Blood Follows: A Tale of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach

Steven Erikson

Discerning readers of martial fantasy-- that stuff that focuses more on the troops, the battles, and the strategy of fantasy campaigns instead of the fairies (Tolkein's Return of the King, Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, and Moon's The Deed of Paksennarion are all excellent examples of the form) should take every possible chance they have to visit Genabackis, the fantastically detailed world in which Erikson sets the books in his Malazan Book of the Fallen series. The tales of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach are nonesuch tales, silly little side stories where Erikson can indulge an obvious predilection for base, somewhat infantile humor that's just as black as anything to be found in the main series.

This story centers on the pair's long-suffering manservant, Emancipor Reese, and tells the story of how he came to work for the lovably evil necromancers. Reese, drunk, answers an ad on a post in his hometown of Lamentable Moll, a nasty little place that is currently inhabited by a serial killer who murders, with increasing amounts of violence, one person per night. It's somewhat predictable (come on, you have to know who the murderer is, don't you?), but then, the murder mystery isn't the focus here. Emancipor's early encounters with Bauchelain (Broach, as usual, rarely emerges from the shadows in which he's most comfortable), and how the two of them form the bond that makes Reese both more valuable and more intimate than your usual manservant, are the focus. As always, Erikson's characters are perfectly drawn, and he uses no emotional shortcuts; despite Blood Follows being a fifth (or less) the length of the typical Malazan book, Erikson still builds everything the right way, so that the reader can genuinely empathize with, and enjoy, the characters Erikson presents, and the situations in which he puts them.

Another winner from Erikson. If you haven't yet encountered, him, start off with Gardens of the Moon and Deadouse Gates, and then slip these stories in somewhere between two of the later novels.