Malarkoi

Cities of the Weft #2

by Alex Pheby

NATHAN TREEVES IS DEAD, murdered by the Master of Mordew, his remains used to create the powerful occult weapon known as the Tinderbox. His companions are scattered, making for Malarkoi, the city of the Mistress, the Master's enemy. They are hoping to find welcome there, or at least safety. They find neither – and instead become embroiled in a life and death struggle against assassins, demi-gods, and the cunning plans of the Mistress. Only Sirius, Nathan's faithful magical dog, has not forgotten the boy. Bent on revenge, he returns to the shattered remains of Mordew – only to find the city morphed into an impossible mountain, swarming with monsters. He senses something in the Manse at its pinnacle – the Master is there, grieving the loss of his manservant, Bellows – and in the ruins of the slums Sirius finds a power capable of destroying his foe, if only he has the strength to use it. The stage is set for battle, sacrifice, magic and treachery in the stunning sequel to Mordew. ... Welcome to Malarkoi..

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Dark Fantasy, Audiobook, Adult, Gothic

511 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 24, 2023

About the author

Alex Pheby is a British author and academic.

His latest book is Mordew, the first in a fantasy trilogy.

His second novel, Playthings, was described as “the best neuro-novel ever written" in Literary Review. The novel deals with the true case of Daniel Paul Schreber, a 19th-century German judge afflicted by schizophrenia who was committed to an asylum. In 2016, Playthings was shortlisted for the £30,000 Wellcome Book Prize.

In 2019, his third novel, Lucia, which deals with the life of James Joyce's daughter, was joint winner of the Republic of Consciousness Prize.

Pheby is also the author of Grace, published by Two Ravens Press.

He currently (2020) teaches at the University of Greenwich and has studied at Manchester University, Manchester Metropolitan University, Goldsmiths. and UEA.

Reviews

[Henk · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hard to understand and full of the fantasy equivalent of technobabble. A markedly less strong follow up to Mordew, despite some evocative scenery and concepts
Everything was difficult, messy

I enjoy fantasy normally, however Malarkoi is Weird with a capital W, and seems rather indulgent on the all knowing narrator, info dumping convenient “Weft” magic to any situation the characters find themselves in.

In contrast to Mordew, told in short chapters and with a clear central narrative, the story is winding and uses a lot of POV's that sometimes feel superfluous to the overal advancement of the book.

There is an evocative portrayal of the afterlife, and some overtones of transformation and how to deal with change. But this is obscured by lots and lots and lots of technobabble (but then the magical version of it) and level 12 (on a scale of 1 through 10) of weird and esoteric.
We have French philosopher snakes with human heads, who sometimes are trans, and overal this whole worlds in worlds thing Alex Pheby is conjuring feels more complicated than the whole of Marvels quantum multiverse story line in Phase 4.

While reading I was also reminded of a weird and less clear version of His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman and of Ada Palmer her baroque and also very imaginative way if storytelling. Just less well executed.
Are they all in a simulation, like Liu Cixin his books? The golden pyramid with its levels feels like a videogame, and the characters lack agency in such a manner that it doesn't feel like a stretch to suppose they are just NPCs in a wider, yet unknown scheme of the author.

Finally I was quite confused on the characters, who compared to Morden take on new names:
Clarissa - Nathan his mother
Portia - The Mistress
Sebastian - The Master

To be fair, the writing at times is very good:
Fear of what he had become, to have determined to do what he was about to do and sadness that he wasn’t a stronger and better person.
There is something self-serving it seemed to Joes in that kind of thinking, it is much easier to do the wrong thing when you given yourself permission to be weak and bad.

And the images conjured are interesting at times, still I am disappointed in this follow up to Mordew.

[Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Malarkoi was a truly astounding experience. Much like Mordew before it, this was quite unlike anything I've read before.

With his beautiful and intelligent writing, and an awesome imagination and wit, Alex Pheby has very quickly become one of my favourite authors.

Thank you to Galley Begger Press for the review copy. Malarkoi is set to release on the 8th September.

*This will be a spoiler-free review, but it does very lightly touch on character POVs, so if you are wanting to go into this absolutely blind then just know that I adored this book and read no further.*

Malarkoi starts with a selection of chapters that take place within the timeline of the first book, from the point of view of a variety of characters. Seeing these key events from perspectives other than that of Nathan, our primary protagonist in Mordew, was not only setting the tone for the rest of this book amazingly well, but it gave us our first big look behind the curtain of how this world works on a fundamental level.
The world-building, the new perspective (and better understanding) of the magic, and the answers to certain mysteries left unanswered in the first book was a superb way to start Malarkoi and it got me engaged immediately.

"The Cities of the Weft are like long tapestries: the disparate parts of them cannot be viewed all at once, but that does not mean they are not made of the same cloth, or that they do not tell the same story.
Weft or warp, long or short, eventually everything reaches an ending. We know this, and need only wait."

