House of Chains

Written by Steven Erikson, the fourth installment in The Malazan Book of the Fallen, House of Chains, is the series at its most ambitious and problematic so far. Although the novel more than manages to impress us with its thematic complexity, its fragile structure can at times sabotage the narrative’s strength.

The story returns to the desert in the Seven Cities at the time when Adjunct Tavore of the Malazan Empire arrives with her army to end Sha’ik’s rebellion. The inevitable clash between these two forces ends up generating a confluence of powers as many other people become interested in the battle’s outcome.

The novel’s first act, however, has nothing to do with Tavore and the rebellion, plunging us instead into the point of view of a barbarian named Karsa Orlong. It’s a welcome change to the series’ typical structure, which usually alternates between several perspectives in a single chapter. In House of Chains, on the other hand, we’ll only follow Karsa for more than 200 pages.

Erikson takes advantage of this increase in focus to bring back the sense of being dropped in the middle of an unknown environment, once again making the story a great puzzle for us to solve. Karsa is a Teblor warrior, living on a distant land, isolated from society, with a restricted worldview. The narrative, then, shackles us into this character’s perspective, with descriptions being written with the warrior’s limited vocabulary in mind: he employs uncommon terms to refer to what should have been familiar things to us, leading to a deduction game about their meaning. Regarding events of previous books, we are not even situated in time and space, knowing only what Karsa knows. And Karsa doesn’t help to contextualize things in the slightest, as he himself faces situations where, precisely because he lacks the knowledge and vocabulary to describe what is transpiring in front of him, he fails to grasp the full significance of events.

Erikson subverts the traditional characterization of barbarian characters in the fantasy genre to discuss the relativization of cruel actions, which may happen when they are accepted in the culture of origin. Karsa’s village applauds acts of brutality – their farewell similar to “Have a good day” is “May you slay a thousand children” – nurturing an animalistic mentality that sees no value in human life and encourages acts of violence. Therefore, when Karsa rapes, murders, and mutilates, morality is not a factor present in his reasoning, as such acts are not reproachable in the society in which he grew up, granting him, on the contrary, fame and glory.

The question that Erikson proposes to us, then, is: can we judge a person for a crime if their culture doesn’t consider it one? Does not knowing that some actions are vile make them less reprehensible? Does the perpetrator need to know that they’re committing a crime to be judged morally by their actions? Erikson works with this problem by provoking us directly through the character’s actions and the specific terminology he uses – the word “children”, for example, shocks in its subversion – and in the movement of Karsa’s character arc, whose evolution is not only cultural but moral: Karsa begins to understand that there are universal values ​​that should withstand the punctual differences of behavior between cultures.

Therefore, the fact that Karsa begins to grasp these nuances and continues to act as a violent maniac makes him a fascinating individual. After all, Karsa, despite being a barbarian, is anything but a flat character, constantly surprising those around him –  and us – with his insights and actions. On the one hand, he reveals simple thoughts that ignore matters of scale and exposes his simplistic view of the world, such as the idea of capturing the city of Darujhistan all by himself. On the other hand, these ideas are often counterposed to very accurate insights on his part: at one point, for example, the warrior sees the true nature of Sha’ik’s rebellion, realizing that the common people will never profit from it regardless of the outcome, as they are fighting not for the end of inequality, but to decide who will get to exploit them (“What matter the color of the necklace around the neck if the chains linked to them were identical,” the warrior points out).

Karsa’s greatest struggle is precisely to free all the people of the world from any kind of imprisonment. His journey in House of Chains leads him to understand that prisons can transcend the physical plane and lock up the individual on a spiritual one, too. His relationship with the gods of his village, for example, progresses over time, with the warrior questioning whether their influence really is positive on the people: Karsa notices that the function of religion is to give comfort to them, but if it also seeks to control their way of living, it ends up putting only a couple more chains on them.

Back to the plot of Sha’ik’s rebellion, it’s important to highlight some of Erikson’s narrative devices. The construction of Tavore’s personality, for example, is done from afar, without a point of view of her own. As the character is described as being cold and distant, her development occurring through the reflections of other characters reinforces this trait. Nonetheless, the author gives Tavore some scenes that make her more human and complex, mainly through her relationship with Captain Gamet.

