Review copy provided by the publisher—Tor Books—in exchange for an honest review.

The God is Not Willing made me sad. It might be time for me to admit everything in the Malazan universe beyond Malazan Book of the Fallen is not for me.

“Longing. Look for it, in every crowd, and you will find it. Paint it any colour you choose: grief, nostalgia, melancholy, remembrance, these are but flavours, poetic reflections.”


If I were to go back to the past and tell the past Petrik that The God is Not Willing would disappoint you, the past me wouldn’t have believed it. And yet, it happened. Since the release of The God is Not Willing, I’ve been saving the book to read on rainy days. This was one of those books I prepared in case I needed a great book to read because I was confident I would love the heck out of it. Currently, out of 3.6k ratings, The God is Not Willing has an average rating of 4.62 on Goodreads. That is insanely high, and MANY Malazan Book of the Fallen fans loved this book. Some have even mentioned they could start their journey in the Malazan Empire by reading The God is Not Willing instead of Gardens of the Moon despite this being the beginning of a sequel trilogy to the ten books in Malazan Book of the Fallen. And as a diehard fan of Malazan Book of the Fallen, no one is more hurt than me for not liking The God is Not Willing. Also, although technically you can follow the main story, I think there were still too many necessary contexts, backgrounds, and details from the main series required to fully understand the novel. At the very least, I think you have to read Malazan Book of the Fallen up to the fourth novel: House of Chains.

“The stupid knew better than to look into their wake. The wise could not help it and so suffered greatly. This was humanity’s great divide, and many a time, Damisk had envied the stupid and all the obstinate incomprehension he saw in their eyes and faces. In the end, it takes wisdom to scream.”

The God is Not Willing is the first book in The Witness trilogy, and it takes place a decade after the end of The Crippled God, the final book in Malazan Book of the Fallen. However, the main storyline in the novel focuses on the aftermath of Karsa Orlong’s actions in House of Chains. Many years have passed since three Teblor warriors brought carnage and chaos to the small lakeside settlement of Silver Lake. While the town has recovered, the legacy of that past horror remains, even if the Teblor tribes of the north no longer venture into the Southlands. One of those three Teblor warriors, Karsa Orlong, is now deemed to be a god, albeit an indifferent one. In the high mountains, where dwell the tribes of the Teblor, a new war leader has risen. Scarred by the deeds of Karsa Orlong, he intends to confront his god, even if he has to cut a bloody path through the Malazan Empire to do it. Higher in the mountains, a new threat has emerged, and now the Teblor are running out of time. The long-feared invasion is about to begin. And this time it won’t be three simple warriors. This time thousands are poised to flood the lands of the south. And in their way, a single legion of Malazan marines are on the march towards Silver Lake, responding to intelligence indicating the tribes beyond the border are stirring. The marines aren’t quite sure what they’re going to encounter but, while the Malazan military has evolved and these are not the marines of old, one thing hasn’t changed: they’ll handle whatever comes at them. Or die trying.

“Lad, the most powerful constant is stupidity. Nothing else comes close. Stupidity kills all the animals, empties the sky of birds, poisons the rivers, burns the forests, wages the wars, feeds the lies, invents the world over and over again in ways only idiots could think real. Stupidity, lad, will defeat every god, crush every dream, topple every empire. Because, in the end, stupid people outnumber smart people. If that wasn’t true, we wouldn’t suffer over and over again, through generation after generation and on for ever.”

The Witness trilogy was designed to be Karsa Orlong’s trilogy, and it might just be the reality by the end of the series. But if you’re like me and think Karsa Orlong will have a lot of appearances, I should let you know now that he did not appear in The God is Not Willing. As I said, many parts of The God is Not Willing circulate around the repercussions of Karsa’s heinous crimes in House of Chains. There’s a huge chance we will witness Karsa Orlong more frequently in the second and third books of The Witness trilogy, but not in The God is Not Willing. And theoretically, The God is Not Willing really should’ve been a book I enjoyed. It felt easier to read compared to Malazan Book of the Fallen or The Kharkanas trilogy, and Erikson’s prose remains strong as always. It is not as non-stop as The Kharkanas trilogy; if you love reading Erikson’s philosophical musing on life, stupidity, humanity, and war, you will still get them in abundance in The God is Not Willing. However, for me, everything about The God is Not Willing did not feel as rewarding as I hoped for several reasons, and this is something I noticed since I read The Kharkanas trilogy.

