Deadhouse Landing (Path to Ascendancy #2) by Ian C. Esslemont

Deadhouse Landing (Path to Ascendancy #2) (by Ian C. Esslemont)
Published by Bantam Books in 2018
Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 473
Format: Paperback
 Returning readers to the turbulent early history of what would become the Malazan Empire, the second chapter in Ian C. Esslemont's thrilling new epic fantasy sequence . . . 
After the disappointments of Li Heng, Dancer and Kellanved wash up on a small insignificant island named Malaz. Immediately, of course, Kellanved plans to take it over. To do so they join forces with a small band of Napans who have fled a civil war on their own home island. The plan, however, soon goes awry as Kellanved develops a strange and dangerous fascination for a mysterious ancient structure found on the island. The chaos in the region extends to the metaphysical planes also as a young priest of D'rek starts to question the rot at the heart of the worship of the god of decay. And back in Li Heng, Dassem, now the proclaimed Sword of Hood, finds himself being blamed for a plague which leads him to a crisis of faith - and searching for answers. During all this, war with the neighbouring island of Nap threatens, recruited allies wonder at Kellanved’s sanity, and powerful entities take more of an interest in the little mage from Dal Hon. Dancer faces a hard choice: should he give up on his partnership? Especially when the fellow’s obsession with shadows and ancient artefacts brings the both of them alarmingly close to death and destruction. After all, who in his right mind would actually wish to enter an Elder mystery known to everyone as the 'Deadhouse'?

My Thoughts

There are two fantasy worlds that I love most and even though completely different, almost at the opposite end (or are they?!), that take me in completely and I cannot read enough about those worlds. One is JRR Tolkien's Arda (plus whatever else he has written) and the other is the world of Erikson and Esslemont - Malazan Empire, Kharkanas and beyond. Of all the numerous fantasy series I have read, these two have hands down the best world-building on record. I can totally understand, when years ago, talking with a customer in the bookstore I worked at, when hearing I love fantasy but have not read Malazan yet, he had this good-natured all-knowing smug smile on his face and recommended I read it ASAP. It took me some years to get there and I put the series on hold after the first book since it was so different from what I had read up to that point and pretty hard to get into since you are plunged into the world without any warning but when I read it again and got to book 2, there was no stopping.

Enough about raving about the whole series, it would take too long! 
Anyways, this is the second book in the Esslemont's side of origin stories, of the Malazan Empire concentrating on Dancer and "Kell and ved"/ Kellanved and their next moves in Kellanved's Big Plan (or Big Let's-Make-It-Up-As-We-Go Plan).
Esslemont's style is lighter and very easy to read and follow, a difference especially noticeable in these origin stories, where Erikson has gone the philosophical Silmarillion style, which is lovely, but sometimes hard to follow and quite depressing as well. I have to say I did not like Esslemont's first, The Night of Knives a lot, but the books have gotten better or I got used to the style, anyways, this one was a fun ride in style with the first Path to Ascendancy book, Dancer's Lament. We meet old friends from the main series for the first time, get a closer look at the Napan group and I finally started to like and get Surly/Laseen... a lot! We get explorations in Shadow, the Napan and Malazan Island politics and history, Dancer's wry humour and Kellanved's comical madness, Deadhouse and a few battles, Dassem being awesome - the usual lovely stuff you expect about this fantasy world. Tattersail's complete blindness to the "adventuring" of Mock made me go palm-in-the-face but at the same time - that is what it is like when you just do not even think something like this is possible, people can be as blind as that in real life too.

Now, people that shall make up the core of the Empire have gathered, circumstances are moving in directions Kellanved is hoping and planning for and they're off to find the Army of Bone! What more can you wish for!