Well. I suppose that was... ok.

I thought it was an improvement on Night of Knives, which I thought was the weakest Malazan book by far. The battle scenes are (mostly) well-written, and I enjoyed seeing the Old Guard come out in force. Favorite characters include Kyle, Shimmer, and Ereko. I liked seeing Nil and Nether again. The ending was satisfying, despite a battle that really seemed to never, ever end.

A couple of things that really irked/confused me about this book:

The Ascendant that Cowl killed in the beginning. Was that supposed to be Osserc? Another Tiste Liosan? If it was Osserc, then there are serious problems with continuity with House of Chains. First of all, I doubt Osserc could be killed by Cowl, since even Cotillion, Cowl's ascended rival, was very hesitant to even make a move against him later on. Oh, and Osserc was not "asleep" or whatever during the events that preceded (and maybe happened concurrently with) this book - he is alive and active on Seven Cities, where he intervenes to save L'oric. This doesn't make sense if it was Osserc, who was apparently inactive at the time and being drained by Shen. If it wasn't Osserc, then why did Osserc later "appear" out of the blade that was so greatly altered when Cowl "killed" whatever it was that was woken up? I just didn't get it.

Kyle as the soldier of High House Light. Why is he the soldier of High House Light? Why did Osserc hang out in his sword for all that time. Just to deliver Osserc into the Shadow Keep, so that he could be rude to Shadowthrone and Cotillion? Kyle's journey, though enjoyable to read, did nothing to benefit High House Light, Osserc, or anyone other than the Crimson Guard.

Ryllandaras. I liked the story of the White Jackal, as used in this book. But the thing is, Ryllandaras was also running around during the events of House of Chains, at least during Toblakai's journeys. And he wasn't a Soletaken, he was D'ivers (wolves, if I recall). We see a very different beast in RotCG. It's just one animal. It never multiplies itself, regardless of how many people it kills. It just runs around slaughtering people, void of any human intelligence. It never sembles into human form, though that would be immensely helpful in some portions of this book (like, say, sneaking into Heng, which he hates, and then veering and killing everyone). Oh, and all those years it was imprisoned, none of its counterparts seemed to care. Sure, there was some talk at the end about Ryllandaras actually being D'ivers, but my point is the beast didn't behave like a D'ivers, it acted like a crazed Soletaken and its identity did not mesh with what we were told in HoC.

The Crimson Guard's vow. WHAT WAS THE VOW? SERIOUSLY, I WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE DAMN VOW WAS. All I can tell is that it's something about "eternal opposition" to the Malazan Empire. That's it. This really bugged me, especially with Shimmer's PoVs and her shock at hearing that Skinner may try to take the Malazan throne. What did she think was going to happen? What the hell did they all agree to do? Just destroy the empire's armies and leave? That makes no sense!

Silk and Heuk. Two human mages who walk around accessing Elder Warrens. Erikson's mythos is all over the place and seems to constantly change, but he's pretty consistent with the notion that the Kurald warrens are completely inaccessible to humans. And then along comes Silk and he throws some Kurald Liosan (not Thryllan) at some mages and Heuk dumps some blood on himself and makes a Kurald Galain monster. It just irritated me, like we're dealing with two different worlds between the two authors. The worst part is, Esselmont never explains why or how any of this is possible. I could appreciate some sort of clever loophole or exception to the rule that either of these two mages discovered, but no such exception is invoked. These two just do things that we have previously been told couldn't be done with no explanation. Esselmont doesn't bend the rules, he just pretends they don't exist when he's in need of a trump card. That's called cheating.

Ghelel. Why was this character even created? She did nothing, contributed nothing, and had no ending to her arc.

I know I've got some negative points, but it was still an enjoyable read.