Toll the Hounds

Toll the Hounds is the eighth novel in the Malazan Book of the Fallen epic fantasy series by Steven Erikson. It was first published in the UK and Canada on June 30, 2008, and in the US on September 16, 2008.
==Publisher's Summary==
In Darujhistan, the city of blue fire, it is said that love and death shall arrive dancing. It is summer and the heat is oppressive, but for the small round man in the faded red waistcoat, discomfiture is not just because of the sun. All is not well. Dire portents plague his nights and haunt the city streets like fiends of shadow. Assassins skulk in alleyways, but the quarry has turned and the hunters become the hunted.
Hidden hands pluck the strings of tyranny like a fell chorus. While the bards sing their tragic tales, somewhere in the distance can be heard the baying of Hounds... And in the distant city of Black Coral, where rules Anomander Rake, Son of Darkness, ancient crimes awaken, intent on revenge. It seems Love and Death are indeed about to arrive...hand in hand, dancing.
A thrilling, harrowing novel of war, intrigue and dark, uncontrollable magic, Toll the Hounds is the new chapter in Erikson's monumental series - epic fantasy at its most imaginative and storytelling at its most exciting.
==Front matter==
===Dedication===
This novel is dedicated to the memory of my father, R. S. Lundin, 1931-2007. You are missed.
===Acknowledgements===
Gratitude as always goes to my advance readers: Bowen, Rick, Mark and Chris, with special thanks to Bill and Hazel for their kind words and support over the course of what proved to be a difficult year. Appreciation also goes to the staff of the Black Stilt Café and the Pacific Union Café for their generous loan of office space.
Love to Clare and Bowen, for everything.
===Maps===
File:Map_Darujhistan.jpg|Darujhistan
File:Map Black Coral.jpg|Black Coral & environs
==Editions==
Show other languages
Publisher 	Format/Edition 	First published 	Pages 	ISBN-10 	ISBN-13 	Notes
United Kingdom — Toll the Hounds	United Kingdom — Toll the Hounds 	United Kingdom — Toll the Hounds	United Kingdom — Toll the Hounds	United Kingdom — Toll the Hounds	United Kingdom — Toll the Hounds	United Kingdom — Toll the Hounds
Bantam 	Hard cover 	2008 	923 	xxx 	978-0593046371 	First edition
Bantam 	Trade paperback 	2008 	923 	xxx 	978-0593046388 	
Bantam 	Mass market paperback 	9 Apr 2009 	1296 	xxx 	978-0553824469 	
United States — Toll the Hounds 	United States — Toll the Hounds 	United States — Toll the Hounds 	United States — Toll the Hounds 	United States — Toll the Hounds 	United States — Toll the Hounds 	United States — Toll the Hounds
Tor 	Hard cover 	2008 	829 	0765310082 	978-0765310088 	Cover by Todd Lockwood
Tor 	Trade paperback 	2008 	829 	0765316544 	978-0765316547 	Cover by Todd Lockwood
Tor 	Hard cover, Science Fiction Book Club	xxx 	xxx 	xxx 	xxx 	
Tor 	Mass market paperback 	xxx 	xxx 	xxx 	xxx 	
Subterranean Press 	Hard cover 	Aug 2018 	992 	xxx 	xxx 	Limited numbered/lettered editions
Illustrated by Marc Simonetti
List of illustrations
#"The strength she kept hidden was unveiled suddenly..."
#Late Night Bridgeburners
#A New Guest At the Fire
#Darujhistan In Sight (lettered only)
#Sisters
==Plot Summary==
::The following summaries contain spoilersPlease access individual chapter summaries via the Chapter infobox
Many of the characters from Gardens of the Moon and Memories of Ice, make a return in this novel.
===Prologue===
The prologue is divided into four separate scenes.
The first is in a "necropolis of sorts", where two people, who are revealed to be dead, witness a meeting between Hood, Edgewalker, Shadowthrone and Anomander Rake, though they are not privy to what is discussed.
The second is set in the realm of Dragnipur, where it is suggested that the Wagon is becoming very difficult to pull, as more souls keep dying, while on the horizon, Chaos steadily advances on the Gate of Kurald Galain.
The third scene plays out in a village, where two girls notice the departure of a dog, and decide to follow.
And the last scene is by a fire on an empty plain (likely in Kruppe's dream world), where Kruppe asks K'rul to witness him dance.
===Genabackis===
====Darujhistan====
The retired Bridgeburners are enjoying their retirement when Assassins from the Assassins' Guild suddenly come after them, though the assassins soon discover that the Bridgeburners aren't easy marks.
Spite and her companions arrive in Darujhistan, and go their separate ways. Crokus, who is Cutter, is anxious at the thought of being reunited with his old friends of the Phoenix Inn, while Barathol seeks anonymity in the city.
Mappo Runt is anxious to find Icarium, who is on the Letheri continent. He hires the Trygalle Trade Guild to take him to that distant continent and is accompanied by Gruntle, who does this because he is irritated by all the attention from the acolytes and priestess of Trake, the new God of War.
====Black Coral====
Itkovian's sacrifice (in Memories of Ice) gave birth to a new cult (the cult of the Redeemer), propelling him to godhood. But another god is out there to bend and corrupt the cult. And only a former Seerdomin appears to stand in that god's path.
Anomander Rake, the Son of Darkness, asks Endest Silann, the broken High Mage of Moon's Spawn, and Spinnock Durav, the wandering Tiste Andii warrior, to do what must be done, as he senses many things coming.
====Lamatath Plain====
As Karsa Orlong and Samar Dev traverse the Lamatath Plain, they encounter Traveller. Someone, Karsa realizes, not even he can cross.
