Night of Knives

Night of Knives is the first novel by Ian Cameron Esslemont, and the first installment in his epic fantasy series Novels of the Malazan Empire, set in the same world as Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen.

The cover art, by Steve Stone, is pretty cool. In the same style as the newer covers of the Malazan Book of the Fallen novels, with black around the edges blending into dark, melancholy colors, the artwork really captures the atmosphere of Night of Knives and the Malazan world in general.

This book was a treat for me. I absolutely love the Malazan Book of the Fallen. It is, bar none, my favorite fantasy series of all time. That being said, I am going to take a few steps back and try not to let my bias get in the way of analyzing this book.

Taking place within the course of a single night, Night of Knives details the events leading up to Emperor Kellanved's and Dancer's disappearance and Surly's subsequent rise to Empress. This means that the book takes place before any of the books in Malazan Book of the Fallen, making it a prequel of sorts. I would not, however, recommend this book to newcomers to the Malazan world. The two main point-of-view characters in Night of Knives, Kiska and Temper, play very little role in the main series of novels, while extremely important characters in the main series, such as Kellanved, Dancer, and Tayschrenn, have very little revealed about them in Night of Knives. This might confuse new readers, making them ask, "Why are these people important?" or "Who is this guy coming out of nowhere?" You need to get a few books into the main series to truly understand the importance of the events in this book.

At its heart, Night of Knives is all about atmosphere. Esslemont captures the tense, brooding air of the book masterfully. The very first sentence of the first chapter (not the prologue) reads: Out amid the chopping waves of the strait of winds, the sails of an approaching message cutter burned bloody carmine in the day's last light. Another sentence, this time taken from the second part of the prologue, reads: Across the plain, all directions stretching to a featureless horizon, identical, monotonous, a figure hitched a cripple's slow limp. In my opinion, this is the kind of prose that allows for true escapism.

There is action aplenty in Night of Knives, with enough sword-fights, knife-fights, and sorcerous duels to whet any Malazan fan's appetite. Most of it comes from Temper, a grizzled veteran who once fought side-by-side with Dassem Ultor, in both his flashbacks and throughout the night itself. Kiska on the other hand, a young street-thief and spy, spends most of her time following people around, watching them fight, running away, getting captured, tripping, and getting hit in the head so often professional boxers would feel sorry for her.

Honestly, the girl should be brain damaged by now.

Now for the flaws. In the introduction, Steven Erikson tells us that Night of Knives is written in Esslemont's own style, his own voice. The fact is, it feels like Esslemont is trying too hard to be Erikson in his writing. He is still trying to find his own voice; in that way, it feels much like the first half of Gardens of the Moon. There will be parts throughout the novel where the prose doesn't quite live up to the rest, with some sentences and descriptions falling flat. They are relatively few and far between, fortunately.

Another very Erikson-like trait is the enormously long chapters. It is bearable in the Malazan Book of the Fallen due to the high page count, but in a book that has only 298 pages of story, fifty-plus page chapters end up making the pace feel a lot slower than it should.

All-in-all, the book is worth a read. Fans of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series will find it utterly delightful. New readers, skip over this, read Gardens of the Moon through The Bonehunters (even if the latter was published later than this book), and then pick up Night of Knives. You will appreciate the advice, and appreciate the book a whole lot more.

Rating: Good

The Well of Ascension

 

It's a quarter after midnight, my sleep cycles are are impossible to regulate, and I just finished the second book in Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy, The Well of Ascension, not twenty minutes ago. What better time to write a review?

I'm going to start off the same way I did last time: the cover art. The same artists worked on these ones (Jon Foster for the hardback, Christian McGrath for the mass market paperback) as the first book, and both are of great quality. As before, I prefer the hardback cover art, despite having the paperback version of the book. However, I don't find either cover as enticing as the ones for Mistborn: The Final Empire. I miss the bold lines of the hardback and vibrant color of the paperback in the original book.

Plot twists make The Well of Ascension. They are huge. You will go into reading the second book expecting the unexpected, because of the events in the first, and will still end up being completely surprised. Mr. Sanderson pulls no punches when he intends to throw you off-balance, and he subverts expected outcomes in some very brutal ways. Brutal is not a bad thing in storytelling though—just ask fans (myself among them) of A Song of Ice and Fire. And this is not nearly so brutal as that.

And perhaps that is what makes it so much more emotional when such things occur. In A Song of Ice and Fire, one is wary of getting too attached to the characters (though it happens anyway) because more than likely, some very bad things are going to happen; that isn't the case in Mistborn. Bad things aren't guaranteed to happen. Until they do.

I was just starting to get attached to... when he....

I'm not crying. I just got some dust in my eye. That's all.

The action was a bit more spread out in this book compared with the first, but when it happened, it happened big. You even have an epic battle between armies at the end, as if to make up for the decrease in frequency. There is a very long buildup before it happens, but Mr. Sanderson delivers in great fashion. Did I ever tell you that Sazed is badass? No? Well, you'll find that out once you get to this part.

Oh, and there's an exploding head somewhere in the middle of the book.

The Well of Ascension does not falter in the wake of the first book of the trilogy. It's full of mystery, political maneuvering, action, love (perhaps I should have gone on in more detail about this, but let's just say that Stephenie Meyer could take a lesson from Brandon Sanderson in this department), and great characters. It will not disappoint; to not read this book would be a great loss on your part.

Rating: Awesome

Mistborn: The Final Empire

First post, here we go!

The Mists rule the night.

The Lord Ruler owns the world.

I just finished reading Mistborn: The Final Empire, by Brandon Sanderson. I loved it. Every single word of praise given to this book and author is well-deserved. Before I get into the story, however, lets rewind a bit.

What is the first thing you see when you pick a book up off the shelves? That's right, the cover. A badass cover is going to entice you, while a narmy cover is likely going to make you put that book right back where you got it. Well, no worries here. Pictured at the top is the hardback cover of Mistborn by Jon Foster. Pretty cool, right? Unfortunately, that's not the version I have. I bought the mass-market paperback version—cover art by Christian McGrath—as part of the Mistborn Trilogy Boxed Set. Not nearly as cool, but certainly not ugly.

When you open the book and start reading, you will consider the quality of the cover art to be wholly appropriate. From the very beginning, the story nets you. You are introduced to a bleak, but unique and well-built world, where the sun is red, ash falls from the sky regularly, and slavery is institutionalized. Nobles are callous and cruel, the downtrodden skaa are beaten or even killed without so much as a second thought, and the godlike Lord Ruler of the Final Empire likes things this way. Then you are introduced to Kelsier, an oddly cheerful man who causes no small amount of chaos at the very start, and Vin, a timid skaa thief-girl with a very peculiar power. When they meet, the story takes off and doesn't relent until the very end.

As many will tell you, the magic system in Mistborn is absolutely fascinating. Allomancy, which uses metals as fuel, is well-structured and even fun to learn about. Where magic is vague in many other fantasy worlds, the rules and limitations of Allomancy are clearly defined, and Brandon Sanderson does not stray from those rules, completely extinguishing any possibility of you shaking your head in disbelief.

Also notable is the characterization and character development. Mr. Sanderson creates characters you can actually care about, making you wish them success in the most fantastic manner possible. Of course, things don't always work out the way we want them to, and the unexpected twists and turns in the story only make the characters that much more worth rooting for.

I gladly recommend this book to anyone. The writing is straightforward, the characters believeable, the world intriguing, and although this is the first book in a trilogy, the ending is extremely satisfying.


Rating: Awesome