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The Crippled God
The Crippled God
Nov 12, 2025 5:37 PM

Author:Steven Erikson

The Crippled God

The final, apocalyptic chapter in one of the most original, exciting and acclaimed fantasy series of our time . . .

The Bonehunters are marching to Kolanse, and to an unknown fate. They are exhausted - an army on the brink of mutiny. But their commander will not relent. If she can hold her forces and their fragile alliances together, Adjunct Tavore Paran means to challenge the gods...

Ranged against Tavore and her allies are the Forkrul Assail. Their desire is to cleanse the world - to eradicate every civilization, to annihilate every human - in order to begin anew.

And outside the abandoned city of Kharkanas, thousands have gathered upon the First Shore. Led by Yedan Derryg, they are preparing for the coming of the Tiste Liosan - and a battle they cannot win.

It had long been known that there would be a reckoning, but not the true, terrifying scale of what was to come. For the Elder Gods seek to shatter the chains that bind a force of utter devastation and set her free. It seems that, once more, there will be dragons in the world...

And so begins the last chapter in Steven Erikson's extraordinary, genre-defining Malazan Book of the Fallen.

Reviews

Reading The Malazan Book of the Fallen is an experience. It will amaze you in more ways than I can predict...without a doubt, it is the most masterful piece of fiction I have ever read. It has single-handedly changed everything we thought we knew about fantasy literature and redefined what is possible

—— SF SITE

Arguably the best fantasy series ever written. This is of course subject to personal opinion...but few can deny that the quality and ambition of the ten books that make up The Malazan Book of the Fallen are unmatched within the genre

—— FANTASY BOOK REVIEW

Erikson's magnum opus, The Malazan Book of the Fallen, sits in pole position as the very best and most ambitious epic fantasy saga ever written. And believe you me: it won't be easy to dethrone

—— PAT’S FANTASY HOTLIST

Filtered by some excellent editing, [these letters] are full of interest

—— Mail on Sunday

Sophie Ratcliffe has done an exemplary job in editing these letters

—— Sunday Telegraph

Ratcliffe sees him through to the end with affection. Hers is a model edition, tracing the rise and fall of a writer who allowed his imagined world to eclipse the real

—— Sunday Times

This authoritative edition of generous selections - from "Plum's" prolific pen, from schooldays at Dulwich College in 1899 throughout his long Anglo-American career as a novelist and musical comedy lyricist to his last letters from Long Island in 1975 - is acutely attuned to his contradictions of character and his desire to please at the expense of absolute veracity. The letters, gossipy in the kindliest, amused/bemused manner, bear true witness to the wide-ranging influences on Wodehouse's' best-known novels and best-loved characters.

—— The Times

In this new collection . . . Sophie Ratcliffe has rolled up her sleeves and waded into the fray . . . she has succeeded marvellously. When it comes to the world of Wodehouse, Ratcliffe knows her stuff. She has embroidered this plump selection of letters with an illuminating but unobtrusive critical apparatus.

—— Literary Review

A lovely new book

—— Craig Brown , Daily Mail

An intriguing picture of a great 20th-century writer . . . In its peculiar English way, it has a strange intimacy, the perverse fruit of Wodehouse's instinctive, Jeevesian, discretion.

—— Robert McCrum , Guardian

They give real insight into the man behind Jeeves­ ­­and Wooster

—— Alan Titchmarsh , Sunday Express (Book of the Year)

Improbably beautiful

—— Christian Science Monitor

A gripping yet tender storyline that unfolds as the insurmountable obstacles are faced with bravery and loyalty. You're sure to be reaching for the tissues

—— Candis

A moving and disturbing tale of love and loyalty. And you might cry

—— Sun Buzz Magazine

A treat of a read, not least because of the wonderful, rolling ease with which Lodge writes. Or, rather, with which it reads - prose like this does not come without effort.

—— Daily Mail

Sex-charged whopper on the life and works of HG Wells

—— The Word

Colourful characters and outrageous events abound. Confident, pacy writing keeps the reader wondering what Wells will get up to next and pondering the complex relationships to which he seems addicted

—— Michael Sherborne , Literary Review

Very, very good.... So confidently are facts and flights of imaginative fancy interwoven that readers will find themselves unwilling - and unable - to distinguish between the two

—— Country Life

Consistently absorbing and enjoyable. I doubt whether a better way could have been found to bring the phenomenon that was H. G. Wells to life

—— Allan Massie , Stand Point

Biographical fiction is on an upswing, to judge by this lively novel, faithful to the facts but free to interpret feelings

—— Saga

A Man of Parts has the lovely, loquacious qualities that typify eccentric wonders such as The War of the Worlds and The History of Mr Polly. David Lodge reminds us that Wells, an imperfect man, is still a worthy witness to his own world and to those worlds that may yet to come.

—— Andrew Tate , Third Way Magazine

Lodge understands the Edwardian literary and political scene extremely well, and traces Wells's entanglements with the louche world of Fabians and free lovers with real intimacy

—— Times Literary Supplement

As protean, elusive but compelling as it's hero, David Lodge's bio-novel about HG Wells breaks all the rules but still grips the reader - like Wells himself

—— Boyd Tonkin , Independent

A wry, racy and absorbing biographical novel

—— Benjamin Evans , Telegraph, Seven Magazine

Lodge knows how to tease the inner man out from behind the historical figure, subjecting Wells to probing interviews throughout the book in which his deeper beliefs and contradictions are laid bare

—— Alastair Mabbot , Herald

This fictionalised version of HG Wells dramatises the author's life, which was full of politics, writing and women

—— Daily Telegraph

David Lodge's HG Wells was both a visionary and a chancer; as arrogant as he was insecure; with as many noble goals as base instincts; a mass of very human contradictions; as Lodge has it, a man of parts

—— Sunday Express
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