Review of Reaper's Gale by Steven Erikson

Thanks to The Bonehunters, the pieces on Steven Erikson's MASSIVE chess board have been rearranged mid-series. In the aftermath of the Letherii-Tiste Edur war, all arrows now point toward the continent of Letheras. It's time to discover their targets (cannot be singular in this huge series) in Reaper's Gale (2007).

Reaper's Gale, as with all Malazan books thus far, features not one but several main storylines, as well as several minor. One at the forefront is that of Silchas Ruin and his quest to find and destroy Scalbandari's soul. Alongside him are Fear Sengar, Udinaas, Seren Pac, and Kettle. In Letheris city, the immortal emperor Rhulad battles his inner demons while continuing to take on any and all challengers. Karsa Orlong, a mysterious Seguleh, and Icarium wait in line. On the shores of the continent, a new threat to the Letheri/Edur empire arrives in a wave of boats, while the eastern part of the continent opens up to reveal age-old feuds coming to a boil as a warleader from a tribe called the Awl brings a powerful duo of warriors with him to attack and defeat the Letherii.

In my extra-curricular reading about Malazan, I have come across negative opinion of Reaper's Gale. I can't figure it out, particularly that Deadhouse Gates or The Bonehunters seem preferred in those instances. Deadhouse and Bonehunters are transition novels. They get characters from A to B and set the stage for the next novel(s) so that the characters can shine. They do not feature the massive climaxes/convergences that Memories, House, Midnight Tides, and yes, Reaper's Gale, do. They do not strongly feature convergent storylines. Yet with Reaper's Gale all the storylines described above (save the Awl), as well as several minor ones not described above, come together for a big clash toward the conclusion, one with IMPLICATIONS. What's more, its quests and journeys end—in successful and unsuccessful fashion. Gods are removed from the table. A war culminates. A couple key characters die. Storylines millennia in the making come to a head. And last but not least, the Malazan series is definitively taken to the next stage. The reader's preference for one character or storyline over another can exist in Reaper's Gale, but there is no denying the critical role the book plays in the series, if not for the climactic drama and action alone.

There are a couple potential challenges. Erikson really draws out the duels with Rhulad, for one. He spends the entire book—a quotidian Karsa scene here saying Karsa things, a quotidian Karsa scene there saying Karsa things—but never getting to the showdown people have been waiting for, at least not until the closing chapters—900 pages later. Considering the other things happening in the capital of Letheri at that time, it feels awkward, almost disingenuous, almost as if Erikson was forcing the plotline to wait for the Big Ending rather than letting it occur naturally. It would have been fine earlier in the novel.

Another potential issue is that an annoying Erikson trend moves closer to the forefront: starting new chapter sections with dialogue, first-person unnamed monologue, or opaque exposition which force the reader to figure out who, where, what, and why. Rather than just telling the reader, Erikson instead drops clues and forces the readers put two and two together. The challenge is that there are hundreds of twos in the series—literally. The list of in-scenes and behind-the-scenes characters is simply immense, and the reader increasingly needs to deploy RAM, not only to figure out who the character is to begin with, but to put the character into their mental map of the series. Rather than sitting back and enjoying the story, reading is becoming more taxing—taxing in dissatisfying, unnecessary fashion considering a phrase or sentence could quickly orient a reader. I get it, I get it—Literary fiction, or at least a reward for that minority of readers who have the free brain spacBut I'm old. My brain is weak. Just tell me and get on with the story. It stands on its own without the need for such tricks.

And lastly not an issue, but a potential issue for some readers: the Redmask storyline. Some will not like how it ends. In its defense, it's clear Erikson was looking for a way of forcing the Letheri to split their forces as well as open up the Eastern continent. The storyline does both those things, along with exercising some wilderness battle technique. But again, how it ends won't be for everybody.

One still one other potential issue is the Malazans arriving at Lethera's shores. I thought we might get another break from their world weary, pseudo-comedic soldier banter, as we did in Midnight Tides. (To give Erikson full credit, he hasn't scraped the bottom of that barrel yet.) But they do arrive—in almost two pages of dramatis personae glory. There are a lot—A LOT—of general nouns, I mean names, to remember, a lot, and I'm not sure it was needed. I respect why they appear and I accept it as necessary for the series: Imperialism is one of the top three, if not the top theme, of the series. And it's precisely in Reaper's Gale that their moral acid test starts to run toward one end of the spectrum. If the reader cheered them as “heroes” in prior novels, they start to look at Tavore and the Empress' motives with a bit more scrutiny in Reaper's Gale. I get it. It's just a lot of characters.

In the end, Reaper's Gale is a fiery volume in the Malazan series. It brings together nearly every major storyline of the series thus far, most exploding on contact. Several characters who have been in the series since the beginning appear—some never to appear again. Gods are satisfied, and gods are thwarted—and gods are created. One of my favorites.