‘The First Collected Tales of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach (Three Short Novels of the Malazan Empire)’ – Steven Erikson (Bantam Books)

My mental health has been a lot worse but life is aiming a few kicks at it so I'm giving myself the day off, probably tomorrow as well, to read and eat chocolate until things feel better. I didn't want to leave the blog empty though so, seeing as next week is looking like it will have a slight 'Malazan feel' to it, I thought I'd revisit an old review from far too long ago and re-post it here ;o) I'm not one of 'those' fans (you know what I mean, that kind of enthusiasm is great but read the room guys) but I always enjoy the books and can feel myself starting to dip a toe or two back into that world. We'll see, I might even finally finish the main series...

In the meantime, have some thoughts on the opening novellas in the sequence of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach. If you really want to see what I was chatting about in 2009, the original post is Here. I've changed a few bits, just to bring it up to date as it were, but my feelings around the book remain the same so...

It was around halfway through a re-read of ‘Memories of Ice’ (the first read didn’t work out, ‘Memories of Ice’ is not a book to tackle a couple of hours after waking up from an operation...) that I came across these nefarious necromancers for the first time. Bauchelain and Korbal Broach saw the monstrous Siege of Capustan as nothing more than an obstacle to get past in order to get to wherever it was that they were going. We never found out where that was; they came and went in a flurry of sardonic humour and a hint of the grotesque (with their terrified manservant Emancipor Reese in tow)... Even in the midst of everything else that was going on (and there’s a lot of stuff going on!) I still found myself wanting to know more about these two mysterious characters. Where were they going? Where had they been? What had they done to make Reese lose his temper when Quick Ben chose not to kill them? The three novellas go some way towards filling in the gaps...

‘Blood Follows’, ‘The Lees of Laughter’s End’ and ‘The Healthy Dead’ tell of Emancipor Reese’s early ‘adventures’ with Bauchelain and Broach; from their first meeting in the city of Lamentable Moll to the work they must do in the gratingly good city of Quaint. In between these two cities is a short trip on the good ship ‘Suncurl’ but I never spoke about 'The Lees of Laughters End' in that post of yesteryear, mainly because I'd already posted a review Here. If only I'd known that 'future me' was going to recycle this review, I'd have done things differently.

I’ve always seen the ‘Bauchelain and Korbal Broach’ novellas as Erikson stealing the chance to get away from the larger, more serious, events of the Malazan world and have himself a little fun. While the outcome is never anything less than a matter of life and death, the tone of each tale is more of a jaunt than the slog through blood and guts that you would have expected if you’ve read the other books. This is evident in the way that Erikson concentrates more on wordplay than swordplay and also in that he is able to spend more time wandering through cityscapes (always dark and murky, whatever lies on the surface...) that would normally be more of a backdrop to the story itself. If I feel like the author is having fun then I’m more likely to have fun myself and I felt like Erikson was having a lot of fun here!

Have a look at Bauchelain talking to Reese about how the desire for goodness can lead to the end of civilisation...

‘In any case, the result is smugness, and from that an overwhelming desire to deliver conformity among those perceived as less pure, less fortunate – the unenlightened, if you will. But conformity leads to ennui, and then indifference. From indifference, Mister Reese, dissolution follows as a natural course, and with it, once again, the end of civilisation.’

If you liked that little piece I’ve just given you then the odds are that you will like the rest of the book as it’s full of little gems like these :o)

I’m still not sure that these tales are the best place to start for readers who are new to the Malazan world. While the novellas are a good read they give the reader a more narrow view of the world itself (understandable really, they are novellas after all!), in my opinion this series is best read by throwing yourself off the deep end and getting a feel for as much of it as possible all at once! (Says the guy who still hasn’t read ‘Dust of Dreams’, one day...)

The bottom line is that the three novellas in this collected edition are well worth your time if you’re a Malazan fan who has yet to read them. Is there such a thing? The perils of recycling an old review... Oh well, they're still worth your time even if it's a re-read ;o)