There's a subset of the MBoF readers who really love this book - and with good reason. There are some fantastic story points (Harlo in particular stands out as a really refreshing story arc) and a fair amount of pretty profound reflections on redemption, justice, and grief. The author was going through his own personal grief while writing and there's a catharsis here that is pretty powerful stuff.

I am not one of those people who loves this book.

I like it fine.

The ONLY thing keeping this from being a five star installment for me is that half the novel is framed in Kruppe's voice. I find him immensely entertaining when he is serving the plot... and that's usually when he is NOT talking. The rest of the time, no matter how well written his verbosity may be, I want to jump off a building when he's in control. He's every distracting character I've ever played at a D&D table. Fun to play. Horrible for the story. AND he has so much good stuff to say here. It's just all buried in his nonsense so deep that I may never take the time to find out what he's really saying. He's TOO much for me.

Which is a me problem.

Normally, I can tune him out. But in this book... he is the shepherd for the most interesting content. And as a result I am REQUIRED to be annoyed by him. Which makes me grumpy as hell.

Still, plot wise... there's some great stuff here. I'm finding myself less annoyed by the Tiste Andii than I was in previous read throughs. Seerdomin's little arc is an awesome foil to the Redeemer. Even Cutter finally has a little meat on the story bones. Traveler and Karsa is a great combo. And Rake... whoo boy. If you like Rake's gothy edginess... you'll love this one (I think he's way less cool than I used to... but he's still pretty cool).

Big moves, big reveals, and a big ol annoying Kruppe single handedly keeping it from being one of my favorite novels.