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For ages warfare has crippled the continent as minor city states, baronies, and principates fought in an endless round of hostilities. Only the alliance of the rival Tali and Quon cities could field the resources to mount a hegemony from coast to coast-- and thus become known as Quon Taili. It is a generation since the collapse of this dynasty and regional powers are once more rousing themselves. Into this arena of renewed border wars come two youths to the powerful central city state show more that is LiHeng. One is named Dorin, and he comes determined to prove himself the most skilled assassin of his age; he is chasing the other youth-- a Dal Hon mage who has proven himself annoyingly difficult to kill. Li Heng has been guided and warded for centuries by the powerful sorceress known as the Protectress and she allows no rivals. She and her cabal of five mage servants were enough to repel the Quon Tali Iron Legions-- what could two youths hope to accomplish under their stifling rule? Yet under the new and ambitious King Chulalorn the Third, Itko Kan is on the march from the south. He sends his own assassin servants, the Nightblades, against the city, and there are hints that he also commands inhuman forces out of legend. While above all, shadows swirl oddly about Li Heng, and monstrous slathering beasts seem to appear from nowhere to run howling through the street. It is a time of chaos and upheaval, and in chaos, as the young Dal Hon mage would say, there is opportunity. show lessTags
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Title: Dancer's Lament
Series: Malaz: Path to Ascendancy #1
Author: Ian Esslemont
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 418
Format: Hardcover
Synopsis:
Before there was Cotillion and Kellanved, there was Dorin Rav and Wu. Taking place in the city of Li Heng, this is the story of how they became partners.
The plot of the book, however, is how the city of Li Heng survived a besiegement by a jumped up king who thought he was somebody. The 4 show more mages of the city, under the direction of the Protectress (a tiste liosan) end up confining Ryllandaras, the man-jackal in a magical prison. The Itko Kan'ians, the besiegers, have the help of a Jaghut and it takes the Protectress unleasing the full might of her Warren of Light to drive back the besiegers.
Wu, and Dorin, have plans to take over the city during the turmoil but they simply aren't strong enough and end up being exiled from the city. But now they are partners and can begin working together.
My Thoughts:
Finally. A Malazan book that I can simply sit down and read straight through and enjoy fully without feeling like I'm juggling 3 different 5000 piece puzzles all mixed together. You have no idea how much that upped my enjoyment of this book.
I think Esslemont showed his true colors with this book. He is a good standard fantasy writing kind of guy. His Malazan Empire novels felt very much like he was trying to copy Steven Erikson's style and it just didn't work for me. But this? Besides Gardens of the Moon, this was the most enjoyable Malazan book that I've read. Now I am really looking forward to the rest of the trilogy.
In the Malazan books, Cotillion/Dancer and Kellanved were shadow'y characters doing things behind the scenes and never being fully fleshed out. Even when they were supposed to be main characters, they were actually hiding and felt like side characters. This time, they were simply people. It was refreshing.
There were lots of hints and little asides from other Malazan characters, so if you're one of the Book of the Fallen fanboys who who loves unlocking a ton of meaning from 2 sentence fragments, you'll still have something to chew on with this book. The rest of us can simply sit back and enjoy the story.
In Esslemont's The Return of the Crimson Guard the malazan army unleashed Ryllandaras and in this book we see how, and why, he was confined. It was nice to make a clear cut connection between one book and the other instead of having to guess and speculate and turn my brain into 77 pretzels to make my pet theory fit.
Another aspect of this that I enjoyed was the lack of Existential Despair philosophy. Everybody was NOT whining about how meaningless their lives were. In fact, they acted like real people and didn't even think about that. Dorin and Wu had to survive, plan how to take over a newly discovered Warren of Shadow and see if they could take over the city. Not much time to sit on their fat asses and complain about how hard they have it (unlike almost every Steven Erikson character. Man, that guy has his characters doing more talking than doing, in the middle of freaking battles for goodness sake!!!).