“The present age is only unique because you live in it. When you die, you cease to care about that age. And you know this. Which is why you don’t care about anything past your own life. Why should you? It follows, quite reasonably, that every generation is righteous in cursing the one that precedes it. Namely, yours. And the vicious fighting withdrawal that is your own conservatism – this bitter, hate-filled war against change – is doomed to fail, because no age lasts for ever. One follows upon the next and this is an inescapable fact. So step aside. Your day is done. Any regression into childish tantrums makes a mockery of wisdom. The age dies with you, as it must, and you now show its face to be that of a mewling child who can no longer hold on to what has ceased to exist. Synthraeas”

Here is how I look at the circumstances. Based on my reading experience, it feels precise to say my emotions treat Malazan Book of the Fallen as the golden age of Steven Erikson’s epic and unforgettable storytelling. Unfortunately, every book published in the same world since then that I have attempted, both by Erikson and Ian Esslemont, felt inferior and a struggle to read. In the case of The Kharkanas trilogy, I liked Forge of Darkness enough, but I could not finish Fall of Light. For Esslemont’s involvements, Night of Knives was horrible, Return of the Crimson Guard was another victim to the pile of DNF shelf, and the same notion goes for A Dancer’s Lament. To put it simply… I cannot bring myself to love all the other books outside the main series. No matter how much I wanted, everything felt smaller in scope and underwhelming in quality. The God is Not Willing may be more accessible to read, but it did not have the grand epic scope and various memorable characters encountered in Malazan Book of the Fallen.

“To be believed in is an obligation. Only by heeding that obligation are you made worthy of that belief.”

I know… I know… We have Rant, Damisk, and Stillwater in The God is Not Willing. And I will agree their voices and narration were the most distinct of all the characters. Rant’s tragic and destructive background made it easy to care about him and his development. Stillwater was undoubtedly the best character in the Malazan Marines in this book. But for Damisk, even though he was engaging at first, I feel like Erikson is using him as a platform to unleash a barrage of philosophies, and it ended up drowning the pacing and narrative of the book. Also, an issue that has appeared in the last few books of Malazan Book of the Fallen was multiplied here. Lack of distinct voices in the characters. This situation was tolerable in the Malazan Book of the Fallen because it was balanced and surpassed by myriad other legendary main characters. I cannot say the same here. Stillwater aside, and maybe Spindle, all the other Malazan marines are practically impossible to differentiate. It was like they were all the same characters with different names.

“It was good to have people like that looking out for you. The kind who went through life quietly, sincerely and consistently.”

It took two weeks (and skimming the middle section) for me to succeed at finishing The God is Not Willing. This is not a good statistic and feeling. At 190,000 words, The God is Not Willing is even shorter than Gardens of the Moon. And yet… it took me the longest to finish. In comparison, the eighth installment in Malazan Book of the Fallen, Toll the Hounds, clocked in at almost 400,000 words, and it took me less than a week to read. I frequently correlate how quick I can finish a book to how engaged and invested I am with the book I am reading. And these stats should display the massive differences. I guess we are left with one big question. Is this where I say farewell to the remaining books in the Malazan world? Honestly, I am still not sure. I love Malazan Book of the Fallen very much. It is one of my top favorite series of all time, and there is a potential I will grow to enjoy the books outside the main series after I complete the full reread of Malazan Book of the Fallen. On my reread up to Memories of Ice, I continue to be a diehard fan of Malazan Book of the Fallen, and I know I will finish my reread of the series eventually. So… who knows? Maybe after that is done, and The Kharkanas trilogy and The Witness trilogy are both completed, I will try them again. I cannot deny a part of me felt tired during my readthrough as I thought: “I have to read these books again just to refresh my memory someday when the sequels are published.” Until these are fulfilled, with sorrow, I say my heart remains exclusively in Malazan Book of the Fallen.

