Kevin's Watch

Posted: **Sat Oct 29, 2011 9:09 am**

i hadn't been to the Malazan Empire site in quite a while, they've remodeled a bit (looks pretty) and added some features, one of which is a stunning slide show of malazan art and quotes on the front page. very cool.

in navigating my way around and checkin out who was still there and posting, i came across this post from Hetan which was posted 30 July 2010, which is, i guess, when he finished TCG. (hetan, the admin over there, who communicates with erikson and posts stuff for him)

anyways, i thought it was a poignant note and didn't know if any of you malazans over here had seen it. got me a little weepy and makes me think it's almost time for me to start a full re-read. (i've been taking a break from malazan since finishing TCG)....
i thought it was very cool that he sent this note to his fans and unflagging supporters over at Malazan Empire.

Erikson wrote:Hello all
In a response I just posted on the Life As A Human site (not in the last installment, the one before that, I think, the one with 30-odd comments), I described my feeling as if I have staggered out from under an enormous burden. And it was last week, on my facebook page, when I announced the closure of an adventure that has spanned almost thirty years of my life, from those wild ambitions of youth – all that manic gaming with Cam where we forged an entire world from our imaginations and from all that inspired us from the literary genre of Fantasy – to this ageing man stumbling free, finally, not yet ready to look back, not yet capable of making sense of all this, and it may be that I never will.

I look out the window on my left now, onto the High Street of Falmouth, watching the crowds moving back and forth, and it was while seated on this leather sofa about a week ago that I wrote the last line of The Crippled God, saying goodbye to the most extensive story I will ever tell. I’ve since joked that my next project is a twenty-four volume saga set in the same world, chronicling the life of a character from birth to seven years of age, whereupon said character is jailed for being a career criminal. Called The Malazan Book of the Felon. Flippancy can be a useful defense mechanism, for a while, but eventually the silence returns.
On the speakers here in Mango Tango, Dylan asks ‘How does it feel?’ and that acerbic tone invites derision, in my case self-directed, as if a voice inside wants to say ‘big deal. Besides, mate, the best is now behind you.’ And I’m reminded of the last poem in the book, which invites something very different, as if to answer my self-doubts with a caustic regard for the willfully blind. What do I mean with all that? Wait and see. As for me, the willful blindness persists, and I see nothing ahead and nothing behind. I’m empty, and it feels all right.

I often remind myself that The Malazan Book of the Fallen will never challenge the bestsellers within the genre; will never achieve the broad appeal of, say, The Lord of the Rings, or even The Wheel of Time. But still, I feel an immense gratitude for the readers I have found – for you who participate on this site and for all the lurkers staying in the shadows. We have been in conversation for some time now, you and me, sharing an investment in time and energy; and while I have been the one in the know when you have speculated and wondered, the time is coming when the roles will reverse – when I am the one who can only look on, not knowing what is coming next, as you (hopefully) continue to explore the series, with all the authority that only fans can achieve.
So, I have already begun my wait. To see what you think. What you feel. To see all that you take from these books, and to see what you will make of them. Forgive me if I stay in the shadows. But this is now yours, not mine. And that is as it should be.

With gratitude
Steven Erikson

Link to the thread in case you want to read the subsequent posts

Here also is a link to his blog on the Life As A Human site, his profile and articles he's blogged there

And HERE is an essay on Erikson's own website entitled "The Problem of Karsa Orlong" for all you Karsa fans!! it's a great essay

Posted: **Mon Oct 31, 2011 4:39 am**

Cool, thanks.

--A

Posted: **Mon Oct 31, 2011 1:23 pm**

Ooooh... Thanks for the links, luci!

I'm not a member of the Malazan board (I know, I know, it's shameful...), so I'll ask the question here: Erikson seems to think his work won't stand the test of time, as LotR and WoT (and the Chrons!) have. What do you guys think of that statement?

Posted: **Mon Oct 31, 2011 6:22 pm**

aliantha wrote:Ooooh... Thanks for the links, luci!

I'm not a member of the Malazan board (I know, I know, it's shameful...), so I'll ask the question here: Erikson seems to think his work won't stand the test of time, as LotR and WoT (and the Chrons!) have. What do you guys think of that statement?

I think WoT has no place in that list

The main problem with Malazan and WoT and the Chronicles after the first trilogy is that it's long. A lot of people are reading WoT because they started out when there were fewer books and want to go on with the story. As the series gets longer, it loses the capacity to gain more readers. Invest in a ten book series or buy one book containing LotR?

That said, Malazan ought to last longer than WoT.

Posted: **Mon Oct 31, 2011 7:15 pm**

aliantha wrote:Ooooh... Thanks for the links, luci!

I'm not a member of the Malazan board (I know, I know, it's shameful...), so I'll ask the question here: Erikson seems to think his work won't stand the test of time, as LotR and WoT (and the Chrons!) have. What do you guys think of that statement?

yer welcome for the links.

my feeling on erikson thinking his work won't have legs? HAH! i think he doesn't yet realize what he's done. jenn met him and spent a goodly amount of time talking with him and the thing i took from her experience is that he is a very humble guy. that's his humility talkin right there. he's young enough right now that i think, in his lifetime, he'll come to see the impact of his work on other writers and on his fans. or at least i hope he will.

Posted: **Tue Nov 01, 2011 4:41 am**

Well, hopefully it'll have a positive effect on his future writings.

Yeah, I think it'll stand the test of time. It might end up being a bit niche, but so what?

Anyway, WoT isn't that bad, as long as you ignore 7 & 10, and only skim 5, 6, 8 & 9.