====Nimander & Companions and Kallor====
Clip leads Nimander Golit and the others toward Black Coral, where his confrontation with the Son of Darkness awaits. They encounter Kallor, and he joins them on their journey.
===The Realm of Dragnipur===
Within the realm of Dragnipur, more and more souls are dying, and the ones left standing are more than aware that Chaos is on the verge of overtaking the wagon. And when that occurs, Draconus, the elder god who forged Dragnipur, is aware that all the realms could be destroyed. He has a desperate plan to face what seems inevitable, but little does he know that a blind Tiste Andii has an agenda of his own.
==Epigraphs==
===Book One: Vow to the Sun===
===Book Two: Cold-Eyed Virtues===
===Book Three: To Die in the Now===
===Book Four: Toll the Hounds===
==Trivia==
*Toll the Hounds is the first volume in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series not to contain a glossary of terms at the end of the novel. Glossaries are also not included in the series' final two volumes.
*Of all the Malazan books, Toll the Hounds had the greatest impact on Erikson while writing. His own father was dying at the time, and the novel involved "delving into the nature of grief and working through that grief." Erikson says the book also served as a "cipher for the series" because it is the only book in the series where the reader knows the identity of the voice driving the narrative. "So it's a kind of self conscious narrator, so it's meta fictional, and that is actually the cipher to an alternate reading of the entire series."An Evening with Steven Erikson by Nerdaí Irish Nerds - See 27:40 See Erikson discuss more about what he means by the "cipher" here.
*Although Erikson says "grief is obviously...one of the things that is spinning around in this novel...the core that I see is not grief, and it's not absolution, and it's not redemption. It's love. And you cannot have grief without love. And you cannot have love without the inevitability of grief. You cannot have redemption without love. You cannot have absolution without love. So, if love is at the core of this novel, that in a sense answers why it has to be Kruppe telling the story, because of all the characters in the Malazan world there is nobody who loves that world more than Kruppe. And so his whole personality is a kind of exuberant expression of that love...Kruppe had to be my filter because I was going to be translating some very real world personal feelings and experiences that I was going through at the time. And I needed Kruppe as much as, I think, the reader ends up needing Kruppe...I think that was my defense mechanism. And instinctively, I guess, I landed on Kruppe to tell the story."Spoiler Chat: Toll the Hounds - Part 3 with Dr. Philip Chase and Steven Erikson - A Critical Dragon - See 1:00
*Writing the Endest Silann scenes that took the reader back to Kharkanas interested Erikson enough that he decided to follow up the Malazan Book of the Fallen with the Kharkanas Trilogy. He says those scenes "opened the door to the Kharkanas Trilogy...That's where I really started thinking about post-Crippled God...and thinking about what I would approach next. And I think I just got so caught up and interested in the Kharkanas stuff, that I ended up putting a lot of things in place that I was going to deal with...and open up a whole new series on."Spoiler Chat: Toll the Hounds - Part 3 with Dr. Philip Chase and Steven Erikson - A Critical Dragon - See 1:10:40
*Erikson says many of this novel's storylines included intentional callbacks to Gardens of the Moon.Critical Conversations 10: Humour, Sex, and Power Dynamics in Toll the Hounds Chapter Five - A Critical Dragon - See 7:35 
*The appearance of a cat in the hallway after Torvald Nom's amorous encounter in Chapter 5 is a nod to Ernest Hemingway's short story, Cat in the Rain and is intended to reference a subtext of seduction.Critical Conversations 10: Humour, Sex, and Power Dynamics in Toll the Hounds Chapter Five - A Critical Dragon - See 40:00
*Erikson also says he was aware he was going to be writing the Witness Trilogy during the writing of Toll the Hounds and so "there is foreshadowing already present" in the book for that series.Spoiler Chat: Toll the Hounds - Part 3 with Dr. Philip Chase and Steven Erikson - A Critical Dragon - See 1:16:45
*When asked to name his favourite of Erikson's books, Ian C. Esslemont says he has a "warm spot" for Gardens of the Moon by Erikson because so much of it came from their gaming and the screenplay they did together. But he also cites Toll the Hounds as a favourite because "it sort of has everything in it, all of the different aspects of the world are together."A Sojourn at our Humble Tavern for a conversation on the Novels with Ian C. Esslemont! - Smiley's Podcast - See 1:14:20
==Cover gallery==
Toll the Hounds US cover.jpg|US cover art
MBotF_Bulgarian8.jpg|Bulgarian cover art
Toll the Hounds cover by Marc Simonetti.jpg|Subterranean press cover by Marc Simonetti
Spanish_Toll_the_Hounds.jpg|Spanish cover by Alejandro Colucci
Toll the Hounds German Cover - Part 1.jpg|German cover art - Part 1
Toll the Hounds German Cover - Part 2.jpg|German cover art - Part 2
Toll the Hounds French Cover by Marc Simonetti.jpg|French cover by Marc Simonetti
==External links==
* Toll the Hounds Q&A at Tor.com
* Spoiler Chat: Toll the Hounds - Part 3 with Dr. Philip Chase and Steven Erikson - A Critical Dragon
* Critical Conversations 10: Humour, Sex, and Power Dynamics in Toll the Hounds Chapter Five - A Critical Dragon - Discussion with Steven Erikson
* Spoiler Chat: Toll the Hounds - The Cipher for the Malazan Book of the Fallen - A Critical Dragon
* Ten Very Big Books podcast - Toll the Hounds - Conversation with Steven Erikson
==Notes and references==
es:Doblan por los mastines
de:Die Stadt des blauen Feuers
pl:Myto ogarów
it:I Segugi dell'Ombra
8