Weakened by events in Darujhistan, the Malazan Empire teeters on
the brink of chaos. In the vast dominion of Seven Cities, in the
Holy Desert Raraku, the seer Sha'ik gathers an army around her in
preparation for the long-prophesied uprising named the Whirlwind.
Unprecedented in its size and savagery, it will embroil the Empire in one of the bloodiest conflicts it has ever
known: a maelstrom of fanaticism and bloodlust that will shape destinies
and give birth to legends...
In the Otataral mines, Felisin,
youngest daughter of the disgraced House of Paran, dreams of revenge
against the sister who sentenced her to a life of slavery. Escape
leads her to Raraku, where her soul will be reborn
and her future made clear. The now-outlawed Bridgeburners, Fiddler and
the assassin Kalam, have woved to return the
once god-possessed Apsalar to her homeland, and to confront and kill the
Empress Laseen, but events will overtake them too. Meanwhile
Coltaine, the charismatic but untried commander of the Malaz 7th
Army, will lead his battered, war-weary troops in a last, valiant
running battle to save the lives of thirty thousand refugees and, in so
doing, secure an illustrious place in the Empire's chequered history. And into this blighted land come two ancient wanderers, Mappo
the Trell and his half-Jaghut companion, Icarium, bearers of a
devastating secret that threatens to break free of its chains.
Set
in a brilliantly realized world ravaged by anarchy and dark,
uncontrollable magic, Deadhouse Gates is the thrilling, brutal second
chapter in the monumental Malazan Book of the Fallen. A powerful,
harrowing novel of war, intrigue and betrayal, it confirms Steven
Erikson as a storyteller of breathtaking skill, imagination and
originality – a new master of epic fantasy.
"Erikson afflicts me with awe... vast in scope, almost
frighteningly fecund in imagination, and rich in sympathy, his work
does something that only the rarest of books can manage: it alters the
reader's perceptions of reality." – Stephen R. Donaldson
