History Literature / MalazanBookOfTheFallen

* GenderIsNoObject: Most of the cultures are largely equal-opportunity when it comes to daily life and war, especially the dominant Malazan Empire which considers itself egalitarian in all aspects. Two noted exceptions are the Tiste Edur tribes where the women rule the house and the men are warriors, and the mercenary/holy order known as the Grey Swords, who are noted as unusual for not allowing women into their ranks. That also changes when they switch patron deities from the Boar of Summer to the Wolves of Winter and take in female recruits to supplement their torn ranks.

** Ascendants in a nutshell, who are nearly immortal, get more power than before ascending, and can even become gods, if will they'll get worshipers.

** The so-called Four Founding Races, said to be extinct by the start of the series, all turn out to still be around in some corner of the world. The [[DemBones T'lan Imass]], the setting's version of [[AllCavemenWereNeanderthals Neanderthals]], have turned their whole species {{undead}}, the Jaghut have never been very numerous and prefer solitary existence in remote places, the Forkrul Assail have [[spoiler:hatched plans to remake the world in their image and are working on that behind the scenes]] and the K'Chain Che'Malle, bipedal LizardFolk, have retired to a remote corner of the world after a particularly nasty CivilWar.

* NotUsingTheZWord: The series has the Tiste races and the Jaghut, who are basically [[OurElvesAreDifferent elves without the pointy ears]] and [[OurOrcsareDifferent schorlarly orcs]], respectively. The K'Chain Che'Malle are the {{verse}}'s LizardFolk. And the Imass are [[AllCavemenWereNeanderthals Neanderthals in everything but name]], or were, since now they're {{undead}} Neanderthals.

** The series has names like T'lan Imass, Onos T'oolan, and so on... It's worth noting that the apostrophe in T'lan Imass does represent a glottal stop, is actually mentioned in-universe as a contraction of "Tellann" and is meant to signify that something is broken. Onos T'oolan used to go without the apostrophe before becoming {{undead}}.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfRaces: The series is brimming with various different races. In addition to baseline humans, you have the [[{{Precursors}} Four Founding Races]] -- [[LizardFolk the K'Chain Che'Malle]], [[KnightTemplar the Forkrul Assail]], [[OurOrcsAreDifferent the Jaghut]], and [[DemBones the T'lan Imass]] who used to be that {{verse}}'s [[AllCavemenWereNeanderthals cavemen]] before becoming collectively {{undead}}. There are also the K'Chain Nah'ruk, the K'Chain Che'Malle's ServantRace which rebelled. Then you have [[OurElvesAreDifferent the three Tiste races]]: Tiste Andii, Tiste Edur and Tiste Liosan, who are alien to the planet on which most of the series is set and who are known as the Children of Darkness, Shadow and Light, respectively. Then you have the [[OurGiantsAreBigger Tartheno Thelomen Toblakai]], who have splintered into various offshoot races, most notably the Teblor, and are themselves descended from [[AllTrollsAreDifferent the Thel Akai]]. Then you've got a bunch of nonhumans who are part of the same general family as humans and their actual evolutional predecessors, the Imass, including the Barghast and the Moranth. Then you've got the Great Ravens and the [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Eleint]], both of which are sentient races. Finally, there's a whole plethora of sentient demons. This is justified, however, by the creators of the {{verse}} both being archaeologists and anthropologists and knowing ''exacly'' what they were doing when they created the setting, and evolution is an important factor in the development of all those different races, despite having a fantastic spin to their origins which includes [[PantheonSitcom a bunch of Elder Gods]] [[TheMaker playing creators]].

** The T'lan Ay are huge prehistoric wolves. And {{Undead}} to boot, as they've been extinct for about 320,000 years, when the T'lan Imass decided to include them in the Ritual of Tellann, which made the Imass undead.

%%* SpeciesLostAndFound

* DrunkenMaster: Sergeant Hellian of the Bonehunters is one of the most capable squad leaders of the Malazan army, despite being falling-down drunk during every living moment, leading the Malazan invasion of [[spoiler:Lether]] one tavern at a time. [[spoiler:As it turns out, if given time to go proper ColdTurkey, she becomes frighteningly competent.]]

