Ahira's Hangar

Late in Midnight Tides a party of badasses killed the five gods of the Toblakai. But Malazan is a god ridden universe, and the loss of those gods left an opening for other ascendents/immortals to act...

Karsa Orlong, just coming of age at eighty, was raised by his peaceful horse breeding father (whom he looks down on), and his retired grandfather, who always tells tall tales about his hell raising youth spent killing children, raping women, and generally acting like a barbarian frat boy on a lost weekend. Karsa loves his grandfather, and wants to be a child killer and rapist just like him - but maybe even with more killing and raping. After all, according to his dear grandparent, that is where all of the glory lies.

Karsa also lusts after Dayliss, one of his best friend's girl friend. he hopes with great deeds of glory, he can capture her attention away from his friend.

Little does he know that Dayliss is already pregnant with his friend's baby daughter - and that the seven new gods are twisting that baby in horrible ways.

Without the blessings of his father (but with the gift of his father's best war horse), Karsa sets off on an extended raid with his two best friends - one of them the one who has Dayliss.

They plan on doing lots of killings, corpse mutilations, and rapes.

And sure enough, they come across the hunting party from anotehr tribe -and kill all but one youth, whom Karsa deliberately lets escape. He wants the youth to make it home, so that their village will empty out of men, so Karsa and his buddies can rape the women and kill the children.

And it works like a charm. Many elderly and children are killed, many women are raped. Karsa himself rapes and impregnates both the wife and the daughter of the village chief.

Next a pack of dogs from the village finds the three amigos. Karsa fights and dominates the alpha male, which leads the entire pack into allegiance to him.

And the dogs fight against their former masters on behalf of Karsa whe nthe threesome defeat a band of warriors.

So far everything is going just as Karsa had wished...

I was really tired when I posted this yesterday, so want to add something:

The thing with Karsa and the dog pack is really nice symbolism of how he and his two buddies are operating on an animal rather than a sentient level. He leads a pack of animals, not a group of men.

The sad thing is that he shows an occasional flash of being so much more - as when he gives credit for a victory to one of his buddies rather than taking it for himself as the leader.

Also, the first woman he rapes, the chief's wife gives him his first evidence that his grandfather was filled with crap...

Karsa was quiet brutal in this first chapter but I did like the way he converted the dogs but my opinion at this stage was that Karsa would not live long in the way he saw life and the shear hunger for blood and death he had.

One of my favourite characters so far.

--A

Yes, the big lug grew on me, until he is now one of my favorite characters in the Mezla world.

Yeah, he just got better and better. Dunno if Cleburne has read the whole book, so I won't say more than 3-dimensional...wow.

--A

Agreed -- Karsa is one of my favorite characters in the series, too.

He eventually becomes one of the strongest and most interesting (to me anyway) in the series as a whole. From the sound of it, Erickson will be writing a three book sequel trilogy focusing on Karsa once the main series is over.

Good news! I think. Hopefully the volumes of "The Further Adventures of Karsa Orlong" won't be quite as doorstoppish as the current series...

One would hope not.

Actually, he is supposedly going to write two trilogies - a prequel trilogy around the old days of the Tiste, and the other one about Karsa. I hope all six of those books will be more the size of a normal length (not cinder block) novel.

I like cinderblocks. They last me a lot longer than "normal" length novels.

--A

I only like cinderblocks when they have strong plots and characters and little to no padding - same as with any other book. Sadly, I cannot claim that there is no padding in the last couple of Malazan books by Erickson that I have read.

Oh, I dunno -- I have faith that Erikson will tie up all these little loose ends in a neat bow in TCG. (Why, yes, I *am* an optimistic git -- why do you ask?)

I have hope as well, but freely admit that all of the time line errors and impossibilities in TTH irked me.