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House of Chains

Malazan Book of the Fallen, Book 4

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House of Chains

Written by: Steven Erikson
Narrated by: Michael Page
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About this listen

In Northern Genabackis, a raiding party of savage tribal warriors descends from the mountains into the southern flatlands. Their intention is to wreak havoc amongst the despised lowlanders, but for the one named Karsa Orlong, it marks the beginning of what will prove to be an extraordinary destiny.

Some years later, it is the aftermath of the Chain of Dogs. Tavore, the Adjunct to the Empress, has arrived in the last remaining Malazan stronghold of Seven Cities. New to command, she must hone 12,000 soldiers, mostly raw recruits but for a handful of veterans of Coltaine's legendary march, into a force capable of challenging the massed hordes of Sha'ik's Whirlwind, who lie in wait in the heart of the Holy Desert.

But waiting is never easy. The seer's warlords are locked into a power struggle that threatens the very soul of the rebellion, while Sha'ik herself suffers, haunted by the knowledge of her nemesis: her own sister, Tavore.

And so begins this awesome chapter in Steven Erikson's acclaimed Malazan Book of the Fallen.

©2002 Steven Erikson (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved. Action & Adventure Epic Epic Fantasy Fantasy Military Sword & Sorcery Fiction

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i am not a fan of Karsa. In our group seems you like him and this book or not.
its not a bad book, just the weakest of the series.
the chnage of narrator is jarring. the "accents" and voices... might be too much for me to continue. no clue why they changed.
pirate Quick is a joke 🤦‍♂️

by far my least favourite book of series

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The new narrator takes a little getting used to as a lot of pronunciations from previous books are changed. Annoying at first but you get over it quickly. Otherwise he does a great job. Story wise one of the best of the series so far.

Great book, great performance.

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The desert claims a big toll. this book introduces Kara's Orlong....... WITNESS! the Malazans will never be the same!

Malazan at its best!

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Another amazing addition to this series/world! I've been just eating up the books, splitting it between reading the physical copies and listening on audible when I'm more busy.. although I'm super disappointed that the narrator changed starting here at Book 4... I REALLY loved Ralph Lister as the narrator of the previous 3 books, I thought his range was incredible! Especially in books like these where it doesn't follow any 1 character, there's like dozens of characters perspectives you're seeing from and they switch mid chapter.. with the physical book it's much easier to follow as you see the actual paragraph breaks.. but on an audio track it's a bit more difficult and you really have to pay attention especially if like me you listen to your books on 1.5-1.7x when you can't get enough of them.. the last narrator was SO good at differentiating between characters with just the sound of their voice! I don't necessarily think that Michael Page as the new narrator is bad per se, but I don't really like the sound of his just usual narrator voice.. it sounds kind of like a nasly British Lord or something to me and isn't super annoying but still I wouldn't call it an enjoyable voice at all. I also dislike all of Page's female voices, they just come across as very deep and manly, and ofc I understand it's going to be hard to do a female voice justice when you're a male narrator... but I thought Lister did a MUCH better job with the female voices and just the range of voices for all the different characters was way wayyyy better! I have no idea why they'd go away from using Ralph Lister as the narrator, when he was 1 of my favourite narrators ever! Michael Page isn't bad enough that I literally can't even listen to the book on audible (there have been some I just couldn't i.e. The Name Of The Wind) but I don't think he's any better than most average narrators and definitely a major downgrade.. I honestly listened to the previous books on audible at times when I could've read the physical books just because his voices for some characters was so amazing, Crone is a good example, Kruppe or Anomander Rake! I'm giving him 4 stars just because I don't think there's any major flaws, but honestly compared to Ralph Lister it's like night and day, it's be the difference between going from 5 stars to 1-2 stars!

Missing Ralph Lister as the narrator! Why?????

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So far this has been the best of series love the first part of the book and the character development.

Best one

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I first read this series over about 15 years, and found them the best stories I had ever read. On re-reading, I have not changed my opinion. Unlike most fantasy, it's difficult to identify the "good guys" and "bad guys." (Hint: in war there are no good guys.)

And sometimes the characters you're rooting for get killed.

And sometimes the dead characters show up again.

These books are so long, and so good, I have to take a breather before reading the next one.

Remember to breathe

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This is the Fourth in the Book Of The Fallen series. Fantastic story and introduces great characters like Karsa Orlong and Trull Sengar. While the events are gripping, this novel has very little standalone merit.

Ralph Lister (reader of the first three books) is a far better narrator and this book would easily rate five stars but for the performance. Michael Page is *terrible*

Still, 'House Of Chains' is well worth reading if you plan to continue in the Malazan series. Altogether this recording merits 7.5 stars out of 10.

A great novel marred by bad narration

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Don’t discount this book until you have given it adequate time. Erikson is a master of writing from a particular characters perspective, and it takes seeing the world from a variety of these perspectives to get a true sense of what is going on. The growth of the “main” character here is fascinating and evident in his reactions to the people and events around him as his journey away from his homeland takes him deeper into the world.

Dive into perspective

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Je ne comprends pas ceux qui n'aime pas la performance, moi je la trouvé très bien et il fait plusieurs voix différentes.

magistral

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Still a amazing story but you’re better off reading them because the narrator really does a horrible job continuing on after the first 3 books. Not sure what was the reason behind the change but at least they could have tried to keep the pronunciations consistent with the first 3 books. Ruined a amazing experience

Different narrator

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