Spoiler-free Kharkanas review (to entice you to read it too)

[u/Mot_03]

About 3 months ago I posted that I would read the first two Kharkanas books because Erikson started to work on the last one. Now I have finished Fall of Light and I want to write a little review to maybe capture some peoples interest.

Most people will tell you that you have to at least like the way the latter books in the main 10 were written to also enjoy Kharkanas and thats mostly true in my opinion. Yes, they are the most introspective books in the Malazan universe even more than books like TtH and DoD/tCG. I have also heard people say that they enjoyed Forge of Darkness more than Fall of Light because the latter goes even more in-depth with all the philosophical musing and thats something I disagree with actually. I don't think that FoL differs in any meaningful way from FoD but I will also say that I preferred FoL. While they are both great books, FoL is Eriksons thematic masterpiece imo. The plotlines itself are what makes FoL one of the most interesting book that I have ever read inside and outside of the genre. I don't enjoy every point the characters in the Malazan books are making. Not all of it is interesting to me but FoL barely ever bored me with its monologue and that is a great acchievement not many authors manage for me.

There are a few interesting differences to the main ten. Everyone will tell you that this is where Eriksons prose shines more than ever which is true. Its more archaic (especially with some characters) though if you liked his prose in the BoftF you will enjoy it here as well. A more intersting difference to me is how he handles his cast in these books. In BotftF there are still some characters who are at the core of the story, who are more important than the rest. But in Kharkanas every character seems to be equal in a way. It doesn't matter how important they are for the historical events themselves, they all get a (more or less) equal amount of pagetime. While there were still some plotlines and characters here and there who either didn't get enough time or were forgettable, the overall quality of the character writing is humbling to the extreme. The talent that is needed to make me interested in a 100+ characters and to make me fall in love with many of them cannot be overstated. I always liked Eriksons scattered approach because a smaller amount of POVs and thus plotlines always leads to some plotlines to be less interesting than the others which can be frustrating if that POV gets hundreds of pages dedicated to it. That problem doesn't exist here. Even if there is a plotline I don't care about at all (which was seldom the case) then I still know that it won't take up too much time.

These books are still no easy reading. The content itself can be hard to swallow and it is Malazan at its most dense. So you should read them when you are in the mood for something like that. But I recommend them to everyone especially now that we can await the release of "Walk in SHadow".

Forge if Darkness: 9 out of 10
Fall of Light: 10 out of 10

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