House of Chains by Steven Erikson || Reading Vlog (Malazan Book of the Fallen)

[@kevin.jenkins]

Soooo glad you loved House of Chains! I also have it as my favorite of the first four. Can't wait to see you're Midnight Tides vlog--I genuinely think it might be a perfect book. It's the tightest 900 page book I've ever read and every part is interesting and fun, and it has some of the best characters in Malazan. Cheers!

[@RedFuryBooks]

I continue to hear great things about Midnight Tides and can't wait for it!

[@NerdyKathi]

Karsa fans unite! So glad you enjoyed House of Chains so much. It's one of my favourites as well. I really like the vlog format as you share your feelings on what you're reading. On to book 5, the halfway point.

[@RedFuryBooks]

I'm definitely excited for the series at this point!

[@Geekus.Girlus]

You are doing the right thing, just roll with it. If you ever do a re-read after finishing the series, your mind will be blown by the things you are sensing that you aren’t picking up now. 😊

[@RedFuryBooks]

I bet!

[@Johanna_reads]

Karsa > Rake = Witness!!! I loved House of Chains and am so glad you connected to this book so much! 💜

[@RedFuryBooks]

I now understand the "Witness" meme in the discord! lol

[@thegreatwaugh]

Great review!

[@RedFuryBooks]

Thanks!

[@stevehoran6011]

This video gives me hope for the Malazan series as I plan to begin it in 2025. The vlog is a great way to review the books of this series. Thank you, Josh

[@RedFuryBooks]

My only advice is take your time with it and just roll with it when you don't understand something. That's helped me a lot!

[@SouravUldyssian]

Loved your review and vlog. I too feel HOC to be a very consistent book and it doesn't have any negatives, even if it doesn't have the highs of the other books. Don't worry about not getting the macro picture, you are not supposed to get that at this point. Just enjoy each book as its own. Excited to see how you like Midnight Tides.

[@RedFuryBooks]

Thanks, Sourav, and glad to hear that not understanding the big picture at this stage is okay. I look forward to continuing for sure!

[@ToriTalks2]

Great vlog, Josh. I'm so glad that the series is working better for you now. :) I'm not sure where I'd put HoC in the four that I've read since I'm rereading them all right now. So it might end up differently, but I'd say it's my second favorite of the first four after Deadhouse Gates.

[@chadia25]

Great vlog!! Glad you liked it. ❤ Karsa is a unit. Witness!

[@RedFuryBooks]

Witness!

[@PaigeTheFramer]

Your experience so far is so similar to mine! I'm on my second read through of the series. I laughed out loud when you said you didn't like Carsa, but then came back, and your mind was changed. Same for me. I hated him! And then he became one of my favorites.

[@RedFuryBooks]

Yeah, Erikson really gave Karsa such a remarkable character arc!

[@PaigeTheFramer]

@RedFuryBooks I just laughed again, I listen to the books, so I didn't know the spelling of his name. Lol

[@RedFuryBooks]

@@PaigeTheFramer I have a friend that only listens to audiobooks, and we always get a chuckle when I spell a character correctly for her. I wish I had screenshot the way she spelled Nynaeve from The Wheel of Time! 😂

[@BooksWithBenghisKahn]

“Wanna check out the Esslemont books” let’s gooooooooo. Yeah if you loved House of Chains this much this series is def for you. Would highly recommend reading the short Night of Knives prequel before the Bonehunters, but otherwise I wouldn’t intersperse the rest of the Malazan Empire books cuz they’re really a separate series that broke up my momentum with MBotF in a major way. I can’t wait to try the Esslemont prequel series now though with the Path to Ascendancy. This was great fun for me to relive this book through your vlog - right with you on loving the Karsa POV here so much.

[@BooksWithBenghisKahn]

Also you def won’t have any real sense of the big picture coming together until the back half of the series, and even then the last book provides some big pieces of the puzzle though. You’re not far now from one of my favorite books of all time with the Bonehunters! Considering that you like the Seven Cities setting, I think that already bodes well for that one!

[@RedFuryBooks]

Thanks, Ben, I'm going to take this advice and read Night of Knives between Midnight Tides and the Bonehunters. And then save the rest of Esslemont's books until after the first 10. Thanks!

[@BooksWithBenghisKahn]

@@RedFuryBooks niiiiiice, and yeah Night of Knives was a great read for me in its own right but it really maximizes the experience of the Bonehunters since I’m certain Erikson had just read NoK before writing Bonehunters and included some stuff in direct conversation it.

[@IbbyMelbourne]

I haven't read Malazan yet, but i've always been incredibly curious and intimidated. Watching your journey through the series is fascinating, it seemed like something clicked in your recent reads

[@RedFuryBooks]

I think there is a bit of a learning curve with Malazan and I feel things started to click for me in that regard. Glad you're enjoying the vlogs!

[@slidenaway]

Quick comment as I start the video - I was one of the people who suggested you read some recaps of DG before going in. I appreciate you attempting to take my suggestion and of course I’m not offended it didn’t work for you!! What you said makes perfect sense and I’m glad you’re just doing what works for you. Will try to remember this going forward as you continue to read 😊😊

[@slidenaway]

Awesome vlog and great to see how much you loved it!! Your Malazan experience is wild to me lol. To be fair, you’re not the only person to like HoC best at this point, it’s unusual but not unheard of You ARE backwards on liking the Whirlwind camp more than Tavore’s army tho lol, that’s crazy. Again of course, that’s fine, it’s good you found it compelling! Not to invalidate your points about this being a better paced and written novel than the previous 3, but I do also wonder if you’re enjoying it more simply from getting more comfortable with the style. As you’ve seen, it’s pretty different from most fantasy, and for most people, requires a different mindset. So who knows, on a reread you might enjoy the earlier books more! Not that I’m pushing you to reread lol, don’t worry about that 😁 I’m interested to see how Memory Sorrow Thorn goes, that’s in my TBR. I think I bought the Humble Bundle some months back for Tad Williams, so I have all the ebooks. Maybe you’ll convince me to read it sooner!

