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Forge of the High Mage

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I didn’t expect this volume to be so Tayschrenn centric, but it does such a fantastic job revealing the underpinnings of this enigmatic man. Esslemont continues his early empire Path to Ascendancy sequence impressively with the fourth instalment, Forge of the High Mage. I can't give away too much due to spoilers, but let's just say I was hoping for some serious land and ship battles but again they all happened mostly off page. ICE, earlier in his Malazan days, suffered the curse of being continually compared to the incomparable, Erikson.

Despite these complaints, the book itself is perhaps my favorite of any Esslemont has ever written and has made up for a lot of the issues I had with Kellanved's Reach, despite it carrying a few of it's flaws over. We span large amounts of time in short summary paragraphs and skip over entire battle or momentous events without really any personal investment. It will make you laugh, cry, leave you in awe, and there are so many characters for you to fall in love with and hate with a vengeance. I thought maybe Path of Ascendancy would follow every step of empire-making, but that would take forever and I’m guessing the goal is to touch upon the most important moments of the expansion. Lot's of old and new faces come into the mix, with multiple plot points converging in typical and exciting Malazan fashion.In all the other entries of this series, it made sense and they were important in the unfolding of events. The great thing is we still have two ongoing series from Erikson and at least another 2 books left in this series. Esslemont also admits he fell behind in the writing because he "found it difficult to do justice to the project and so it slowed down.

Never the less, it is still a very enjoyable book, and a fun look back at some of the series' best characters. My only regret, and I appreciate it may have been a little dry, was we didn't get a little more context on the Jhistal and it's exact perversion. Malazan being my undisputed GOAT series, I feel almost obligated to read anything releasing in greater series.Granted, Deadhouse Landing has started the Tay-arc and already portrayed him as something of a socially inept recluse. Tay (the titular High Mage) steals the show, he really comes on leaps and bounds as a character from a largely unknown, pretty stereotypical big hitter type character to someone with nuance and it gives you understanding of how he is, who he is. There are some absolutely great moments with characters that I've grown to love in the original series, and it's always a pleasure to have their back stories fleshed out a little more. This book, and the ones that follow, look at "different paths and different characters' routes and story arcs".

This book involves the continued conquests of Emperor Kellanved, as he takes over all of Quon Tali and turns his sights onto Falar. Sadly, the part of the books that felt the least necessary or even relevant to any of the plots was the Crimson Guardsmen plotline. The book's title is perfect in describing his character arc: which includes his doubts and concerns, trying to understand his place within the military, his working relationship with Nightchill and Dujek Onearm, as well as his magical potential, leading to mastery. So many characters who'd later go on to have massive roles in Malazan BotF + ME books were featured and none of them felt like fan service.Hopefully there will be a couple more novels in this series so I sincerely hope that he bumps the quality back up to normal. The book is a very enjoyable romp through the early years of Malazan expansion, featuring a lot of the big players from the main series making names for themselves. While I love maps and often scoured the map at the beginning as to where PoVs are are are referring to I laughed when I found the much more detailed map at the end of the book. It shows him coming into his power as he pushes himself beyond what he thought was his limits, only to discover an almost limitless supply of power on the other side of his mental barricades.

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