Tag: books

Talking Tolkien – Part 2

On September 16, 2020

Previously, I had written about the position that Tolkien’s fantasy works had found themselves elevated to within the fantasy genre, and how the weight of his influence has a warping effect on people’s perception of the genre, starting to see everything through the Tolkien lens. In short, Tolkien has become more of an idol to be blindly worshiped, rather than being treated as a skilled writer on his own unique merits.

However, whenever an idol is erected, there are those who feel the urge for desecration. For many, trying to tear Tolkien down is how they can “prove” that they have discovered some secret to fantasy unknown to the masses, or to show that they have surpassed him.

I must make it clear – I do not think that Tolkien is exempt from critique of his work, or even that he is the undisputed “best” fantasy author. Nor am I suggested there is a “right” or “wrong” method to fantasy. I am more amused that in the consistently cycling rush to tear down Tolkien, I see the same flawed and, frankly, disingenuous arguments being brought up again and again. I would like to touch on some of my favourites of these absurd repetitions, and often refutation. In short, while I feel Tolkien is more than open to critique, I am frustrated when that critique is so often reduced to parroting of old arguments that either miss the point, or are absolutely flawed to start.

I don’t intend to call out any singular author or essayist here – when you recognize these arguments you’ll see them pop up all over the place, and its unclear how often this is a repeat of another point of view, or an original concept. They are universal canards. However, I must give special mention to author Michael Moorcock, who, if not the first, really got the ball rolling with his famous “Epic Pooh” essay, which is worth a read to get a better context for exactly what I’m talking about.

Too keep this concise, I’ll focus simply on The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien’s most expansive work, and the focus of most critique. One of the most common complaints I hear is that The Lord of the Rings is too simplistic in its morality, in presenting everything as “good against evil.” Supposedly it is lacking in necessary “shades of grey.” Partially I think this is just a symptom of changing times. Good against evil is one of the oldest narratives humanity has come up with. Tolkien was heavily influenced by his Christian faith and experiences in WWI, which coloured his approach to the work. As time moved on, general audiences began to feel that they had heard every sort of variation on this theme and began craving something of nuance. This is especially true once many of the “good guys” of WWII began to partake in some very “bad guy” sorts of operations across the world in service of counteracting the “worse guy” of Communism. The obvious ‘evil overlord’, widely popularized with Sauron, began to become something of a punchline, when real evil seemed so pervasive and yet slippery.

I don’t think it’s exactly fair then to criticize Tolkien for something that was based on his own personal feelings and morality examining his specific moment in time. More so, I feel this critique is a gross oversimplification of how questions good and evil are handled within the books. The “evil” characters and entities are not given as much development simply because they are not the focus. The Lord of the Rings is less about a dualistic “good vs. evil” as it is a study of goodness under the pressure of evil. The evil provides challenges and temptations, but what is the engaging part of the work is how the “good” characters handle this. I will go further and say that simply calling the characters within the books “good” is also an oversimplification. The characters often fail and must be redeemed, or have others take on their burdens. Many cannot handle the burdens of responsibility or the temptation to fight evil with evil. These are the most important struggles for the characters within the book, not those against the physical forces of Mordor.

Often those who decry the “simplicity” of Lord of the Rings also conclude that it is an “unrealistic” work, too divorced from the realities of life in a setting of its kind. The most famous example of this is the by now memetic “What was Aragorn’s tax policy” raised by George RR Martin. The first problem with this of course is – realistic in relation to what? There has arisen an unfortunate belief in a “generic” fantasy. This has variable descriptions to it, but generally seems to be believed to be “medieval Europe.” For starters, most people have very little understanding of what medieval life actually entailed. Secondly, there is no indication that Tolkien was trying to pin Middle Earth to any specific year in earth’s history in regard to technology or society. Indeed, a strength of Tolkien is the uniqueness to his world. How in the world can you set up comparisons to reality, when there is no singular point of reality to be compared to? And why would you want to?