“To live is to lose the faith you were born with to a thousand cuts, each year bleeding into the next. The eyes of the innocent see a world very differently from what you and I see. To know this is to revisit one’s own loss, eye to eye with sad reflection, and to feel once more that dreadful ache in your chest.”

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Love how you feel right back in Malazan with this book. Feels good to be back. Quality story and plot. Great characterization.

The fact that it's taken me more than 4 months to finish this, the shortest and, I'd argue, most straightforward, most accessible Malzan novel to date, should tell you all you need to know about The God is Not Willing.

As much as I love Steven Erikson's flair for witty banter, this felt like all talk, no show. There was just so much dialogue, pages and pages of it, with hardly a dialogue tag to be seen, and far too often it's just self-indulgent nonsense. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a little nonsense - The Tales of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach are full of it, and I love them - but here it's taken to distraction and beyond. I found myself skimming past quotation marks, desperately searching for a thread of plot, on far too many occasions.

What's so frustrating is that all started off so well. I was amused by and curious about the new Bridgeburners, who are as crazy a lot as Erikson has ever written, but they're given no depth or personality beyond the craziness. I couldn't tell you most of them were from one chapter to another, and (to be honest) I didn't care to try and remember. I was, however, fascinated by Rant's tale, by the whole story of the Teblor, the breaking of Omtose Phellack, and the coming flood that's pushing a world of change before it. I really think there was an opportunity to do something new here, to let the legendary heroes rest and tell a proper sequel of who and what came next, but the book wastes too much time trying to craft Bridgeburners: The Next Generation,

Looking back, I struggled greatly to find my way into Gardens of the Moon, but that's only because it was so big and so bewildering, dropping the reader in media res and leaving us to figure things out. It took me 3 tries, but I wanted to break through, I wanted to wrap my head around it all, and I'm so glad that I did. Here, I struggled to keep going, to find a reason to pick up The God is Not Willing again, after longer and longer pauses, because I just didn't care. It feels like a superficial Malazan story, one that Erikson felt pressured to write because of flagging sales, not one he had any great passion for.

All that said, the book is averaging 4.67 on Goodreads and 4.8 on Amazon, so it seems I'm in the minority with my dissatisfaction . . . although I swear those ratings have to be fueled more by nostalgia for what came before and hope for what comes next that what's actually in the book.

If you're already a fan of Steven Erikson, there is no doubt you'll love The God Is Not Willing. Though the story explores the legacy of Karsa, the divisive character does not actually factor into the book. Instead, it follows a mix of new and returning characters whose lives and journeys have all been strongly impacted by Karsa's actions -- and his current absence. It's solid epic fantasy, but just because it's the start of a new trilogy doesn't mean it'd be a great jumping in point for readers new to this world. Though it'd be possible to follow a long, a lot of the nuance and context would be missing.

Malazan reignites!

A return to the world of Malazan is truly a pleasure, exhausting and invigorating—all in the same breathe.
Diving into Erickson’s complex and mind bending writing, reminds me again of how much I enjoy his work. I was hooked from the beginning with Gardens of the Moon and the roller coaster ride that is Malazan has never ceased to engage.
Descriptive, poetic, bardic in scope. Just re-read the Preface. Amazing! The cadence embedded in those few pages is a sample of what’s to come.
TGINW is at times visceral. (Is it too far flung to think of Erickson’s works as an Odyssey? Not to me.) The Malazan arc is epic, a saga of heroic proportions, tragic with subtle humorous intent
Set some years after the Crippled God, TGINW combines all this and more.
Unrest on its borders has the Malazan army on alert. A war chief with an agenda is stirring in Teblor.
Gods, heroes, fighters, some we’ve met before, others who rise to new heights.
All I can say on greeting this first in a new Malazan series is “Hail fellow, well met”... or rather, well read!

(For those who have trouble keeping who’s who at the forefront Bill Capossere has written a great piece “Malazan Refresher: Everything You Need to Know Before Reading the God is Not Willing”, in Tor’s newsletter, tor.com October 4, 2021, followed by subsequent commentaries on chapters of the TGINW)

A Macmillan-Tor/Forge ARC via NetGalley
(Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.)

