2025 Reading Challenge discussion

Starting a little late! Hopefully I can make it by the end of the year haha


1. Return of the Crimson Guard by Ian C. Esslemont (Read June 05, 2015)
2. Carrie by Stephen King (Read July 15, 2015)
3. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (Read July 23, 2015)
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REVIEW: Return of the Crimson Guard by Ian C. Esslemont


Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
Shelf: Fantasy

I'm a big fan of the Malazan World and similar to Erikson's improvement in Deadhouse Gates in comparison to Gardens of the Moon, Esslemont's writing quality has improved a great deal in this book in comparison to his first, Night of Knives.

This is the second book in Esslemont's Malazan Empire series but I recommend reading Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen first to get a better understanding of the world and to avoid a few spoilers as this book is set just after The Bonehunters, and references a few events that happened up to there in the main series.

A lot of big characters that were only mentioned in Erikson's series feature in this book and we also learn a lot more about the Crimson Guard as well as the Quon Tali continent. Esslemont wrote the characters well but some of the humour was missing from Erikson's series.

One of the main qualities of this and the other Malazan books are a long slow start, that you sometimes have to push yourself to get through, but builds into a large climax, even multiple climaxes as the different plots running concurrently in the book reach their conclusion. The ending of this book in particular is mind blowing for readers of the series, and I'm excited to see the ramifications in following books.

Would highly recommend the Malazan books to anyone who loves fantasy and has a lot of patience haha