Steven Eriksons Malazan series

[Scorch]

Well, I just finished the first book of the series and am eager to read the others. Unfortunately they are not out in America yet.

Does anyone know of Tor's release schedule of the rest of the series. I would by used copies but they are going for $30 to $40 EACH! Anyone know of a cheap source for them?

Thanks,

Scorch

 

[drothgery]

A Canadian online bookstore (like www.Amazon.ca or www.Chapters.ca) will sell you the books new for a fairly reasonable price (though shipping from Canada is a little more than shipping within the US); remember the prices are in Canadian dollars, so check exchange rates (www.xe.com) to figure out how much you're actually spending.

 

[barsoomcore]

They are worth every penny, I'll tell you that.

And the Canadian editions, though they have pretty crappy covers, don't have nearly the horrific covers the American editions have been saddled with. Man, those suck.

 

[Scorch]

They are worth every penny, I'll tell you that.

And the Canadian editions, though they have pretty crappy covers, don't have nearly the horrific covers the American editions have been saddled with. Man, those suck.

Thanks, all! I placed my order with Amazon.ca.

I have to agree about the covers. I was looking at the American cover of "Gardens of the Moon" and thinking to myself: "That guy is not Whiskeyjack, Coll, Paran, Croaker, or Kalam. The girl is not Lorn, definitely not Tattersail, but maybe can be Sorry... maybe..."

I have always had a serious problem with recent cover art of Fantasy novels. Ah well, I usually remove the dust covers while reading the hard backs and then slip them back on when I place it on the book shelf.

Scorch

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

And the Canadian editions, though they have pretty crappy covers, don't have nearly the horrific covers the American editions have been saddled with. Man, those suck.

I REALLY like the Canadian/British covers. What do you find crappy about them? I thought they fit the books quite well, and they completely avoided the typical fantasy trope of "Buff guy with sword and girl" that the US edition has embraced to my dismay.

 

[Scorch]

I just finished reading an interview with the author:

http://www.sfsite.com/06a/se82.htm

I knew this guy had to be a gamer as I read the first novel and sure enough he states outright that he has been gaming since his 20s in a GURPS variant system.

I am going to have to check out the "Monarchies of God" series since he said it was some of the best fantasy fiction he has read.

Scorch

 

[barsoomcore]

A couple are OKAY. Gardens of the Moon and Deadhouse Gates are alright covers. But I find the figures on Memories of Ice and Midnight Tides poorly done, and they just aren't very attractive.

They're not HORRIBLE, and no question they're better than most of the spew-some hackery that one finds on most fantasy novel covers, but I wouldn't put them up on my living room wall, for example. Unlike, say, this:

Oh Frank, why have you forsaken us?

I've got nothing against "buff guy + girl" covers, but at least have them done by somebody with an artistic sensibility who knows how to create powerful images. Most fantasy novel covers appear to be done by somebody who has airbrushed photographs of bored models.

I blame Boris Vallejo.

 

[Pants]

I REALLY like the Canadian/British covers. What do you find crappy about them? I thought they fit the books quite well, and they completely avoided the typical fantasy trope of "Buff guy with sword and girl" that the US edition has embraced to my dismay.

Deadhouse Gates and House of Chains have awesome covers. The others, I admit, are fairly boring. Memories of Ice and Midnight Tides both plain suck.

 

[barsoomcore]

Here's another interview from the TOR website:

http://www.tor.com/erikson/meet.html

And for further horror, here's the US cover of Deadhouse Gates:

http://www.stephenyoull.com/New20.html

Yikes.

This series is kind of interesting in the way it's getting published. Erickson has published two novellas set in Malazan with minor characters from the "core" novels through a company called PSPublishing, and now that same company has announced a novel being written by one Ian Cameron Esselmont that is apparently a Malazan-set novel. Esselmont is apparently the co-creator of the Malazan world and an old friend of Erickson's, so this is all kind of wacky and fun.

 

[Liminal Syzygy]

Interesting comment in the latter interview about how he seems spell-casting tropes pass back and forth between fantasy books and RPGs and lose their flavor. How his system of "warrens" was created to break away from this and how he is trying to be vague about how it really works.

By the way, I saw elsewhere that he is looking to finish book 6 by Dec. 2004, so an April 2005 release may not be likely, but isn't out of the question. We're probably looking at mid-next year.