Erikson won’t provide all the Malazan answers

In a new interview, Canadian fantasy author Steven Erikson has warned fans they won’t have all the answers by the time he finishes his epic Malazan Book of the Fallen series.

In August Erikson, who recently moved back to the United Kingdom to live, published Dust of Dreams, his ninth book in the series, one of the most critically acclaimed epics of the current period. The next and last book, The Crippled God, is forthcoming, although its publication date has not been finalised.

Fellow author Ian Cameron Esslemont also has a number of books in the Malazan series, the world for which was co-created by the pair back in the 1980′s.

In a new interview at Fantasy Book Review, Erikson says:

“One of the things both Cam and I were agreed on regarding this series, was to write in a style that conveyed a sense of vastness, with a strong flavour of realism where not all answers are forthcoming, not all truths survive their utterance, and sometimes mystery abides no matter how desperate we all are for an end to the questions. That said, there will be plenty of resolutions, but the world will not be wrapped up with a pretty bow.”

Commentary
I don’t know why anyone would be surprised that the complex Malazan series wouldn’t be completely explained by the time it is finished.

I haven’t gotten all the way through it, but you can see from the various references to the books online that the books are not written in a strict chronological order and flowing sequence. Instead, as Wikipedia notes:

“The series is not told in a linear fashion. Instead, several storylines progress simultaneously, with the individual novels moving backwards and forwards between them. As the series progresses, links between these storylines become more readily apparent. During a book signing in November 2005, Steven Erikson confirmed that the Malazan saga consists of three major story arcs, equating them to the points of a triangle.”

It’s even apparent that this is something different when you pick up the first book in the series, Gardens of Moon. You jump straight into part of a war, with characters that you don’t get much background to. For a while, I was quite confused.

Writing in The Guardian newspaper back in 1999, critic Stephen Moss pointed out much of Erikson’s prose was hard to understand. But, he said, somewhat sarcastically, he didn’t want to be unfair to the author. “Was James Joyce ever pressed for a detailed textual analysis of Finnegans Wake?” he questioned, referring to the notoriously overcomplicated modernist whose books are incomprehensible to many.