Malazan Book of the Fallen

[Memnoch]

Has anyone here read this series by Steven Erikson? I think it's an outstanding series, almost as good as GRRM's A Song of Ice And Fire. And Erikson's pretty prolific - he writes a novel every 2 years or so. It's grandiose epic fantasy - his world is staggering in its scope. He's written five of what is planned to be a 10-book series.

Here's a review from the SF Site for his debut novel:

------------
Gardens of the Moon is currently available from Bantam in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Steve Erikson has also recently signed on with a German publisher. North Americans, however, will have to content themselves with ordering from abroad -- until some cunning publisher over that way gets a whiff of Erikson's talent.

According to the promotional material that arrived with the review copy of the book, the author has spent 6 years on this project. And it shows. He's created a fantasy world as rich and detailed as any you're likely to encounter. It's a world you'll be glad you weren't born into, but one that is so engrossing you'll be hard pressed to set it aside.

There's so much going on in this novel it's difficult to even attempt a plot synopsis. In a nutshell (and this won't do it justice): the Malazan Empire, in the course of its vast inter-continental expansion, has come up against resistance in the form of Moon's Spawn, a kind of floating fortress inhabited by an ancient race of warrior-mages allied with the free cities against the Empire. Meanwhile, the Empire is having internal difficulties, as some of the imperial troops are more loyal to their commanders than to the Empress. And somehow the gods are involved, although what their divine motivations might be is not at all clear at the outset...

This is the kind of story where it's difficult to say who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. You might think that shades of grey would be preferable, but it all seems to be rather dark grey. I'm not even sure there really are any good guys, although many of the villains are rather sympathetic, and all the characters are interesting to follow.

It is quite apparent that Erikson has devised an overwhelming amount of history for this world, and that what he shows us is only the tip of the iceberg. And, more than just world history, there is character history. From the beginning, the reader has no doubt that this is not the beginning.

The early sections of the book are oppressive, dark and bloody. In the first few pages, the reader is thrown into the ugliest, messiest aftermath of sorcerous battle. Pain, suffering, blood, gore, flies. And stacks of corpses. Yuck. Battles involving sorcery have a potential to get very gruesome, and Erikson serves up a healthy dose of horrific scenes of mass destruction.

But not all is blood and guts grim. There's also a mystery of sorts, in that we're thrown into the middle of the story and we're not quite sure what the heck is going on for a while. There's also plenty of cloak and dagger stuff, with so many spies spying on spies that sometimes they don't even know which side they're on any more! (The latter parts, in the city of Darujhistan, remind me of some of Feist's work -- particularly the colourful characters.)

This is an astounding debut fantasy novel. The world is fully realized and the characters are people you want to spend time with. The world history is tremendously complex, spanning hundreds of thousands of years. The character histories and interactions are equally complex and interesting. Of course, this complexity could also be considered the book's greatest flaw. Sometimes it almost seems too much.

Unsurprisingly, it's only the first of The Tales of the Malazan Book of the Fallen. There are 10 books planned -- wait, don't go yet. Hear me out. There are 10 books planned in the "sequence," but each is intended to be a stand-alone story, unified by their chronicling of the lives of 3 members of the noble house of Paran, each of whom plays a key role in the history of the Malazan Empire. (In this one, Captain Ganoes Paran plays a key role by being knifed in an alley the same day he is assigned to his new command. Well, there's actually a lot more to his involvement than that, but... read it and see.)

So, I imagine you're wondering, "Is it true? Is this a stand-alone novel?"

Well, let's call a spade a spade. This isn't the first in a 10-book "sequence;" it's the first of a lengthy, complex and intriguing series. But a series which -- based on this first installment -- has the potential to become known as a defining work in a market already overwhelmed with fantasy series.

Gardens of the Moon is certainly a book worth reading, as the first in the series, or simply for itself. The story is more or less self-contained in that many of the questions are answered, the spies more or less sort out who's spying on whom and for what cause, and one chapter in the history of the Malazan Empire is more or less summed up. There is, however, some rather obvious setting up for sequels (expect to see the next book around June 2000). And there is still so much material to work with in this world that I have no doubt that Erikson has, with this book, established a secure career for himself as a fantasy writer.

By Neil Walsh of SF Site
--------------

[Memnoch]

And here's the review for the second one, Deadhouse Gates (by the same site and reviewer). If you like dark, realistic adult fantasy that really makes you THINK, this is the series for you.

-------------
If you're looking for a low-calorie dish of light fantasy, this ain't it. If you're looking for a nine-course riot of taste and texture, exotically spiced to make your eyes water, your heart pump faster and your brain do cartwheels inside your cranium, I know a great little Thai place downtown. Or, if you want something analogous to that in your reading, stop at the 'E's and pick up the latest from Steven Erikson.

