Erikson wrote:The second question: oh the sparks were all negative things, frustrations at the genre's confounding predictability. Wanting to write something in fantasy I myself would like to read (and not just me, but Cam as well -- the one reader who stays in my head as I write). Wanting to kick the tropes around, wanting to get rid of that endless quasi-medieval class-conscious blueblood crap. Wanting a fantasy world as multicultural as this one (the preponderance of white-skinned heroes and blonde princesses ... man, what century is this?). Wanting a fantasy world with a history beyond the Dark Lord of three hundred years ago who's found a rock that will help him rise again and do, oh, bad things; a world with geology and geography, etc.
Sure, there's some good stuff out there, but it wasn't enough. Maybe still isn't.
Erikson PROGRESSES the genre...goes BEYOND Tolkien (and all his "progeny")
like Jimi Hendrix went beyond all HIS contemporaries and "progressed" the blue-derivitive rock and roll.
Steven Erikson is the Jimi Hendrix of Fantasy.