Opinions About Books: Steven Erikson Special Edition

When I was a young 'un I read quite a bit of fantasy fiction. I devoured Tolkien,¹ Susan Cooper and Victor Kelleher, but I also read Anne McCaffrey and Terry Brooks and whatever other high-volume fantasy I could find on the shelves of my school library.

Somewhere along the line, as I read more "literature" and grew addicted to well-wrought language and compelling ideas, I realised that an awful lot of what I was reading was neither well-written nor interesting. Never one for moderation, I concluded that fantasy was generally terrible and stopped reading it altogether. Well-meaning attempts by friends and loved ones to lure me back into the fold with Terry Pratchett or Janny Wurtz failed miserably.

In the last few years I have discovered a handful of authors who have restored my belief in Fantasy Fiction That Does Not Suck. Most of the credit belongs to George R. R. Martin, Robin Hobb, and the subject of todays post:² Steven Erikson.

There are a few things that make Erikson's "Malazan Book of the Fallen" series stand out for me:

• It is (or will be) ten books long, and he has been publishing them at a rate of about one per year. He only has one to go. (Compare and contrast: Robert Jordan, George R.R. Martin.) And these are substantial books, not something to knock out in a spare weekend.
• Erikson has created his own world/universe from scratch, and it isn't drawn from the Tolkienesque elves/dwarves/dragons/wizards memepool at all. This means that the process of discovery is ongoing — and because he has created a deep, interesting world, it is also fascinating.
• This is some of the least racist/classist/sexist/homophobic/etc fiction I have read. (More on that in a moment.)
• The reader is dropped in the middle of a time of upheaval, with all sorts of factions and interests in play, and shown how events unfold. There are almost no good guys and almost no bad guys.
• Erikson does not pull any punches. Important, beloved characters can have just about anything happen to them; a medieval-type world is not presented as a bucolic, honorable sort of place; heroes have skeletons in their closets, and not the kind that can be nobly overcome.

One of the things I love most about this series is Erikson's egalitarian approach. There are male and female characters who are violent, lethal soldiers, or charming seducers, or brilliant mages. Characters of all colours - brown, black, white, grey, pink, bronze, blue - are important political and military figures, everyday folks the reader can identify with, and everybody in between. Same-sex attraction is fairly uncommon but not stigmatised or remarkable. Characters from "barbarian" cultures are not simply savages (noble or otherwise), and all sorts of body types are represented without being stereotyped.

It is so rare that I read fantasy that makes me cringe so little.

I recently read two books in the series back to back, a not insignificant undertaking. Here is what I thought about them:

Memories of Ice

Rating:  

The third book in the series sees things take a turn for the epic. Considering what has already happened in Gardens of the Moon and Deadhouse Gates this hardly seems possible, but as the world's system of gods, ascendants and other powers is slowly revealed we discover just how little we have seen until now. If I have a gripe about this book, it's that the unrelenting significance of everything that happens can cause what I will term epicity fatigue, and the down-to-earth characters that kept things grounded in the first couple of books are suddenly rocketing out of reach of the hapless reader.

Erikson's treatment of his snarled mess of intrigue and his unfamiliar, foreign world is pretty great. Rather than spoon-feeding us, or resorting to having characters explain things they already know to each other, he leaves us to flounder in confusion and pick things up as we go along. The moments of revelation when something falls into place is much more rewarding as a result. He also turns the notion of dramatic irony on its head, frequently having characters bring each other up to speed offstage and then carrying on with the story. This is frustrating at times, but I can only salute its effrontery (and effectiveness).

Finally, I must mention that this book affected me emotionally in a way I never expected. I think it was largely because the character of Itkovian resonated with me more than any other fictional character I can remember;³ this is not something I expect from fantasy at all. An extended scene near the end of the book made me more or less fall apart, and I had tears pouring down my face for several pages even after I managed to read on.

Perhaps it is abnormal of me, but saying that it gives rise to uncontrollable emotional expression is just about the highest praise I can give a book.

House of Chains

Rating:  

Memories of Ice was a hard act to follow, but I think House of Chains would have been a bit of a letdown anyway. The focus is mainly on characters I find entirely unsympathetic and not especially interesting, and a very large chunk at the start of the book was really not enjoyable to read at all.

That being said, there were yet more revelations about the way Erikson's world is held together, and I appreciated the return of the story to a more mundane footing. There are also new sides revealed to old, supposedly-familiar characters, and some wonderfully subtle nods to events from previous books. And just when you thought Erikson must have run out of atrocities and taboos, he shoves a big handful of new ones into your face.

House of Chains is my least favourite book in the series so far, but that only dissuaded me from reading the next immediately. I am not really disappointed by it in any meaningful way, and still have high hopes for the rest of the series.

1. Including the Silmarillion, for which I have a deep and abiding love to this day. [↩]
2. I knew I'd get to the point eventually. [↩]
3. Incidentally, the gradual reveal of what Itkovian stood for was handled brilliantly. [↩]