Night of Knives
(Malazan Empire #1 ?! )
by Ian C. Esslemont
fantasy
copyright 2005
read in June 2015
rated 6/10: read to pass the time
Wham ! Kapow ! Flash ! Bang ! ... and all the rest of the comic book indicators of exciting action !
Yes, this book is fantasy action at its most fantastic and its most active ! Is there a character who is less than a superhero ? Or superheroine ?! Should I stop using so many exclamation marks ?! Oh... Okay.
On the island of Malaz there are a few thousand ordinary people. Their role is to hide in their houses while the super-people -- and superpowers -- fight for power. It's exciting, it's fun, it's totally over the top.
Pure escapist fantasy ? Violent and blood-soaked ? Confusing but satisfying ending ? All of the above.
Confusing ? Very.
This book is "the first instalment" of the Malazan Empire. I take that to mean that, after many Malazan books, this "new" one is the earliest in Empire chronology. So, you may be thinking, this book will explain the back-story...
Wrong.
My impression is, that this "first instalment" uses a number of characters from "later" books. Uses, but does not introduce.
Characters pop up from all sorts of mythical realms. With all sorts of mythical powers. All sorts of mythical aims in "life". Are we supposed to know them ? I hope so... The alternative is, that the author has used a grab-bag of characters whose only role is to add threat or solve problems by deus ex machina.
I prefer to think that many of these characters have continuing roles in other Malazan books. Which makes the " first instalment " claim both misleading and -- to the occasional reader of Malazan -- annoying.
Still, no worries.
This book is a rollicking yarn of gore and magic and heroics. The plot rolls along quite nicely, with logic gaps filled by super-beings who appear, save a hero (for no obvious reason), then go back to their mysterious, very important, unexplained, day jobs.
The bad guys (we didn't really meet them), triumph but not really. The other bad guys (who we did meet) wipe each other out. Yet another bad guy is pushed back into his prison cell. The invasion of the entire race of bad guys is thwarted. Though a pointless epilogue seems to indicate that those bad guys are just misunderstood good guys.
The hero goes back to his boring day job. The heroine gets a job offer.
Are you as confused as I am ?
It's entertaining and incomprehensible. The death toll is extreme yet no innocent bystander is harmed. The ending is quite satisfying but meaningless. Or, possibly, pointless.
The book may be an essential gap-filter for the fans. For the rest of us, it's just read-and-forget fantasy fun.
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