The obvious rebuttal to the question as to why Tolkien did not go into the minutiae of kingship or other aspects was that it simply was not his goal. However, there is another factor at play that many overlook. The book that is The Lord of the Rings is supposed to be an adaptation of the fictional Red Book of Westmarch (a play on the real-life manuscript the Red Book of Hergest), written by the hobbits after the events of the series. The series therefore has a very clear viewpoint (the hobbit characters), and focuses on events from their point of view, specifically what left the greatest impact on them from their perspective. The books are not intended to operate as an objective history. Actually, this adds to the realism of the series being a hobbit history, as Tolkien is more closely mimicking the styles of older historians, who were more concerned with narration and storytelling than presenting an impartial report.

I could go on into even more misconceptions, but I think you get the idea. (I also don’t want to dive into the more wild and vitriolic political theories brought up, which are generally personal to the one making them). There is the incorrect assumption, that I discussed in my last piece, that Tolkien is in some way a “basic” form of fantasy – from that incorrect assumption comes further conclusions that therefore his work has an inherent simplicity to it or lacks in nuance. I think that the idea that there can be a “generic” sort of fantasy is a troubling one at that, and more indicative of the commercialization of the genre in the present day, than anything to do with Tolkien.

In summation, I feel that placing Tolkien as the “lynchpin” of all fantasy does a disservice both to his legacy and to the legacy of other fantasy writers. The Lord of the Rings is by no means a perfect work – but what is? There is nothing else like it, and it has earned its reputation. At the same time, much can be said for other great fantasy works. It seems unfortunate that anyone who wants to say anything about fantasy has to either praise Tolkien as their one and only progenitor or try to take misaimed shots at him to prove their street cred as a radical force in the genre.

I simply don’t believe that any one work deserves to be the singular loadbearing stone in this particular house – it’s one that has many rooms, each with their own purposes and styles limited only by imagination. We should not expect one room to be like any other, but enjoy our time spent in all of them as unique experiences.

Talking Tolkien: Part 1

By sghemingson

On September 14, 2020

In Essays and Thoughts

The impact of JRR Tolkien on the fantasy genre is a massive one to be sure. For many, he would be one of the only fantasy authors they can name, which is very impressive given the age of his works. I’m not here to give any sort of analysis or review – there’s very little I could say that hasn’t already be said on the matter of The Lord of the Rings.

I do find myself in the rather odd position of finding The Lord of the Rings to be simply good books and a great achievement in fantasy. Not my favourite works of fantasy, nor, I would say, the best I have read – but that does not make their accomplishments any lessened. Indeed, while many will praise Tolkien as the be all and end all of fantasy, there is also a continual trend stretching back many decades, where Tolkien is held up as a useful target for those trying to make their mark in fantasy. True, there is little that gets my eyes rolling faster than the phrase “The Greatest Fantasy Since Tolkien!”, but at the same time, I much of the criticism leveled at Tolkien throughout the years comes across as alarmingly disingenuous to me. In a way this does make sense – to gain attention via vandalism you have to perform your vandalism on something visible.

In short, my point is that Tolkien is an author whose legacy is surrounded by a good deal of nonsense of all kinds. This is a natural consequence of being such a benchmark within a genre. What is impressive is how this nonsense arises from both those seeking to bolster Tolkien’s legacy and those seeking to undermine it.

There are those who consider Tolkien to be the Omega of Fantasy – which, fair enough, that is a matter of personal taste, and I am not so crass as to start attacking that in this forum. What does cause me to gripe is the idea that Tolkien is the Alpha of fantasy as well. In this view, fantasy “really” begins with Tolkien, who then influenced countless inferior knockoffs as well as Dungeons and Dragons, which provided the main thread of fantasy development until the modern day when thankfully we began to receive some variation.

This view either pretends that fantasy before Tolkien did not exist or assumes that it was somehow of lesser importance – essentially relegating things from the Pulp era and beyond to historical footnotes, before Tolkien came and made fantasy “serious”. I’m not going to get into a debate over whether Tolkien was objectively or subjectively “better” than absolutely everything that came before him. But this outline of the history of fantasy is, I believe, a gross oversimplification. Tolkien’s genius lay in taking existing mythological elements and weaving them into an entirely new framework. His work was less of a foundation stone, and more of a, at the time, unique shifting of fantasy to a more European context. It seems strange, when many consider fantasy synonymous with “Medieval Europe” in their minds, but previously, much weird fiction could be argued to have looked more to the exotic within history, being attracted to Greek, Roman or even Arabic sources.

