[Slow Ben]

Ulrik, on 30 July 2010 - 07:57 PM, said:

One thing - your books changed my view of literature.

Yeah, thats pretty much it.

There are only 2 series that really changed my life. The first was Harry Potter, who a long time ago got me hooked into fantasy. The second was Malazan, which changed the way I look at not only fantasy, but ALL literature.

Also, without these stories I never would have found this forum which, by the way, is a damn fine place.

Thanks for the ride Steve and Cam, glad it aint over yet.

This post has been edited by Slow Ben: 30 July 2010 - 09:07 PM

[worry]

This ain't flattery, but I have a feeling that you're the kind of writer who will influence a whole host of people to start writing. And not only that, you will influence them to challenge themselves to a degree they perhaps would not have otherwise. The scope of your creative ambition is pretty intimidating, but also invigorating. It genuinely feels like a turning point, and I believe you've contributed to the blooming of something beautiful in the hearts and minds of your readers.

[Pig Iron]

Ulrik, on 30 July 2010 - 07:57 PM, said:

One thing - your books changed my view of literature.

This!

[Silencer]

worrywort, on 30 July 2010 - 09:09 PM, said:

This ain't flattery, but I have a feeling that you're the kind of writer who will influence a whole host of people to start writing. And not only that, you will influence them to challenge themselves to a degree they perhaps would not have otherwise. The scope of your creative ambition is pretty intimidating, but also invigorating. It genuinely feels like a turning point, and I believe you've contributed to the blooming of something beautiful in the hearts and minds of your readers.

And this.

It's certainly been one hell of a (long) ride for us, and I can only imagine what you've gone through, considering that you started this long before any of us even knew about it. Aside from all the other wonderful comments in this thread, I guess I can only really say 'thank you' again, with more feeling than this text can express - though I'm certain you could do an amazing job of packing those words with anything and everything.
One thing is for certain, however; this world will live on forever, immortalised not just in text, but in our imaginations, and I think that alone is a sure mark of something special.

[Ain't_It_Just_]

Great letter. Eternal thanks to you, SE, and good luck on your next endeavour.

[Vengeance]

As the writer you have challenged us at every turn. For that I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I would also like to thank you (and Hetan and Mal) for both creating the Malazan world and this site. Both of which have brought me so much joy and introduced me to so many great friends.

[nacht]

My wife hates you Mr.Erikson.
She cant understand why the series never seems to end.

Alas, she does not know that I am rereading them

[Edrigan]

Hetan, on 30 July 2010 - 03:57 PM, said:

Hello all

With gratitude
Steven Erikson

What?
No.
You can't leave.
Someone lock the door, this saga can't simply stay here, we gotta have a Crippled Godess and a Crippled Offspring.




Enjoy the summer and the sea, Mr Erikson.
It's been one hell of a rollercoster ride!

[footbeat]

I am new to the series and new to this forum. I am usually a lurker, just looking to fill in the gaps, find out what others saw that I didn't. I Googled "best fantasy series" and read numerous reviews to find out what I wanted to read next. Malazan Book of the Fallen was described as a complex challenge, one that is either loved or hated. My curiosity was piqued. After being spun around and dropped into the middle of a war, I found my way. I read the Life as a Human blog. And then I slowed down, re-reading GotM a score or so pages each day. I listen for the elliptical return, the reringing of the bell. I chew on the words. I don't have the wide perspective yet on the series, I'm only through the first two-hundred pages of DG, but I am hooked. I have never read a book before that made me want to write, but this series is driving me in that direction. I sat down tonight and just started to write. I'm sorry I missed the long ride that many here have had. But over the next year, I'll be retracing that route. Thanks.

