Midnight Tides is the fifth book in Steven Erikson's immense fantasy sequence The Malazan Book of the Fallen, which began in 1999 with the much-praised Gardens of the Moon. In successive volumes the action moves around the world of the Malazan Empire, linked by a back-story as ancient and complex as Tolkien's. Here a prologue in "The Time of the Elder Gods" shows clashes and betrayals of gods, dragon shape shifters, demons, ice mages and more. In modern times, some very old characters survive under other names, and history has been seriously misremembered...

Now there's an impending clash between the recently-united barbaric tribes of the Tiste Edur and the adjoining Kingdom of Lether, whose capitalistic decadence would make it quite sympathetic if not for policies of ruthless expansionism and slavery.

We come to know people on both sides: the Tiste Edur are driven by fierce honour and have strange, fascinating customs (Erikson is an anthropologist). But their Warlock King has, so to speak, switched gods in midstream and allied with a distinctly dark power while seeking a potent "gift" from another unreliable deity. Ironically, despite the provocation of Letheran seal-poachers on his coast, the Warlock King wants a safe, unassailable peace. His supernatural allies have other plans, and the tribes find themselves following a fearsome but also pitiable new Emperor into war.

Oddly enough, an old, ambiguous Letheran prophecy about an emperor is about to fall due. Meanwhile this kingdom has internal enemies, including a master financier plotting ruin while living in abject poverty with his resourceful manservant: this double act provides a vein of Jeeves-and-Wooster comic relief. There are complex manoeuvres in court circles. The undead walk--but that's normal in Lether. Restless stirring is felt in the ancient Hold where dark magic has long been confined. Then comes the clash with the Tiste Edur, and sorcerers' weapons of mass destruction are unleashed on both sides.

It's a big, complex, satisfying blockbuster, crammed with horrors, humour, spectacular effects and devious twists. Loose ends will presumably be picked up in later volumes. --David Langford

2008-07-07 Another great thread to the story

I'm getting older and my memory is not as crisp and fresh as it once was, and for that reason i've been trying to ration the Malazan Books of the Fallen. The problem is that if I read all those currently in print, by the time the remaining parts are released I'll be struggling to remember what happened in the previous installments. As a result of all this, I've just completed Midnight Tides.
This novel takes you away from the previous events and characters of the previous four books and introduces another story thread to the whole saga. Initially I was a little disappointed by this, but that feeling soon evaporated once I'd read the first chapter or so.
The thing I enjoy most about Steven Erikson's writing/storytelling is the complexity of the plot involving a huge number of characters. The endings never feel rushed and neither do they drag or meander aimlessly, which is something that other multi-volumed fantasy sagas have been guilty of.
This particular part of the story maintained the complexity and it's possible to see where this will weave into the other story threads in one of the future parts. I read this in under a week, which is pretty good for me these days and it says a lot as to how much it gripped me to finish it in this time. It's not the best of the series so far (that was Memories of Ice for me) but still hugely enjoyable.
If you haven't read any of this series, and you enjoy a well rounded fantasy story, then you really don't need to look any further than this - go and order Gardens of the Moon and get started.