Opposing Tavore is her sister, Felisin. One of the greatest motifs in the Malazan series is the destructive power of the absence of feelings: being hollow or broken leads a person to thoughts and acts of the most profound cruelty. And Felisin’s journey in House of Chains positions her as one of the pillars of indifference in the narrative. Her arc is tragic, for the girl wishes she had never had to assume the role she has in the rebellion, but she sees no alternative if she wants to be able to confront her sister and have her revenge.

The way Erikson decides to build the book’s climax, then, is very appropriate: in very general terms, in the scene in question, he inserts us in a fatalistic point of view, which doesn’t see a way out. This reinforces the element of tragedy, as it leaves us aware of how helpless the character we’re following is, marching toward a terrible destiny that is both clear and inescapable. One of House of Chains’ themes that is crucial for the success of the climax is the multiplicity of identities: several characters in the novel adopt a second name that reveals a change in their personality and, during this scene, the narrative abandons one of those names to reinforce the personal weight of the situation.

The author also deserves praise for how he relates certain words to themes and characters, as it ends up rewarding more attentive readers. If someone is described as broken or damaged, for example, chances are high that such a figure is going to be eventually associated with the series’ main antagonist, whose name/title is part of the same semantic field.

Another device Erikson often uses is alliteration. It doesn’t come to play as fundamental a role as in Deadhouse Gates, but it always reinforces the musicality of the scenes in which they appear: the repetition of the consonant sounds of the letters ‘f’ and ‘b’, for example, reflects Karsa’s repeated movements as he forges his weapon: “Smaller flakes removed from the twin edges, first one side, then flipping the blade between blows, back and forth, all the way up the length.”

Here, Erikson also continues the pattern of creating comic characters by building a unique voice that plays with language. In this novel, we have Greyfrog, a demon who, by communicating telepathically, has the habit of expressly stating the intonation of his sentences: “What comes cannot be chained. Warning. Caution. Remain here, lovely child. My brother can come to no further harm, but my path is clear. Glee. I shall eat humans this night.” 

House of Chains continues to develop some of the series’ main themes, such as the reproach of betrayal (“Betrayal was a mystery. Inexplicable to Lostara. She only knew that it delivered the deepest wounds of all”) and indifference, and still creates an effective rhyme with one of Deadhouse Gates’ most striking sentences (“Children are dying…”), when one of the antagonists exposes one of the consequences of their plan (“Children will die”).

Nevertheless, despite having all these qualities, the novel shows some flaws in several points of its structure. First, we have Erikson’s apparent difficulty in picking up some points of view from the second volume: Kalam and Crokus artificially exit their state of inertia by the urge of a god who acts basically like one of those NPCs of an RPG that appear out of nowhere just to reunite the group (“You’re probably wondering why I’ve gathered you all here” feelings) Besides that, some events in the middle of the novel are very inconsequential to the story, such as Kalam’s random confrontation with an ancient demon. If the result of such a struggle becomes important in other volumes, it’s better, but it still doesn’t justify the fact that it seems so irrelevant here (Random encounter feelings).

Erikson also appeals more than once to a fake death scene and to instances in which a point of view is cut off just when valuable information is going to be revealed or an important thing is going to happen: the hook works in grabbing our attention, but it is a very poor narrative device when compared to the high standard set for the series.

Finally, the friendship between Onrack and Trull also pales in comparison to the duo in Deadhouse Gates: if the relationship between Mappo and Icarium arose from a tragedy that also extended to their future, Onrack and Trull’s friendship is born out of chance, takes a while to get going, and never reaches a proper climax, since their story is interrupted precisely when it’s about to reach it.

Nonetheless, House of Chains maintains the quality and ambition of the series and, if it suffers from a few mishaps, it never fails to develop various complex themes and characters. So, even if it’s the weakest volume so far, it’s still a pretty stellar book.

March 03, 2025.

Review originally published in Portuguese on January 29, 2017.