After the "Secret History" style Part 1, naturally follows Part 2, which progresses the story forward past the ending of Mordew and into new territory.
The story uses many more perspectives than the first book did, and each of those featured here are significantly different from each other, as well as from the one we got prior from young Nathan Treeves.
Witnessing Pheby flex his ability to write incredibly intelligent characters and unfathomable concepts, whilst simultaneously building upon the world and the magic at such a steady pace was an absolute joy, one that I haven't experienced whilst reading anything else. It is truly masterful.

I wish to tell you a little about these characters and perspectives without spoiling anything, so pardon my upcoming vagaries - I simply wish to intrigue you without robbing you of the raw experience that is this book.
Bear in mind, this gets very weird, and I wont lie - it is weird, even in it's full context. But it is also incredibly exciting, well crafted, and it all builds towards one of the most mind-bending, unnerving and complex pieces of art I have ever had the good fortune to be immersed in.

The Master of Mordew has a recurring POV, through which we see him dabble, tinker and manipulate the Weft (the name for the magic) in an attempt to get back what he lost in the first book, and try to control what he gained in it's conclusion.
Despite these being the slower portions of the book, the science and magic and the sheer amount we learn from it all kept me strapped in the whole time.

"His ears rang, his teeth tasted of fear, and the pressure of the world as it pushed up against his body threatened to break him into pieces."

Anaximander and Sirius, a pair of magical dogs both get their own perspectives in Malarkoi.
In Mordew we are shown their abilities in use as the perfect pair.
One, Anaximander, can talk/vocalise and has the ability to think and act rationally, philosophise as well as use reason to determine the best course of action.
The other, Sirius, has a magical organ that can sense magic, but is otherwise a lot more dog-like in behaviour than his counterpart, still smart, but definitely predominantly controlled by instinct and reaction.
When with each other, their communication, understanding and abilities are able to help them overcome many an obstacle, but here in Malarkoi we see them unwillingly split up, and boy when I tell you that seeing various parts and elements of the world from these two incredibly unique (yet still connected) perspectives is a ride, I mean that to say I was blown away again and again and again. It is outstanding.

"In that case,' the dog went on, 'may I request a different tale? I find fantastical nonsense of this kind irksome and superfluous. Why populate narratives with things that do not exist when there are so many things that do? Moreover, it is easier to hold one's interest in things that are familiar and relevant to the world as one knows it..."

Now, onto the key pillar of the story - the journey, the quest.
The quest in question (sorry I couldn't help it, it sounded good in my head) is for a trio of characters (who shall remain nameless for spoiler reasons) to find a powerful woman - the Mistress of Malarkoi.
To do so they must travel to her pyramid across the sea, and ascend it's levels, each of which house a pocket dimension of sorts, a realm created by the Mistress - each home to a bizarre, freighting, hilarious and often awe-inspiring collection of cultures, races and biomes. Each of them is broken in one way or another, or at least not functioning as it should.
From the relatively mindless cattle-headed people that are overbreeding, and religious human-headed snakes than are on the brink of a civil war/jihad, to a realm of dying dragons, and one of druids trapped in endless death by the wolves that have taken over their forested world...
I told you it was weird! But heed me when I say; this is but the tiniest glimpse of the sheer face that is Pheby's creative and imaginative ability. There is no predicting where we'll go next when we put ourselves in his oh-so-capable hands.

"Why should a goddess recognise a human child? Why should she have sympathy for her, even if she loves her? She is not obliged to reciprocate.
Dashini sang on silently, even if Japalura didn't hear her. True love does not require reciprocation, it does not expect the reward of recognition, it is a gift, not an exchange. Dashini lay herself flat across the dragon, pressed cheek on her warmth, her mouth touching her, and the silent words of her song were spoken on her lips."

Pheby hides within Malarkoi some wonderfully clever easter eggs and literary references, only a few of which I caught but I am certain there were many more.
Also the geography of the world and realms found therein is starting to come together and it paints a surprisingly recognisable - although somewhat still obscured - picture.

There is also a group of assassins, a talking book, naval POVs, ghosts, the very literal face of God, and a truly wonderful and intriguing set up for the final book in the trilogy, which is, without a doubt, my now most anticipated release. I know it's a way off, but my lord I am hooked.
This book also contains maps, a glossary, a dramatis personae, a recap of the first book and multiple appendices for those that enjoy or require such things.
I for one very much appreciated them.

If you have read Mordew I should not have to impress further upon you just how worth it it is to pick this up as soon as possible, because it is outstanding.
If you are reading this and haven't read Mordew and you have a hankering for a beautifully written epic gothic fantasy, chock full of some of the most creative concepts and engaging characters being written this side of the millennium, then look no further than this series.
I would be very surprised if this trilogy doesn't become an absolute phenomenon upon it's completion (if not before), because it certainly deserves to!

"To know things only magically, and from books, he thought, is to scarcely know them at all, except for the purposes of recognition. Recognition is only the beginning of knowledge and is no substitute for comprehension."

Pheby is an incredible talented artist and these books are now some of my all time favourites, there is no question about it.

This book is released on September 8th. Do yourself a favour a get yourself a copy and enjoy.
__________________

Thank you for reading my review.

[Paul Dembina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow. What a comedown from the 1st volume. I eventually gave up after 300 pages. Episode after episode of fantasy nonsense. Such a shame when the first book created a vaguely believable world of interesting characters.