For example, the locations in Conan the Barbarian’s “Hyperborea” hold more with Ancient Mediterranean culture than Medieval Europe, and Conan ranged far and wide beyond his homeland into ever more exotic cultures. Tolkien was unique in bringing fantasy to a more European setting without relying on the purely historical or the fairy-tale. He also focused much more on aspects of cosmology and what we now call “world building”, at least in a more structured way than what had come before.

But how much did Tolkien affect the “mainstream” of fantasy after this? Many point to the reoccurrence of the same fantasy races in Tolkien. However, that I would attribute more to Dungeons and Dragons. True, Dungeons and Dragons may have aped Tolkien in this regard, but for the most part, the context of these races is nearly entirely changed. The Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and Hobbits of Tolkien all had very specific roles to play within his narrative which are not generally found outside of his work, or only copied at the most surface level. Beyond that, fantasy of the Dungeons and Dragons era is marked more by bizarre and imaginative monsters that have little to do with Tolkien’s work. Indeed, the creators of Dungeons and Dragons in mentioning their inspirations put Tolkien as only one among many. Though Tolkien was a landmark island in the river of fantasy, the water had started flowing long before him, and would continue on long past.

Indeed, I feel that trying to paint Tolkien as simply a fantasy “template” does a great disservice to his work as making it seem more prototypical and “basic” than it actually is. His linguistic work has rarely been matched (M.A.R. Barker is the only name who comes to mind as a challenger on that scale), nor has his dedication to winding together fictional histories and mythology. At the same time, it is also a disserve to later writers to automatically reduce their varied inspirations and styles to simply another measurement against Tolkien. The fantasy genre has a much deeper history than that which, I feel, deserves acknowledgment.

Chronicles of Amber

By sghemingson

On September 10, 2020

In Essays and Thoughts

I discussed in my last post on fantasy books what I considered to be, in literary terms, the best work written in the genre. However, I understand that answer might seem like an overly technical one – too clinical for something with a good degree of subjectivity to it. So, to be perfectly subjective, today we are going to ask what my favourite fantasy series is. That’s a difficult question on its own, but if had to ever take just one collection down from my shelf, it would probably be the Chronicles of Amber, by Roger Zelazny, particularly the five books that make up the “Corwin Cycle.”

It’s difficult to discuss just what the series is about without revealing important details of the plot, so this will be a fairly short review. Essentially, the Corwin Cycle is about Corwin himself, a man who awakes in a hospital after an accident with a severe case of amnesia. It soon becomes clear to him that he is not a regular accident victim, and he must use guile and bluster to fake his way through encounters with his scheming family to relearn his heritage and his identity.

The setting of Amber encompasses the entire universe, from its shining core to the chaotic wilderness of its very edge. The reader is dropped into all this with no context, with only Corwin as narrator to explain things – and he, of course, may be biased. This is the greatest strength of Amber, as Corwin is one of the most intriguing and enjoyable narrators I can recall within the fantasy genre. He is a character who mixes wit, humour and nobility with melancholy, ambition and a touch of arrogance.

The books do feel like you are letting a very interesting character tell you their story and are one of the breeziest reads I can recall in the genre, dancing along from witticism to anecdote. I’ve always been impressed with writers who can do more with less and Zelazny is an absolute master at this. Equally impressive is how effective he is at making memorable characters. Other members of Corwin’s family play key roles in the plot, and we only really see them through Corwin’s eyes. Many of these family members we don’t see much of at all, and yet each of them is vividly distinct and memorable. The plot is intrinsically about these characters – there is no grand prophecy or fate. The horrors and triumphs are all because of action and reaction by the cast, our narrator included.

Most impressive of all is how much emotion, meaning and thought is packed into the wild ride. Corwin and his family are nobility – though it may be better to term them the nobility. Of course, princes and princesses have long been a staple of fantasy, from the earliest days of fairy tales up through Tolkien and on to our current obsession with A Song of Ice and Fire. A common theme throughout these stories is of the “rightful heir” – that there is someone who best deserves the throne, the crown and the power they entail.