“What do you mean Karsa isn’t even in this book?” Corporal Snack demanded. “It’s called The God is Not Willing!”
Folibore shrugged.
“Iskar’s limp—he’s the fucking god! How can he not be in the book?”
Anyx Fro snorted. “You’re an idiot. Obviously, he wasn’t willing.”
Snack’s blotchy face rounded on her. “That doesn’t make any sense; he doesn’t get to choose. The writer decides!”
“Ahh,” Folibore said. “You see the author as an omniscient marionette. But do they really decide?”
“Course they do!” Snack yelled. “Feather’s itch, who else would come up with this shit! Oams! Help me out here; you were a writer.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“And a good thing too,” Folibore said, “or we’d be down another Marine, since Barthes killed all the writers.”
“Poor Oams,” Stillwater sighed. She wondered who this Barthes person was. Someone else stealing her best ideas.
“I’m not dead!” Oams protested.
“How do we know?” Shrake asked. “Sure, Benger said he healed you last night, but he’s an illusionist so how do we know your bloody corpse ain’t still back there in the road?”
Oams turned to Benger marching silently beside him. “Benger, tell ‘em you healed me! Tell ‘em I’m not dead!”
Benger turned his head to face him. “You think I’m marching in this mud with you idiots? I’m riding the wagon, and if you draw the Sergeant’s attention over here with your big gabhole, I’ll—

Rant stood. “Stop. I don’t understand. I thought you were writing a review.”
“I am.”
“There is no talk here of plot. Or character. Or theme.”
“Well, see, it’s a clever use of—"
“Clever people are never as clever as they think they are.”
“OK, maybe ‘funny’ is a better word than—"
“Funny people are never as funny as they think they are. You will write the review now.”
“You know, you sound just like your father, Karsa, when you—"
Rant pulled out the knife the Malazan had given him years ago.
“I’ll just start the review now.”
“See. Now you’re being clever.”

The God is Unwilling picks up roughly ten years after the events of The Crippled God, returning us to one of the earliest settings in the series — Silver Lake, the small town in northern Genabackis where Karsa Orlong first wreaked havoc amongst the southland “children.” Karsa’s people remain in the mountains above, but not for long, as natural events have done what Teblor nature could not — unified the clans under one banner and driven them into alliance with other non-human tribes in preparation for an invasion of the lowlands. Amidst rumors of vast numbers of stirring “savages”, the depleted squads of the Malazan 14th Legion being sent to Silver Lake are forced to supplement their low numbers by contracting with the same mercenary squad responsible for their recent losses, making for an uneasy agreement to say the least. And in Silver Lake itself, Karsa’s son Rant— the product of Karsa rape of a townswoman years earlier — is forced from home and journeys to see if he will find a place with the Teblor, accompanied by the human hunter Damisk and two Jheck he meets in the mountains.

These three storylines — the tense, iffy relationship between the Malazans and the mercenaries as they march to and then garrison Silver Lake, Rant’s journey to and meeting with the Teblor (including his half-sisters), and the forced migration of the hill/mountain peoples into human lands — make up a surprisingly focused and streamlined plot for a Malazan story. How streamlined? At under 500 pages, roughly half the size of the average Malazan book. I breezed through it in a single setting, and after rereading the entire MBotF series just beforehand, Willing almost felt like a novella, thanks to its (relatively) short length, constrained setting (basically a handful of near-to-each-other locations), and small-scale focus.

Before anyone gets nervous though that Erikson has jettisoned many of the elements that made MBotF so beloved in favor of something more “easily and commercially acceptable” let me assuage your concerns. A veritable host of characters? Check (two dozen to pay serious attention to and the Dramatis Personae lists far more). Multiple POVs? Check. Poetry? Check. Important epigraphs from “reference” works? Check. Characters doing deep dives into philosophy, ethics, religion, and the human (broadly speaking) condition? Check. Exploration of serious and timely themes? Check. Witty and/or ribald banter? Check and check. Vivid battle scenes? Check. Movingly poignant scenes? (swallows lump in throat recalling them) Check. In other words, this isn’t Erikson “lite.” More like Erikson “single-serving.” You’re not getting Halo Top instead of Häagen-Dazs; you’re just getting a pint instead of a carton.

