By the way, I had collected this huge page of compiled positive comments about Erikson, no spoilers for the most part. Maybe be useful to figure out what’s the point about Erikson and if you see him delivering it (and enjoying it).
Ian Cameron Esslemont: I (and Steve) both believe that Malaz is vastly different from the general popular fantasy series of the genre. We deliberately set out to achieve this goal of convention challenge, contravention, and reversal. It is deliberately anti-heroic in a genre heretofore reserved for heroic indulgences all this because we have faith in the intelligence and discrimination of genre readers to recognize when they are not being talked (or written) down to. In many ways the entire series is an extended critical study of the genre itself how it works, why it works, how far can it be pushed to evolve? But all that is sub-textual and academic; foremost the books must and do remain a damn hair-raising read. If that falls down then it will all fall down (and deservedly so)
Erikson: The Malazan Book of the Fallen is a compiled history, warts and all. It's not above brazen manipulation of events and facts, because, well, that's the nature of the beast. By this, do I mean it as a way of squirming out of things? No, you'd all never let me get off that easily. I just love the feel of an uncertain history, as all histories are. If none of you had any questions, then I'd be worried.
Erikson: The second question: oh the sparks were all negative things, frustrations at the genre's confounding predictability. Wanting to write something in fantasy I myself would like to read (and not just me, but Cam as well -- the one reader who stays in my head as I write). Wanting to kick the tropes around, wanting to get rid of that endless quasi-medieval class-conscious blueblood crap. Wanting a fantasy world as multicultural as this one (the preponderance of white-skinned heroes and blonde princesses ... man, what century is this?). Wanting a fantasy world with a history beyond the Dark Lord of three hundred years ago who's found a rock that will help him rise again and do, oh, bad things; a world with geology and geography, etc.
Sure, there's some good stuff out there, but it wasn't enough. Maybe still isn't.
Erikson: I probably play around with subtext a lot more than your run of the mill fantasy novel (at least those I've slogged through out of boredom or some similar reason); but the better ones out there do that as well. I was told, long ago, that the stranger the world you're writing about, the clearer and cleaner the language must be -- 'windexed language' as it used to be called (and maybe still is). But I found a way around that, by making certain characters players of language -- in dialogue and monologue, and with those I can let loose on the linguistic games, puns, etc I can play with self-consciousness and metaphor and deliberately twisted analogy and simile. Messing around with voice is one of things that has always interested me as a writer. Multiple points of view unleash that like the hounds of hell. Also allows for plenty of misdirection, which is even more fun. Of course, every bit of writing, every sentence, every paragraph should function to serve more than one purpose. If there's just one (advancing action) it should probably be short and precise; otherwise if it's establishing setting, or if it's dialogue/monologue/characterisation, it should carry more than one level of intent and communication. That's a rule I follow, any way.
His first fantasy novel, Gardens of the Moon (1999), constitutes the first of ten projected volumes of the Malazan Book of the Fallen. His style of writing tends towards complex plots with multiple point-of-view characters.
It is an epic fantasy, wide in scope and encompassing the stories of a very large cast of characters. Each book tells a different chapter in the ongoing saga of the Malazan Empire and its wars. For the first five books, each volume is self-contained, in that the primary conflict of each novel is resolved within that novel.
However, many underlying characters and events are interwoven throughout the works of the series, binding it together.
HRose: Erikson's series should be under 'epic' in the dictionary. With timelines spanning 100000 years and more, and tons and tons of characters, many of which who are ancient themselves.
If any work is truly deserving of the accolade epic, it is the writing of Steven Erikson. Vast in scope and imagination, spanning continents and cultures as diverse and multifaceted as any to be found in fantasy, Erikson readily towers over every other author writing military fantasy today, or for that matter, from the past.
Possessing in a single volume the equivalent storylines and action found elsewhere within a trilogy or three, events happen here with such kinetic energy, so compellingly and dramatically rendered, that the senses threaten to become overloaded with a surfeit of vivid imagery and deed.
Gardens of the Moon is epic both in its planned bulk and scope, and one doesn’t have to read too far into the novel to realize Erikson is not settling for offering a series intent on rehashing traditional ideas. Erikson is not settling for archetypical characters, nor completely linear storylines, as he creates a massive setting full of differing factions, races, and deities, and unlike the other few (too few) superior examples of epic fantasy available to us, he is not increasing the reality of his world at the cost of lessening the fantastic elements in his series.
A reflection of the colossal scale in which the author works, Erikson fashions fantasy as nature would sculpt a mountain, in rifts and tectonic upheaval, crafting monumental edifices that in the hands of another, less gifted author would surely topple beneath the sheer weight of their own invention. And, in terms of mythos, not since Tolkien have we seen the conversion of legend into fabulous history become as powerfully or richly rendered.
Read and expect to be overpowered, not only by a story that never fails to thrill and entertain, but by a saga that lives up to its name, both intellectually and in its dramatic, visually rich and lavish storytelling.
My personal favorite. I love the expansive and interesting world Erikson has built. That being one of your criteria I don't think you can go wrong.
The other bonus of Erikson is that he's fantasy of his own devising, and isn't Tolkienesque. His take on gods and magic is pretty awesome, and unique to boot. He turns the idea of undead on its head, there is no ultimate good or ultimate evil, and there's startlingly few stereotypes. Even when he delves in to a plot involving a young kid being caught up in things above him, he manages to take it in places that you just wouldn't expect.
I do like Erikson too, but the far-flung epic feel drags in parts. That could just be me in that I only have time to read sporadically. The Malazan books are certainly not ones you skip merrily through. You have to pay attention and invest yourself in them. You are definitely paid off, though, because the detailed world he creates is nothing short of amazing.
This is the seventh novel in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. It is everything you hoped for if you have been following this story from the beginning. The sheer scale and grandeur of this tale is breathtaking. Again you will question who are the "good guys" and who are the "bad guys".
Erikson wins hands down for complexity of plot, level of intrigue, sense of history in the created world, and depth of story. He also offers some very memorable characters, each of whom has complexity enough (with the frequently resulting moral ambivalence Erikson strives for) to make them real people.
Martin and Erikson are absolutely the giants of the genre at this point.
One huge plus between Martin and Erikson though- Erikson is putting these out on an almost annual basis. There is a very real possibility that his entire ten book series will be released before Martin gets his sixth book out.
Erikson commonly gets compared to George RR Martin thought the two really aren't that similar IMO other than the scale of the work and, in most opinions, relative quality. Both authors tell a fairly gritty tale but Erikson seems more concerned with history and magic while Martin seems focused mainly on characters.
There is a quality in Steven Erikson’s writing that is difficult to pin-point, but that I find to be both extremely rare and exquisitely important to epic fantasy: It is the feeling that the world is steeped in myth, in ancient history and secrets, magic and mystery…it is an atmospheric context, really. Tolkien is, of course, the example par excellence of this, but Erikson is the best contemporary example. It seems to be what separates “true fantasy” from what could be called “fantasized historical fiction” ala George R.R. Martin and Guy Gavriel Kay, both of whom are among my favorite authors, but neither of whom capture the same quality.
Erikson instead drops you directly into the aftermath of horrific battle with thousands of casualties – we get almost no character introduction or explanation of the world. Confusing bits of terrifying sorcery and deep history abound.