This time around the characters are mere ciphers and are killed and resurrected at will.

[Sarah Balstrup]

Why I read this:
I am a Galley Beggar subscriber and enjoyed book 1 in this series, Mordew.

My Impression:
I have mixed feelings about Malarkoi. On the one hand it reaches great heights of originality, and is replete with fascinating observations, but on the other, it is lacking in the plot-based impetus that one comes to expect in fantasy. Everything makes sense – in fact, one of the notable aspects of Pheby’s style in this series is his ability to drill down into different phenomena and explain, in minute detail, how and why things are the way that they are – it is just that with a full orchestra of moving parts, I prefer a stronger central melody.

The first 100+ pages reorient us with the characters and their position at the end of Book 1. I really enjoyed this section – it was as if the author was creating a diorama, putting each character in place. I expected that, with everything in position, the beast would roar to life, and we would be off. Instead, it felt very much that the engine had died and the characters rolled about like marbles on a board. Around the 250p mark, things picked up, but even towards the end, I felt the pace of action was too slow. Some of this is to do with the nature of the world of the Weft, where death is rendered inconsequential and meaningless, which has consequences when it comes to the stakes.

Unlike most genre fiction, Cities of the Weft’s intrusive narrator remains in a state of (interesting and often witty) phenomenological analysis. This is where Pheby gifts the reader with his conceptual treasures and charms (and they are to be delighted in). Sometimes, though, this impacted the action e.g. He spends an inordinate amount of time describing the experience of swimming from a dog’s perspective, yet more obvious moments of drama (e.g. sex and death) are passed off in a single line. Because side-characters often have more dialogue (internal and external) we get to know them better than the supposed key players. In this way, Pheby refracts the reader’s attention so we have more of a sense of having been in the world of the Weft than we do of knowing or caring about the fate of its characters. This is not necessarily the end of the world as it is a part of the psychologised surrealism of the series, but as someone who craves the drama of tragedy, I could have done with greater emotional connection.

At the level of POV, Malarkoi is truly innovative as we enter the perspective of worms, gods, dogs, and beings in various states of immateriality. Over and over again in my notepad I wrote ‘great line,’ ‘amazing description,’ ‘this scene is brilliant’ but by the end of the novel I struggled to recall these small moments because they were not strongly connected to the plot/stakes. Mordew is easier to conceptualise in memory because of the goal of reaching the Master at the summit of the Glass Road (very Wizard of Oz).

A series for the open minded.

Craft-Related Notes:
- Pheby creates the most delectable frontmatter. Entrees that frame, entice and beguile. In particular, I love the list that Pheby puts at the beginning of each novel saying what the story will contain (a concoction, a magical potion).
-Plot moves laterally. Ultimate goals still withheld from the reader.
-Occasional vague references to the real world reminded me of Piranesi.
-The Master was reminiscent of the wizard from Ponyo (with notes of Frankenstein).
-Obsessed with logic but utterly surreal – like Alice in Wonderland. Here, Pheby taps into that late 19th century brand of occultism where magic is science.
-Unique themes: Death of God scatters aspects of the divine, so it may take seed anywhere (concepts, functions, symbolic elements, images, rituals of religion). Function of will in creation. Flocks, swarms, herds, creation, mutation and consciousness. The Forms. Cycles, evolution, ancestry. Abstractions of time, matter and perception.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 2 out of 5]

When she tried to tell them why, she got bogged down in Spark Mechanics and weft-lore, none of which Gam and Prissy understood in the least.

Malarkoi is the sequel to Mordew and the 2nd in a planned 'Cities of the Weft' trilogy.

Logically I ought to have really disliked Mordew.

I'm no fan of fantasy books ('The City And The City' and 'A Song of Fire and Ice' are clearly brilliantly written books, but were 1-2 star reads for me), nor of long books (my ideal length is 100 pages and for anything over 250 pages the author has to work very hard to justify their demand on my time).

And the author himself stated that the trilogy was very much not aimed at the fans of innovative literary fiction, such as myself, who appreciated his previous novels (Lucia and Playthings). Were it not for Galley Beggar's loyalty to their authors the trilogy would be a very strange pick for them - as it bears little resemblance to the rest of their list.

But ... Mordew came at exactly the right time for me: August 2020, my first post-Covid beach holiday overseas, and escapism was exactly what I needed. I ended up walking into the Sicilian sea still reading the book at one point, which meant my limited-edition black copy ended up so saltwater riddled that I had to throw it away after reading.

Now it is November 2022, the world is back to sort-of normal, my dislike for long books only grows, and normal service has been resumed in my literary taste.

The 2+ year publication gap, and demise of the previous edition, also means any emotional investment in the characters or memories of the world in which this is set have rather faded.

And versus Mordew this has less of the Dickensian micro-plot, which was that book's strong point, and rather more of the rather silly meta-world building and the exposition of the overly complex 'theology' of the “weft”. The latter is presented so self-importantly, with comments from various characters, such as in my opening quote, that they are equally baffled, one assumes/hopes it is tongue-in-cheek. Mordew also came with a helpful glossary at the end - which was best read at the start - and was almost a novel in itself, whereas that is lacking here and replaced by some Tolkeinesh endpapers.