Corwin very much starts off as a character in this vein, with an implication of even greater cruelty in his forgotten past. He is in many ways a god among men, and it is understandable how his desire for the greatest power of all could be intoxicating. And yet, over the course of the story, something strange happens. It seems that even gods have room for maturation. Corwin begins to understand that responsibility is perhaps the greater virtue than power – that there is more value in creation than in taking.

Too often I feel that media that deals with people in power turns towards cloying pity for the competition that such power engenders, and glorification of the accumulation of said power, with perhaps some hollow platitudes about corruption tacked on at the end. The Chronicles of Amber is such a tale in reverse, about a character who begins with great power being denied it, and then learning that empathy and responsibility are, in the end, more meaningful attributes. Truly grand in the scope of its imagination and utterly engaging to read, The Chronicles of Amber arrives with no limitations on what it believes fantasy can be, and leaves you wanting to reread it as soon as you are finished. I’d highly recommend taking a look at anything Zelazny does, and Amber stands out as my personal favourite work of fantasy fiction.

Gormenghast

By sghemingson

On September 8, 2020

In Essays and Thoughts

As I may have mentioned before, I’m not too big of a fan of ranking, particularly when it comes to books. A book can be good, great, or bad, but in each of those categories it is unique in one way or another. At most, I can maybe group together books into the “great” category or try and pin down those that excel at a particular aspect of the craft, or sub-genre. When it comes to fantasy, however, I generally do answer that the best book I have ever read in that genre is, without a doubt, Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast.

Among aficionados of fantasy, Gormenghast is often spoken of, in hushed tones of reverence or, more often, as a smug rebuttal to the assertions that another series might be the superior. Among many writers and critics, there seems to be no more exciting moment for them when they get to rebut the idea that Lord of the Rings must be their favourite work, proudly proclaiming that it was, in fact, Gormenghast that was their teacher.

I’ll maybe touch on the criticism of Lord of the Rings later on, but while I don’t wish to suborn Gormenghast into the mere role of proving what little credentials I have, I cannot deny that it is probably the best fantasy book ever. I see it as a little pointless to delve too deeply into its comparisons with Lord of the Rings, as they come from two completely different places. Tolkien was writing from a love of mythology, and Lord of the Rings is a triumph of worldbuilding. Gormenghast however, comes from a love of literature itself. I have heard the series described as “a collaboration between Shakespeare, Dickens and Kafka whilst all were under the influence of opium”, and that admittedly does capture a portion of the spirit.

Plot wise, the Gormenghast series is fairly simple, dealing with the inhabitants of the titular castle. The first book covers the birth of the new heir to Gormenghast, Titus Groan, and the second book with his maturation. The third novel takes place during Titus’s exile beyond the castle – Peake unfortunately died from dementia before any further works could be written. Interwoven with Titus’s life is the machinations of Steerpike, a kitchen boy who assumes more and more power within the social structure of the castle.

So what makes Gormenghast stand out to me as a work of fantasy then? For me, the fantasy genre interests me because it deals with the unreal but is created by those who dwell within reality. What delineates humans from animals is the ability to consider something that absolutely does not exist and communicate it through language – whether spoken, written or drawn. Fantasy is this skill used for art or entertainment, though we also use it to formulate other vital parts of our society that have no physical examples of them, such as our religion, ethics and philosophy. The furthest edges of the sciences also require these kinds of intuitive leaps into the darkness of “what might be.”

Good fantasy transports you to other worlds by presenting things that seem impossible or strange – the fantastical, as it were. What makes Gormenghast so special is that it relies very little on this. There is no magic, no strange creatures, no gods or demons. (In fact, the third book suggests that the castle exists within a world closer to the steampunk genre than anything else). And yet, every page is filled with the essence of the fantastical. Everything within Gormenghast is strange and exaggerated, from the characters to the castle itself. The fantasy is not coming from what the language is describing, but from the language itself. Peake is, in some ways, the reverse of Tolkien. In his work, Tolkien manages to take the vague and shifting meanings of mythology and crystalize them into a single, beautiful fantasy world. Conversely, Peake starts with English literature and renders it down, distilling it into a truly strange brew where the grotesque characters you might find in Dickens become even more grotesque – where the drama (comedy and tragedy alike) that you might find in Shakespeare becomes even more fierce or absurd.

