Product Description

In the vast dominion of Seven Cities, in the holly desert of Raraku, the seer Sha'ik and her followers prepare for the long-prophesied uprising named the Whirlwind. Unprecedented in its size and savagery, this maelstrom of fanaticism and bloodlust will embroil the whole Malazan Empire.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8632 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 959 pages

Customer Reviews

This series just keeps getting better and better . . .
I discovered Erikson when a friend handed me his first book and said "You'll like him. He out-Black-Company's Glenn Cook." I devoured Gardens of The Moon in 3 days and waited until I could get the paperback of Deadhouse Gates. As in Gardens, Erikson weaves the stories of several compelling characters, including our old friends Crokus, Sorry, and Fiddler, as well as people only mentioned in passing from Gardens, like Captain Param's sisters . . . Unlike most military fantasy authors, Erikson understands that it's the characters that drive a story. And he spins a great one here.
I own 2 copies each of his books--one for me and one to lend. I just wish he was widely available here in the US.

Think of the Deadhouse Gates : Think on Death
Another epic escapade into the world of the Fallen.

This is no Tolkien vision of sweeping glades and smiling elder faces, this is a brooding, brutal and ultimately savage work of fantasy. Really, you can't help but love it.

The question that seems to lie at the heart of so many of the characters is: 'What is preferable, to fall so far that no remnants of your other self are left or to have died innocent, unfallen.'

Battles are fought, wars are waged, yet no distinction is made between the foes. Both are fighting for noble values, both are "good" and yet both have the capacity for evil. Something I've never come across in a fantasy novel before & depending upon your take on originality, a brilliant concept.

Even Better Than the First Book
The first book in this series, Gardens of the Moon, was a gloriously complex, action-packed romp of a novel, with a huge cast of entertaining, well-drawn characters and an absolute refusal to bown down to genre cliches or expectations. Book 2, Deadhouse Gates, continues many of these ideals in an admirable fashion. We're wrenched halfway around the world to the continent of Seven Cities, which is about to rise up against the Malazan Empire. A totally new cast is introduced, although a few minor players from Book 1 soon arrive to provide a bridge to the first book. There are three main plots developing in tandem: Felisin Paran's escape from slavery, General Coltaine's epic march across the continent and a plot to assassinate the Malazan Empress. The Coltaine storyline is the heart of the novel and is truly horrific at times, and the conclusion is truly gut-wrenching (the reader is as angry as the characters are at the heartless betrayal that ends the novel, and the poetic justice which rewards it is sweet). Deadhouse Gates is much darker and even more complex than the first book. It reads well as a stand-alone novel, though I recommend you read the first one as it's a slightly gentler introduction to the world. Book 2 is also clever in that many events take place simultaneously with Book 3, providing a link to that novel. Superb.