As one character - a talking dog! - explains:

I find fantastical nonsense of this kind irksome and superfluous. Why populate narratives with things that do not exist when there are so many that do? … Another inferiority that invention has over the real - it becomes necessary to interrupt the story to provide the information necessary to understand invented things.

2 stars, although the completist in my may still tackle Part III, where presumably the Eight Atheistic Crusade will arrive on the scene, and perhaps we might get some hint at how this world is related to our own (there's a nod to a sunken Dublin here, as well as a memory of the Master of Mordew that seems to have come from World War II).

So - possibly one for fantasy fans (hard for me to benchmark) but not for readers of the daring, innovative fiction for which the publisher, and indeed author, are largely known.

[Lynsey Walker · Rating 3 out of 5]

A high three starer.

Erm, well, ok, erm… yeah, sooo not really sure what most of that was about.

So, this is book two of The Weft trilogy. And I think that fact maybe behind my issues with it. It suffered very much from what I like to call ‘middle book syndrome’; which is basically when the middle book of a trilogy is used mainly for the purpose of getting us readers onto the last book where the good stuff and the ending happens.

Also about 80% of it made absolutely no sense.

This book was all explanations about different material and non material realms (most of which I still don’t really get and am hoping has no real bearing on the final part) and not so much about plot development. Sure some stuff happened to the characters, some important stuff to, but it was very much bogged down by pages of magical explanations about the Weft which was mind boggling to say the least. I am not lying when I say there where whole paragraphs in the book that made zero sense to me. Zero. I had to just skip them.

Am I just stupid, or was it all just to many big words thrown about for the bants? The jury is out. This isn’t helped by the fact the first part of the book is a recap on the last one, ok maybe helpful, but really needed? Not sure. Then there are some bloody odd chapters about the Mistress that made fuck all sense and seemed to me to have no real bearing on what was going on. Then about half way in the story actually started. THANK GOD. Honestly, if this hadn’t been a part of a trilogy I want to finish I would have quit on about page 100.

What makes all this worse is that the first book, Mordew, is NOTHING like this. It is an actual linear story that made (fairly) good sense and was fabulously written. In fact such a good book I was so excited to read this one. But this one could have been written by someone else entirely for all the similarities it has with Mordew, which is such a shame. Why ruin a good thing?

I dunno, maybe I should be impressed somebody has managed to think up such a complicated world view?

Anyway, once the story did get started I was in, I was loving it! The storytelling was back and it was mad, dark, people where dying left right and centre, I hated all the adult characters and loved every insight we got on their twisted plots and plans. So much was going on but in a way that pulled the reader in and there is so much that we still need to find out! As quite frankly WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON?

For all these unanswered questions I will be getting the third book and praying with all my might it is a story and not just random explaining about REALLY REALLY FUCKING COMPLICATED MAGICAL SHIT.

[Natalie Brown · Rating 1 out of 5]

Exhaustingly confusing. Sick of reading the words "immaterial realm" and "weft".
Felt like a lack of actual story telling and more of what we've had before in Mordew, but different perspectives.

The book only began to become somewhat enjoyable when I was past half way.. but the ending just went rather downhill again. Even when the story began to really take off, the chapters were too short and underwhelming.

I liked the first book, but what the devil was this one even about?!

[Nathan Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

I was generously given an advanced copy of Malarkoi (hardcover, no less) via Jocelyn Bright at Tor books.

Malarkoi's predecessor, Mordew, is one of my favorite reads of the past year, evoking a rare quality found in modern SFF-- an unflinchingly weird vision for what the fantasy genre can do, thematically and visually. Echoing the forebodingly gothic and mesmerizingly strange aura of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast novels, among other influences, it is a book that I found hard to put down, as it is easily one of the most unique things I've ever read.

Malarkoi is its equally strange (if not more-so) followup. Though it does not possess the same immediacy as Mordew in its plotting and premise, and instead opts to be more heavy in its mechanical elaboration of the world, it does so in ways that are not a slog to read-- in fact, there are plenty of moments when the description of magic starts to get overwhelming and a well-placed bit of tongue-in-cheek humor about the excessive detail breaks it up and evens the pace. The book wonderfully tows the line between the eerie, oppressive atmosphere, overwhelming amount of concepts, places and things, and having a conversational tone to help ground the reader while they consume all that detail. All the characters are well-realized and interesting, and it manages to have separate plots converge and form a cohesive narrative.

I think the main appeal in both these novels for me is their commitment to some of the most inspired, creative and bizarre imagery I've ever had the delight of experiencing within the SFF genres, and I'm highly anticipating the release of Waterblack later this year.

[Mark Cohen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Awful sequel to the excellent Mordew

The first book in this series was excellent. Unfortunately this sequel is nearly unreadable and tedious in the extreme. Plot lines evolve at a glacial pace, often with poor resolutions. Worse still, the majority of the book revolves around the workings of the weft and its relationship with the material realm, so page after page of tedious cod metaphysics.
Such a shame for the series after an excellent start. Not sure that I’ll be bothering with the next volume.

