Kevin's Watch

Posted: **Sun Jan 18, 2004 6:50 pm**

any of you ever heard of him?

He is the author of A Tale of the Malazan Book of the Fallen. The series is ten books, with a few novellas. The fifth book is being released in March, and the first book is Gardens of the Moon.
The books are available in most of Europe, Australia, and Canada, and they will be released in the States on the 20th of June

Here is a good fan site: www.geocities.com/stevenerikson2002/author.html

And here is the official web site, with the forums: www.malazanempire.com/

Posted: **Sun Jan 18, 2004 10:41 pm**

It's about time they brought the books down here. I ordered Gardens Of The Moon last year from Amazon, and they couldn't find it for me.

Posted: **Mon Jan 19, 2004 5:35 am**

I almost bought an Erikson book the other day--maybe I will. I've heard tons of folks rave about him....

Posted: **Mon Jan 26, 2004 8:41 am**

I've read the first four, and really enjoyed them.

There's a cast of thousands, and it's a little tricky (at least it was for me) to figure out who is important and who is incidental cannon-fodder. Even the most minor characters have character, which I liked.

I think that it's good enough that when book 5 comes out, I'll not wait for the normal-sized paperback, but I'll buy the hardback. Probably.

Tom

Posted: **Thu Feb 19, 2004 1:13 pm**

Great books - up there with Mr Donaldson (although different in style). Complex and very original world-building.

I believe his books have been (or are about to be) published in the U.S.

Oh and Steve noted Lord Foul's Bane as one of his top 5 all time fantasy books.

www.Malazan.com also has a great forum. [/url]

Posted: **Sun Feb 22, 2004 7:51 am**

howdy Reave, I didn't think I would see another Malazan here

and only seven more days until Midnight Tides is released here...

Posted: **Mon Feb 23, 2004 2:52 am**

I keep hearing good things...I am glad his stuff will finally be released here. Though if I had known it was out in Canada, I might have picked some up over the River...

As things stand, I will probably wait until it is out in my local bookstore...I have a ton of things to read in the meantime.

Posted: **Sun Mar 07, 2004 8:12 pm**

The Malazan book of the fallen is GREAT STUFF, but it took me to about halfway into book 2 to get into it and that is fairly long.

Posted: **Sun Mar 07, 2004 10:32 pm**

hmm... most people end up enjoying the malazan books by the time they are about half way through the first book...

Posted: **Mon Mar 15, 2004 6:14 pm**

The first book was enjoyable enough, but I felt quite lost in the setting for quite a while.

Posted: **Mon Mar 15, 2004 10:24 pm**

SRD really likes Erikson. He has a link (a different one than provided in this thread) to his Malazan home page on the Links page (in the From the Author section) of the official site.

Posted: **Tue Mar 16, 2004 12:08 pm**

I started reading Gardens of the Moon coupe of days ago. Seems good, although there are a lot of different PoVs...

Posted: **Tue Apr 13, 2004 1:27 am**

Well, book 5 (Midnight Tides) is out now, in big paperback. I thought that I'd buy it, but I've got another 5.3 Patrick O'Brians to read, followed by Ilium, Pandora's Star, Absolution Gap, and Forty Signs Of Rain, not necessarily in that order. By the time I've finished those, it'll probably be out in normal size.

Tom

Posted: **Tue Apr 13, 2004 10:14 am**

Is Midnight Tides shorter than the other books? The first four are about 700, 800, 1000, and 1000, but Amazon says book five is 509....

Posted: **Sat Apr 17, 2004 7:15 pm**

Glad to see you at Malazan Empire Murrin

but MT is over 700 pages (Trade paperback), and seems about the same size as the others...

Posted: **Sat Apr 17, 2004 8:43 pm**

I think your right (assuming trade paperback (691 pages) has a lower pagecount than normal paperback).
Yeah, I saw the Malazan Empire in a Google Search, didn't realise you'd linked it here.

Posted: **Fri May 14, 2004 9:12 pm**

Gardens of the Moon is finally being published in america - before I link it I'd like to apologise for the terrible cover (it bears no relation to the story, and I will kill them if they change the cover of the next book, which IMO has the best book cover I've seen in a long time) and say that if any of you call the series 'Malazan Book of the Fallen' instead of it's real title 'Tales of the Malazan Book of the Fallen', I will hunt you down (the american publisher have decided 'A Tale of the Malazan Book of the Fallen' (9 words, 40 characters) is too long to go on the cover, so they've changed it to 'Book One of the 'Malazan Book of the Fallen'' (9 words, 43 characters).
Anyway:

www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/ ... ce&s=books

Comes out 1st June in the US.
If you live somewhere else, or can't stand that cover, the first five books of the series are already out in many, many places. This series is definately a must-read.

Edit - Oh, and I know it's already been mentioned that SRD likes Erikson, but here's exactly what he said about Gardens of the Moon:

Stephen R. Donaldson wrote:Steven Erikson is an extraordinary writer. I read Gardens of the Moon with great pleasure. And now that I have read it, I would be hard pressed to decide what I enjoyed more: the richly and ominously magical world of Malaz and Genabackis; the large cast of sympathetically-rendered characters; or the way the story accumulates to a climax that hits like machinegun fire. My advice to anyone who might listen to me is, Treat yourself to Gardens of the Moon. And my entirely selfish advice to Steven Erikson is, write faster.

Posted: **Sun May 30, 2004 4:07 pm**

Hmm, I work in a bookstore as an accounts manager from time to time, and I've a pretty decent knowledge of what is good and what is crap in fantasy.

I've always wanted to pick up this series, something about the cover makes it look so amazing and the teaser on the flap is interesting as well. Well, finally we got a new shipment in, and usually the first book in the series is always out, but I managed to grab the first 4 books in paperback, so I have plenty of reading to do.

As I begin the story, I find myself in much the same boat as when I started George Martin. Kind of overwhelming with its length, and style, and characters, and so much ot take in, you'r ein the middle of an empire being taken over, and it takes a bit to get used to it, but I'm glad that I've picked up these oboks.

It's interesting that he would only have these publisehd in Canada and UK and not in the states up until now. Anyways, lucky that I'm a Canadian, Cheers.

Posted: **Mon May 31, 2004 3:00 am**

That cover makes me giggle. That girl's lowcut armor is a hoot!

I guess she hopes to be protected from her enemies by flashing her bosom at them!

Nonetheless, horrible cover besides, I have Gardens of the Moon on preorder from Amazon. I have heard so many great recommends, I have to give it a try. So much for my resolution to not start anymore unfinished series.

Posted: **Mon May 31, 2004 11:14 am**

Oh man.. i'm losing heart at all these accounts. For all the same reasons as u all [and cos a friend was bending my arm to breaking point] i got the first Malazan book recently.. and have been working myself up to get started. I'm a slow starter with most books.. and these do sound tough going to get into.. but doubtless i shall assay the task eventually