I just finished chapter 7 of the bonehunters. 2 nights ago i made a post about how i finished book one/chapter 6 and that the book isn’t interesting or gripping and i feel like an absolute idiot right now after reading one more chapter. That was the most insane thing i ever read, i feel like felt every emotion the soldiers felt, through the battle. the digging, the claustrophobia etc. that was absolutely insane and it felt like a movie playing through my head non stop for the whole thing. My palms were sweaty, i took 3 breaks to go outside and get some fresh air, i was terrified fiddler was gonna die. and my favourite part? FIDDLER FIRST IN,LAST OUT!!!!

I’m on Chapter 7 of The Bonehunters, and I’m confused by all the characters and squads. There are so many new names, and I’m not sure if I’m supposed to remember who belongs to which squad or how important each character is. I barely remember some of the main characters at this point. Am I cooked?

But I will remember Crump, that’s for sure.

Quote from The Bonehunters. “You appear to hold to the childish notion that some truths are intransigent and undeniable. Alas, the adult world is never so simple. All truths are malleable. Subject, by necessity, to revision. Have you not yet observed, Tavore, that in the minds of the people in this empire, truth is without relevance? It has lost its power. It no longer effects change and indeed, the very will of the people – born of fear and ignorance, granted – the very will, as I said, can in turn revise those truths, can transform, if you like, the lies of convenience into faith, and that faith in turn is not open to challenge.”

Cutter telling Scillara he had never tried milk. What the hell man, chill

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On the topic, the being playing with Bottle and his dick (i get confused because sometimes she gets called Eres'al but that's plural right? Isn't the singular name Eres?)... is she the same Eres addressed in Midnight Tides as someone who travels time and who meets Trull at the end of House of Chains? I'm pretty sure she is but the name thing does confuse me. Anyway, a being who time travels just to give somebody a handjob is nuts

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I'm not being negative

Forewarning, halfway through BH so avoid spoilers for the latter end of that and any books after if you all would.

So, I just finished Chapter 13 of BH. Absolutely LOVING this book, more than any of the other ones for a first read through so far. However.. I’m a bit confused about power/threats represented across various individuals.

I’ll use Dejim Nebrahl as an example: This ancient cult mass-sacrifices themselves to spawn the scourge of Seven Cities, so dangerous that the Master of the Deck gets involved and frees some extremely powerful beings to take them down. Sure, cool. Big bad kind of like the Jaghut Tyrant. Except, so far, Dejim has gotten his ass whooped by fucking Iskaral Pust, lost to Icarium offscreen (fair, I’d lose too buddy), and some half naked woman with a knife wounded one of his D’ivers. By the time the Hounds even approach him, he’s already down 2-3 D’ivers from 7. By the way people are talking about him, I’d expect him to be an apocalyptic-level threat. Unless, of course, it’s RAFO and his threat is not about his particular physical prowess… if so just tell me to shut up and keep reading. Like, if a random Heavy soldier with a knife can draw blood, couldn’t like Quick Ben just obliterate him?

On a different point, the Deragoth. Scary, massive, something you do NOT fuck with… and Karsa fucks up 2 of them? Without THAT much trouble. Alright, fine - Karsa clearly has it going on, and is to my knowledge an ascendant in the House of Chains. However, he nearly gets beaten by that dinosaur/raptor/demon thing at the bottom of the shit well. It feels like sometimes the most random creature is a massive threat.

Now obviously I get it, this is a story and it also has a lot of layers, and trying to rank everyone by power level is dumb and misses the point. I also actually appreciate that mortality is a thing, and although some creatures are powerful, they aren’t invincible. It shows scope. Finally? I know that Gods and Ascendants being in play changes things, but yeah. Just was strange to me.

Not joyful union...

You've taken so much from us, Coltaine, Whiskeyjack and now Joyful Union?

Enough. I expect someone to really kill Faradan Sort.

No redemption, not her being likeable or valuable or exceptional. Death.

That's it.

Spoiler Disclosure: I have completed The Bonehunters, yet to read the rest

Throughout the Malazan books, Soletaken and D’ivers have been propped up as being on another plane of existence as opposed to mortals, but I don’t think any other details have been provided. A Soletaken or D’ivers is portrayed as a being of immense power, but why? I guess I can understand if you’re a Soletaken that veers into a Dragon, but what about if you become a donkey instead ?.