Despite being a direct sequel, Erikson, at least in book one, eschews the easy choice of stocking the novel with fan favorites from earlier books. With the exception of Spindle, all the main characters are brand new, with prior characters relegated to cameo appearances (nope, not telling) or off-stage references, as when one character anxiously asks if there are “two necromancers” inside a large carriage. We get a lot of people/names thrown at us early, which makes for some blurring, but eventually (some more quickly than others) they sort themselves out into distinctly strong characters. My personal favorite, and I’m guessing that will be true for a number of readers, is Stillwater, a deadly if surprisingly clumsy assassin-mage (she proudly thinks she’s the first to merge the two professions) whose running internal and spoken commentary is one of the greatest, and funniest, pleasures of the novel. I’m already sold on a Stillwater Trilogy to follow this one. Other favorites amongst the marines are the mage Benger, Captain Gruff, So Bleak (who is indeed), and the intellectual “heavy” Folibore, though as often the case with Malazan soldiers, while individual characters shine much of the joy is in the interaction of the unit as a whole.

Outside the marines, the hunter Damisk is a complex, richly drawn character, and the Jheck Gower nearly as much so. The other Jheck character will probably spark differing reactions; I found him a welcome source of comic relief in the Rant thread, which tends toward the grim, but others may find him more annoying than funny. Rant, meanwhile, is more a character I appreciate than enjoy, which is appropriately enough sort of how I feel about Karsa. Part of it is he feels more like a vehicle for ideas/points at times than a person, part of it —somewhat related — is stylistic (the ideas/points are far from simple, but he presents or resolves them somewhat simply, as in a fist to the face or a flat refusal to accept something), and the rest of it is too fuzzily subjective to nail down. Mileage may vary. Finally, on the subject of character, despite the “brevity” of Willing, Erikson still manages to give us several examples of what I consider a rare authorial strength — a “minor” character drawn so vividly that we become fully immersed despite how little page time they have, so much so that we can be driven to near-tears by what happens to them.

With regard to worldbuilding, after ten books in the main sequence (and yes, you should read the main sequence before this one), two in the prequel, a number of novellas, and Cam’s novels set in the same universe, it isn’t like we don’t know this world. Erikson does have to fill in a few gaps though, and he does that as smoothly as one would expect for an author so well versed in his subject matter. So we learn, for instance, that the Empire under Rel (I hate Mallick Rel) has stabilized and found some peace, there’s a Coltaine cult sweeping across several continents, and the Malazan military has once again adapted to better meet its needs and objectives. More than the more obvious exposition, I loved the little ways Erikson shows us a changed world. A game of Fiddler’s Gambit, for instance (ideally played with a Deck of Dragons) offers up the new “chips”: “Black Feathers,” “Unloved Woman,” “Icar,” “Korabas,” “Church of the Eel,” and “Twice Alive.” Even the curses the soldiers use — Iskar’s Limp, Feather’s Itch — give us a bridge from the world of MBotF to this somewhat different one. I also appreciated how Erikson doesn’t ignore technology or allow it to stagnate as too many fantasy authors do. Magic’s existence has not prevented the development of new tech, as we see in several (somewhat depressing) scenes.

As for themes/subjects, we’ve seen some of these before, as one might expect. Compassion, empathy, freedom, redemption and accountability, humanity’s self-destructive nature when it comes to despoiling the environment and wiping out non-human life. “Innocence” is more directly prominent here than in other books I’d say. And climate change is evoked from the very beginning in the prologue; really, it’s what drives the entire plot. Some of the themes are presented indirectly, via echoes or metaphors or action we have to draw conclusions from, and others are conveyed much more overtly via dialogue, internal monologue, or even the occasional lengthy speech. If in earlier books you didn’t like Erikson’s characters interrupting action scenes with long philosophical discussions, say the distinction between good and evil, then you’ll find some pacing issues here. If, like me, you loved those moments, you’ll find the plot fast-flowing and smooth even as it is peppered with some serious concepts to chew on. That said, at times the themes are a bit too on the nose, too bald in their conveyance, for my personal preference. I like things a little more allusive/elusive.