[hmqb]

Well thank you very much, and what everyone else said pretty much sums up how I fell about it.

although I do have some Requests for malazan book of the felon
1. Feature an insane K'chain k'malle who kills people (almost defiantly spelled wrong)
2. Have a witty shop keeper with great hair.
3. Have the felons teacher be an old man who carries around two canes, and is half blind.
4. Have him finally get caught trying to pick pocket a beggar.
5. Have him break out of the jail by digging a tunnel out, and feature 5 of the novels describing in detail his digging process.

and thanks you again

[SpectreofEschaton]

I have to somewhat echo Worrywort's comments above, as, Mr. Erikson, you've at once floored my desire to write fantasy by...basically writing the books I always dreamed of someday being able to, and motivated me to attempt things I never would have even considered otherwise. So, in that respect, your books have changed me, and opened my eyes to the...true lack of boundaries in this genre. What you, sir, have achieved, is simply a monument that I am certain will stand among the greatest works of fantasy fiction for all time, and even there, stand out for taking that bold, perilous step away from adventure for the sake of adventure, and fancy for fancy, into...what I consider to absolutely be literature, profoundly illuminating to the human condition.

For nine books now, you have made me weep in both sorrow and elation, you've made me laugh at times when nothing else could, and above all else, you've continually reminded me of all the wonder and vitality to be found in this genre, which for the longest time, I had thought I was dead to. You've taken the greatest elements of fantasy and returned humanity to them, then taken them a step farther, creating something I find truly sublime.

I cannot wait for the tenth, and despite all the grief that shall surely come at the end, I will forever treasure this art you have created.

Mr. Erikson, thank you: for your relentless dedication, your boundless, staggering imagination, and for reviving a part of my life I had long thought slain.

[NikitaDarkstar]

What can I say that hasn't already been said? Probably nothing really, but I agree with what the others have said, The Malazan books will stand tall for a long time yet to come, and is by far the best series I've ever read. And it's been a refreshing feeling to have been able to make my own way through a story without someone holding my hand all the way. The only thing I don't look forward to now is that after The Crippled God (and the inevitable reread of the series) I'll have to try to find something to read that atleast comes close to your works, and I very much doubt I'll be able to.

Thank you for taking me on this long ride, I look forward to seeing how it ends.

[Ublala Pung]

Some authors step into a genre, see the bar, and aspire to raise it. Steven Erikson, armed with a sledgehammer of mesmerizing storylines, set in a breath-taking universe, and inhabited with a titanic pantheon of characters, saw that bar, grinned, and shattered it with all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop.

You've created a monster, Steven. It lures unsuspecting, genre-jaded readers with captivating vocabulary and enigmatic concepts and characters, and then ruthlessly pins them in place with an epic story that demands absolute intellectual and emotional investment. The next generation of fantasy has reared its head, and you are its father.

[WhiskeyJackDaniels]

@ the OP
I guess it is fitting now, here at the end of all things, that you somehow found it in you to write the most brief and succinct message I could have possibly imagined (lol)

@ Malazan Book of the Felon
Sounds a bit like a role Harllo could have tried out for.

@ SE
Thank you.

[amphibian]

Malazan Book of the Felon - the true story of how Harllo got to be seven years old so quickly?

I think when all is said and done, the MBotF is a far better written series of books than LotR - but there's so much standing on the shoulder of giants going on that to anoint it definitively "greater" won't ever happen. I do hope that your books continue to leap off the shelves at a good clip for goddamned near forever though. Mr. Erikson, you've worked insanely hard to turn out some very top-notch writing for us.

We appreciate you.

[Leo]

I'd like to cast in my voice with the others. However, I feel there is little more I can do but add another 'thank you' to the chorus.

But perhaps there is this. The Book of the Fallen is one of the very few things I recognize as true art. The words of your characters, the words of your poems, and the words of yourself are deeply inspiring. You've shown me that every letter, every stroke of the brush, holds power. You've shown everyone, I think, that fantasy isn't just a means of escape, but a means of going beyond the normal limits of the mind and creating a stronger connection to the world than would be otherwise possible. You've shown me - everyone - just what they can do. I say the critics are right. This isn't 'proper literature'. This is real literature. This is real art.

I take back what I said before. I cannot thank you, for I don't think any thanks would ever be enough. You've shown me that words hold great power, but that so too, does silence. Then let my silence show the scale of my gratitude for all that you've done...

[Abalieno]

About the part where you say the series won't challenge the genre bestsellers or be as popular as Lord of the Rings or the Wheel of Time, I wonder why you didn't put A Song of Ice and Fire there, but then I guess that would have opened a whole different and horrible can of worms

Anyway, the challenge to the bestsellers and to the canons of the genre is undeniable on the conceptual level. It's not there on the level of popularity, but is this even desirable? Economic gratification I guess is nice for everyone, for a writer "reaching" more readers is also another undeniable aspiration, but does this come without costs? Let's assume it's a choice, how much you are willingly to sacrifice of your own integrity and the integrity of your work?