[Micah Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Continues be extremely inventive if not a bit toooo much going on at times. Nice prose and I'm interested to see where we go!

[Annie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this book was the biggest disappointment of 2022 and two stars was being generous! I loved mordew and was so excited for this. If you take out all the meta physical mumbo jumbo about the weft and intermediate realms then you probably have a book less than 100 pages long where actually very little happens. It took so long to read because after a few pages you tend to zone out and your eyes cross. Will probably read the final book as I am a completionist but it is took a few years to write I wouldn’t be fussed.

[Jack · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.3 - load of waffle that

[Iain Soder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mordew was the best fantasy book I'd read in a decade.

Malarkoi was... twice the book Mordew was. I totally understand why some people enjoyed Mordew but not Marlarkoi. The 1st book gives us the hero's journey as a tether and helps us stay connected to a very weird world.

Malarkoi does away with any tethers and seatbelts and Pheby just goes all out writing stories based on ideas that are really out there. There isn't a central protagonist in Malarkoi, which makes it less accessible. We follow 4 different stories, plus Pheby mixes in shorts flights on fancy (following a lungworm who got barfed up into the Living Mud, for example). One of the POV characters is a dog. Another is The Master, a character that was completely shrouded in mystique in Book #1, but in this book we get his full POV and watch him stumble through his difficult magic.

I've never seen a writer have their magic system so well figured out, and weave it into prose without it feeling paused for sake of exposition. I understand maybe some readers didn't enjoy the Weft descriptions, but Mordew left me intensely curious and hungry for more information about how this world works. Malarkoi blew me away in this regard, while still providing tons of drama.

This book is more intricate and ambitious than its predecessor. If you want the development of the hero's journey, this one probably isn't for you. But if you loved Mordew for its prose, drama, and magic, then Malarkoi is an absolute feast.

[helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

it took me 5 months but i did it y'all.

[Rebecca Rash · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love everything about this series. I know its not for everyone but my god AP. This is the best fantasy series I've ever read and I can't wait for Waterblack.

[Sam Huckstep · Rating 1 out of 5]

Malarkoi is a dismal effort. Following Pheby’s first book, Mordew, which was dark, intriguing, and engaging, Malarkoi is a truly disappointing book.

Pheby has forgotten how to write generally, and forgotten how to write in a particular way: he has forgotten how to write fantasy. I’ll explain briefly some of the ways in which this manifests itself.

In a general sense:

1. Pheby seems unable to ‘show, not tell’. The reader is almost never shown anything. Everything is instead ‘told’ by a narratorial voice that is frequently rather condescending.

2. Despite the omniscient narrator, there is no consistency of voice. Some passages read like cod-Dickens; some go into flights of dull fake philosophy; some read like excerpts from a YA novel.

3. Much of the writing is, by Pheby’s standard, simply poor. One gets the impression that at many points he was powering through a creative drought, and never returned to improve and polish.

4. The narrative follows multiple parties in parallel. This can work fine, but this attempt fails. This is especially the case given that many of the ‘episodes’ following one party or another appear to be padding.

5. The main characters are two-dimensional. In none of the cases is it ever evident what their real motivations are. We are given no chance to empathise with them. Many of them do horrible things, with no explanation. None of them progress as people: neither towards/away from their goals (which are unknown), nor through any meaningful emotional development. They are merely ciphers used to bring more of Pheby’s invented world into view.

6. There is a rotating cast of 'supporting' characters clearly intended to lend some jazz to different scenes, but these are paper-thin stereotypes, dropped into view without development. In some cases a novel’s depth can be improved by a cast of characters that hove into view and then retreat: Dickens or Tolstoy, for example, are very good at this. Pheby is not. Moreover, he also treats some groups of characters as mere exemplars of an imagined type. For example, he regularly discourses at some length on ‘Assassins’, telling the reader what they do and don’t do— seeming to forget that an assassin is not some kind of idiot fish with set traits, but a person. The recognition of real personhood in his characters is absent throughout.

7. There is no plot. The reader does not know what is happening, or what the wider context is. Events happen, and are stitched together, but there is no coherency. It is impossible to know whether anything matters. No tension is possible.

8. There is no sense of place. The characters wander on long quests through disparate realms and encounter several odd creatures. At no point do any of these places, creatures, or societies seem interesting. They are without depth. This is a great shame in a novel that, in the absence of characters or plot, relies on the enticement of world-building.

9. Several of the characters have been declared to be gods. This enables endless cases of deus ex machina. This does nothing for the reader, who must accept that many events are meaningless. In particular, characters often die only to be brought back a few pages later, with no explanation.

10. Despite the fact that some of the characters are gods, and that Pheby tells us that they are essentially unknowable, we are also exposed to endless chapters following the Master as he goes about his business. In the first novel he is a distant, nigh-omnipotent, and intriguing antagonist. In this novel he gets high, ruminates on his insecurities, and stubs his toe. His interesting status evaporates, even while we have no idea what he is seeking to do.

