Steven Erikson - Reaper's Gale

Another! Events come to a head in Letheras, where the arrival of both Icarium and Karsa Orlong sends reverberations through the city's web of machinations, plot and counter-plot, as financiers, court functionaries, assassins and gods manoeuvre for power and Rhulad clings increasingly desperately to sanity as his supports are cut away from beneath him. At the same time, the Malazan marines of Tavore's renegade army fight a brutal guerrila war through the jungles of Lether, converging on the capital city while ascendants and soletaken ready their own assaults. New forces arise in the Awl'dan and Twilight's disenfranchised Shake; all the while, too, ill-matched and suspicious companions weave across the continent on quests of their own, particularly the group led by Silchas Ruin in search of his ancient betrayer. And through all of this, Erikson keeps a strong, clear thread running - a sense of things moving ineluctably forward to some shattering ending, even as the layers of recurrence and constraint become ever more unavoidable.