The series is noteworthy for its ruthlessness in dispatching major characters, its large number of epic battles and its use of gunpowder and cannons.

The series garnered critical praise and numbers fantasy author Steven Erikson among its fans as he mentions in an interview with Neil Walsh, May 2000.

Fimbria ruled the entire continent until it lost its empire in a civil war brought on by religious strife some four centuries earlier.

This part of the storyline follows the fortunes of a young ensign of cavalry, Corfe Cear-Inaf, who escapes the fall of the city and becomes the highest-ranking soldier to reach Ormann Dyke.

Meanwhile in the kingdom of Hebrion on the far west coast of the continent, King Abeleyn is attempting to halt the purges of the Prelate Himerius, who has issued a pogrom against all users of the Dweomer or magic.

In an effort to save some of the Dweomer-folk, Abeleyn and his mage-advisor, Golophin, manage to smuggle some 200 of the magic-users out of the country on board two ships bound across the Western Ocean.

Abeleyn's cousin, Murad, has discovered evidence of an unknown continent located across the sea and won the king's approval to set up a colony there.

Abeleyn himself has to leave shortly after to attend the Conclave of Kings in Vol Ephrir (capital of Perigraine) to discuss the response to the Merduk threat.

A surprising development is the promise by Fimbria, which declares itself neutral in the religious conflict, to send an army to the aid of Ormann Dyke.

Unbeknown to the Torunnans, however, the Ostrabarans have secured an alliance with the supreme Merduk sea power of Nalbeni and landed a huge army south of the dike.

The Fimbrians arrive first and help repel the enemy, but only Corfe's heavy cavalry wins the day, defeating the Merduks at the Battle of the North More.

Mark wins his victory relatively easily, but Abeleyn is nearly killed and Abrusio is half-destroyed in a massive combined-arms assault from both land and sea.

In the far west, Hawkwood and Murad's expedition is successful, despite the presence of a werewolf on board, apparently an agent of some power on the western continent.

With this final defeat the sultan bows into the pressure of his mullahs and agrees to a peace treaty based on mutual recognition of a common religious heritage between Ramusian and Merduk.

King Corfe has erected massive defences across a mountain pass lying along the border with Almark, but again the Himerians deploy magical forces (including large armies of werewolves) to shatter this line.

Corfe, meanwhile, has crossed the mountains by a little-known pass and attacks Charibon, stealing a march on the Second Empire and killing Aruan and Bardolin.

The book ends with an epilogue in which Corfe crosses the eastern mountains with two figures who turn out to be Ramusio himself and Shahr Baraz, the Merduk general who captured Aekir.

The Monarchies of God is notable for covering a large number of events (as the above detailed synopsis reveals) in a short space of time.

Unusually, with the exception of Corfe, most of the major characters die in rather off-hand and unheroic ways (Mark is randomly sprayed with fire from a broken lantern and pulled down with a sinking ship, for example).

The series is also deeply concerned about depicting realism in warfare: in The Second Empire Corfe reluctantly decides not to attack a Merduk host rampaging through a town as he lacks the numbers to guarantee success.

During the night he waits for reinforcements, the sack of the town is shown in extreme detail, including a graphic rape scene.

ironically caused by Aruan himself to split the common, open society of Dweomer- as well as "mundane" folk, brings the Dweomer folk almost to the brink of extinction and makes them - another ironical fact - join the Himerian states after Aruan converts Himerius into a werewolf, thus opening them to the retribution king Corfe planned and probably had executed had he survived.

In an interview on the Malazanempire forum in the summer of 2005, Paul Kearney admitted that he rushed the end of the book and hopes to one day produce a second edition that would be roughly 100 pages longer and resolve more of the loose threads.

According to Kearney, the Fimbrians reemerge as the dominant force on the continent after the Second Empire's fall but Torunna retains its independence and Hebrion eventually becomes its own master again.

Many protagonists see its end, and even the "Second Empire" is a fulfilment of the mendicant church elder Honorius' prediction (a book from him - the "Saint"/"Prophet" was active a mere 500 years before the series - gave the "Macrobians" their faith and led to peace between Ramusians and Ahrimuzians).