The Wurms of Blearmouth by Steven Erikson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
What this book is about:(assuming you’ve read Blood Follows and The Lees of Laughter’s End
Our favourite necromancers, Bauchelain and Korbal Broach along with their manservant, Emancipor Reese make it to the beach beneath a small village called Spendrugle, after the ship Suncurl becomes a wreck. But, of course, this is no ordinary village. Some of the residents include a tax collector nobody cares about, a man who died but really he is alive, an ex-husband soldier who was never married, one lizard cat that used to be many and a girl who likes to pee in men’s laps. Oh, and of course the great tyrant of this god forgotten place, Lord Fangatooth. This small society is stirred up by the presence of our three friends who bring chaos wherever they go.
The Wurms of Blearmouth is the fifth and final novella in the Bauchelain and Korbal Broach series which is part of the main series of the Malazan Book of the Fallen. The story takes place right after the end of the third book, The Lees of Laughter’s End and many characters from the third book reappear in The Wurms of Blearmouth.
Could be a bit of trouble washed up here today, eh? Well, I doubt Fangatooth and his golems will have anything to worry about.
This story doesn’t lack the necessary Eriksonian dark humour that we’ve seen in all of his books in the series so far (Gardens of the Moon, Deadhouse Gates). For fans of Erikson’s humour, you won’t be disappointed in this novella. Bauchelain and Korbal Broach are one of Erikson’s famous pairs, like Mappo and Icarium, from the main series. They are partners who take care of each other and we are left wondering who is the most dangerous one. Bauchelain who is the smart one (at least that’s what we are left thinking) or Korbal Broach, an evil manchild with an adoration for corpses?
Fuck, do I want to kill them all? Hmm, difficult question. Let’s mull on it some…It’s not like I’ve got anything else to do.
In this novella, I really enjoyed one character in particular and that was Lord Fangatooth Claw the Render ,an arrogant, pompous High Mage with narcissistic personality disorder and delusions of grandiosity. He is always followed by his scribe, Coingood who is allocated the task of not only writing down everything Fangatooth says, but making sure to reinvent and rewrite sentences to make it sound better.
I am Lord Fangatooth Claw, Master of the Forgotten Holding, High Sorcerer of the Lost Gods of Ilfur, Seneschal of Grey Arts, High Mage of the League of Eternal Allies.
This is a horrific tale full of funny moments, blood and gore, corpses, weird sex fetishes and body parts and some cookie baking (with extra icing of course for Korbal Broach who loves icing)! The story leads to a peak moment at the end when chaos breaks loose and from then on we are left to go back to our main series with Memories of Ice being the next book suggested by the Malazan wikia. I’m excited and a little intimidated by the volume of this thing. As for The Wurms of Blearmouth, you should definitely go for it. Many readers agree that it’s the best novella of the three (Blood Follows and The Lees of Laughter’s End).
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