On the flip side, I loved how Erikson weaves in a recurring theme of misdirection or illusion — things or people not being what they appear — via a variety of methods, including but not limited to various plot twists, schemes of deception, illusion magic, concealment spells, shadows of course (it is a Malazan book after all), heavies pretending to be stupid, and several quite funny running gags I won’t spoil here.

The humor, as noted above, is a welcome balance to the more grim aspects of the novel. Like life, the story commingles tragedy and comedy, and Erikson proves himself deft at both. Rant’s storyline in particular has some deeply disturbing and bleak moments (I’d expect some might think Erikson goes a little far with one scene), and the entire book builds toward a climax that dampened my eyes and closed off my throat more than a few times. If The God Is Not Willing lacks the physical weight of the earlier Malazan books, it certainly doesn’t lack the emotional heft. I’m not going to argue that less is more here, because as far as I’m concerned, when it comes to things Malazan more is always more. But less is adamantly not less either. The God Is Not Willing is Erikson still at the top of his game, a lean, sharply honed, and powerful addition to what is already in my mind the preeminent fantasy universe of the last few decades.

I received an ARC of The God Is Not Willing from Macmillan-Tor/Forge in exchange for an honest review.

Ten years after The Crippled God—both in real life and in the chronology of the Malazan world—Steven Erikson returns to the continent of Genabackis to reckon with the legacy of Karsa Orlong. If you know what those words mean, you’ve probably already read all ten volumes in Erikson’s The Malazan Book of the Fallen, have been anticipating The God Is Not Willing for years, and will pick it up regardless of what I say in this review (spoiler: it’s good, go read it).

If “Genabackis” and “Karsa Orlong” are gibberish to you, this is probably not the book you want to start with—that would be Gardens of the Moon, the first of the previously-mentioned ten volumes. Or…maybe not? I certainly can’t extricate myself from the knowledge I’ve gleaned from The Malazan Book of the Fallen, so take this with a grain of salt, but I believe The God Is Not Willing is a surprisingly-viable entry point to the Malazan world, which contains more than twenty books (with more on the way) from Erikson and Malazan co-creator Ian C. Esslemont.

The first difference you’ll likely notice between The God Is Not Willing and the rest of Erikson’s Malazan doorstoppers is that it’s, well, less of a doorstopper. Coming in at roughly half the length of the Book of the Fallen’s later volumes, The God Is Not Willing strikes a near-perfect balance between density/complexity and readability. Erikson maintains the slow-build structure that worked so well in the Book of the Fallen, but the condensed chapter lengths made for a more enjoyable reading experience because I didn’t have to block off an entire evening just to get from one chapter to the next. The God Is Not Willing is—dare I say a word which some in the Malazan fandom might find dirty?—“accessible,” and it doesn’t sacrifice depth to do so. Don’t worry! This is still what you expect from Erikson: layers upon layers of references, ambiguities, and philosophizing the fandom will be unpacking over many years and many re-reads.

You’ll be following two primary plot threads in The God Is Not Willing. One concerns the much-diminished Malazan presence on Genabackis—occasionally a familiar face will appear, but these are mostly fresh characters who took me a while to warm up to but ultimately won me over, with Anyx Fro and Stillwater being particular highlights. The “boots-on-the-ground” banter registers largely the same as it did in the Book of the Fallen, and its effectiveness will come down to personal taste: for some fans it will feel like hanging out with friends, for others it will feel like interminable padding. I felt more of the latter than the former in this case, but any lost goodwill was earned back by Erikson with the satisfying climatic sequence that rounds out this plotline.

The other plotline concerns Rant, a son of Karsa Orlong who was raped and abused by his mother under the influence of blood-oil. Rant almost instantly enters the pantheon of great Malazan characters—he spends most of The God Is Not Willing with a minor character from the Book of the Fallen, who returns for a beautiful and compelling arc, and his story engages some of the richest and most dynamic themes Erikson has ever tackled. There is a scene in which Rant and another character attempt to navigate his history of sexual trauma and the nature of abuse, consent, and addiction; it ranks, for me, among the most moving scenes in the Malazan world.

