Toll the Hounds: Book Eight of The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson Search Amazon for other books by or about Steven Erikson. Rating: Reviewed by: John Walsh

Magical, monstrous, martial and mundane forces are converging on the city of Darujhistan from all points of the compass. The long-dead mingle with the newly-dead, the soon will be dead and the probably better off dead in trying to bring to fruition numerous plots and conspiracies. Gods meddle with mortals who, in turn, viciously strike back at them. All of the universe is represented in another enormous (830 pages) slab of high-concept, high-drama, high-fantasy epic. This is the eighth in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, all of which I have now read, mostly with a great deal of pleasure. However, this was one of the less enjoyable of the series. The same trademark elements are present, including the multiple perspectives and numerous plots and sub-plots, together with a learning curve so ferocious that newcomers should not even consider starting here. However, the action is difficult to engage with in many sections because there appears to be no one single main narrative plot for readers to follow and against which the sub-plots and other events may be balanced and counterpointed. Instead, equal weight is placed on everything going on and, inevitably therefore, no weight appears to be placed on anything. This issue is resolved to some extent towards the end of the book but the poor reader has to struggle through more than 500 pages before reaching this stage, at which it is possible like Cortez to gaze on the peak with a wild surmise.

This is not to say that the book is not enjoyable: there are many exciting set-piece moments scattered through the text and long-time readers will enjoy the return of some notable characters from the past: I enjoy Iskaral Pust and Kruppe the Eel, although others are more taken by Anomander Rake and his not-quite talking sword and the Toblakai Karsa Orlong. However, there is a certain degree of jokiness and whimsicality above and beyond the normal tone employed and while there is nothing wrong with this, per se, it does feel a little strange to have the dread dead Jaghut tyrant Raest behave in quite a camp fashion. As mentioned above, newcomers should not try to start with this book but start with number one and work through them steadily (some readers believe it is possible to start with the fifth book, given the asynchronous nature of the action across the series but I reserve some doubts about this). Even having read thousands of pages of the epic, I had to resort to Wikipedia to try to remember who had done what to whom in the past--there really are scores of characters to keep track of and many events are not what they seem, requiring re-evaluation of what has already occurred and so on.

One final word: I normally scarcely look at the cover of a book since I generally decide whether or not to buy and read a book prior to going to find it at the bookshop and, if it is something new to me, I will decide based on the content (and the price, frankly). However, I must observe that this is one of the least inspiring book covers I have seen for a long time--some bloke dressed up like a TV wrestler swinging a comedy axe and a white dog. It actively puts me off wanting to read the book. Well, I am usually an outlier when it comes to visual things and perhaps I am completely wrong about this (I may know nothing about graphic design but I know what I like etc and so forth).