Forge of the High Mage by Ian Cameron Esslemont

The Malazan Empire has completed its conquest of the Quon Tali continent and is mopping up a few rebellions and uprisings. However, Emperor Kellanved is in no mood to consolidate. Greymane's armies are engaged on the continent of Korelri to the south, but Kellanved is of a mind to take the rest of the imperial forces and strike for Falar, the peninsula and large island chain off the remote northern coast of the continent, separated from the rest of Quon Tali by the icy wasteland beyond the Fenn Range. In Falar, religious strife and political intrigue are building to a climax, but it is in the icy wastelands that the fate of the land will be decided, for an ancient Jaghut has discovered a K'Chain Che'Malle artefact of tremendous power, and is of a mind to unleash it upon the world.

The first two novels in the Path to Ascendancy series, Dancer's Lament and Deadhouse Landing, were Ian Cameron Esslemont's best Malazan novels to date. Set long before the events in either his own Malazan Empire sequence or Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series, the two books established the origin story of Emperor Kellanved (aka Shadowthrone aka Ammanas aka Wu) and Dancer, the Rope (aka Cotillion), founders of the Malazan Empire. The books were focused, tight and highly enjoyable.

Unfortunately, the third book, Kellanved's Reach, was less-accomplished. The book was incredibly rushed given the story it had to cover - the conquest of mainland Quon Tali by Kellanved and his ragtag bunch of disparate allies - with massive battles, campaigns and character motivations machine-gunned out by the writer at a rate of knots. It had every appearance of a book written to a tight page count (just over 300 pages) and meant to wrap up its series.

With the Path to Ascendancy series selling much better than expected, it was decided to expand the series to six volumes, with the next three focusing on the Malazan conquest of Falar, Seven Cities and northern Genabackis in turn. It also appears that any page limit has been relaxed, with Forge of the High Mage coming in at a much more generous 450 pages, with a tighter focus that mean we're back to the quality levels of the first two volumes here. Indeed, if not better.

The book is structured around the Malazan decision to invade Falar from both land and sea. Kellanved contracts a pirate flotilla to invade Falar and cause chaos and destruction, scattering the Falaran fleet piecemeal whilst the Malazan land armies under Dujek One-Arm advance across the icy wastes to invade the archipelago from the south, via its mainland holdings. This plan, naturally, barely survives contact with the enemy: the Falarans are revealed to have a magical superweapon called the Jhistal, the capabilities of which are unknown and the threat of which stymies Kellanved's plans. Meanwhile, the Malazans have to deal with the natives of the wastelands, namely the Jheck and various other factions who do not take kindly to the Malazan incursion. Events are complicated further by some treasure-seekers who find a solitary volcano in the heart of the wastes, and get rather more than they bargained for when they get inside.

Forge of the High Mage works because it settles on doing three things and doing them well: a Malazan military campaign focusing on the old favourites, with Kellanved, Dancer, Hairlock, Nightchill, Dujek and the Crust brothers playing a major role in events; a coming-into-his-power story for perennial Malazan favourite Tayschrenn; and an exploration of the Falaran culture and religion through the eyes of its highly reluctant High Priestess (with a healthy bonus of exploring more of the character of perennially loathed antagonist Mallick Rel). It's also tapping into something the Malazan series has flirted with before but not quite committed to, and in fantasy as a whole is under-explored: an epic fantasy disaster novel. The second half of the book turns into the fantasy equivalent of Towering Inferno as various characters try to stop the disaster that has been unleashed and is now out of anybody's control.

The book's pacing is much-improved over its forebear, and we get a lot more character-building and exploration. Tayschrenn's growth from arrogant but skilled mage to a more considered, mature statesman starting to understand the vast powers he has access to is extremely well-handled, whilst our limited-but-effective observations of Mallick Rel's multi-layered, Littlefinger+ Xanatos Gambits that see him emerge on top when he should really have been killed ten times over are quite impressive. Indeed, Esslemont makes Rel's ability to get on top of even the most ludicrous odds and emerge victorious seem quite plausible, which in turn benefits Erikson's Malazan novels where Rel's rise to supreme power decades after these events felt a lot more random. Kellanved and Dancer fans may be disappointed that they get a lot less screentime this time around, but those who feel they were verging on overuse in the prior books may appreciate the fact we spend a lot more time with the rest of the Old Guard.

Another theme of the novel is the idea of "moving into a new world." The Malazans started as a gang operating out of an inn and somehow conquered an island, then a continent, and are now going for the world, but in doing so they are starting to attract the attention of some very big hitters. When one legendary figure who has so far dismissed the Malazans as non-entities finally turns his attention to them after their madcap antics in this book and decides to "keep an eye on them," it feels like the sort of momentous backstory moment we really should be seeing in these books (and often are not).

On the negative side, it does feel like Esslemont includes some favourite characters really only to touch base with them rather than because they have a key role to play in this book. He's sensible enough not to bring in Surly or Greymane (who have other fish to fry), but some of his favourite Crimson Guard do feel shoehorned in, do very little, and then leave the narrative. Some might also ponder the bonkers scale of events in this book and the fact that nobody in chronologically later books mentions them, but to be honest that's par for the course for Malazan: the events that completely change the lives of millions of people in Falar forever are just a wet Tuesday afternoon to the likes of Kellanved and Tayschrenn. There's also quite a bit of blatant scene-setting for the next volume in the series that fulfils relatively little function in this novel, but that might read better once the next volume is available.

Forge of the High Mage (****½) is a splendid return to form for Esslemont, something that will hopefully continue. The fifth book in the Path to Ascendancy series, The Last Guardian, is forthcoming.

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