11. Pheby constantly launches into tiresome, lengthy, and unnecessary digressions. Hugo, Dickens, and Tolstoy are all among my favourite writers: I am happy to accept digressions where they relate to the story and are interesting in themselves. Pheby’s digressions are neither.

12. Numerous strands of the world and ‘plot’ are introduced, sometimes at some length, and then never picked up again. This happens exceedingly frequently. Good chunks of the novel are therefore ultimately wasted space.

13. In summary, the novel does not have a real start –it picks up where Mordew simply stopped—; it does not have a real middle, because there is no knowledge of where it is going or what is happening, and there is no real progression; and, like Mordew, it also does not have an end.

With regard to the charge that Pheby has forgotten how to write fantasy: there is one great failing. This is that Pheby has forgotten the need for mystery. Mordew achieved this, to an extent (although the last sections of the book went some way to undoing it). The character of the Master; his relationship to the unknown Mistress; the identity of the protagonist and his family; the nature of magic— all of these things, and more, were left in the dark. This is appealing. The reader does not need to know everything.

In Malarkoi, Pheby has abandoned this approach. This is a great shame, because this approach is vital. Malarkoi is a fantasy novel. The etymology and definition of ‘fantasy’ is clear: fantasy means imagining improbable, impossible, unreal things. A writer of fantasy must smudge their world so that the impossible is never examined too closely; magic and its like must be present, but accepted without scrutiny. You can have some effort to explain it: you can have wizards summon fairies or be said to be demigods, but the natural philosophy of it must be left aside.

Pheby, unfortunately, spends great swathes of the book attempting to make his fantasy world philosophically coherent. In doing so, he sets himself an impossible challenge: he has created exactly that, a fantasy world, and it cannot be made coherent, no matter how much he writes. His digressions on the nature of the Weft, the nature of magic, what it is to be a god in this world, are interminable and self-defeating.

I get the impression that Pheby himself knows this and is himself frustrated by it. Several times in the book, there are passages where he seems to be acknowledging his own difficulties in writing the novel he wants.

Take this, for example:

‘When she tried to tell them why, she got bogged down in Spark Mechanics and weft-lore, none of which Gam and Prissy understood in the least.’

Pheby is constantly bogging the story down in ‘weft-lore’, which I suspect he himself does not understand in the least. Or this:

"The Cities of the Weft are like long tapestries: the disparate parts of them cannot be viewed all at once, but that does not mean they are not made of the same cloth, or that they do not tell the same story. Weft or warp, long or short, eventually everything reaches an ending. We know this, and need only wait."

To my mind, this is Pheby indicating what he wants to do: he wants to weave in the depths of a larger universe and magical system, but he knows that it’s a mess, and he attempts to assuage the reader by telling them that it will all come together in the end. Alas, he can’t manage it. Elsewhere, a character criticises another character’s fairy-tale, an allegorical nested story:

‘This is another inferiority that invention has over the real –it becomes necessary to interrupt the story to provide the information necessary to understand invented things, since we cannot know them through familiarity—'

As noted, Pheby is constantly interrupting the story to attempt to explain invented things; and as noted, these things can never really be known. The endless reams of half-baked cod-philosophy that dominate this book gum up what little narrative there is to a point of no salvation. I think he knows this. There’s an academic journal article from a while ago that finds that the use of inaccessible jargon doesn’t indicate knowledge, but insecurity. I think Pheby knows he’s gotten lost in his own irresolvable magical system and half-finished world, and that his constant introduction of new magical terms reflects this. He isn’t a master builder showing off his finished universe; he’s a bluffer attempting to blind the eyes of the reader with nonsense. (I caveat this by acknowledging that he is clearly a capable writer, even if this is not in evidence in this book.) There are many more instances, as above, where this appears to be recognised in the text.

I wonder what Pheby really wanted to achieve with this novel. I found much of it aggravatingly self-satisfied: in his constant digressions, condescending asides, and determination to tell all and show nothing, Pheby seems to assume that he has endless goodwill on the part of the reader. As I approached the end I wondered whether it hadn’t in fact slipped well out of his hands: a hugely ambitious attempt that fails. I think he himself wasn’t quite sure what he wanted from it. Towards the end, parts of it even appear to be aping the story-arc of Piranesi (a much more accomplished novel). We’ll have to see— or at least, there is a third book on the way that may clear things up, but I doubt I will read it.

[Callum Keighley · Rating 2 out of 5]

The successor to the acclaimed ‘Mordew’. It attempts to come across as a fully unrestrained imaginative work of fantasy. However the conflation of dryly explained repetitive abstract concepts and redundant metaphor’s demonstrates a really poor narrative in which the plot is just confused garbled mess. The plot reads more of an epilogue and encyclopaedia to the first novel, with 150 pages of interlude before a plot thread even begins.

The abstract fantasy is ambitious, but this literary mess needed a lot more iterations in the editing process. It doesn’t need multiple metaphors and circular descriptions in every single explanation. It’s a shame considering how well the first novel was wrote and paced.

[Luke Dylan Ramsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A/A+

While the lows of Malarkoi are lower than the lows of Mordew (its predecessor), the highs are also (somehow) higher. This book is messy, encyclopedic, and made me feel all the emotions (including the bad ones). I wouldn’t change it for the world.

