Review: Reaper's Gale

Reaper's Gale by Steven Erikson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The risk of writing a ten book epic fantasy series is that each volume will inevitably be weighed against the merits of the others. It's not fair to expect Erikson to keep topping himself, and he doesn't. That's not to say this book isn't superb. There are memorable battles, emotional deaths and salvations, and deeply satisfying comeuppances, that in any other series could easily stand out as climaxes. Yet there are a number of plot threads that Erikson introduces only to hold back, teasing us with their consequences.

But those teases are okay, because there is still so much happening that we don't notice any lack. So many things could occur that when only half of them actually come to pass, it's nonetheless an almost overwhelming amount of plot.

As I get farther in the series, I think I'm beginning to get a handle on the big picture of what's going on. But it's also entirely possible I'm lost. There's no way I'm giving up now though - and if there's a way to keep readers going in a series, perhaps it's investing them through thousands and thousands of pages.

It's now been over a year of reading Malazan, and I can look back across the history of what I've read. The stories characters swap around the tavern tables in these books are the legends of what I've already read. It's an extremely rewarding immersion.

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