More than a third in and the book is still moving rather slowly. I'm beginning to fear that ICE will most probably fail to wrap his own part of the Malazan arc the way fans expected him to. Sure, there are more than 300 pages left to go. But unless the pace changes dramatically, my concern is that a lot of plotlines likely won't get resolved until ICE's "epilogue" book(s).
Although it's much better than his last two Malazan offerings,
Assail doesn't have that awesome vibe that made TRotCG and SW such great reads. Thus far, the novel hasn't offered much in terms of answers. Most of the storylines feel extraneous and have nothing to do with what we have been expecting since MoI. The Silverfox and T'lan Imass plotline is mostly kept in the background...
And there is a problem with Assail itself. I mean, everything we've heard about this land hints at it being the most hostile and dangerous environment in the entire Malazan universe. And yet, so far it's pretty much akin to British Columbia. All the characters have heard about the legends and the rumors of the many dangers of Assail, but so far we haven't really witnessed anything that makes this place any dangerous than Quon Tali or Lether.
As I said, there a good chunk left to read. But I'm slowly losing faith in the author. . .
Patrick
This post has been edited by pat5150: 11 July 2014 - 03:42 AM