I was recently at a local festival about independent and experimental movies from around the world and it *pained* me how many voices are out there that will never be able to reach a broader public. One of these festivals is like a very narrow windows that opens on something huge and immensely beautiful. So few opportunities to reach for it. All of them struggle to find enough money to make a small movie but the gratification from the public is not what drives them. I think very few of them wish for Hollywood or to become widely recognized names. Often they struggle against Hollywood canonized language and conventions, fight to carve their own space. Their journey is troubled and personal, and often the scarcity of resources is what fuels creativity and originality.

If we take some recent big successes and names in the publishing industry, say the Twilight saga or Stieg Larsson books or Dan Brown, I don't think we can say they were intended to be so hugely popular. While in Hollywood the mass cultural products are carefully assembled and planned to be huge, in literature it's much harder to anticipate trends before they surface spontaneously. So I doubt Stephanie Mayer expected her books would become so popular. Yet we can take this success after the fact and deconstruct it to see from where it originated. There's always some lever that lifts the potential and triggers the process. Mass culture does the rest.

But then again, this always requires compromises as ambition can't be easily reconciled with breadth of appeal.

A recent quote from China Mieville:

Quote

“Above all, genres are marketing categories. Even what’s described as literary fiction is a genre; in Britain, it’s just the result of a very successful marketing campaign to persuade readers that it’s not a genre. But even if you think genre is a marketing idea, that isn’t to say it doesn’t have its own integrity and protocol. If you set really stupid, rigid rules for yourself, you can rise to the occasion.”

But then this is actually used in reverse, marketing categories are needed to SELL books. Build canons, and so channel reading habits. Literature is an industry, and so follows its rules. Meaning that it's not hypocritical to say that popular success does require e certain level of contamination and compromise.

--
About the conversation with readers I actually have a different opinion and approach. I think nothing can be taken out of its context. It's not a case that in school one studies the works of classic writers, but also their lives. I'm the type of reader that would besiege a writer with questions while reading a book, so I also desperately hunt for all kinds of tangential infos in the form of other people's opinions, interviews and whatnot. I actually despair on the idea I could not fully understand what a writer wanted to say. I'm interested first and foremost in the writer's original intent, then, much later, I would elaborate things in my own way. Nor I would attribute any significant authority to other readers, whether celebrating or damning. So you may imagine I'd love if you actually opened more "cracks in the smoking glass" and came out more than you've done till this point, whether to discuss things or deal with criticism openly. But then it's just my own undeserved wish

The process of communication is always flawed and somewhat tragic. It never quite works as it should, but every little thing that comes through is already immensely valuable.

This post has been edited by Abalieno: 31 July 2010 - 07:35 AM

[Abalieno]

SpectreofEschaton, on 31 July 2010 - 02:52 AM, said:

What you, sir, have achieved, is simply a monument that I am certain will stand among the greatest works of fantasy fiction for all time

And if it doesn't, who cares. We'll just celebrate being privileged, and rise glasses in a toast to the end of the world

[Shadow of Shadowthrone]

As a relative newcomer to the Malazan world, I must say that I am very impressed with the way you (I didn't realize Hetan = Steven Erikson until I saw this here post!) talk with your fans. Not a condescending word, and you seem so humble in the way you communicate, really, people will love you all the more for it.

And by the way you deal with your fans in precisely this manner, and by the way these fans will push your series on to friends, I am pretty sure that - given time - The Malazan Books of the Fallen will grow in popularity. I know I am not the only one having fallen in love with your words because I needed a good fantasy fix while waiting for George RR Martin to finish A Dance with Dragons. I believe you are filling this void for more and more fans of his series.

The only hurdle as I see it is getting new readers through Gardens of the Moon. Really, it's a big bite to swallow, as you and everyone here is well aware of, but boy the dessert is sweet ^^

Thank you
Slynt

[Hetan]

I'm not Steven Erikson - I merely posted the message at his request - just in case there's any more misunderstandings