LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Dear Reader,

The Malazan Book of the Fallen (comprising ten wholly incredible and brilliant novels) is in our eyes the first great fantasy epic of the twenty-first century. While each novel can be read on its own, the entire series weaves together to create one of the deepest and darkest worlds I've ever read. Nothing is lost reading the eighth before the third; much like learning about the American Civil War before the Trojan War.

The scope and breadth of this series is so truly vast as to be unrivaled in the fantasy field today, mostly thanks to Erikson's finely crafted storytelling and his twenty years of experience in anthropology and archaeology. Using mythology incarnate, vast legions of gods, mages, creatures, dragons, and humans play out the fate of the Malazan Empire, with action and battle scenes among the most brutal and exciting in fantasy, and the landscapes and cities among the most morose.

The critical praise is piling up and this truly epic work is being favorably compared to the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin. As Glen Cook states: "I stand slack-jawed in awe of The Malazan Book of the Fallen. This masterwork of imagination may be the high water mark of epic fantasy---accomplished with none of the customary riffs on Tolkien. This marathon of ambition has a depth and breadth and sense of vast reaches of inimical time unlike anything else available today. The Black Company, Zelazny's Amber, Vance's Dying Earth, and other mighty drumbeats are but foreshadowings of this dark dragon's hoard." I couldn't agree more.

These novels are indeed a work of genius and I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.

Sincerely,

Eric Raab
Editor
Tom Doherty Associates, LLC