Gloomy, grief-centric, poetic, and bittersweet, Toll the Hounds is the shining onyx gem of Steven Erikson’s Malazan. Never before has there been a novel so beautifully melancholic and exhilaratingly epic. Toll the Hounds is not only the best Malazan novel, nor is it only one of the finest fantasy novels ever penned: this is a crowning achievement and one of the best novels ever written.

“The soul knows no greater anguish than to take a breath that begins with love and ends with grief.”

While the last few Malazan novels have been focused on military endeavors, the Crippled God, and weaving together plot threads that were previously unmarried, Erikson has us pause for a moment. Our setting is mostly in Darujhistan, and the homecoming makes you realize just how much both the characters and the reader have grown along the journey. Toll the Hounds is in some ways a character study about the people who we first met in Gardens of the Moon, how their lives have been changed and impacted by the constant wars and meddling of gods. In other ways, it’s a focus on the Tiste Andii, led by one of Malazan’s coolest characters, Anomander Rake. Ultimately, Toll the Hounds is really about grief and loss. The feelings of lamenting and sorrow never truly leave, but they’re also beautiful in their own way. 

It’s important to note that Erikson’s own father passed during the writing of this novel. You can feel him channeling his feelings into the novel. As a result, Toll the Hounds is the most unique among the ten novels. The pacing is slow, the characters even more introspective and philosophical, and sadness permeates the pages. 

I do have to make a personal note that Toll the Hounds was the book I brought to the hospital when my daughter was born. It’s rather fitting that this was the one I brought: while Toll the Hounds is dark and full of death’s lingering touch, a current of hope and rebirth flows underneath. I’ll always be grateful to Erikson for this novel. 

While the depression and grief is a blanket that covers Toll the Hounds, the action is possibly Erikson’s best. It’s not as epic as the battles and last stands of marines, but it is personal and deeply intimate. If the previous novels had the brutality and blood of the goriest war movie, Toll the Hounds is more like kung-fu or westerns where the violence is primarily between two people or small groups. One of the duels near the ends of this novel is simply jaw-dropping and both the scene and the result of the convergence are mind-blowing. 

From a character perspective, Toll the Hounds again ranks as my personal favorite. In a series this long and with as many genius characters that Erikson has created, there’s no such thing as a wrong pick, but Toll the Hounds is the right pick. Anomander Rake is the obvious stand-out, but the reunion and seeing how the characters have changed and seeing them from other perspectives is also magnificent. 

“There is no struggle too vast, no odds too overwhelming, for even should we fail – should we fall – we will know that we have lived.”

Toll the Hounds is my favorite Malazan novel, but it is a divisive one. Erikson’s philosophizing takes a notable uptick in volume, the pacing is exceedingly slow, and a few of the characters irk certain readers. These aren’t flaws per se, but I can understand why others weren’t as enraptured with it as I was. 

At the end of the day, Toll the Hounds has the aura of a perfect city made of marble where assassins wait in dangerous alleyways, political intrigue plagues the processions, and the cover of night never fades. Grief looms over everything like the moon, but the beauty counterbalances it into something truly majestic. Paired with epic duels and devastating sequences, Toll the Hounds is the greatest of the Malazan novels. 

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