Review of The Bonehunters by Steven Erikson

The first five novels of the Malazan Book of the Fallen saw three major conflicts explode and collapse. Seven Cities, Genabackis and Letheras (at least Western Letheras) all had continent-wide wars ravage them. The Bonehunters (2006), sixth novel in the series, picks up the pieces and looks at what's next.

The Bonehunters starts where things left off from two settings. First is House of Chains and the Seven Cities continent. Adjunct Tavore, having killed her sister/the Whirlwind, looks to take down the last threat to the Malazan empire that the continent offers: Leoman of the Flails and his army in the city of Y'ghatan. Second setting is Midnight Tides and Letheras. The Tiste Edur have spilled out beyond the continent and are looking for a person who can kill their own god-ruler once and for all. Whether they like it or not, Icarium and Karsa Orlong's story threads wind that direction. And behind it all, Empress Laseen works her own strategies to ensure the imperial machine grows and grows.

Malazan novels to date have featured numerous Malazan soldiers. It is, after all, the Malazan Book of the Fallen. Whatever the soldier counts are from previous novels, The Bonehunters blows them out of the water. So, if you've enjoyed the soldier banter, the book is for you. The second quarter of Bonehunters is almost exclusively focused on them. I bounce off it, and tripling the number of such characters did not help. Erikson struggles to distinguish most soldiers, meaning they are just names the reader must remember, and when you have ~100 such names without individualiized scenes to reinforce their character/existence, it's difficult. But maybe not for you.

But that is not the only struggle. The Bonehunters is 355k words, aka, the longest book in the Malazan series to date. And it feels it. Where Memories of Ice or Midnight Tides could help the reader forget their massive page counts through stories steadily building toward massive climaxes, The Bonehunters is more like Deadhouse Gates. It's spread out. It moves like an ocean, not a river to the sea. Massive, climactic convergences are at a minimum. Instead, it looks to set up several storylines for the final four novels in the series. It's scene setting, character development, etc., more than a grand, building plot. Like Deadhouse Gates, the other Malazan transition novel, there is action, it's just diffuse, localized to a particular character or small setting.

In the end, The Bonehunters is a transition novel in the series, and therefore lacking the core focus—the singular points of convergence—that the preceding three novels had. Erikson does this metaphorically, by transforming the Bridgeburners into the Bonehunters. But he predominantly does this physically. With the introduction of Letheras in Midnight Tides, multiple primary characters now move to the continent, or toward the continent, clearly setting things up for the next volume in the series, Reaper's Gale. The reader's enjoyment of the novel will therefore depend how deeply they are embedded in the story, how much screen time Erikson gives your favorite characters, or perhaps how much you enjoy Malazan soldier banter.