For those who read and enjoyed Gardens of the Moon, Erikson's first novel, you certainly won't want to miss Deadhouse Gates. For those who found Gardens to be too complex, too vast and following too many characters, you'll have the same experience with Deadhouse Gates. Yes, it's a sequel; yes, it picks up where the first one left off; and yes, having read the first one will make easier going of the second. A familiarity with events in the first one will flesh out some character motivation and some backstory for this volume, but it's not essential. And, in fact, you might feel for the first several chapters that having read the first book hasn't given you any real advantage at all. Deadhouse Gates is a complete story in its own right, although a complicated one that is anything but light reading. It is, however, well worth the effort.

To give you a sense of how complex a tale it is, I'll try to summarize the plot as succinctly as I can:
After the decision of Empress Laseen to outlaw the elite Bridgeburners and the whole of the 9th Army on the Genabackis campaign, Kalam, Fiddler and Sorry (now going by the name of Apsalar) of the Bridgeburners, and the streetwise Crokus from Darujhistan, have journeyed from the continent of Genabackis to the Seven Cities with a secret mission. Kalam, once a member of the Claw, the Empire's loyal assassins, has sworn to kill the evil Laseen, Empress of the Malazan Empire. Kalam and his friends, however, soon realize they've just wandered into a religious uprising of Seven Cities natives, a jihad-like ethnic purge known as the Whirlwind. When it hits, Malazan citizens are targets for torture and murder. Coltaine, military governor of Hissar, one of the Seven Cities, takes it in hand to escort an ever-growing number of Malazan citizens and nobles to Aren, the only city on the continent still under the Empire's control. Trouble is, it's several hundred miles away, across deserts, across rivers, across ghost-haunted wastelands. Coltaine is trying to move 45,000 refugees all that way, with what's left of the Empire's 7th Army and a few clans of his own Wickan horse-warriors, while a huge army of Whirlwind fanatics -- including the rebel Malazan armies that have joined the cause -- harry and pick at them all the way, standing for pitched battles whenever Coltaine is in a particularly vulnerable position (such as attempting to ford a tricky river).

Just before the Whirlwind hits, Duiker, the imperial historian, and Kulp, the last surviving cadre mage of the 7th Army, are about to set off from Hissar to rescue Heboric (who has no hands), an exiled historian and former priest of Fenner, the Boar God. Heboric, along with Felisin Ganoes (youngest sister to Paran Ganoes, from Gardens of the Moon) and Baudin, a hulking brute who is obviously more than he appears -- are all exiled to an island that is anathema to magic. While Duiker returns to try to join up with Coltaine and his "chain of dogs," as the exodus of refugees becomes known, Kulp, the wizard, sails off with a small band of marines, only to end up trapped inside one of the Elder Warrens (a Warren being a sort of parallel magical plane from which magic is channelled).

Meanwhile, Icarium (of the immortal Jaghut race) and his companion Mappo (a Trell) -- both non-human humanoids -- are wandering the Seven Cities continent on Icarium's eternal quest to regain his past, his memory. Mappo, however, has another agenda: he is secretly trying to prevent his friend from attaining that lifelong goal. But something about the Whirlwind is luring Icarium ever closer to what he thinks he wants to find. And it's also luring the Soletaken (shape-shifters) and D'ivers (shape-shifters capable of assuming multi-form, such as a whole pack of wolves, a horde of rats, a plague of spiders).

Ok, I realize now that I'm only just getting into it and to give you the whole picture would take a lot longer that I thought. But I think you get the idea. There's an awful lot going on, and there are many players involved. It's a convoluted tale, with complex characters and a depth of scope that some readers will no doubt find overwhelming. Like Gardens of the Moon, and indeed like the whole concept for the 10-volume Malazan series, Deadhouse Gates is an ambitious work that is sometimes in danger of over-reaching itself. But if you can buckle down for the ride, it sure is a fun one. The writing is of a quality to provoke a whole spectrum of emotions in the reader, and although you may find yourself at times wondering what's really going on, there isn't a dull moment.

Even with a few months left to go, I think I can safely say: Deadhouse Gates is one of the best fantasy novels of 2000. It's on my personal top three list (along with Guy Gavriel Kay's Lord of Emperors, Book 2 of The Sarantine Mosaic, and Paul Kearney's The Second Empire, Book 4 of The Monarchies of God). 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.

The conclusion to Deadhouse Gates is unexpected (or so I found it to be). It is also sufficient to make this novel stand on its own -- this stage of the story, in its various plot threads, is satisfyingly completed by the end of the book. However, I'm sure I'm not alone in very much looking forward to the continuation of the series and the return to events in Genabackis with the next Tale of the Malazan Book of the Fallen.

By Neil Walsh of SF Site