Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson Fanifesto

[rekishi]

courtesy of corvidology





Caveat: It's been a few years (anywhere between 4-7) since I read the series in its entirety and I may be forgetting a few things, and my stance towards some details I don't remember clearly may have changed in the meantime. Also, the first book was written in 1992 and the whole world developed in the 80s (I'm getting to that), so the series may have a few plot points and tropes that a reader today looks at differently.

Cool? Cool.

Because I forgot it the last time I made a post like this:

What is the story, actually?

It's hard to say! XD

Ok, that doesn't help at all. It's a collection of interconnected epic fantasy series that is extremely complex and spans various continents and many many many years. It has several storylines it follows, some of those are the personal stories of characters, some of them are about nothing less than saving the world while showing us how the characters we get to know manage it, what it costs them, and where they mess up. It is a little bit the history of the world it's set in, which makes it extremely intriguing, and one novel might cover one geographic area while the next covers around the same time frame but in a different location. A lot of these different stories do interconnect later.

The last time I made a post like this I said, "That's because this is spanning continents and people and situations, and it's a bit as if you wanted to summarize the history of Europe, Asia, South America, and Australia at the time of Trajan without going into the history and socioeconomic situation of each people and continent separately", and that pretty much holds true. How do you give a summary about all of that in a few sentences. This series is, in the best sense of the word, an epic fantasy series.

( general explanation of genre, number of books, and why it's better than GoT ever was )

( some of the worldbuilding, story, characters, magic! )

Ooph.

Srsly, these are really good books.

Don't be mistaken: They're not easy reads. A friend of mine recently said that it was a process to read them, but oh so worth it. I carried these around for years in backpacks to and from uni, on the train, bus etc, so you can absolutely read these on your commute, but this isn't a fluffy fic, and it's dense writing. Very satisfying though, and I personally really like the style (especially Erikson's).

Bottom line is, this series (at least the two main series) was thought through from start to finish, they're well written, super imaginative, and to my mind very unique.

And if you're still reading and have questions, I'm willing to answer them to the best of my ability.