The Malazan books have always been intensely topical and intensely political, but Erikson turns that dial further than he ever has before (in this series) with The God Is Not Willing. The topics and politics in question here are refugees and the climate crisis. If I were to level a criticism at this book, it would be that it strays dangerously close to didacticism during certain sequences near the end—it’s not quite on par with the finger-wagging of his science fiction novel Rejoice, a Knife to the Heart, and I don’t disagree with anything Erikson asserts, but there were several scenes so close to breaking the fourth wall that I found myself figuratively rolling my eyes.

Confession: I hated The Crippled God. It stripped the Malazan series of the depth, the richness, and the subtlety of earlier entries—its treatment of trauma was cavalier, its villains were dull and simplistic, and its women were reduced to tropes that would have been frustrating even in a far more generic and far less progressive fantasy text. None of these problems are evident in The God Is Not Willing. This is a glorious return (I know the Kharkanas novels exist, don’t @ me; I’m referring to the chronology of the Malazan world) to the spiraling, sprawling moral, national, familial, and environmental complexity that characterized the Book of the Fallen prior to Dust of Dreams. If you’re already a fan of Erikson and the original ten volumes, The God Is Not Willing is a must-read—it got me excited about Malazan again, and it gets my highest recommendation.

But here is, perhaps, a more interesting question: Can you start your Malazan journey here? Should you?

The answer is a definitive…maybe. I would suggest trying Gardens of the Moon first—if it isn’t working for you but you’re still interested in the Malazan world, The God Is Not Willing may be a better entry point. There are heavy spoilers for previous books, yes, but they are presented mostly without context and with the veneer of mythology. References to the climatic sequences of Deadhouse Gates and House of Chains, which have perpetuated in the Malazan world via religious ceremony, brought me no end of delight; you will not pick up on the exact nature of these and other references if you haven’t read the relevant volumes from the Book of the Fallen, but you may find yourself intrigued enough to go back and find out.

When I was a child, I would often pick up later entries in fantasy series and read them with no knowledge of what had happened before, and I found a great deal of joy in devouring every hint of those happenings, piecing stories together as best I could through context clues. While reading The God Is Not Willing, I often found myself imagining what it would be like to start Malazan here, and it was surprisingly thrilling—I was entering a vast world shaped by titans who had taken their place in myth and legend, and I knew many thousands of pages awaited me if I wanted those myths demythologized and those legends brought to life. If that appeals to you as a first-time reader, you may find The God Is Not Willing to be a rewarding experience.

This book is bound to excite all those who originally fell in love with the Malazan world. Set roughly ten years on from the previous events the author gives us both old and new characters to cheer for and also at times want to simply bash one or two over the head ! I think that's the real draw of this book and indeed this series as no matter what you think of the overall arc the journey divides opinions as heroes are less than heroic and the villains who we should despise unsettle the thoughts we've previously had about them. Camaraderie and the desire to fulfil their destiny leads these characters with clashes and bloodshed inevitable and for the fans a whole new chapter to delight in.
This voluntary take is of a copy I requested from Netgalley and my thoughts and comments are honest and I believe fair

I absolutely loved this book and thinks it picks up the Malazan Book of the Fallen feel fantastically.

Thank you Netgalley for this incredible arc!

I love Malazan Book of the Fallen so much! I found this series several years ago and it just really spoke to me and got me through a hard time. Steven Erikson is an amazing storyteller. He simply pulls me in to these stories and I become entranced by the details creating this world.

The God is Not Willing is a continuation of Malazan. This first Witness book begins about 10 years after the events in The Crippled God. There are still people in Silver Lake and the surrounding area that Malazan marines (including Spindle) are watching. This book has plenty of action, unexpected humor and the gorgeous writing I now always expect from Steven Erikson. (Okay, can anybody tell that I'm a huge fan? Cuz I am... )

Simply, this is another installment to Malazan and it's a must read for any fans or anyone curious about this world so many of us love reading about.

In The God is Not Willing, we dive into the world of Malazan. Erikson crafts a new cast of characters and exceptional world-building. A shorter story, some characters we’ve met in the previous series, the darkness, brutality, and humor expected from an Erikson fantasy. Overall a solid follow-up to the Malazan series.