[Thaddeus Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

If Mordew was the buzz of a bright wine, Malarkoi was the next morning's headache. I've never been more disappointed in a sequel; still not certain these two were written by the same author. Where Mordew was sparse, Malarkoi was redundant. At first I thought the issue was mine, perhaps my middling intelligence simply couldn't keep up with Pheby's world-building, but upon reading other's reviews I see my experience was not isolated.

What happened? Mordew was action-packed, delicious with language. Malarkoi languished in a bog of inner dialogue, each moment of activity a gasp of fresh air before the reader is sucked back into the narrator's mire.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

A worthy sequel to Mordew, with some fabulously intelligent writing. It out-weirds Mordew by a good chunk (weird is measured in chunks, if you did not know...) For me, it lost a little of the charm of the original though, and whilst the stories within the story were very good, they became a tiny bit too meta, too fractal, to allow the literary journey to be entirely cohesive. Perhaps this is just a fancy way of saying it broke my concentration one too many times.

That said, I really enjoyed it. Bring on the conclusion, we all need more weird in our lives (and more talking dogs too, if you're making a list...)

[Hollie Ayre · Rating 5 out of 5]

The second book of the Cities of the Weft did not disappoint!

I can never quite describe this series of books to people when reccomending them because there really is nothing else like it. Alex Pheby takes Fantasy to a whole new level with Malarkoi. This was somehow more whimsical than Mordew but so much darker. I found myself crying actual tears at some parts.

I will say that I gave Mordew 5 stars however and that I am giving Malarkoi a 4 star rating because I found some of the more complex descriptions of the workings of the weft among other things to be a bit difficult to read at times.

[Angela Groves · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything I loved about Mordew is built upon here in spades. It is a high stakes adventure, with some of the most outrageous and vivid world building yet. Much is explained, and much is left unanswered. The third book is set up so well I can't wait for it to arrive. I have questions. I need answers.

[Nick Weston · Rating 2 out of 5]

What happened.
Mordew is a book that will stay with me. I absolutely loved it.
But what the heck was this mess.

400 off pages of absolute wordy words strung together for the sake of words.

Let's hope book 3 pulls it back

[Dan Trefethen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't tell if this is shaping up to be the most intriguing fantasy since Gormenghast trilogy, or is the most self-indulgent piece of writing ever. It could be a little of both.

Pheby has created the most incredible conception of magical kingdoms in Malarkoi. Mordew was strange enough, but Malarkoi is totally gonzo. There are entire kingdoms in each level of a massive pyramid, where the rules of Euclidean space don't apply, and the inhabitants are bizarre without a reasonable explanation. There are cow-headed people in one kingdom, people-headed snakes in another. Dragons in a third.

The concept is that people who can work the magic by manipulating the 'weft' of the universe can basically do anything. Create limitless places, manipulate time, move through innumerable 'intermediate realms' that are adjacent to the material realm, what we would call reality.

And that's the problem. In a fantasy where anything is possible, it's hard to get oriented as things keep getting whipsawed back and forth. There's got to be some sort of rules, but it seems pretty arbitrary. The people who can work the magic can basically act like gods, and pretty much are gods by any definition of the word. Even a dog becomes a god, nicknamed 'Goddog', of course.

You could still have a propulsive plot with this scenario. What Pheby does, though, is slow things down constantly with endless diversions to discuss aspects of what's going on and philosophical digressions, using increasingly ornate language to do it. It's a fascinatingly creative exercise, but it can be frustrating to understand what he's talking about and get re-orient yourself to the action. It doesn't help that he moves his chapters among multiple point-of-view characters.

Someone who likes arcane language and doesn't mind taking the scenic tour through a plot will love this. Others I'm seeing review this book are bemoaning the dense language and slow plot progression, and that's perfectly understandable. Other than Gormenghast, it reminds me somewhat of earlier fantasies that were verbose and fairly languid, like E.R. Eddison's 'The Worm Ouroboros'. A landmark fantasy of its time, but not easy to swallow for every reader.

More than most books, in this one Your Mileage May Vary (i.e., a one-star review may be as legitimate as a 5-star review - I'm splitting the difference). Maybe Pheby will pull it all together in the third and final volume, but he's certainly created a grandiose environment and a number of character-based plot threads to tie up.

[Max · Rating 4 out of 5]

ALEX PHEBY HAS A BIG CRUSH ON WORLDBUILDING PASS IT ON

I liked this book a lot more than its predecessor. Mordew really suffered from having a dull wet blanket as its protagonist, while Malarkoi's characters are a lot more fun to hang out with. Pheby also writes in a way that it is clear that he loves this world he's built and will take every opportunity to cram in a bit more lore between and around every action his characters take. Since this is mostly an excuse to try and write beautiful sentences, it mostly comes off as charming rather than oppressive. Mostly.

That does sometimes work against it. As the world reveals itself around the story, it can fall prey to the same over-explanation that plagues a lot of modern fantasy. At it's core, this world is a pretty simple mix of Cartesian duality, religion, and computer programming that borrows concepts from across the fantasy and science fiction canon and fits them into its own use. But around the third time the idea of an intermediate realm is explained, you do want to say "Hey, we get it. you can trust us to figure this stuff out."

