A fantastic prequel

The narration started out a bit jarring, but improved quickly. the story is amazing throughout

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One of the best books I’ve ever read

This might be one of the best books I’ve ever read, at least top 10. I love the rest of the Malazan series, especially Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen, but I felt that this novel was his best so far. It was almost flawless, and it will stay with me a long time. Especially some of the events at the end of the second act, really did sink into me, for better or worse. I highly recommend this novel!

Unfortunately, I do not recommend the narrator. He did an ok job, but overall was nothing special. He mis-spoke wrong words a lot (I often read the novel in conjunction with the audiobook), and a lot of his voices just didn’t do it for me. I’m glad they changed the narrator for the second novel.

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The continuing struggles of the Tiste Andii

This is a story about families. We find teenage angst; foster families; dynastic struggles, teachers, mentors, and servants. But it's all set in the ancient background of the Malazan Empire, so it's much more than mere drama. There's wizardry, military maneuvers, assassinations, and many different species. Some of whom form mixed families.

And of course it's continued...

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Bombastic phd philosophy lecture in bs

This has the potential to be such a compelling story! When the author chooses to actually engage in some world building or action the scenes are very compelling and he can really bring characters to life. Unfortunately, there are only 3 such scenes in the whole book and the remainder of the book is exploring, in detail, each and every characters philosophy on life. each character you meet will give you a 45 minute lecture on how they think the philosophy of politic, ethics, and existence affect their second cousin’s parent’s dog attitude to the divine. Having trouble following what I’m saying? Yeah buckle in, that is literally the whole book cover-cover.

I must say there is something kind of neat about a book being written with language that is at a very high level, but this is wasted on pretentious tedtalks and confuses the story. Unless you are a diehard fan, go spend your credit somewhere else.

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Disappointing Philosophy-heavy Soap Opera

I am a tremendous fan of the fascinating reality created by Ian C. Esselmont and Steven Erikson - involving multiple species, intuitive magic, a sweeping history, and a pantheon of involved Gods and Ascendant Mortals. The concept of "Warrens" (parallel universes populated by unique denizens & powers) ensures a limitless ever-changing matrix around which to build stories. Of the two creating authors, Erickson is the better writer, imo - but in this entry he largely abandons the action-adventure/military and continously expanding reality elements that made 'The Malazan Book Of The Fallen' series so captivating. He concentrates rather on social commentary, political machinations, intrafamilial ambitions, and love triangles to explore conflicts within a single realm: Kurald Galain (The Warren of Darkness). Individuals like Anomander Rake (and his brothers), Draconus (and his children), and Mother Dark figure prominently in the narrative, but the result is essentially an interesting but uninspired 'Historical Fiction' drama surrounding a brewing Civil War. Erikson's goal of incorporating "Shakespearian" poetic language into the storytelling confuses the issue further.

Reader Daniel Philpott does his best to interpret Erikson's intentions - and does a very good job of it - but falls juuuust short. His professional diction, comfortable timbre & cadence, and creditable voice-acting show that he was a good casting choice from Brilliance Audio Inc. - but his tone includes a tendency to overdramatics at times and evident boredom at others.

I rate 'Forge Of Darkness' 5 stars out of 10. The Tiste history is interesting but too cerebral.. and the book is preoccupied with contemplation, rhetoric/dialectics, and delivery considerations. Hopefully, Book Two in the trilogy ('Fall Of Light') is more entertaining. This book is just good enough for me to continue with the 'Kharkanas' tale.

[ATTN PRODUCERS: An attached PDF with a map of Kurald Galain and a genealogy of Houses and Holds would improve this product immeasurably (the online 'Malazan Wiki' was almost mandatory to have on hand while reading the book)]

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Time to put Malazan to bed

While still engaging, the quality of the story is significantly lower than the main Malazan saga. Too much meandering attempts on philosophy- but in a very repetitive, redundant way- and far too much melodrama.

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Not what you were expecting

Hated it. Gave up halfway through. If you were expecting more Malazan Book of the Fallen, this isn't it. It's a prequel that takes place many hundreds of years before the Malazan Empire. Familiar characters are there (the sem-immortal ones) but their personalities are not familiar. I suppose they changed over the time span between the two series but the culture is still the exact same feudal society in both time periods.
The narrator is skilled, but a lot of the time he seems to be doing Shakespeare between bouts of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I expected one character to ask another about his favorite color. This may be the fault of the writing trying to emulate Elizabethan English to show that this is a more primitive age than that of the Malazans. But while the Malazan books were full of humor and wonderful comic characters, this one is dead serious. This is fatal because the events depicted are grim even for Erikson, and without the comic relief of the first books it's a difficult read.
The worst sin though is the lack of sympathetic characters I could actually care about. The book abounds with evil despicable people, interspersed with the deranged and the helpless. Then there are the endless internal monologues of gloating or resentful villains and the philosophical ramblings of far too many of the well meaning characters. Their concerns are those of our modern world and not those of a feudal society. What feudal society ever cared about deforestation or over fishing?
All of this blabbering fails to cover up the fact that the plot is paper thin and could be summarized in a few paragraphs. But Erikson still manages to cram so many characters into this clown car that I still don't know who half of them are.
Color me deeply disappointed. Skip this series. It'll be a miracle if he even finishes the trilogy.

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