucial role in the culmination of chapter 23. Their journey through this book (and Dust of Dreams as well) has been so good and I love their constant bantering even when looking into the face of certain death. Speaking of a great duo of Malazan marines, I also have to get a quick shoutout to two bridgeburners that we first met in Gardens of the Moon and came back together for the epic finale. There are just too many great characters duos / relationships to name in this series and the final two books especially made the best Malazans ones truly shine.

I have to make a point about all the internal military stuff we are getting. It has totally become even more of the focus with the final installments of the series and up that point it hasn’t really bothered me but in this book it feels like a drag sometimes. Like can’t we just move along with the plot? Also some major characters within the Malazan army just felt frustrating. Like deliberately confusing without some real clarification / resolution of their motivations/plans or you know others just being plain huge assholes (although that one got a very cool reason for being kept around and it ended up being a highly emotional scene). 

I much more enjoyed the additional bits of worldbuilding we got, mainly that we finally met the last of the ancient races and getting their POVs has been really intriguing. I mean they are pretty evil but you can certainly see where they are coming from. But also getting some obvious villainous people was also a little bit appreciated especially with how Erikson likes to subvert expectations by just shining light to a different side of the story so many times. And yeah the amount of POVs in general we get in this book is just mind bogglingly crazy and just full of surprises. 

So yeah I am a little torn about this book. On one hand it is full of heartbreaking moments (gotta highlight the one where two groups of people crossing a desert meet), epicness on a scale that this series hasn’t seen before but also tons of little moments that make you choke up or shed a tear, but also it was a drag sometimes and there was that huge disconnect with one part of the story.

For now I am settling on a score of 4.5 and as for ranking within the series I think I am putting The Crippled God somewhere in the middle just below Toll The Hounds. While I had similar issues with that one, I love the setting of Darujhistan and the book just felt more focussed and had some of my favorite characters of the series around.

So that leaves my final series ranking:

I will eventually come back to Malazan to start reading all the other novels and I am already curious about an eventual reread (of the main series) in a few years, but for now I think I want to stick to lighter stuff for a little while. For now I am off to watch the Wicked musical movie to clear my mind a little bit. 😀