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Literature Malazan Book of the Fallen
Literature Malazan Book of the Fallen
Malazan Book of the Fallen
| The Malazan Book of the Fallen is an epic fantasy series written by Canadian author Steven Erikson, published in ten volumes starting with Gardens of the Moon. It is wide in scope and encompasses the stories of a very large cast of characters. Each book tells a different chapter in the ongoing saga of the world upon which the Malazan Empire is located. For the first five books, each volume is relatively 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. The second half of the series is much more traditionally structured with events in one novel leading into the next.
The Malazan world was co-created by Steven Erikson and Ian Cameron Esslemont in the early 1980s as a backdrop to their GURPS roleplaying campaign. In 2005 Esslemont began publishing his own series of five novels set in the same world, beginning with Night of Knives. Although Esslemont's books are published under a different series title - Novels of the Malazan Empire - Esslemont and Erikson collaborated on the storyline for the entire fifteen-book project and Esslemont's novels are considered as canonical and integral to the series as Erikson's own. - Wikipedia |
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| How I got into this series is a little fuzzy, but as I recall, the first book, Gardens of the Moon, was recommended to me, of all things, by the Amazon.ca recommendations list, after I had bought all of the novels in the Dune Chronicles. I bought the book on a whim, and eventually got into the series. Overall, I think I stayed glued to this series for a few reasons. First the story-telling is absolutely awesome, although written in a fairly complex narrative, and a language & grade-level that is practically unheard of in modern literature. Secondly, Steven Erikson is Canadian, a Winnipegger in fact. Lastly, it is a new series; not a re-hash of other previous novels and stories that have been published. I'll admit it, right here and now, this is a tough read, not unlike Frank Herbert's Dune Chronicles. If you're like my wife, you can read the pages in a brief moment, but if you really want to understand and appreciate what you're reading, you'll probably find yourself, much as I find myself doing, reading at a substantialy slower pace, and flipping back to a previous page, or even re-reading entire previous chapters! Plots-within-plots-within-plots. 'Nuf said. |
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| Take a look around the right hand menu, which has links to each of the novels in the series (in publication sequence), and includes a brief synopsis of the novel. In some cases, I've also included a brief review. |