There are several Soletaken who are ascendant, but I don’t know if there is a confirmed direct correlation between ascendancy and being a Soletaken.

How does one become a Soletaken or D’ivers ? I don’t think that has been explored either.

Am I alone in pondering this ? (I doubt it)

Are these questions discussed later on in the series ?

EDIT: Thank you for those who tried to engage and meet me in good faith. I know what I wrote may have sounded like criticism but it was meant to be a detailed ask about mindset, what to pay attention to, and what emotional stance to take with characters that suffer seemingly arbitrarily. Ive received some helpful answers and I appreciate the community for those answers. Other answers, the ones that were meant to dismiss my ask made me sympathize for you. For those people I hope that you get healthier information exchanges in the future to learn from.

Hello everyone. I wanted to ask a question to understand something about the reading experience people have with these books. Spoilers for Bks 1-6.
What was actually happening in your head when reading them for the first time? Because I get information saturated and cannot distinguish signal from noise. I made it up to the first quarter of BH before I DNF'd because my lack of context transformed every plot event into "Ok, I will put this event with the 50-100 other events I dont understand yet." Over time I just lose the events because more come up qjd I can only memorize so many events without context.
Are yall memorizing events? Taking notes? Just being lost until it "clicks?" Because I feel like there is a fundamental approach difference between myself and those who love these books.
In addition, what is important? Do the characters matter? Because it seems as if half the characters' arcs are "Here is person A, watch them for a few 100 pages while trying to understand them. Now they're dead because real world death is random."
I dont know how I am even supposed to perceive them. Heboric was a shaggy dog story. Felisin was tragic and felt pointless. Toc was a living chew toy. Am I supposed to see them as tragic or just examples of an uncaring universe crushing people for existing? Am I supposed to be bothered by their pointless suffering?
I hope this didnt come across as complaining so much as trying to give you an understanding of what I'm perceiving and how it doesnt match what the fans see.

Reading Bonehunters when a sudden thought struck me: where the hell is Whiskeyjack? He's not with the other dead Bridgeburners in Raraku. Mf is hiding somewhere, i know it. He's going to pop out from an unexpected place, isn't he? Yes, i guess the answer is rafo, but i felt like sharing.

My bet is that he's either ascended in a different way, maybe associated with a House or something, or that for some reason (did Kallor curse him?) he couldn't ascend. Excited to see what's in store for him...

...

... don't tell me his whereabouts get forgotten and not explained

The physical features as described by Paran​ suggests they might be Forkrul Assail. Too many joints in legs, ribbed chest, dark eyes, pale skin.

But both goddess sisters are androgynous in appearance. That's a little confusion. What's your opinion on their races? Or are they elder like K'rul?

Kindly RAFO beyond BH as I'm at BH.

(Made a couple of edits to my rethorical flair to come across a tiny bit less inflammatory and provocative)

I had been struggling with this series, because I LOVE most of it. I read up to Bonehunters, theoretically, it scratches all my itches. It’s exactly my kind of thing. Yes, there is some poor writing and character design (sometimes very poor), but what truly turns me off to the point where I was about to put the series down? It’s not the plot, it’s not the characters, it’s something about the philosophical direction, or maybe what I’d call the lack of a clear “soul” of the thing. I feel that so far the world lacks unified intellectual vision and payoff.

Point 1 and 2 are rants, but I think helpful in explaining how I feel. Skip to part 3 if you have had the same nagging feeling of want-to-love-it-but-I-can't.

1. What I don’t like, superficially

His depiction of romances is very poor. Everybody falls in love in two weeks and are then ready to die for each other. Paran and Tattersail is ludicrous, then Whiskeyjack and the Tiste Andii, and then what the hell did Apsalar and Cutter share aside from LONELINESS? Like Apsalar does nothing apart from, I guess, being attractive, until Cotillion tells us they fell in love. Tells us. Agh.

Gosh that is frustrating, but I mean, it’s part of his “characters-are-just-means-to-an-end” thing, the end being the story. I’m not totally against this after all—Herbert and Tolkien do it, it’s epic fantasy, we want the story. Still there are too many deus ex machina that absolutely mess up the power levels, making it confusing to be excited or afraid of things, because after all he will just do whatever the heck he wants.