Gormenghast, in this way, blew open the doors of my own perception of what fantasy could encompass, and remains a highly influential work for many within the genre. That said, I’m not sure it’s a book I would recommend casually. Many have accused it of being too dense and longwinded. This does not particularly bother me (I don’t particularly care where a book takes me, or how long it takes to get there, as long as the trip is interesting), but it may not be for everyone. If you’d like a test run, the BBC did a miniseries based on the books in 2000 that does condense the material considerably. You can also find Gormenghast’s influence across a slew of more contemporary works. I’d certainly check out China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station if you’d like a taste of such.

For me, Gormenghast is the peak of fantasy. There are other great books who have managed to bring a literary touch to the fantasy genre. Gormenghast, however, managed to steer literature right into the farthest depths of the fantastical. If anyone ever doubts that a fantasy work can have literary merit, Gormenghast remains to this day the most resounding counter argument.

Barsoom Series

By sghemingson

On September 3, 2020

In Essays and Thoughts

I’ve done a few reviews for books, films and movies that were fresh on my mind. I’ve been a bit hesitant to delve further back, since I know that nostalgia and memory are fickle things to work with. At the same time, I tend to judge works on their lasting impact upon me. Something that sticks in my mind for many months or years afterwards is probably something worth talking about.

A good place to start would likely be near to the beginning – both for me and for much of the science fiction genre, with A Princess of Mars. Author Edgar Rice Burroughs is much better known for his work on Tarzan, which has left an indelible imprint on the public consciousness. To this day, kids Tarzan yell and pound their chests, if not really understanding why. Burrough’s old neighbourhood in Los Angeles is known as Tarzana to this day. Hollywood is likely a good reason for Tarzan’s continued impact, with close to 40 “official” Tarzan films, and countless more homages, spin-offs and spoofs.

The Barsoom series (Barsoom being the name the inhabitants of Mars give to their planet) conversely has, to my knowledge, a low budget Asylum film and the John Carter film released by Disney. I admit to having not seen the latter film, despite it having been an adaptation of a series of books I quite well enjoyed. Given the content of the books, I didn’t particularly trust that a live action Disney movie trying to capitalize on the Pirates of the Caribbean action adventure trend would really interest me. (For similar reasons I passed on The Lone Ranger). Supposedly the film wasn’t particularly good, but I’ll not go making judgement on something I didn’t see – but I don’t really think modern Hollywood has the sort of specific talent lineup to really bring something from the pulp heyday to life. Maybe if Ralph Bakshi was still allowed to direct big budget animated films, and we could get A Princess of Mars a la Fire and Ice….

In any case, my point is that A Princess of Mars was more of a footnote. In many ways, this makes sense. A Princess of Mars features a highly exotic and alien setting, plenty of violence and constant nudity. Modern studios might feel that brute force of CGI and good directing could help them overcome those first two obstacles, but none of them would want to engage with that third issue – least of all Disney! Tarzan, on the other hand, was easy enough to portray through jungle sets, tamed animals, and leopard print loincloths.

I think that the Barsoom cycle ends up being somewhat unfairly forgotten, reduced to a bit of a punchline by the financial failure of John Carter. (Also, why on Mars would you name a film John Carter over A Princess of Mars?! The former sounds like a biographical film and evokes nothing at all of the sort of story involved. Maybe Disney was trying to distance itself from an overreliance on Princesses?) Also, the Barsoom cycle spawned a bevy of imitations, perhaps most infamously the Gor series, noted for its smugly Nietzschean author and, as it progressed, growing obsession with the sexual subjugation of women. In the public mind, the exotic nudity of Barsoom (none of the Martians wear clothes – modesty is an Earthly construct) may have been conflated with the sexual obsessions of Gor. The issue with Gor was less that it was sexy (I think we get a little too upset over escapism these days), but because the other was very adamant about linking the sexual content to the inferiority of women. Gor did end up with its own cultural impact, an odd little side note in science fiction history – fans of the series mimic the subjugating relationships found in the book in real life or online to this very day. That sounds like it involves more of an interest in BDSM given a thin coat of science-fiction paint, but since I’m not an expert, I’ll assume that the “Gor” elements are somehow vital to the experience. The series also got a couple of notoriously bad movies, so I suppose it managed to leave a mark.

