MOAR BOOKES

 I finished book 10 of the original Malazan Book of the Fallen series! They went down pretty smoothly, for totaling 3.3 million words. There are a few other series in that universe, but I have a backlog of other stuff I need to get to, neglected while the Malazan books occupied my brain. They are remarkable books, where the stories are really driven by a particularly gifted military, created from scratch by some particularly gifted individuals, and the underlying canvas of the plots is the complications and contradictions of those people in that situation. Can you imagine so much text about military experiences, written with unflinching honesty and empathy? The soldiers understand that they kill people for a living, but underneath that, a few are sociopaths, but most carry a load of compassion and kindness with them.

The "Book of the Fallen" refers to the book of soldiers who have died, rather than anything metaphorical or metaphysical. No disgraced angels here, just people who die, and the question of why soldiers end up in a career of soldiering, how they connect and relate, why they fight, and how they are changed by it all.

It's also a super complicated view of imperialism, because the remarkably successful Malazan Empire is dedicated to expansion, mostly by conquest, but:

• It's unclear why it's expansionist (and it was founded within living memory of the books' events, not shrouded in distant history).
• They administer conquered territory as integrated provinces, rather than colonies.
• The Malazan systems of law and justice are almost universally more fair and effective than whatever they displace.

Anyway. Amazing, long, amazing books. And now they're done.