Steven Erikson, The Crippled God (Spoilers) [Library of Babel]

OK, having spoken vaguely about The Crippled God, here’s a post for spoiler-y comments about the book and the series as a whole. If you haven’t read it, but think you might, save this post for reading after you’re done.

SPOILERS:

There’s a bit early in the book (too far back for me to find now) where somebody says of Shadowthrone and Cotillion that they became gods because it seemed like the next logical step after conquering a vast empire. Once they were gods, though, and saw how the world worked, they decided they didn’t like it, and set out to fix things.

That’s kind of the core of the whole series: people associated with the Malazan Empire seeing things that offend their sense of right and wrong, and setting out to fix them. The war on the Pannions, the conquest of Lether, the mad quest to free the Crippled God– all of those are fundamentally about righting wrongs.

It does raise a question of timing, though– that is, in the first book or so, it seems like Shadowthrone and Cotillion (especially the latter) are just messing around with the Malazan Empire to keep their hand in, as it were. It’s only later in the series that the overall plot becomes clear, and in the last volume, we see that they’ve been manipulating everyone to get to the ending.

The bit in the Epilogue where they drop in to watch Crokus reunite with Apsalar, which is a callback to the very start of the books, seems to suggest that we’re supposed to see the whole thing as a coherent whole. It’s still kind of hard to fit the first book in with the rest, though. Or maybe it’s just Cotillion wanting to right the wrong he did to Apsalar way back when. I’m not quite sure what to make of that.

I’m not entirely convinced that the Shake/ Tiste Andii plot fits well with the rest of the book, awesome though some of the fight scenes are. There’s some great stuff in there, but it doesn’t have an obvious connection to the rest of the action.

There’s also a bit of a tone shift here from earlier books, in which the Crippled God seemed to be fairly unambiguously evil. Now, suddenly, his fate is an old wrong to be righted, and he’s actually somewhat sympathetic in the final sequence at the barrow. this makes a certain amount of sense, but also makes it a little difficult to understand what was going on earlier.

I think the idea is that, being bound and in pain, the Crippled God was just lashing out at everyone and everything. His various earlier machinations (with the Pannions and the Tiste Edur and the rest) were possibly attempts to free himself, but not connected to the overall Shadowthrone/ Cotillion plot to save everything. The Malazans broke up those earlier schemes (which would’ve greatly increased the misery of the world) in favor of doing the whole thing properly.

The members of the Shadowthrone/ Cotillion divine conspiracy would thus be Shadowthrone, Cotillion, K’Rul, Anomander Rake, Mael, and… Fener? I think that may be it, assuming that the Crippled God wasn’t directly involved.

On the whole, Shadowthrone and Cotillion seem to have managed to clear up most of the major threats facing the world: The Forkrul Assail were basically wiped out, the Otataral Dragon has been imprisoned in a new and more secure place, the Eleint were badly damaged in the fight, the Crippled God has been sent home and stopped poisoning the warrens. Sorcery remains intact, but the major entities working for mass extinctions have been wiped out.

There are some loose ends and bits that I missed, though:

— What happened to Draconus? He obviously acceded to the request not to get involved with the big concluding fight, and he sent Ublala Pung to become Icarium’s new keeper, but where did he go? It seems he’s still running around loose.

— The Eleint were badly damaged in the fight with the Otataral Dragon, but not wiped out. Does this mean that scads of dragons have now been loosed upon the world?

— Did Errastas get what he had coming, and I missed it, or is he still running around cackling madly?

— What was the task Whiskeyjack had for the surviving Bridgeburners in Darujhistan? There’s a mystical experience scene, but I don’t recall seeing what they did to further the main plot.

— What’s the deal with Mael and the Beddicts, anyway?

On the whole, I liked it quite a bit. Erikson might’ve slightly overindulged his romantic side with some of the ending– the resurrection of Hetan seemed a bit much, maybe– but I liked seeing Fiddler get his peaceful retirement. There are a number of minor plots left unresolved, but some of those are clearly set-ups for future books– Esslemont is supposed to be working on one about Darujhistan, and I think some more Karsa Orlong books have been hinted at (about which: meh. He’s not my favorite character, by a long shot.). And it’s fine to have a few “life goes on” elements around, given that the main threads were tied up so neatly.

Anyway, that’s the stuff that immediately comes to mind. If you’ve read it, and have additional comments, you know what to do.

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