Book Review: The Malazan Book of the Fallen

So, yeah, book review number one. This is about my favorite series of books, so the review will probably be a little colored. Then again, considering you're supposed to write good reviews for things you like and bad ones for things you don't, this can probably be forgiven.

Anyways.

The Malazan Book of the Fallen is a ten book series written by Canadian author Steven Erikson and is my personal favorite epic fantasy series. The setting of the series is a world of high fantasy developed by Erikson and his friend, Ian Cameron Esslemont, over the course of many years.

The world itself is vast and only a small portion of the geography or history of the setting is covered in The Malazan Book of the Fallen. Each book explains what is necessary to understand things but leaves a number of questions both large and small.

Gardens of the Moon, the first book in the series, begins in media res after a Pyrrhic victory in which the Malazans sacrifice the majority of an elite military force, the Bridgeburners, to gain control of the city of Pale. The book follows the Malazan Fifth Army as it continues its conquest of the continent of Genabackis.

From here, the series follows two other major conflicts on other continents before eventually coalescing into a single conflict in the sixth book of the series, The Bonehunters.

The style of each book is very similar, mostly slow and full of day-to-day things, humor, and preparations. This is punctuated by occasional instances of conflict and, usually, tragedy, the largest of these being the climax of each book.

Erikson is a very descriptive writer with a gruff style that matches the characters and events of the story well. His humor is simple, well written, and believable, while his combat and action sequences are just the right sort of unbelievable.

The overall message of the series is complicated and contains many ideas but largely ties into the inevitability and tragedy of the major conflicts. Past the second book, there was not a climax I read with entirely dry eyes.

When reading the series, I have two pieces of advice. The first is that you hold off on forming a complete opinion of the series until the third book, Memories of Ice, by far the best book in the series.

The second is that, after finishing the fourth book, you begin the series over again. The Malazan Book of the Fallen is not chronological, and you will get a lot out of the first three books by reading them again after completing the fourth.

Overall, if you are willing to forgive the sometimes slow pace of each book, the complicated plots with many characters, and the truly vast nature of the setting, you can't find a more solid epic fantasy series than this one. If this is your kind of stuff, there is no excuse not to pick it up and enjoy.