Reaper's Gale

Reviewing the Seventh Tale of the Malazan Book of the Fallen

Sep 11, 2007 Tyler Feltmate

With his series entering its final leg, Steven Erikson merges two major yet until-now separate plotlines, as Malazan and Letherii empires clash

Nearly crippled by unending wars of expansion, barely contained palace intrigue and power-struggles, a campaign of state-sponsored terror and an insidious act of national economic sabotage, the Letherii Empire stands ready to erupt into total chaos.

Now, into this maelstrom marches the Malazan 14th Army – The Bonehunters.

Yes, the Malazans have come to Lether, as renowned author Steven Erikson prepares to conclude the various storylines taking place in and around the capital city of Letheras. Thus far, the story of the Letherii Empire has been a prominent secondary plot in the series – the focus of two entire books – yet until now it has remained largely separate from the primary story that follows the actions of the Malazan armies and their various opponents.

A Blending of Tales

In Erikson’s usual style, Reaper’s Gale contains a number of individual plots that start out as separate and disconnected as possible and gradually merge as the climax nears.

To the west of the city of Letheras, Adjunct Tavore Paran and her Bonehunters arrive on the shores of the Letherii Empire, ready to give answer to previous Letherii assaults against Malazan holdings. To the east, a once-exiled leader of the nomadic Awl returns to his people in time to lead them against an encroaching Letherii army, while somewhere in the north, a small band of refugees led by the demigod Silchas Ruin flee Letherii pursuers as they search for a powerful artifact. Lastly, in Letheras itself, palace factions grow more brazen in their plays for power as the immortal Emperor continues to slide into madness, while the brutal Patriotists maintain their policy of torture without trial and widespread ‘disappearances’ in an effort to suppress a public riled by an alarming nation-wide shortage of hard currency.

Excluding that regarding the Bonehunters’ arrival, all of the subplots mentioned above stem from previous events recounted in Midnight Tides, book five of the series and one set wholly on the continent of Lether, completely separated from all previous storylines (taking place oceans away) and which introduced a host of new characters.

Some of those characters did make appearances in other volumes, but it is not until now, with Reaper’s Gale, that Erikson brings the tale started in Midnight Tides to a head.

With his two divergent-yet-related storylines united, one suspects that Erikson is beginning to set the stage for the Book of the Fallen’s final act, now but a mere three eight-hundred–page volumes away . . .

Heroes Almost More Lecter than Lancelot

As with his penchant for multi-plot storylines, another prominent feature of Erikson’s writing is his preference for heroes who do not look, act, sound or think as would the conventional ‘heroic’ character. The number of figures in Reaper’s Gale who fall into the ‘noble intentions, just actions’ category is small at the beginning, and has fallen well into the endangered-species range by the final chapter, while those who are of the barbaric, sadistic and gleefully sociopathic variety abound.

For example, on the one hand, you have individuals such as Tehol Beddict, a good-humoured, witty, perpetually optimistic financial genius who will hurl his homeland into fiscal chaos, readily causing untold death and destruction, in order to end the crippling Letherii policy of Indebtedness.

On the other, you have the Bonehunter marines, a pack of ruthless soldiers in the habit of decorating themselves with severed fingers and ears taken from defeated opponents, and who leave a carpet of hacked, quarrel-studded and exploded enemy dead in their wake as they carve a path toward Letheras.

Erikson has mastered the art of endearing such characters to his reader, despite their grisly appearances and/or dark intentions, and anyone with the stomach for strong violence and ubiquitous brooding narrative will find themselves cheering for even the most bloodthirsty and murderous of brutes by the final pages.

On a final note regarding the Bonehunters, devoted fans of the series will be happy to find that a great deal of effort has been put into defining and differentiating the soldiers; a set of individuals who were introduced pretty much en masse during the previous volume, which led to many of them remaining somewhat faceless and seemingly spawned of the cookie-cutter by the end of the sixth book.

For anyone who has followed the series from its outset, Reaper’s Gale will provide a welcome and unquestionably satisfying conclusion to a good many longstanding plots, both Letherii and Malazan, as it lays the groundwork for the impending finale of what has rightfully been dubbed one of fantasy-fiction’s most iconic modern works.

The copyright of the article Reaper's Gale in American Fiction is owned by Tyler Feltmate. Permission to republish Reaper's Gale in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Reaper's Gale, by Steven Erikson