“The small eyes, buried in epicanthic folds, shifted. A low, reverberating voice rumbled from the flesh and blood warrior. ‘Trull Sengar. Is this… is this mortality?’
The Tiste Edur drew a step closer. ‘You don’t remember? How it feels to be alive?’
‘I-I… yes.’ A sudden look of wonder in that heavy, broadly featured face. ‘Yes.’ Another deep breath, then a gust that was nearly savage in its exultation. The strange gaze fixed on Quick Ben once more. ‘Wizard, is this illusion? Dream? A journey of my spirit?’
‘I don’t think so. I mean, I think it’s real enough.’
‘Then… this realm. It is Tellann.’
‘Maybe. I’m not sure.’
Trull Sengar was suddenly on his knees, and Quick Ben saw tears streaming down the Tiste Edur’s lean, dusky face.
The burly, muscled warrior before them, still wearing the rotted remnants of fur, slowly looked round at the withered landscape of open tundra. ‘Tellann,’ he whispered. ‘Tellann.”
― Reaper's Gale
The Tiste Edur drew a step closer. ‘You don’t remember? How it feels to be alive?’
‘I-I… yes.’ A sudden look of wonder in that heavy, broadly featured face. ‘Yes.’ Another deep breath, then a gust that was nearly savage in its exultation. The strange gaze fixed on Quick Ben once more. ‘Wizard, is this illusion? Dream? A journey of my spirit?’
‘I don’t think so. I mean, I think it’s real enough.’
‘Then… this realm. It is Tellann.’
‘Maybe. I’m not sure.’
Trull Sengar was suddenly on his knees, and Quick Ben saw tears streaming down the Tiste Edur’s lean, dusky face.
The burly, muscled warrior before them, still wearing the rotted remnants of fur, slowly looked round at the withered landscape of open tundra. ‘Tellann,’ he whispered. ‘Tellann.”
― Reaper's Gale
“What makes a Malazan soldier so dangerous? They’re allowed to think.”
― Deadhouse Gates
― Deadhouse Gates
“..for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
― Middlemarch
― Middlemarch
“Write the following: "Private missive, from Lieutenant Master-Sergeant Field Quartermaster Pores, to Fist Kindly. Warmest salutations and congratulations on your promotion, sir. As one might observe from your advancement and, indeed, mine, cream doth rise, etc. In as much as I am ever delighted in corresponding with you, discussing all maner of subjects in all possible idioms, alas, this subject is rather more official in nature. In short, we are faced with a crisis of the highest order. Accordignly, I humbly seek your advice and would suggest we arrange a most private meeting at the earliest convenience. Yours affectionately, Pores." Got that, Himble?'
'Yes sir'
'Please read it back to me.'
'"Pores to Kindly meet in secret when?"'
'Excellent, Dispatch at once, Himble”
― The Crippled God
'Yes sir'
'Please read it back to me.'
'"Pores to Kindly meet in secret when?"'
'Excellent, Dispatch at once, Himble”
― The Crippled God
“He was a man who would never ask for sympathy. He was a man who sought only to do what was right. Such people appear in the world, every world, now and then, like a single refrain of some blessed song, a fragment caught on the spur of an otherwise raging cacophony.
Imagine a world without such souls.
Yes, it should have been harder to do.”
― Toll the Hounds
Imagine a world without such souls.
Yes, it should have been harder to do.”
― Toll the Hounds
Stephen’s 2025 Year in Books
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