Pat received the page proofs.

This is what we know to this point:

– The book is 889 pages long and so about the size of The Bonehunters (approximately 360k words).
– Official publication date is even earlier than expected: 17 August.
– The book comes with a note from Erikson warning readers that this is just the first part of a two-volume novel and that it doesn’t have the same structure of other novels.

I’ll update this post with more tidbits if Pat comments the book on the forums while he reads like he did for Toll the Hounds.

Okay, three chapters and 118 pages in, and that’s as far as I’ll go today.

Very good thus far. An underlying sense of doom pervades the narrative, and you know that the end is coming. Even though early in the game, there has already been a major surprise that I never really expected. Interestingly enough, although there are myriads storylines woven into this series, SE introduces us to additional characters and plotlines. This far in the series, they must be of capital importance, I guess.

That and what is likely the most important reading of the Deck of Dragons yet. . .

Good stuff! The pace was atrociously slow for about 2/3 of TtH, and if not for that spectacular ending the book would have tanked to a certain degree. Not so with DoD. You can feel that the build-up is almost over, and the shit is about to hit the fan in a way that will make past convergences look like a walk in the park.

More to come. . .

—
212 pages into it, 6 chapters down, and Book 1 done, and it’s still very good.

You know at the end of RG when Icarium entered his machine and we thought that nothing really happened. Well, something did. Something MAJOR. . .

While I’m not going to reveal which POVs are featured thus far, since a lot of you have asked I can say that the narrative is comprised of the usual suspects among the Malazans and the Letherii. A bit more interesting is the fact that we get to see the Shake, the Khundryl Burned Tears, the Perish Grey Helms, and more in the spotlight.

Good stuff, this!

—
Nine chapters and 316 pages in, and it’s still pretty damn good, though portions of this last chapter were a bit on the lame side. . . The banter and interaction between Malazan soldiers are kind of fun, but this story has bigger fish to fry, methinks.

We learn more about what Icarium’s machine did, and crap it’s HUGE! More K’Chain Che’Malle revelations, and glimpses of what the Errant is planning. More about the Barghast, the Shake,and two heretofore minor characters who seem to be destined to become power players.

Though this is the beginning of the end, so far DoD follows the same Malazan blueprint as the rest of the volumes in the series. I figure that the first two Books are the set-up, and then the shit will hit the fan.

There can never be too much shit, really. . .

I’ve stopped updating because Pat started to discuss more about the plot and less about opinions on the book. Here a post from Hetan:

There is a lot of set-up in this book as we have been told, which doesn’t mean to say there arent’ any OMFG moments because there are plenty of those and other surprises in it.
I’m not sure that Steve is even bothered about filling in what are considered plot holes or ommissions as it is clear he knows where his story is going and some of those side plots are simply that – stuff that happened – and the plot has moved on without any further explanation. But that is the nature of history.

I’m not going to comment much on the Crimson Guard and where it ties in as Steve sees DoD as Book one of the end rather than book 9 of a ten book series, therefore I’ve only read book one of two and it may be that there is more to come from that (crimson guard) side of things.

There’s quite a lot of background information on all sorts of things as Pat has said, The Shake, the Eleint, The K’Chain …. and some things that seemed minor at the time are now much more relevant than we had thought.

I’m rather impressed, this is the first cover for a book by Steven Erikson that Tor publishes and that doesn’t suck. Beside the horrible green used in the name, the image is a rather faithful representation of awesome duo (minus the manservant, the real protagonist).

The book, till now only available in limited hardcover, is going to be published in September by Tor for the american market, trade paperback only. It collects all the three novellas Erikson wrote, probably in their story order, but not in publishing order (The Healthy Dead was written after the first, but comes third in reading order). Erikson has already the contract to write three more as soon he finds the time.

Maybe more people will read what I consider Erikson’s masterpiece and, without a doubt, the very best thing I ever read in fantasy and sci-fi. This book is my all time favorite (even if the first novella can’t reach the awesomeness of the other two).

The summary on the Tor page is also quite fitting for what’s written in the book.

Return of the Crimson Guard, second book by Esslemont and suggested read after The Bonehunters or Reaper’s Gale, is out in mass market format in UK and available at the usual places. (amazon.co.uk and bookdepository)

Even for this version they are going to use the slightly larger format they started to use with the MM version of Toll the Hounds. Sadly.

The real question is whether it will contain the prologue form Stonewieleder or not. The MM version of Night of Knives had the prologue and a few pages of the first chapter of RotCG, but Esslemont had already completed the book, while we don’t have any news about when the next book should come out.

In the meantime the wait for Dust of Dreams continues. It should be out by the end of August and in a couple of weeks the first reviews should come out. The moment of truth.