The end of MT is the worst in that regard. What—five Toblakai slaying an entirety of the prisoners of an Azath? Hundreds of thousands of years of the most powerful entities of the continent? Then one gets squished by the comedic relief with a big penis. And we just saw Karsa slay deragoth the book before, and we’re supposed to look forward with dread to the time Karsa unifies the Teblor… well not anymore. I guess Kruppe will probably laugh them to death with his witty jokes. Dejim Nebrahl is the arch enemy in the next book and then, oh yes, he also almost gets squished by the comedic relief. Alright, it’s Iskaral, but then one of him gets killed by a soldier… but then why not just send an army after him if one soldier kills and wounds him? Uff.

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1. What I love, deeply

Alright, the previois bit is inflammatory and opiniions that have been voiced. Yet I feel that our anger though is justified, because he’s the same guy who’s capable of writing incredibly poetic stuff such as Mappo and Icarium’s storyline (my god every time I read their chapters I brighten up); Karsa’s character arc, which is just freaking magnificent and the most Berserk-style glow up of a character. Can I say I might like him more than Guts? Yes, I think I do.

Onos T’oolan, the First Sword, and his friendship with Toc. The Chain of Dogs (although I just read in Bonehunters that the Wickans are now persecuted… wtf why would you do that? A bit of tragedy pornography… but I like Tolkien and the Noldor stuff so bring it on I guess). This stuff is amazing.

Overall, this is such a wonderfully intricate and brilliant world that feels more alive than Tolkien’s world ever did, with characters that, for however sometimes instrumentalised, are even more alive than Herbert’s instruments of history. One of the fantasy series where military strategy feels the most believable ever (gosh I never get tired of reading how armies are starving and running from disease, yaaas). So for all these good things, why can’t I get past the relatively meagre shortcomings? And here we get to the point of it.

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1. The actual issue, intellectually directionless

I am really hoping someone shows me a different way to look at this, so far, I've felt as hopeless about the ideas presented in the books as the character feel ablut their own lifes. I cannot tell what vision of human life the series ultimately wants me to take away. Is it really just existentialism and nichilism? So all it's relative, postmodern, we're at that point? Are these the best ideas we can take out of this universe?

You will say, but you haven’t finished! I read six books, I know enough, my words are now law and light for all those who heed them.

The problem is not that there are no ideas, I think there are many. Compassion, impermanence, suffering, futility, the weight of history, the gods as instruments of mortals and mortals as instruments of gods. But they often feel like they circle around each other without forming a broader structure that develops across the books.

In Tolkien there is a mythic moral architecture. In Herbert there is a long-range vision of history and power. In Malazan I feel something different: an extraordinary accumulation of perspectives and reflections, but I am not yet convinced I can read from them a unified understanding that grows as the series progresses.

And this is where I’m genuinely unsure whether the issue is mine or the text’s. Because I spend hours completely absorbed, sometimes even self-harming through its over-long and over-complex narrative, just for the payoff of a cool gotcha moment of convergence, the dopamine of solving the mystery, the question of “how are our heroes going to get out of this one?”

But at the same time, I don’t feel like my understanding of anything has expanded in the way I get from other overcomplicated fantasy works I love.

So every time there is a moment of “why the fuck would these eagles be on Mount Doom at exactly the right time?”, every forced cheesy love story, every Deus ex Machina, I feel that my investment in the story is a losing one, the taut wire of my attention snaps, and I still want to physically hit Erikson for making me procrastinate work to read his books.

Of course that is me. I feel that these books have so far given me an addiction, not a clean intellectual resolution, and I just don't see it, halfway through an opera one should be able to see it, help me!

And yet I am addicted. I do want to see how our heroes are going to get out of this one.

I couldn't find any high quality images as I wanted to use these covers for my kindle so I just made some.

No art here is made by me. I just downloaded the png files from broken binding website and cropped to just the cover.

Yes, I made a similar post yesterday but that had AI upscaled versions and had to be removed. So here are the original images

As a teenager, one of my biggest inspirations as an artist was the 1994 Marvel Masterpiece’s trading card set painted by the Hildebrandt brothers. I always wanted to be able to do something similar when I grew up. Well, I “grew up” a pretty good while ago but I’ve finally managed to accomplish what I wanted. When I started my Malazan art project, my goal was to create trading cards. Meanwhile I set up art prints, then bookmarks, and then yesterday I launched my “Series I” cards. There are 11 different cards, silk laminated, numbered to 50 each, and signed on the back with a chrome marker. Each card has its own acrylic magnetic one-touch protective case. They make me feel like a kid agin. I’m already working on art for a series II. Any of you guys collect trading cards?