Which is a really interesting contrast to how little the book feels the need to justify its characters to the audience. They are all, to some extent, weird creeps who try to defend themselves in their own narration, and I love that. Even Portia, the mistress of Malarkoi, - possibly one of the characters that, ironically given her role as a heavens-creating goddess, is the most relatable to the reader in the modern day -in her narration really hammers home how much her subjects don't mind sacrificing their kids to her at all! Really! They're fine with it, why wouldn't they be? No she doesn't think she's bringing it up a weird amount for something that is so fine, we always talk about how things are fine.

Beautiful. It also treats the concept of a dog accidentally becoming a deity by eating god's face with total seriousness, which makes it even funnier for never once winking at the camera.

Looking forward to the next book, even though (ugh) Nathan's back for it. Hopefully he'll be a little more interesting this time.

[James Walker · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm of two minds about this book.

On the one hand, I thought that the plotline, character development, and way the worldbuilding was expanded worked really well on paper. In practice however, it was an absolute slog - more so than the first because the whimsy of Pheby's writing style has worn off completely and instead feels incredibly verbose; I found myself often skimming passages where the author starts to wax lyrical on tangents about people-headed snake philosophy or the world through the eyes of a dog - all very interesting, but not particularly relevant, especially in the lengths which Pheby describes them.

I don't want to make it seem like I'm being too harsh - Pheby's book is really avant-garde and still very whimsical (I continue to think it'd make a fantastic Ghibli film) and if it was only MUCH more concise, I think it would've been a more cohesive and enjoyable read. It has all the elements of a great story - instead of the single, meandering plot of the first book we follow several different sets of characters with their own staccato plotlines, and seeing them come to fruition is rewarding. There's interesting twists and the way the world is fleshed out is compelling. I just think the execution was lacking - or, at least, not suited to the way I like to read.

The decision to hide much of the key points of worldbuilding in the appendices is an interesting choice, but one that I became increasingly annoyed at- it makes the book feel disjointed, because you have to spend time reading the 100-page appendix, which is structured like a collection of annotated archival texts (again, interesting!), to fully understand the plot and some of the characters' motivations. But doing that distracts you from the story, which is already badly paced, and just makes it feel like paint might dry faster than things actually happen, especially with some plotlines like the Master's and Sirius'. Additionally, I appreciated the extra information we got on Padge's assassins in the appendix (within which, again, useful points of lore and characterbuilding were hidden), but considering they only make a brief appearance in the story and most of them die I just don't see how having 50+ pages about them was relevant to my reading experience, unless they come to play some future role in the third book. The appendix is an characteristic quirk of Pheby's series, but one that I'm not sure really pays off.

As a side note, I counted 3 typos in the text - which isn't really that many, but is more than I've noticed in any other book I've read this year and makes me think perhaps Malarkoi could've done with more editing overall.

I'm frustrated by this book. It has fantastic concepts, characters, and plot points, but is structured in a way that just failed utterly to hook me. Nevertheless, the world and character's Pheby has created has captured my interest sufficiently to pick up the final book in the series, Waterblack when it comes out - which I suppose is the point of selling books. While I'll try to come into it without any preconceived notions, given Pheby's track record with Mordew and Malarkoi, I worry that it, too, will be a frustrating read that I'll have to grit my teeth to get through.

2.5/5

[Kate Wileman · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the worst book I have ever read in my life and deserves 0 stars.

It has all the problems the first book had, contains less substance and was just so boring.

I listened to the audiobook and after 4 hours the author finally said the book would ‘resume where the first book left us’ and then proceeded to go on and on about theoretical concepts that don’t exist (this is also what the first four hours consists of).

This book also contains graphic descriptions of dogs having sex and then dogs being abused and I just cannot find a reason which explains why either needed to be included.

The characters are either just dead or less appealing than before, and the author spent so long discussing the theoretical concept of ‘the weft’ that all character building and story arcs were left behind.

This is the first book I have truly hated, and if I was asked to choose between reading this book one more time or never reading again, I would delete my goodreads account.

[Mat · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first book had a conventional hero's journey type structure which grounded the story amid all the madness. You knew what mattered - Nathan.

There's more of a kitchen sink approach to the world building in this that really didn't work for me. The freewheeling creativity and imagination on display is what is so amazing about Alex Pheby's writing, but it could be tempered with some restraint.

It reads like a creative writing exercise for Pheby - a kind of brain break from his literary fiction - which is undermining the book, I think.

[Brooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

At its best this is intricate and complicated and all held together in a way that made me marvel at it. The level of structure in this book (and its predecessor ... and presumably the conclusion of the trilogy) is something to behold.

It might not be my favorite book that i'll read this year (it was sometimes so cruel as to be off-putting), but it's one of the most impressive.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Malarkoi the place is too confusing to even point to, and maybe that's not a demerit but the book suffers a similar fate. it moves the story across the sea, but also to other realms and unknowable places, and mostly only serving the setting of the next volume. The curse of book 2.