To end, I really enjoyed this book. A lot. In fact, I plan on buying it in hardcover, I enjoyed it so much. How don't know how much more of an endorsement I can give a book. * grin *
★★★★ ½ show less
Title: Dancer's Lament
Series: Malaz: Path to Ascendancy #1
Author: Ian Esslemont
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 418
Format: Hardcover
Synopsis:
Before there was Cotillion and Kellanved, there was Dorin Rav and Wu. Taking place in the city of Li Heng, this is the story of how they became partners.
The plot of the book, however, is how the city of Li Heng survived a besiegement by a jumped up king who thought he was somebody. The 4 show more mages of the city, under the direction of the Protectress (a tiste liosan) end up confining Ryllandaras, the man-jackal in a magical prison. The Itko Kan'ians, the besiegers, have the help of a Jaghut and it takes the Protectress unleasing the full might of her Warren of Light to drive back the besiegers.
Wu, and Dorin, have plans to take over the city during the turmoil but they simply aren't strong enough and end up being exiled from the city. But now they are partners and can begin working together.
My Thoughts:
Finally. A Malazan book that I can simply sit down and read straight through and enjoy fully without feeling like I'm juggling 3 different 5000 piece puzzles all mixed together. You have no idea how much that upped my enjoyment of this book.
I think Esslemont showed his true colors with this book. He is a good standard fantasy writing kind of guy. His Malazan Empire novels felt very much like he was trying to copy Steven Erikson's style and it just didn't work for me. But this? Besides Gardens of the Moon, this was the most enjoyable Malazan book that I've read. Now I am really looking forward to the rest of the trilogy.
In the Malazan books, Cotillion/Dancer and Kellanved were shadow'y characters doing things behind the scenes and never being fully fleshed out. Even when they were supposed to be main characters, they were actually hiding and felt like side characters. This time, they were simply people. It was refreshing.
There were lots of hints and little asides from other Malazan characters, so if you're one of the Book of the Fallen fanboys who who loves unlocking a ton of meaning from 2 sentence fragments, you'll still have something to chew on with this book. The rest of us can simply sit back and enjoy the story.
In Esslemont's The Return of the Crimson Guard the malazan army unleashed Ryllandaras and in this book we see how, and why, he was confined. It was nice to make a clear cut connection between one book and the other instead of having to guess and speculate and turn my brain into 77 pretzels to make my pet theory fit.
Another aspect of this that I enjoyed was the lack of Existential Despair philosophy. Everybody was NOT whining about how meaningless their lives were. In fact, they acted like real people and didn't even think about that. Dorin and Wu had to survive, plan how to take over a newly discovered Warren of Shadow and see if they could take over the city. Not much time to sit on their fat asses and complain about how hard they have it (unlike almost every Steven Erikson character. Man, that guy has his characters doing more talking than doing, in the middle of freaking battles for goodness sake!!!).
To end, I really enjoyed this book. A lot. In fact, I plan on buying it in hardcover, I enjoyed it so much. How don't know how much more of an endorsement I can give a book. * grin *
★★★★ ½ show less
This is a complement. I am blown away by how normal this books is.
All Malazan books are a bit of a mess. I love Malazan books, but these aren't Sanderson or anything. They are labyrinthine, complex, confusing, and other adjectives. Point is, trying to get to the "point" or "soul" or "heart" of these books is anywhere from a chore to a piece of vector calculus. ICE continued the trend, most notable in Return of the Crimson guard a book that will forever haunt me in its apparent pointlessness when isolated from it's greater universe.
This book (and series, I'll assume for now) triumphantly bucks this trend, with a focused plot, singular main character, and most importantly, clear and simple emotional stakes. I get what all of the major show more characters are trying to do, and why they aren't doing it. Again, the previous Malazan books (barring a few) didn't have this, and that's fine for them, but what a breath of fresh air it is.