[@RedFuryBooks]

Yeah, what a 180 for my Malazan experience! As for my Whirlwind camp thoughts, just be clearer, I just found them a lot more interesting to read about than what was happening with the Malazan army at the time. I wasn't on Team Whirlwind haha Your point about getting comfortable with the style is accurate; I know that's another contributing factor to my enjoying the series so much at this juncture.

[@slidenaway]

@ I appreciate the clarification on “liking the whirlwind better” - I meant what you just said, but worded it poorly. So it’s totally fair to clarify lol And yeah that’s good. Being comfortable with the style, having more accurate expectations as you start each new book - that will all go a long way to your continued enjoyment of the series. It’s not unheard of for people to love it through books 4, 5, or 6, then get weighed down and tired of it all somewhere in books 7-10. But I firmly believe that’s usually due to NOT having accurate expectations. As always of course it’s okay to just not like any book. Above is just my experience and opinion!

[@dlasis]

We seem to love Karsa because he's a symbol of redemption and hope as a character. We see him learn from his surroundings and from the people that surround him. He was well adamant of the old knowledge and traditions that he used to believe but in the end he learned. I love the way Erikson partnered him with Torvald Nom, who bombarded him with endless philosophy. I hope you like the next one. Witness!

[@RedFuryBooks]

Yes, Karsa's pairing with Torvald Nom in particular was remarkable in helping him grow.

[@Coleton2573]

Karsa's storyline in this book is one of my favorite things I've ever read. Can't wait to get more of him in the series going forward.

[@RedFuryBooks]

Such a great character arc!

[@thefantasythinker]

Turning into a big Malazan fan! Just what we all wanted to hear, ha. Esslemont's books do tie up some stuff from this series if you ever delve into those. Just finished re-read of Blood and Bone and it was fantastic! Awesome to hear your thoughts on this one

[@RedFuryBooks]

At this stage, I'd be shocked if I didn't dip into the Esslemont books too!

[@Gronmin]

For me, I only needed to check if I didn't remember where a character was left off etc or who exactly that character was. This usually only happened if that character hadn't been mentioned in that book yet, so I just checked the wiki for where their story was as of the previous book.

[@jimave]

Like you, I didn’t know what was going on in the story for most of the books! I had to go to various websites and KZbin videos to understand what I read. It does all come together in the last book. Side note: you should have done a reading vlog for Assassin’s Fate. Of course, you may have been crying about the ending 😢

[@RedFuryBooks]

There would've been about 20 minutes of ugly crying with Assassin's Fate!

[@BrianBell7]

We are very much on the same page with this series. As we both have had RotE as our top series, it'll be interesting to see where this winds up after book 10. WITNESS!

[@RedFuryBooks]

Witness indeed!

[@akellerhouse83]

I forgot how much I liked House of Chains! I think you're really going to like the next two, Midnight Tides and Bonehunters. Those are two of my favorites of the whole series. Bonehunters has some of the most incredible scenes I've ever read.

[@RedFuryBooks]

Oh awesome to hear!

[@Gronmin]

The Esslemont series is where your going to find more of the answers to what happened pre gardens of the moon. Not everything but more of that will be covered by him.

[@RedFuryBooks]

Thanks!

[@thatsci-firogue]

I've said this before and I've been proven right time and time again and Booktube seems to refuse to learn the lesson... Malazan isn't a readalong/readathon friendly series! Its one of my favourite series of all-time, did it at my own pace.

[@RedFuryBooks]

100%

[@bobbob-cd9yl]

[@JamesI88]

Witness

[@trlns59]

I wasn’t so hot on House of Chains. Book 5 is probably my current favourite as the story is much tighter than most (of the 7 I’ve read) and there’s a couple of banger characters, so I’ll be interested to see how that goes for you.

[@RedFuryBooks]

I'm definitely looking forward to it!

[@EricMcLuen]

In other series you should not be rooting for Karsa but he is just so engaging and just takes over the page as you see him develop. If you want to go down a rabbit hole, AP did a deep dive with Erickson breaking down the final duel.

[@RedFuryBooks]

I started watching their discussion earlier today - so glad they did those videos!

[@bigaldoesbooktube1097]

Your thoughts on Malazan are so similar to mine. I think book 3 was really good but book 4 was better and mostly worked better due to the structure and character focus like you. I wonder if you’ll find book 5 better than book 4 as I did? 🤔

[@RedFuryBooks]

Oh, I can't wait now!

[@thatsci-firogue]

I've the unpopular opinion (at least of those who've only read the series one time) of having House of Chains in my Top 5 favourite books of the whole series. The cast and setting of Seven Cities were consistently my favourite part of Malazan. Bonehunters is chef's kiss and if it wasn't for Midnight Tides would've been my favourite. Karsa is usually amongst peoples favourites. Don't quite get the hype for Rake especially as we meet (imo) far more interesting and cooler ancient characters as we go.

[@EricMcLuen]

Rake is basically a walking plot device. But my inner 14 year old D&D player loves him.

[@RedFuryBooks]

Rake turning into a Dragon in Gardens of the Moon likely contributed to that bad-assness we feel with the character.

[@KrystaA]

Book one of House of Chains has to be my favorite reading experience in Malazan, so far. It was refreshing to stick to one POV, instead of bouncing between multiple POVs in a single chapter. I find that can be pretty jarring and bordering exhausting.

[@RedFuryBooks]

I also loved how Erikson switched it up with staying with Karsa for so long.