Three fantasy novels

[ellarien]

Steven Erikson, House of Chains

This is the fourth in the Malazan series. It's not quite as long as the preceding one, and it read a lot faster, no doubt partly because it was all I had for most of the time in New Orleans and the trip back. It starts with a long, long sequence of pretty much unallayed brutality and violence that might well have put me off if I had anything else handy, but it does improve after that. This is more or less a direct sequel to Deadhouse Gates. There are complicated treacheries, layers upon layers of them, and politics among both humans and gods; the fact that some of the gods were human politicians not so long ago has something to do with that. The nature of the world reveals itself a little more, and the elvishness of the Tiste becomes more apparent; it turns out they come in three flavours. In spite of what happened at the end of Memories of Ice, there still seem to be a sufficiency of the prehistoric undead T'lan Imass wandering around.

Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

A damaged hero, a haunted and imperilled heroine, ghosts and demons and gods and a polar-bear; what's not to like? Unless I missed a cameo somewhere, the only recurring characters from the previous two novels in the series are the gods, and the action takes place far away from Chalion. I may be a heretic for saying so, but I think I liked this even better than Paladin of Souls.

Stephen R. Donaldson, The Runes of the Earth

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant have a special place in my heart; they were the first adult fantasy I bought when I went away to University, the first inkling (no pun intended) I had that there was more to fantasy than Tolkien and C. S. Lewis -- in fact, I found them when I was looking for a Birmingham copy of Lord of the Rings. I read them over and over, though I never did quite manage to wrap my head around what the author was driving at, and even though I haven't read them in years those six fat black-spined paperbacks have never been in danger of culling from the collection.

I bought Runes of the Earth when it came out, and it's been sitting on the imminent-reading shelf for a couple of months. I finally started it last night, and finished it tonight. Donaldson does ... uncondign ... things to the English language, wrenching obscure words out of retirement and bending them to his purposes, but it makes for a distinctive voice that I at least find compelling (and a little infectious). Perhaps, now that I've emerged from the spell of the pages, I can suspect that the anguish and majesty of the Land, the weight of unintended and inescapable consequence, are a little faded now; the Covenant of Linden Avery's loving memories is considerably less annoying than the original, and Linden herself is stronger, less lost than she was. Nevertheless, I'm not sorry I had the chance to return to the Land for a while.