The Dark Defiles

Long, dense, wonderful

This book does bad things. It makes you neglect work. It makes you fight sleep even when you are exhausted. It makes you worry you are reading too fast and the story will end too soon. It makes you forget to close your reader on the airplane making everyone to yell at you. I know these things from experience.

I have been a big Richard Morgan fan since "Altered Carbon" (which I still think would have been a great series with a bit more attention). I loved "The Steel Remains" and "The Cold Commands" and I am glad I reread them recently. Don't even attempt this book without reading the first two in the trilogy. No backstory here. Keep up or drown.

Mr. Morgan writes great fight scenes and unlike GRRM, at the end of the show more book there are still a few people left standing.

I received a review copy of The Dark Defiles by Richard Morgan (Del Rey Spectra) through NetGalley.com. I promptly preordered the hardback. Give that man his royalties! show less

che potenziale!
tre protagonisti così promettenti! veterani decorati, eroi di una guerra incredibile contro una razza rettiliana, ognuno con il proprio diverso bagaglio di traumi, shock culturali, abbandoni e tradimenti:
una giovane semi-aliena di 200(?) anni
un nobile reietto
un selvaggio delle steppe
così tanta diversità in cui scavare profondamente...e invece no!!
queste tre persone così diverse pensano nello stesso modo, agiscono nello stesso modo, parlano nello stesso modo e cioè come un adolescente meschino ottuso e volgare

poteva essere un capolavoro ed è solo una cialtronata di 1400 pagine, fanculo!!!
e a proposito di cialtroneria:
concludere (ripetutamente) un azione che non si sa come chiudere con "e dopo tutto si fece buio" show more è veramente da cialtroni!!!!!

PS: copierò questo commento su ogni libro della trilogia perchè proprio come non c'è nessuna differenziazione ne crescita nei protagonisti non ce n'è nei tre libri

ancora fanculo! show less

Oh my word. I was hoping for a good, punchy ending to the series after the slow build-up of the first two books, and I was definitely not disappointed. Morgan does a fantastic job of wrapping up his loose ends (almost all of them, if you read carefully between the lines), with a legitimate twist or two that left me cursing and staring at the pages in disbelief. With the sheer volume of fantasy that I've read, the fact that Morgan still managed to surprise me ensures this book will be among my favorites for a very long time coming.

Another year down the line, and our so-called heroes are flailing around the far north failing to find the grave of a long-dead Dark Lord fated to return, or the Kiriath fortress that supposedly guards it to ensure he doesn't. When war erupts along the border, their carefully-negotiated terms of passage are ripped up and Ringil's status as the most wanted man in Trelayne comes back to haunt him. As his mastery of the ikinri ska matures, has he become the new Dark Lord prophecied or do the dwenda, the Helmsmen and the Dark Court have a few tricks left up their sleeves?

I found this less challenging than the previous volume, which is to say whilst still soaked in bloody violence, I was less appalled - although it's worth noting that Morgan show more has form for subverting ethical sensibilities (see Takeshi Kovacs in Woken Furies) and Ringil's return to Trelayne is monstrous in terms of collateral damage. Perhaps appropriately then, this volume is also less funny as the trilogy gets down to epic confrontations and (un)just desserts.

The split narrative slows things down again here - while Egar and Archeth remain together, their story becomes so divorced from Ringil facing down the threat to the world that it's almost on par with Brienne's wanderings in A Feast For Crows (thankfully it's more interesting). While Ringil has the core narrative, Archeth gets all the character progression - it's an odd split, however realistic it may feel (or familiar to those who have ever annoyed their storyteller by splitting the party).

However, it remains gripping entertainment if somewhat drawn-out and the tale is heavily laced with mythic back story for the reader that worries about background detail (cue much pub/forum discussion of what some of it actually means).

All in all, good stuff, but arguably less interested in challenging grimdark tropes than adopting them as the focus shifts to resolution. Expect blood, guts, swearing and mixed feelings about representation. show less

I ended up enjoying this series more and more the further along I got into it. The first book didn't quite impress me, but with the second and third books, more and more depth was layered in, and I could see what was being set up with the first book. But there were still plenty of other things I didn't see coming. I wanted the characters to come together one last time, but that's just life, isn't it? They all received proper endings, as far as I'm concerned, although I would have liked to see Archeth confront Jhiral at the end, but imagination is just as good. Egar the Dragonbane died a fitting death, which was really the only way his arc could have ended because there wasn't much character development for him throughout the series show more other than dealing with aging and the existentialism tied up therein. Ringil's ending was confusing, but after thinking about it, he was a very much the anti-hero, and he had been toyed with by powerful beings throughout the series, so I interpret his ending as one where he gets to exist in a land where he doesn't have to worry about fighting or war anymore, even if he is stuck there forever. This book was dark, and it took me over a month to read it, but it was worth it. I ended up enjoying it because it was unlike any other series I have read. show less

Free review copy. I began this fantasy series very excited over the gay barbarian protagonist persisting despite his society’s homophobia and the half-alien lesbian protagonist whose involvements in palace intrigue are almost the least of her worries. Over time, the grimdark elements started hitting me harder (in the previous volume, protagonist #1 deliberately puts a woman in a position where she is raped to death in order to achieve his goals, and stands around as it happens), and I read Morgan’s blog (always a dangerous thing with authors) where he became increasingly defensive about the whole grimdark thing—he doesn’t like the label. Still, Morgan writes meaty plots—in this one, there are at least three separate threats to show more human existence, although one has been fairly soundly beaten back for the moment; the balance of power between human magic and alien/elvish technology/magic (very hard to tell) is constantly shifting, not to mention the relationships between the people involved. It’s a quest story where the characters don’t find the quest object, which is refreshing. The story ends at a point that feels like a real ending, but politics will obviously continue to create huge problems for the remaining protagonist. I was going to say that there was also a lot less rape in this book, at least onscreen/within one degree of our characters, but then the last hundred or so pages of the book made that wrong. I’m glad I know the ending, but I would not recommend this to anyone who doesn’t enjoy GRRM. show less

Won't say too much about this other than that I loved it. Loved the conclusion especially which is the part I want to but won't say too much about. Morgan is a master, and while I'd like my sci-if a little more explicit, this did not disappoint.