The last few books really saved it...I'm looking forward to the final book.

--A

Posted: **Tue Nov 01, 2011 11:17 am**

WoT is by no means a classic, but still needs to be finished if you've been dragged into it. Brandon Sanderson is good enough in his own right though, and I actually feel some small amount of anticipation for the last book. But it might be just as much anticipating the relief of finally seeing the end of it. WoT really crawled in books 5-10.

MBotF is can't even be measured on the the same scale imo. SE really "towers over every other author writing fantasy today", as some blurb says. That might even include SRD... but they are different enough to make any such comparison redundant.

Posted: **Tue Nov 01, 2011 8:25 pm**

Khazduk wrote:MBotF is can't even be measured on the the same scale imo. SE really "towers over every other author writing fantasy today", as some blurb says. That might even include SRD... but they are different enough to make any such comparison redundant.

actually, i agree. as far as "progressing" the genre from Big Daddy Tolkien to modern epic speculative fiction, i think Erikson has done what no other fantasy author has done since Tolkien. i don't include Donaldson in this group because tho what he did with the chrons is considered "fantasy" it's nothing like LotR. sure it has some of the tropes of fantasy but it's just not the same kind of "offspring" if you will, of Tolkien as things like the Shanara and WOT books are. [for some reason, for me, neither Donaldson nor Martin have ever seemed like Tolkien offspring in the least, which is probably why i liked them and not others]

for me, none of those other series could ever touch Tolkien's achievement, until Erikson. i think that Erikson is the only real projeny of Tolkien in scope, world-building, and characters. I read Tolkien (LotR and The Hobbit) every single year of my life since my first reading in high school (i'm 53) UNTIL i started reading The Malazan Book of the Fallen! i haven't read Tolkien once since i picked up Gardens of the Moon sometime in 2005 i think. (nor hardly any other speculative fiction with the exception of Martin, Gabaldon, and Wm Gibson!)

and since i just a couple of months ago read Mieville's Bas Lag books, i'd say he's right up there with Erikson as far as the progression of the genre goes with the exception of the fact that i just couldn't invest emotionally with any of his characters. the world is awesome, it's just that Mieville's characters don't make me care about or even much like them (with the exception of The Scar, i loved Bellis and Tanner and Shekel.)

Posted: **Tue Nov 01, 2011 10:25 pm**

Orlion wrote:

Invest in a ten book series or buy one book containing LotR?

It depends on quality, doesn't it? Who here wouldn't have read a 10-book series of LoTR, if the subsequent 9 had been to the same standard?

10-book Malazan (+IE of course) makes it SO much juicier when you get your teeth into it. A LoTR re-read will take me a week, a Malazan re-read takes months. (And that is good!)

(Re-reads are more satisfying imo)

Posted: **Wed Nov 02, 2011 12:35 am**

I'm Bonecaster at that site.

Posted: **Wed Nov 02, 2011 12:40 am**

Onos T'oolan wrote:I'm Bonecaster at that site.

i'm Lather (and using my old keira knightly avatar

)

Posted: **Wed Nov 02, 2011 2:09 am**

You'd never guess who I am at that site

Posted: **Wed Nov 02, 2011 4:53 am**

Why do you call it speculative? To me that implies... i dunno...near future sci-fi like Brinn's Earth, not fantasy.

--A

Posted: **Wed Nov 02, 2011 5:45 am**

Orlion wrote:You'd never guess who I am at that site

no i prolly wouldn't cause i haven't been posting there in a long while an don't know who all is there now. so TELL!

Avatar wrote:Why do you call it speculative? To me that implies... i dunno...near future sci-fi like Brinn's Earth, not fantasy.

--A

i was just using the "umbrella" term as wiki does Av.

Speculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as related static, motion, and virtual arts.

but actually i like it as an umbrella term better than "genre" fiction
of course...in the literal sense all fiction is, by it's very nature, speculative, isn't it?

Posted: **Wed Nov 02, 2011 5:57 am**

Maybe. I think of speculative as "a guess as to what might happen one day." Since fantasy stuff isn't going to maybe happen, (and epic fantasy has sorta already happened), it can't be speculative.

In other words, as it's defined: "Engaged in, expressing, or based on conjecture rather than knowledge."

Imagination isn't conjecture, conjecture can surely only be based on what is or might be possible.

So, I think it's an inaccurate term. But that's just me.

--A

Posted: **Wed Nov 02, 2011 6:58 am**

"What if" can cover a helluva lot of territory.

Posted: **Wed Nov 02, 2011 8:04 pm**

Murrin wrote:"What if" can cover a helluva lot of territory.

exactly! thank you murrin, that's exactly what i meant. for me that single phrase is what fiction is all about, thus why i said all fiction is speculative.

Posted: **Wed Nov 02, 2011 8:09 pm**

lucimay wrote:
Orlion wrote:You'd never guess who I am at that site

no i prolly wouldn't cause i haven't been posting there in a long while an don't know who all is there now. so TELL!

I'll give you a hint: it starts with an 'o' and rhymes with 'rlion'.

Posted: **Wed Nov 02, 2011 8:48 pm**

Orlion wrote:
lucimay wrote:
Orlion wrote:You'd never guess who I am at that site

no i prolly wouldn't cause i haven't been posting there in a long while an don't know who all is there now. so TELL!

I'll give you a hint: it starts with an 'o' and rhymes with 'rlion'.

Posted: **Wed Nov 02, 2011 9:54 pm**

I can't connect to the Malazan forum. I suspect the bhok'aral have crashed it...

Kevin's Watch

Erikson Notes and Links

Erikson Notes and Links