Pieces on Speculative Fiction

2 stars out of 5. This is decent first novel by Ian C. Esslemont. It tells the story of how Emperor Kellanved and his companion Dancer return to Malaz Island as it is the Shadow night, when the realm of Shadow and mortals are as one. The story has a feel of a short story that has been buffed to novel length. Recommended for the readers of Steven Erikson’s Malazan stories, others won’t probably get everything and the story is pretty thin and infodumps too frequent.

The world of this book was created by Steven Erikson and Esslemont in the eighties and they both write books in it. Erikson has so far written 7 novels and 3 novellas, this is Esslemont’s first effort in their shared world. All this means that there are a lot of things in the book that you don’t really fully understand, unless you have read Erikson’s work. Night of Knives doesn’t work too well on it’s own.

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I still have a few read books waiting to be reviewed. Robin Hobb’s Renegade’s Magic, Ian C. Esslemont’s Malazan novel Night of Knives, Tim Powers’ Last Call and David Gemmell’s Shield of Thunder. I also read recently James P. Blaylock’s Digging Leviathan. Still reading Kay Kenyon’s Bright of the Sky and I fear that completing it will take a while. I really don’t like the direction the book is taking and it just isn’t that enjoyable to read. I rather like my science fiction either as quite a bit shorter novels or in the page-turner form.

I’m a bit on the fence whether to read something new or just reread something classic David Gemmell novel. I’m itching to reread Erikson’s Malazan, even though I read it recently when the latest, Reaper’s Gale, came out. I do have a few unread books. Some are really classic fantasies, like Michael Moorcock’s Gloriana, Wind in the Willows, Austin Tappan Wright’s Islandia and quite a few others.

I’m also looking to make yet another big Amazon.com order as Dollar is soon like Monopoly money compared to Euro, so any tips on good newish fantasy & science fiction books are welcome. Maybe mainly fantasy.