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Encyclopaedia Malazica

Page history last edited by Eloth 14 years, 2 months ago

 

Encyclopaedia Malazica..

 

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Art is both reflective of reality and reactionary to it. We’re seeing, I think, the insipid rise of fascism in the world right now, both on an individual, social community scale and nationally and internationally. Drawbridges are up and fear strides the night. And to paraphrase Yoda, we all know where this will lead.

Someone once told me (and I don’t even know if its true) that historically, the genre of fantasy reaches its peak during times of world strife, stress, and war. As an expression of escapism? Could be. A measure of the desire to turn away, at least for little while? Maybe. Of course, in most fantasy novels, evil wears no disguise, and the good are never ugly and always win in the end. So it might be that fantasy reaches through, to some inner need for clarity, to a world less confusing and in its way less frightening.

Mind you, if that’s the case, then I’m in trouble, cause my fantasy novels explore a world of disguised evil, the ugly good and the beautiful bad, and victories that prove anything but.

Oops.

pax malazica

steven erikson

 

Ian Cameron Esslemont: I (and Steve) both believe that Malaz is vastly different from the general popular fantasy series of the genre. We deliberately set out to achieve this goal of convention challenge, contravention, and reversal. It is deliberately anti-heroic in a genre heretofore reserved for heroic indulgences all this because we have faith in the intelligence and discrimination of genre readers to recognize when they are not being talked (or written) down to. In many ways the entire series is an extended critical study of the genre itself how it works, why it works, how far can it be pushed to evolve? But all that is sub-textual and academic; foremost the books must and do remain a damn hair-raising read. If that falls down then it will all fall down (and deservedly so).(Malazanempire Interview (2005))

 

Steven Erikson: One of the things that always fascinated me in my readings of recorded people's histories has been the strange notion of time, especially the way it's sometimes compressed, other times stretched out. There's a history of the Goths I once read that does this again and again; as do a few versions of the Norse creation myth. As a writer of fiction, I realised this was exceedingly useful, particularly in the way it could mislead. Yeah, I'm a mean bastard, ain't I just. Anyway, The Malazan Book of the Fallen is a compiled history, warts and all. It's not above brazen manipulation of events and facts, because, well, that's the nature of the beast. By this, do I mean it as a way of squirming out of things? No, you'd all never let me get off that easily. I just love the feel of an uncertain history, as all histories are. If none of you had any questions, then I'd be worried.(Q and A with malazanempire No 1 (2003))

 

There is something profoundly cynical, my friends, to the notion of paradise after death. The lure is evasion. The promise is excusative. One need not accept responsibility for the world as it is, and by extension, one need do nothing about it. To strive for change, for true goodness in this mortal world, one must acknowledge and accept, within one’s own soul, that this mortal reality has purpose in itself, that its greatest value is not for us, but for our children and their children. To view life as but a quick passage along a foul, tortured path -- made foul and tortured by our own indifference -- is to excuse all manner of misery and depravity, and to exact cruel punishment upon the innocent lives to come. I defy this notion of paradise beyond the gates of bone. If the soul truly survives the passage, then it behooves us -- each of us, my friends -- to nurture a faith in similitude: what awaits us is a reflection of what we leave behind, and in the squandering of our mortal existence, we surrendered the opportunity to learn the ways of goodness, the practice of sympathy, empathy, compassion and healing -- all passed by in our rush to arrive at a place of glory and beauty, a place we did not earn, and most certainly do not deserve.

The Apocryphal

Teachings of Tanno Spiritwalker Kimloc

The Decade in Ehrlitan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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