The Barsoom cycle, I would argue, had a deeper and more vital impact overall, beyond simply copycat series. The “planetary romance” or “sword and planet” genre that Barsoom popularized may have mostly burned itself out by today, but it had a strong presence in the minds of many. While weird fiction had always blended fantasy, horror and science-fiction together, Barsoom can be seen as the crystallization of the “science fantasy” genre that we still see today. Many science fiction authors were influenced and inspired by it, such as Vance, Clarke, Heinlein and especially Bradbury with his Martian Chronicles. Carl Sagan mentioned what an impact the series had on his interest in space. George Lucas was also influenced by it, and you can see the shadows of Barsoom across the deserts of Tatooine, the flying airship and ornately dressed slavegirls of Jabba the Hutt and the focus on sword fighting in a world with fantastical guns. And I don’t need to explain the influence Star Wars would go on to have.

I think because Barsoom focuses heavily on traditional “Fantasy” elements (princesses, sword fights, journeys into the unknown), its revolutionary science fiction elements are often forgotten, especially since they seem so prototypical. Burroughs based his ideas on a civilization on Mars on early mistranslations regarding the “canals” of Mars by astronomers – the same germ behind War of the Worlds, and he creates and evocatively “dying world” from this idea. The inhabitants of Mars, which often reminiscent of Earthly peoples and animals, have many unique cultures, customs and appearances, with enough interesting twists to keep them fresh to this day. The setting is one that sticks with me to this day due to its forlorn romance and mysteries. Barsoom is not perhaps remembered as a part of Weird fiction because the narrator, John Carter, is portrayed as a fairly hardheaded military man. The series deals with his transportation to the strange world of Barsoom, and the interpretation of the world through his eyes. He’s a much less poetical author than the leads who explore strange territories in the works of say, Hodgson or Lovecraft. This does make the books fairly easy reads even so many years later, but I don’t believe Carter’s blunt nature diminishes the fantastical world he travels in by too much. The books are, of course, pulp and designed to entertain, but even the violence is presented in a “heightened” manner, with Carter flipping and leaping through the lower gravity of strange Martian landscapes like a precursor to the superheroes who would bound through later comics. Carter is not a complex character, but that is part of the charm of the books. He is not on Mars to subjugate weaker peoples or sexes, but to rescue his beloved Princess, no matter what terrifying part of the planet she ends up in.

Compared to the often-dated racial interactions in Tarzan, the Barsoom cycle often displays a remarkable encouragement of tolerance. Many have been turned off by the conceit that John Carter is an ex-Confederate soldiers – within the book, however, that set up seems to be more an explanation why Carter is both good at war and without much attachments back on Earth. Carter of course carves a path through most of the various sentient races he finds on Mars, but also finds friends among nearly all of them as well, even the truly monstrous “Green Martians.” Indeed, the “White” Martians are consistently portrayed in the most villainous light. The focus on race will certainly seem awkward today, but not to the distracting degree found in the works of other pulp authors or later comic books.

They might be straightforward adventure tales, but the Barsoom cycle mixed a quick pace with pure wild imagination that is, in essence, pure Weird, while still remaining an important step towards the formation of later science fiction. As a fast fun read, I can certainly recommend them. I highly enjoyed them when I was younger as they were able to mix an easy to follow adventure with consistently interesting ideas and a desolate, intriguing world. Even if you don’t give it a read, be sure to look up some of the really fantastic artwork that the series has inspired over the years, and which stand as proof of how many people have been caught up in the exotic romance of Barsoom.

Malazan Book of the Fallen

By sghemingson

On August 5, 2020

In Essays and Thoughts

I’ve talked a lot about my love of fantasy, and yet I haven’t yet touched on any actual recommendations for series. I do have my own miniature “canon” of what I consider to be the standouts in the genre for myself, but often it has been awhile since I have read the works in question and I would like to do a quick review.

However, I did recently finish the Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson, and have many friends going through those books as well, so this seems like the perfect time to touch upon the most recent fantasy sequence to have made such an impressive impact upon me. This is definitely a set of works that I want to talk about while the impression is fresh in my mind.