Special thanks to NetGalley, Steven Erikson, and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for the advanced copy of The God Is Not Willing. #TheGodisNotWilling #NetGalley

A superb blend of action and humor packed into a brisk moving plot introducing the next chapter of the Malazan Saga!

The book is set in Northern Genabackis about a decade after the events of the original Malazan BotF series. The Teblor tribes of the region still revere Karsa who is considered a God but has refused ascension and is in a self-imposed exile outside Darujhistan. With a massive threat facing their homeland, they seek to confront their god one way or another, even if means cutting a bloody swath through the Malazan Empire to reach him. Though the tribes have a new Warleader who seeks to usurp Karsa, the main PoV is of Rant, one of Karsa’s half-children born out of rape during events that were covered earlier on MBotF books and living quietly in the settlement of Silver Lake. His journey to confront his lineage makes up for the “heavier” aspects of SE’s philosophizing. From a naïve sone of god who doesn’t understand his strength, his learning through bitter experience is fascinating and engrossing to read.

The other (set of) PoV is from that of a unit of Malazan Marines who are sent to reinforce the town of Silver Lake (as the rumblings amongst the Teblor) have already reached wider audience. This is where the very subtle and often understated Erikson humour takes the centre stage. From the wise and weary outlook of No Bleak (Malazan Heavy) to the genuinely hilarious closed and narrow focused outlook of Stillwater, it just was a treat to read these. Her outlook of the world vs the actual world itself is so disconnected that it could only possibly work in Mazalan Marine workd and her unique take on the proceedings are so enjoyable that I found myself sporting a smile everything she makes the page. She could very well be on her way to becoming my favourite characters in all of Malazan!

Like any typical SE book, we get to see a organic unravelling of history covering Teblor, Jheck, Jaghut etc with an occasional name drop from some MBotF characters. Throw in a mercenary company who have just fought the above same Marine Unit and now forced to work together with them, and we get an interesting hot pot of characters and plots in the mix simmering all the way to a delicious climax.

The book is a new beginning and there is a clear sense of detachment from the earlier books with only few threads that continue on here in detail. The old players and Elder Gods have faded into legends and memories and mostly relegated to being name dropped at times. New gods have arisen out of the events of MBotF, Iskar Jarak , Coltaine and of course our indomitable Karsa Orlong amongst others have gained popular cult following. Not just in players, but tribes, races that played significant part of original books fade into obscurity in here. It’s a whole new world out there now!

The only major character we see from MBotF is Spindle sporting his signature hairshirt. His background with the Bridgeburners is not widely known. After the events at Pale, he’s wandered around for some time, before coming back to what he does best, soldiering for Malazan Empire, and finds himself at the forefront for the events of this book. There’s one or two other characters who make a brief appearance but to avoid spoilers they’ll remain unnamed.

The difference between the old and new worlds is subtle yet significant. What makes SE special is the amount of information he packs into the books. Not just a new story in the world, but we see progression in almost all phases of the book. For example, the components of Malazan Army, that tactics of it s Marines etc are different from what we’ve seen before, which again are driven by events that are hinted but not explained (typical, huh!). Stuff which I took for granted due to having read earlier books continue to surprise me as the new nuances serve to keep it fresh. It’s like every other paragraph has potential for a separate book of its own! Not just the main story, but there are so many other intriduing aspects packed into the book (Rant’s dagger for example) that I’m eagerly awaiting to read in the next book.

I’m not sure if it’s fallout from SE’s experience with Kharkanas trilogy or not, bit GINW is a surprisingly streamlined and easy read, possibly among all of SE’s books in the Malazan world. We are not stopped into middle of an epic battle and left to figure our way around. The characters have introductions, hint of backstory which fills out quickly and moves along at a brisk pace. I’m almost tempted to describe this as Malazan-Lite, a diet version of the series…but that would be an injustice. It’s just a different flavour of the series. The heaviness of the Rant is balanced beautifully with the world-weary sarcasm of Malazan Marines making this one of the best books I’ve read this year!

More Malazan!! Of course I ask for it! So glad I got it, can't say too much after too many volumes in this magnificent and massive series. The most complete, deep, immersive and complex fantasy series ever!! And if that isn't enough for you, well...

I highly recommend it! Seriously, it's great in every possible way!!