Malazan is a Shakespearean Tragedy | Midnight Tides Review (11 mins no spoilers)

Welcome back to your irregularly scheduled Malazan content!

Previous Malazan reviews:

Chat with AP Canavan:

Other Malazan Videos:

Follow us on Goodreads:

We have a new discord with some fellow Booktubers of the Class of '23:

[Jabberwhorl_Cronstadt]

Tehol and Bugg ❤ I think the fact that the world of Malazan was forged in the tabletop RPG fires of friendship between two archeologists means that it's just in the DNA of Malazan that all duos are going to be super fun.
I think MT is when I finally realized that another level to Erikson's incredible range is that each book has a slightly different tone and style. It never gets boring reading these 10 very big books, because he's always changing it up and tweaking things in subtle ways to keep the writing interesting. In this case, he really cranked up the humor (to offset all that tragedy!)
Best Malazan reviews on YouTube, as always. Cheers!

[Chance.Dillon]

Bruh—damn what a great ending. His ability to use the first 70% and setting up the back 30 is unparalleled.

Emotionally I agree, tehol and Bugg just stepped it up. And the whole concept of who bugg is and how much joy tehol brought to him really made it so endearing.

Although we don’t know much about iron bars—and from what I hear won’t really (besides in esselmonts work) he shot up to be my favorite character.
It mostly had to do with the scene with the wraith and the pity they felt for his past. And then of course him facing off against 4 giant gods like it’s a minor inconvenience.

[Coleton]

Fantastic review, Carlos. This was the first Midnight Tides video I watched after finishing the book. I connect more to the Seven Cities stuff, so it's not one of my personal favorites when compared to my experience with other books in the series so far. Unpopular opinion I know, but DG and HoC worked for me the best. MT is still outstanding though and is better than most other things I've read in fantasy, and fiction in general. Tehol and Bugg are among my favorite characters in the series now, for sure. Love the quote you shared at the end. There are so many awesome characters, but two standouts for me were Shurq and Brys. Brys's ending was tragic. And I'm glad we'll be seeing Shurq again, maybe having some pirate adventures on the high seas! I'll be reading The Bonehunters in December, will probably close out the year with it. Malazan is the bomb.

[kevin.jenkins]

Great review, Carlos! Just one problem. Not one mention of Harlest Eberict?? HE JUST WANTS TO BE SCARY😭😭

[MattonBooks]

As usual mate, your enthusiasm alone would convince me to read it, if I hadn’t twice already. Great review, and such a pleasure to relive the book through your experience. 😀

[EricMcLuen]

You have these epic moments as well as incredibly intimate scenes.
Tehol has a lot of comic relief. However, much like Kruppe, there is often a lot righr below the surface.

[slidenaway]

YES! I'm so glad you loved this book properly. I'm not surprised, but I'm glad :)

Yes it's absolutely critical of capitalism. One of my favorite bits in that regard is the Drownings in Letheras. You know the phrase "drowning in debt, " of course. Well... this makes it LITERAL. The money you owe is strapped to your back in the hopes that it'll drown you. In WATER. Talk about a metaphor made real... I love it so much.

**SPECIFIC SPOILERS FOR THIS BOOK**

-
-
-

Regarding Seren and the rape: other commenters have said helpful stuff I agree with so I'll focus on something that hasn't been said: Erikson does a lot of mirroring/echoing, which I believe you've commented on in previous books. But it's series-wide, not just contained within each book. And rape is one of those things -- every time you see it happen, it's handled differently. And as usual, Erikson isn't saying "these ways of handling it are bad and these ways are good" -- he's simply presenting different options and it's up to us to judge as we will.

Fair warning, there are other instances of this coming in later books, and again it's extending the mirroring out further. More instances and more different ways of handling it. And of course that's not to say you have to like it -- you absolutely don't. Even if you understand multiple reasons for its inclusion, that doesn't mean you HAVE to think it's effective. BUT, I wanted to share some more reasoning for its inclusion, considering your (understandable) comment about thinking it was just unnecessary.