I must point out the potential hypocrisy of giving out recommendations when I, myself, tend to be very wary of book recommendations found online. We live in the age of relentless hype, and while this is mostly visible within movies and video games, it can be seen in the literary market as well. Of course, I understand better than most the importance of marketing and getting your work out there and noticed. However, I cannot tell you how many times I have heard a newer series hailed as “better than Lord of the Rings!” (Lord of the Rings being always trotted out as the benchmark is another topic, though perhaps a tangentially connected one – more on that in a bit).

So, it was with interest that I noticed that the discussion around Malazan was more polarized, with people either loving or hating it. I am glad I got a personal recommendation, as I am firmly in the category of adoration. I don’t want to assume why anyone has a particular reaction to something, but I feel why Malazan receives such strong opinions in both directions is because it feels very much out of place in the current fantasy landscape – people who enjoy the sort of fantasy that it is echoing are ecstatic to see its return, and those who do not likely have expectations that the series is not interested in meeting. As well, I fully admit that the series has a beginning that while not bad, per se, does not quite match the rest of the series in sheer engagement and style.

Author Steven Erikson has famously rebutted assumptions that all fantasy stems from Tolkien, and Malazan fairly oozes with the mood of the pre-Tolkein age. Some would say that the pre-Tolkien age was marked mainly by Conan-esque violence and “grit”, but there was a deeper sense of the weird to it. Tolkienesque fantasy often features comfortable, clean and crisp renditions of European landscapes – forests, hills and plains, counterposed against the dark corners of the world – bleak mountains, dark woods and blasted industrial wastelands. Before Tolkien, there was often a sense that the whole world, from places to people to even physics, were suffused with the essence of otherworldliness.

Erikson captures this feeling of mystery excellently, making his world feel expansive and strange – even when there is no visible strangeness. Thankfully he does not go into minute detail over things like “magic systems”, always making sure to keep the mystique even as he unveils complicated plots and concepts. I was very much reminded of the first-time reading Dune when I was younger.

The series perhaps most reminds me of Glen Cook’s dark military fantasy series the Black Company, and some even bring up this comparison as a negative point, claiming Malazan is too close. On this point I must disagree – while the series does often focus on military soldiers and wizards with catchy nicknames, the scopes are entirely different, with Malazan ranging into entirely different types of stories and characters, and much deeper into the religious and supernatural underpinnings of the setting. That is perhaps the most unique part of the whole Malazan series – it feels like a melding of older styles of fantasy but takes them out of what was often a structure of short stories into Tolkien levels of epic scope.

This scope unchains Erikson to roam far and wide, interacting with all sorts of different characters and situations, and it is a testament to him as an author that he does well with so many different set ups. The second and third books are infamous for their harrowing military sequences filled with betrayal and bloodshed, while later books bring the metaphysical conflicts to an impressive conclusion. I would have to say that my favourite part of the books is his “Lether Arc” which mixes the most heartbreaking tragedy of the series with its most outstanding examples of comedy. What makes all these tonal shifts work without being jarring is the wonderful cast of characters that Erikson builds up. Even characters that only appear for a single book can often leave a significant impact, and the characters we get to follow for longer get very engaging development.

The novels also are not shy at delving deeply into human nature, religion, philosophy and politics, but ties these discussions so tightly to the characters that it never feels like the reader is being pulled out of the story. Indeed, it feels integral, given the world changing events characters often find themselves witness to, even if they cannot affect these events. (Though, Malazan is a series that is very happy to overthrow status quos – being a God is no guarantee of success or even survival).

In short, the series seems to pull off a very rare “having your cake and eating it too” situation.

I often say that my favourite fantasy series of all time is Gormenghast, for the reason that even when mundane events are occouring, the prose makes them seem odd and otherworldly. Malazan manages to capture some of this magic in its slower moments and detours, while also managing to have complex plotlines and vivid action. Malazan feels like a love letter to the sorts of fantasy novels that I love, and it was a thoroughly enjoyable read from start to finish. It isn’t a series I would recommend lightly or casually – if you liked something like the Black Company, there will be something for you here. I fully admit it to be complex and often dense, but I found nearly every detour an enjoyable and interesting one. Malazan manages to feel new and exciting, while pulling up the very best parts about fantasy, the parts that too often are lost and forgotten.