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. Eight books are available as of July 2008 and two are forthcoming. It is 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 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 for roleplaying games. 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.

The Malazan series is often compared both to Glen Cook's Black Company,[1] (to whom the seventh book is dedicated) and George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series.[2]

The Malazan Book of the Fallen Series

1. Gardens of the Moon (1999)
2. Deadhouse Gates (2000)
3. Memories of Ice (2001)
4. House of Chains (2002)
5. Midnight Tides (2004)
6. The Bonehunters (2006)
7. Reaper's Gale (2007)
8. Toll the Hounds (2008)
9. Dust of Dreams (forthcoming)
10. The Crippled God (forthcoming)

[edit] Novellas in the Series

1. Blood Follows (2002)
2. The Healthy Dead (2004)
3. The Lees of Laughter's End (2007)

[edit] Novels of the Malazan Empire

1. Night of Knives (2005, written by Ian Cameron Esslemont).
2. Return of the Crimson Guard (2008, written by Ian Cameron Esslemont).
3. Stonewielder, (forthcoming, written by Ian Cameron Esslemont).

[edit] Other works

* The Encyclopedia Malaz (forthcoming, to be written by Erikson and Esslemont and published some time after The Crippled God)

[edit] Authorship

The Malazan world was originally created by Steven Erikson and Ian Cameron Esslemont in 1982 as a backdrop for role-playing games using a modified version of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. By 1986, when the GURPS system was released and adopted by Steven Erikson and Esslemont, the world had become much larger and more complex, approaching its current scope. It was then developed into a movie script entitled Gardens of the Moon. When this was not successful in finding interest, the two writers agreed to each write a ser...

Show full text: 64,920 characters