House of Chains by Steven Erikson

House of Chains is another great novel – though readers should be warned to not expect a continuation of Memories of Ice. My initial reaction to the depressing conclusion of book 3 was that the author originally planned it to end the series, and House of Chains strengthened my assumption. Rather, Erickson back-tracks and brings the reader up to par with parallel events and characters introduced in previous stories, with House of Chains ending nearly on the same timeline as Memories of Ice.

Whether it was due to my disheartened shock of no beloved Bridgeburners or any other depth with characters previously introduced, or simply adjusting to what felt like a different writing style - I had to work at turning pages until well past the 300 barrier before Erickson managed to capture my vivid attention. It was a good long read before I started putting together the pieces and realized these “new” characters aren’t new at all.

Overall, House of Chains is a must-have for lovers of the series. One can only hope that the remaining handful of books will be similar in nature – filling in the gaps, histories, races and legends from previous books that were previously left almost entirely to the imagination.

There's nothing worse that a poorly written novel. As readers, we invest our time in the vain hope of immersing ourselves in an engaging narrative that will allow us to transcend the world around us. What we get instead, as is the case with Steven Erickson's House of Chains is a hackneyed bit of drivel passing itself off as fantasy. The characters are one-dimensional; the dialogue is stilted, with a shortsighted non-interesting plotline that bores the reader for page after page. The text begs the question who reads this awful nonsense, and how in the God's name is Erickson a published author. It is difficult to conceive that anyone could go on at length with such literary offal but Erickson manages it for over 700 pages. This book will never hold a cherished place on my shelf; instead I shall put it in a more appropriate place like under the bathroom sink in case I run out of toilet paper.

What surprises me most about this series is that it never fails to deliver. The fourth book contains everything that a good fantasy should have, deep characters, epic scope, fantastic plot, a dap of humour and perfectly realised action sequences. Tired of Good vs. Evil? This is perfect for you. I'm reading this for the third time and still I can't decide which 'side' I'm on. Though the book is long, the pace never lets up for a second, it features many characters that are genuinely funny and while you don't lose the plot, you still manage to find deeper meaning every time you read it. This is a book every fan of the genre should read.