I like this change of pace. show less
All Malazan books are a bit of a mess. I love Malazan books, but these aren't Sanderson or anything. They are labyrinthine, complex, confusing, and other adjectives. Point is, trying to get to the "point" or "soul" or "heart" of these books is anywhere from a chore to a piece of vector calculus. ICE continued the trend, most notable in Return of the Crimson guard a book that will forever haunt me in its apparent pointlessness when isolated from it's greater universe.
This book (and series, I'll assume for now) triumphantly bucks this trend, with a focused plot, singular main character, and most importantly, clear and simple emotional stakes. I get what all of the major show more characters are trying to do, and why they aren't doing it. Again, the previous Malazan books (barring a few) didn't have this, and that's fine for them, but what a breath of fresh air it is.
I like this change of pace. show less
This is a great change of pace from the MBotF series, picked a plot and as a reader was easy to follow.
Character cast was diverse, even the characters I didn't like reading from their POV never overstayed their welcome, everything came together nicely with all the characters doing their separate storylines and ebbed and flowed, paths sometimes crisscrossing. Sometimes I felt the writing and punctuation choice was strange, or there were parts missing from some decisions being made, but overall I enjoyed this read. If you like your fantasy to be more robust with knife cuts, rash choices and sudden consequences then you can't go wrong here. It is less focused on "magic" per se, but is a good entry point if you like many others feel daunted show more by MBotF, or just don't have that investment. Dancer reads like a brash, fast acting teen-20 something, and he consistently stays that way. Driven by a moral code beholden to himself, he is a likeable assassin trying to make a name for himself in a new city. With mages and commoners whose motivations are hidden from him, he blindly moves through a large roving conflict with the confidence of an A list actor on a subway commercial set. You will chew through this book.
3.5 for me means it's fun, it's good, and I would recommend to someone who likes this genre, I would even recommend it to people not interested in MBotF series. It is lighter, reads faster, has a lot of action, and is generally a good romp.
If you are looking for an intricate explained magic system, cut throat political maneuvers and such I wouldn't start here. If you are however in the mood for action and movement in a story, something that reads fast and doesn't over explain, then this would be great for you. No knowledge of how the magic works is needed, but it would help if you did some wiki searching to make things more understandable. show less
Character cast was diverse, even the characters I didn't like reading from their POV never overstayed their welcome, everything came together nicely with all the characters doing their separate storylines and ebbed and flowed, paths sometimes crisscrossing. Sometimes I felt the writing and punctuation choice was strange, or there were parts missing from some decisions being made, but overall I enjoyed this read. If you like your fantasy to be more robust with knife cuts, rash choices and sudden consequences then you can't go wrong here. It is less focused on "magic" per se, but is a good entry point if you like many others feel daunted show more by MBotF, or just don't have that investment. Dancer reads like a brash, fast acting teen-20 something, and he consistently stays that way. Driven by a moral code beholden to himself, he is a likeable assassin trying to make a name for himself in a new city. With mages and commoners whose motivations are hidden from him, he blindly moves through a large roving conflict with the confidence of an A list actor on a subway commercial set. You will chew through this book.
3.5 for me means it's fun, it's good, and I would recommend to someone who likes this genre, I would even recommend it to people not interested in MBotF series. It is lighter, reads faster, has a lot of action, and is generally a good romp.
If you are looking for an intricate explained magic system, cut throat political maneuvers and such I wouldn't start here. If you are however in the mood for action and movement in a story, something that reads fast and doesn't over explain, then this would be great for you. No knowledge of how the magic works is needed, but it would help if you did some wiki searching to make things more understandable. show less
Wonderful addition to the World of Malaz. A look at Dancer and Kellanved before they become their awesomeness. Laugh out loud funny with Dancer's frustrations with the budding mage he finds himself saddled with as a partner.
This is a complement. I am blown away by how normal this books is.
