Product Description

It is said that Hood waits at the end of every plot, every scheme, each grandiose ambition. But this time it is different: this time the Lord of Death is there at the beginning...Darujhistan swelters in the summer heat and seethes with portents, rumours and whispers. Strangers have arrived, a murderer is abroad, past-tyrannies are stirring and assassins seem to be targeting the owners of K'rul's Bar. For the rotund, waistcoat-clad man knows such events will be dwarfed by what is about to happen: for in the distance can be heard the baying of hounds. Far away, in Black Coral, the ruling Tiste Andii appear oblivious to the threat posed by the fast-growing cult of the Redeemer - an honourable, one-mortal man who seems powerless against the twisted vision of his followers. So Hood waits at the beginning of a conspiracy that will shake the cosmos, but at its end there is another: Anomander Rake, Son of Darkness, has come to right an ancient and terrible wrong...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6033 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-09
• Binding: Paperback
• 1296 pages

From the Inside Flap
It is said that Hood, Lord of Death, gathered unto himself a host of gods, in a place beyond the reach of mortals. It is said that Hood waits at the end of every plot, every scheme, each grandiose ambition. But this time it is different. This time he’s there at the beginning…

Darujhistan swelters in the summer heat and seethes with dire portents, unsettling rumours and insidious whispers. Strangers have arrived, a murderer is at work, and past tyrannies might be reawakening. The retired Bridgeburners of K’rul’s Bar have been singled out by the city's assassins with deadly consequences, and a small, rotund, red-waistcoat-clad man, while dismayed by his expanding girth, knows that this is the very least of his worries. For somewhere in the distance can be heard the baying of hounds.

And far away in Black Coral, the Tiste Andii rule with seeming indifference. At a massive barrow outside the city, thousands gather – adherents to the cult of the Redeemer, a once-mortal man whose virtue and honour seem defenceless against the twisted ambitions of his followers.
So, as Hood stands at the beginning of a conspiracy that will shake the cosmos, at its end, there waits another. For Anomander Rake, Son of Darkness, the time has come to right an ancient and terrible wrong …

With this epic new chapter, Steven Erikson’s awesome fantasy adventure enters its final, climactic stages.

From the Back Cover
The awesome, epic fantasy enters its final, climactic stages…
It is said that Hood waits at the end of every plot, every scheme, each grandiose ambition. But this time it is different: this time the Lord of Death is there at the beginning…
Darujhistan swelters and seethes with portents, rumours and whispers. Strangers have arrived, a murderer is abroad and assassins are targeting the owners of K’rul’s Bar. But such events will be dwarfed by what is about to happen - for in the distance can be heard the baying of hounds.
And in distant Black Coral, the ruling Tiste Andii appear oblivious to the threat posed by the cult of the Redeemer – an honourable, once-mortal man who seems powerless against the twisted vision of his followers.
So Hood stands at the beginning of a conspiracy that will shake the cosmos, but at its end there waits another: Anomander Rake, Son of Darkness, who is come to right a ancient and terrible wrong…

About the Author
A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, archaeologist and anthropologist Steven Erikson lives in Victoria, British Columbia. His debut fantasy novel, Gardens of the Moon, marked the opening chapter in the epic 'Malazan Book of the Fallen' sequence, which has been hailed as one of the most significant works of fantasy of this millennium. To find out more, visit www.malazanempire.com

Customer Reviews

Toll the Hounds
An exhaustive review for this has already been given, so I'm just going share a few of my thoughts.

For me, this is the best book yet in the Malazan Book of the Fallen. It is certainly the most intricate so far with more characters and happenings than ever (at least it seems that way). It moves along through the first three parts at a fairly sedate pace laying the ground for an earth shattering final part. As mentioned in another review, at times in this book Erikson adopts a different writing style, in which he is actually speaking to you of the events occuring at the time. It's pretty much exclusive to the goings on in Darujhistan, and I rather enjoyed it, though I don't expect we'll be seeing it again. The book is filled with a sense of melancholy (a result of the focus given to the Tiste Andii and an unloved child called Harllo), and it gets downright tearful in places. Comic relief is provided by the incomparable Iskaral Pust, and, of course, Kruppe.

I loved this book and cannot wait for the concluding volumes.

Slow-paced, but funny and thematically well-developed.
Another year, another book in Steven Erikson's enormous Malazan Book of the Fallen series. Toll the Hounds is the eighth (of ten) novel in the series, but given that the final two books are one immense story split in half for length, it is also the penultimate chapter of this series.