But anyway, there's so much great stuff in this book: Tehol/Bugg (and all the other funny shit with Shurq, Ublala, etc.), Trull being a sometimes-annoying-but-generally-standup-dude, the Crippled God really doing some evil shit to Rhulad, all the crazy magic stuff... it's so epic! And yet as you say, it comes down to a familial drama in the vein of a Shakespearean tragedy. Which was absolutely intentional, as you might have guessed -- Steve knew what he was doing lol

On to the Bonehunters!! Looking forward to how much you're gonna love that one :)

[SouravUldyssian]

Midnight Tides is really a great book, and like you said, its so self contained, and like a Shakespear tragedy while having some of the best humor. The throne room scene at the end is just chef's kiss.
Regarding Seren, and why her SA was there, it was firstly to show that she had almost given up on life at the time it happened, and probably just wanted oblivion, and she was at the wrong place at the wrong time. But this argument doesn't feel much compelling even to me. So the second one, which is to show how she coped with it, is imo a better option. When she tried to deal with that by forgetting it through magic, Corlo told that it will just not work, as you cannot get rid of trauma by forgetting it. So she confronted it, processed it (albeit faster through magic), and came to terms with it. It was to show that in a normal magicless world, this is one of the ways to deal with such trauma, by going through the process, dealing with the pain, and accepting that this has happened for no fault of one's own, and then trying to move on. It may or may not work for everyone, but this is probably one of the ways to deal with it.
Finally, before starting The Bonehunters, I would highly recommend to read Night of Knives before. You don't need to read any other Esslemont books before finishing the main series, but make an exception for this one, as its really short, and will help a lot while reading Bonehunters, with the extra context it provides. I have a more detailed write up on this, which I will tag you in the discord.

[drawyrral]

Malazan is the best medicine for what ails you. I've read it 3 times and it just gets better.

[tightyellowshorts]

Midnight Tides may be my fav book in this series!

[salomealhusami]

I'm new to your channel, and, as always, I'm so damn happy that a BookTuber is reading Malazan! Looking forward to your review of The Bonehunters!

[farhancheema]

This book is one of my favourites in the series.

SE has mentioned several times that his work is not escapism as sometimes fantasy tends to be. He is exploring our world through this fictional one.

I definitely agree that these books make you think a lot about the conversations you have with people on a daily basis and theyve helped me become a more introspective person.

This ties in with the SA as well. I think the reason behind including it may be more centred around our world rather than the fictional one but I definitely agree that it does feel kind of jarring especially given the fact that it happens so much more to female characters in what is supposed to be a world without sexism.

Your comments on the books are amazing and I look forward to your thoughts on the remaining books!!

[storky]

Ayyyyeeee my man! Honestly for me this one surpassed Memories of Ice which I didn't think could ever happen but this book just has everything I could ever want in an epic fantasy

[parcaleste]

I'll give you a tip about "Return of the Crimson Guard" by Esslemont (NO spoilers): if you want to know what exactly happens to Laseen, you need to read this book (story wise chronologically right after "Reaper's Gale"). Otherwise it's just mentioned for the rest of the Erikson's books. I'd say it's the one book outside of the og series that you actually need to read and is not a side story. But you have two more books to read to get there. Just keep it in mind: might be a bit irritating to wonder about some, well, important stuff. RotCG can also come to you as a "break" from Erikson's higher and heavier style, which the next two books will evolve even more into. 🍺

[LG-jnfx]

There are many series that have tragic heroes but how many have tragic villians ? You need to wait to see how this plays out

When I first read this book I did not like it as much as Memories of Ice but I now think it is the best single entry into the 10 big books. It is a perfect single entry, can it be read outside the overall series?

Dude, you are made for this. Please do not stop what you are doing. Brilliant communication and empathy for the characters.

[thatsci-firogue]

While not my favourite setting or cast of characters in the series (more of a 7 Cities guy), as its own story this is my favourite book in the series. Great review as always, Carlos. Now onto Bonehunters, my 2nd favourite in the series.

[Chance.Dillon]

You’re a badass for powering through these reads despite life coming in and taking you on.

I have 300 pages left, I’m finishing the back half of your non spoiler review, and in a couple days I’ll be back to talk more about what I thought of the end of the book. Up to this point, Iron Bars=badass. And I’m loving how much more expansive the entire world has gotten.

The themes of course, bar none peering through straight at us as we read. Brb!

[tannersturgeon]

Tehol and Bugg bring me great joy. Also really enjoyed the high tragedy of this book. Absolutely brilliant book and review my friend

[dlasis]

During my read-along with others last year, we were slightly convinced that Midnight Tides could be the entry point to Malazan.

Lether as a continent has been frozen by the Jaghut in the Prologue. As a result, the olden rules of magic, political and military structures have been preserved. It's like a mini reset of everything we know about the realm from the previous books. I love the info dump about Warrens in Chapter 21 by Iron Bars and Seren -- patience finally paid off.

In the end, Gardens of the Moon is still a great entry to Malazan.

[jadapandy]

Sorry for your loss. Glad you got a new job. Hope it's better for you. That's surely happened to me.