All Malazan books are a bit of a mess. I love Malazan books, but these aren't Sanderson or anything. They are labyrinthine, complex, confusing, and other adjectives. Point is, trying to get to the "point" or "soul" or "heart" of these books is anywhere from a chore to a piece of vector calculus. ICE continued the trend, most notable in Return of the Crimson guard a book that will forever haunt me in its apparent pointlessness when isolated from it's greater universe.
This book (and series, I'll assume for now) triumphantly bucks this trend, with a focused plot, singular main character, and most importantly, clear and simple emotional stakes. I get what all of the major show more characters are trying to do, and why they aren't doing it. Again, the previous Malazan books (barring a few) didn't have this, and that's fine for them, but what a breath of fresh air it is.
I like this change of pace. show less
All Malazan books are a bit of a mess. I love Malazan books, but these aren't Sanderson or anything. They are labyrinthine, complex, confusing, and other adjectives. Point is, trying to get to the "point" or "soul" or "heart" of these books is anywhere from a chore to a piece of vector calculus. ICE continued the trend, most notable in Return of the Crimson guard a book that will forever haunt me in its apparent pointlessness when isolated from it's greater universe.
This book (and series, I'll assume for now) triumphantly bucks this trend, with a focused plot, singular main character, and most importantly, clear and simple emotional stakes. I get what all of the major show more characters are trying to do, and why they aren't doing it. Again, the previous Malazan books (barring a few) didn't have this, and that's fine for them, but what a breath of fresh air it is.
I like this change of pace. show less
This is a complement. I am blown away by how normal this books is.
All Malazan books are a bit of a mess. I love Malazan books, but these aren't Sanderson or anything. They are labyrinthine, complex, confusing, and other adjectives. Point is, trying to get to the "point" or "soul" or "heart" of these books is anywhere from a chore to a piece of vector calculus. ICE continued the trend, most notable in Return of the Crimson guard a book that will forever haunt me in its apparent pointlessness when isolated from it's greater universe.
This book (and series, I'll assume for now) triumphantly bucks this trend, with a focused plot, singular main character, and most importantly, clear and simple emotional stakes. I get what all of the major show more characters are trying to do, and why they aren't doing it. Again, the previous Malazan books (barring a few) didn't have this, and that's fine for them, but what a breath of fresh air it is.
I like this change of pace. show less
All Malazan books are a bit of a mess. I love Malazan books, but these aren't Sanderson or anything. They are labyrinthine, complex, confusing, and other adjectives. Point is, trying to get to the "point" or "soul" or "heart" of these books is anywhere from a chore to a piece of vector calculus. ICE continued the trend, most notable in Return of the Crimson guard a book that will forever haunt me in its apparent pointlessness when isolated from it's greater universe.
This book (and series, I'll assume for now) triumphantly bucks this trend, with a focused plot, singular main character, and most importantly, clear and simple emotional stakes. I get what all of the major show more characters are trying to do, and why they aren't doing it. Again, the previous Malazan books (barring a few) didn't have this, and that's fine for them, but what a breath of fresh air it is.
I like this change of pace. show less
This was really, really good. It was my first ICE book from the Malazan world, and I jumped in here because I was a bit daunted by continuing with Toll the Hounds (despite absolutely loving the ending to Reaper's Gale). We mostly follow Dorin, probably more famous by his other moniker - Dancer. He's got a great voice, and the book is a lot faster paced than Erikson's Malazan books. There is less philosophical pondering and banter between characters but this doesn't mean they aren't well developed.
Definitely recommended to everyone who wanted to get into Malazan but found Gardens of the Moon hard to get into.
Definitely recommended to everyone who wanted to get into Malazan but found Gardens of the Moon hard to get into.
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- Canonical title
- Dancer's Lament
- Original publication date
- 2016-02-25
- Dedication
- For Gerri and the boys
- First words
- The prize was his and none would rob him of it.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)So did she vow.
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- 15
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- (4.09)
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