The continent of Genabackis, two years (or so) after the war between the Pannion Domin and an alliance between the Tiste Andii under Anomander Rake, the mercenary companies under Caladan Brood and a Malazan army under Whiskeyjack and Dujek Onearm. In that war half a dozen major cities and the floating fortress of Moon's Spawn were destroyed, and the final Pannion refuge in the city of Coral was devastated and occupied by the Tiste Andii. The city is now cloaked in endless night and known as Black Coral. The shattered remnants of the Bridgeburners - Mallet, Spindle, Picker, Bluepearl, Blend and Antsy - have settled in Darujhistan to run a bar whilst a shadowy group of mages awaits the long-prophecised coming of a Tyrant who will conquer it. From the west Cutter, once a Daru thief named Crokus, is returning home with a motley crew of adventurers from across the world, whilst in the south of the continent three separate groups of travellers have arrived on missions of their own. In night-shrouded Coral, Anomander Rake broods and his sword, Dragnipur, drinker of souls, becomes restless...

Toll the Hounds takes us back to where the series began in Gardens of the Moon nine years ago, Darujhistan of the blue fires, and it is with a tremendous sense of nostalgia that reader is reunited with many favourite characters from that novel and Memories of Ice, not to mention a few more familiar faces as well (some of whom get spectacular entrances). This time around the novel is not as packed with dizzying revelations and huge battles as the previous three volumes in the series, but rather than take this opportunity to shave off a few hundred pages from the book, Erikson instead takes advantage of this to paint the city of Darujhistan in much greater depth and detail than any other city in the series, moving between numerous 'lesser' POVs among the common folk of the city and events both huge and mundane in their lives. As a result Toll the Hounds is much slower-paced than any other book in the series. To a certain extent this may invite the reader to groan, but Erikson compensates for the lack of incident with deeper characterisation and motivation than ever before.

Toll the Hounds is also the Malazan series' most thematically-developed and tightest novel, with notions of family, responsibility and the role of desire all coming in for examination. Unfortunately, Erikson hasn't lost or scaled back on his tendency to have ordinary commoners spouting out philosophical arguments like Proust, but this late in the day the average reader of this series will be prepared for it. To make up for this Toll the Hounds is the funniest book in the series by some margin and, oddly given his much greater presence in the prose style (Kruppe is recounting the narrative to two other characters, and most chapters in the book open and close with Kruppe's short commentary on the events), the divisive character of Kruppe is kept to the background and only comes to the fore in a few short, memorable scenes.

As usual, events build to a huge finale and whilst the scale of those events is not in the line of the vast battles in Reaper's Gale or Memories of Ice, the significance of these events is much greater, and the stakes are definitely raised higher as the final two volumes of the series approach. Excellent humour and some major deaths and some huge revelations make Toll the Hounds essential reading for fans of the series, and if Erikson fails to overcome his standard faults, at least he doesn't exasperate them or introduce new ones with one notable exception: the timeline, which has been very problematic on occasion, is completely shot to hell in this book with several characters appearing who are much older than they should be.

Toll the Hounds (****) is available now in the UK from Bantam Books. Tor will publish the US edition in September. Ian Cameron Esslemont's second Malazan novel, Return of the Crimson Guard, which sets several characters up for the events in this book, is published in August in the UK (no US date set as yet). The ninth novel in the series, Dust of Dreams, should be published in approximately one year's time.

A book of two halves
In the middle of another re-read of the Malazan series, I have just finished 'Toll the Hounds' and simply have to write about it.

Yes, this is definitely a book of two halves for me. The first halve for want of a better word is boring. The pace feels slow, the action lame and the characters at the centre of things don't stir me the way those from previous books have done. That's the bad news.

Enter the second half of the book. From the very bottom of Malazan reading experience to the very top over the space of a handful of pages. A tour de force of writing excellence containing story line drama of hitherto unimagined proportion. The most intricate weaving of separate threads into one found anywhere in this series so far. It reeled me in, hand over fist and at the end of it, I came out feeling I had just left an emotional roller coaster ride. The constant change of scenery in the final chapters, commented upon by some as undesirable, is a plus in my opinion. It gave me a real sense of all the events happening almost simultaneously and instilled a dreadful certainty that a hiccup in any one would have a devastating knock-on effect on all others.

If you are following the Malazan series, don't be put off by the mixed reviews. My guess is that people got so caught up in the lame first half that they were unable to appreciate just how much is happening in the second one. Having read 'Dust of Dreams', the next one in the series, and after my re-read of the rest, I am beginning to see how 'Toll the Hounds' fits into the overall story arch and it is plain that the events described will be vital to the understanding of the final book. As is Erikson's style, this one, too, is peppered with throw away comments and observations that will come back to haunt the reader. Yes, the first half is slow but why mind a starter of stale breadcrumbs when the main course full fills every desire of your palate.

If you have not yet read any of the Malazan books, than whatever you do, start with book one 'Gardens of the Moon' and none other. This book really won't mean much to you without some pre-knowledge. The Malazan series is ideal for people that like a re-read or those with pretty good recall. The author does not coddle his readers. Yes, there are obvious big events and immediately recognisable 'light bulb moments', but the series has more of an undercurrent than the Bristol Channel and half the fun is to spot them before a later event points them out.

Four stars because the one for the first half is set off by the second half deserving a five star plus rating.