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this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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I'll address two different questions. I love the Malazan books because it's an incredibly creative world with great characters who represent themes of compassion and sympathy in a world that is pointlessly cruel. Erikson uses a fantasy setting to explore humanity often using very inhumane creatures. Plus you get some awesome shit like sword guys fighting wizards and dragon demons. It's also written by an archaeologist which shows when fantasy cultures are depicted with realistic depth.
Interestingly I had a very different interpretation of the Whirldwind. My thoughts were "of course the people of Seven Cities are being so violent, they're responding to the violence of empire." Real world indigenous struggles are not so clean either. At this point the Empire has also been shown to be cruel.
We had such a different reactions because Erikson narrates things like violence, genocide, and SA in a neutral light and expects the reader to form their own opinion. As a writer in general, he doesn't spell things out for yon. In other fantasy series, I would expect the characters we are following (in this case imperial soldiers) to be presented as the good guys fighting bad guys, which would lead to your interpretation. In Malazan, he forgoes good and bad people and tells a story where people navigate a violent and cruel world. Sometimes they make selfish choices, sometimes they make selfless choices.
It's also not a series for everyone. If you go into Memories of Ice with an open mind, you might start to enjoy it. That's where he really starts getting mileage out of his best themes. But if that book doesn't hook you, it might not be for you.
plot spoilers
The colonising capitalist empire that ends up consumed by the undying mad corpse of one of their colonial subjects. Who is literally encased in golden coins that fall off him as he moves is probably the least subtle he could get in condemnation.But even then the authorial voice is always distant and academic. He plays both sides really, setting up the scenarios he wants to criticise but never making it explicit, always dispassionately describing the events as they fall while he's got a thumb on the scale.
I think you can actually track his own views by how distant the narrator gets from the action. Like in those horrific torture scenes they are basically described by a person backed so far into the corner of the room they're breaking ribs.
Yes while his narration is academic as you said, Erikson really makes it obvious where he stands by book 5. He does his philosophizing through his characters, who don't hide their displeasure with the world.