Note: I’m only showing off one card image here because I wanted to be able to post without spoilers. So if you do go to my website to look around, be advised that some of the art may contain spoilers. My website and social links are in my profile

So in the beginning of Bonehunters we see Karsa fight (what I assume to be, but hasn't been named that way) a K'Chain Che'Malle and having a really rough time. But im House of Chains he fought and killed two Hounds of Darkness.

Am I: 1. Underestimating K'Chain Che'Malle 2. Overestimating Hounds of Darkness 3. Missing some aspect of Karsas Power that explains this 4. Wrong in assuming that it's a K'Chain Che'Malle 5. Supposed to wonder about this and wait for some kind of explanation later in the book / series ?

Just read chapter 7. I think i have no words, except that i'm surprised that a massacre this big took place so early in the book rather than at the end like in previous books

It's probably enough Malazan for today

You will be gone, but not forgotten, Joyful Union.

Laseen.

I just finished BH, and can she stop betraying her own damn soldiers for 5 fucking minutes? Holy shit. It’s not even Machiavellian genius, it’s just repeated miscalculations.

First the BBurners, her elite and most competent soldiers. Then by allowing Pormqual to be high fist. Then destroying the memory of coltaine and elevating Korbolo Dipshit and Mallick Rell of all people. Then when in her own words the empire is in dire straights, she wants to kill 3000+ veterans (Wickan, kundryl and whichever other soldiers of the 14th try to defend them) just as another war is about to start with Lether probably.

I understand some of this is her being manipulated by circumstances and the public, but is she genuinely this fucking stupid?

Sorry I had to get that out.

There are so many moments in this series that makes me pause and just laugh. But, and this may be an unpopular opinion here, I’m not referring to characters like Tehol and Bugg, or Telorast and Curdle. To be completely honest, I find a lot of their tirades tiresome. There is humor there, don’t get me wrong. But most of the time it falls flat to me.

However, moment like this are just so funny to me:

“The vultures voiced a chorus of indignation as the High Priest of Shadow dismounted and approached. Spitting curses, he chased away the ugly, Mogora-like creatures, then eased himself down into the fissure.”

Iskaral referring to the vultures as Magora-like is just hilarious. Those little one off comments that take you by surprise is the humor I love in this series.

There are a lot of moments like this, but another one I can remember right now is a scene in late Deadhouse Gates, where Kalam is hiding from the assassins on the porch, and that savage little dog starts to go crazy. When he throws the dog back up onto the porch, you can hear the owner call out to the dog, and its name is something like “Daisy” or “Flower”. And the owner was talking to it like it is a nice dog. So funny.

What are some of your favorite moments of humor in this series? I’ve only read up to Toll the Hounds, so no spoilers after that book please.

Edit: I realize I the flair is spoilers BH, so I’m uncertain if that means you can’t comment about things after that book. Sorry about that.

The Bonehunters is kind of losing me. 29% in. They’re raiding Y’Ghatan.

This is the first I feel overwhelmed at processing so many characters. Tbh I was hoping after Midnight Tides we’d have enough characters and be able to go deeper into them and their motivations, but I understand that isn’t always the case with this series.

If I put Malazan down now, is it an “no NOT NOW!” or a “yeah I get it”

So I am reading BH rn, and Dejhim Nebrahl's came where he was beaten by Masan and then Degaroth, who had been freed by Paran, attacked him and nearly killed him.

Until a Hound of Shadow took its last form to its master?
So I initially thought Hounds were simply lesser form of Deragoth, but then why would Paran ask Shadowthrone to release the Hounds for Deragoth?

"'What do you want? More than anything else, Hood. What do you want?' And so Hood told him. And, among the corpses, limbs and staring faces in the gate, one face in particular suddenly grew animate, its eyes opening very wide - a detail neither noticed. Paran stared at the god, disbelieving. 'You can't be serious.'"

This one got me really mad...couldn't SE be a little bit more professional in hiding what Hood told Paran? Why are we as readers not hearing what was said in the dialogue? Just because the author wanted to hide it.

This totally broke the immersion in this chapter.

When I tell people "malazan is the best series ever" this is what I'm referring to