* OurDemonsAreDifferent: They are simply what creatures from other realms are called, whether they are sentient or not. Necromacers and mages can call them and bind them to their will, and the most common source realms are either Aral Gamelon or the Shadow Realm, although in ''Literature/MidnightTides'' [[spoiler:Rhulad Sengar]] gains many enslaved demons by negotiating with the Kenryll'ah, who are the dominant race in their realm, to allow him to enslave the Kenyll'rah, the Kenryll'ah's less warlike cousins. And in ''Literature/TollTheHounds'', High Alchemist Baruk manages to capture a demon who looks suspiciously human and likely stems from the Crippled God's home realm.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfRaces: The series is brimming with various different races. In addition to baseline humans, you have the [[{{Precursors}} Four Founding Races]] -- [[LizardFolk the K'Chain Che'Malle]], [[KnightTemplar the Forkrul Assail]], [[OurOrcsAreDifferent the Jaghut]], and [[DemBones the T'lan Imass]] who used to be that {{verse}}s [[AllCavemenWereNeanderthals cavemen]] before becoming collectively {{undead}}. There are also the K'Chain Nah'ruk, the K'Chain Che'Malle's ServantRace which rebelled. Then you have [[OurElvesAreDifferent the three Tiste races]]: Tiste Andii, Tiste Edur and Tiste Liosan, who are alien to the planet on which most of the series is set and who are known as the Children of Darkness, Shadow and Light, respectively. Then you have the [[OurGiantsAreBigger Tartheno Thelomen Toblakai]], who have splintered into various offshoot races, most notably the Teblor, and are themselves descended from [[AllTrollsAreDifferent the Thel Akai]]. Then you've got a bunch of nonhumans who are part of the same general family as humans and their actual evolutional predecessors, the Imass, including the Barghast and the Moranth. Then you've got the Great Ravens and the [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Eleint]], both of which are sentient races. Finally, there's a whole plethora of sentient demons. This is justified, however, by the creators of the {{verse}} both being archaeologists and anthropologists and knowing ''exacly'' what they were doing when they created the setting, and evolution is an important factor in the development of all those different races, despite having a fantastic spin to their origins which includes [[PantheonSitcom a bunch of Elder Gods]] [[TheMaker playing creators]].

* IncitingIncident: What kicks of the MythArc of the ''Malazan Book of the Fallen'' is the fall of the Crippled God, hundreds of thousand years prior to the start of the first book.

* ExtremelyShortTimespan: The prequel novel ''Literature/NightOfKnives'' takes place within 24 hours, which is unusual for a series known for taking huge and epic UpToEleven.

* FantasyPantheon: The series takes the idea and runs with it. There are gods and goddesses everywhere and for everything and whatever gets worshipped in a given place depends on the people living there. While the biggest suspects have temples in the most major cities, even individual desert tribes can have their own, real and kicking, deities. There are various kinds of deities in the malazanverse:

** ''Gods'' in the more traditional fantasy genre sense that are worshipped at the time most of the series takes place in vary from general deities like Burn (the Sleeping Goddess of the Earth), Oponn (the Twin Gods of Chance), several (yes, several) gods of war to patrons of specific occupations like Cotillion (Patron God of Assassins). Gods, in the malazanverse, are bound to the limits that worship sets upon them.

* FantasyWorldMap: The serieshas several maps, one for most of the world's continents, although it's not always clear how the different continents relate to each other as there is no official world map. A fan (and troper) created a map showing the continents in several different configurations and Creator/StevenErikson eventually confirmed one as mostly accurate; it can be found on various fan sites.

** The Pannion Domin is a comparatively small but exceptionally belligerent and expansionist theocratic empire in central Genabackis. It was considered enough of a threat for Dujek Onearm's Malazan army and Caladan Brood's anti-Malazan alliance to pull an EnemyMine to stop it. [[spoiler: That's because in addition to aforementioned expansionism the Domin practices rampant cannibalism, is led by a Jaghut Tyrant, and is being secretly backed by the Crippled God, though the last is true of Lether too]].

* CastingAShadow: The series has a whole mythology built around the relationship between [[DarkIsNotEvil Dark]] and [[LightIsNotGood Light]], with Shadow being their unwanted child and a separate element. It comes complete with it's own Realm (Kurald Emulahn), [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy people]] (the Tiste Edur, or Children of Shadow), deity (Father Shadow), and [[InsistentTerminology Warrens]] (Paths of Magic) accessible to humans: Meanas, the Path of Shadow and Illusion, and Rashan, the Path of Darkness. While Meanas is descended from Kurald Emurlahn, the ''Elder'' Warren of Shadow, and Rashan from Kurald Galain, the ''Elder'' Warren of Darkness, the human ''Cult'' of Rashan is also known as the Cult of ''Shadow'' and teaches something called the "Shadow Dance", an all but forgotten magical assassination technique.

** The Jaghut were mostly a race of solitary, pacifist scholars and mages, but every so often one of them would go mad and become [[EvilOverlord a Jaghut Tyrant]], effectively a GodEmperor to the younger races they enslaved. Suverted when more about the Jaghut is revealed. They seem like abusive precursors at first, but aside from the aforementioned occasional Tyrant they [[NeglectfulPrecursors just didn't care]] because civilization is for wimps. And they should know, [[spoiler: they used to have a thriving one until one of them aptly named [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Lord of Hate]] convinced them to collectively sit down and stop being social]].

* CharacterFilibuster: Kruppe and Iskaral Pust are both very long-winded in their speech, and the other characters are usually too flabbergasted to interrupt them when they open their mouths. In some cases, their speeches can go on for several pages. While those are two are more prominent examples, the series as a whole is rather notorious for having many of its many gruff soldiers suddenly philosophize for whole pages, that, unlike the above examples, fit less naturally with their characters.

* CharacterFilibuster: Kruppe and Iskaral Pust are both very long-winded in their speech, and the other characters are usually too flabbergasted to interrupt them when they open their mouths. In some cases, their speeches can go on for several pages.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Each book has about four pages devoted just to listing the characters that appear in it. Book onw throws at least 100 names at you to remember as well as an INCREDIBLY complicated (and intentionally not very clearly explained) backstory, and then Book two introduces a whole new cast the same size... This goes on up to and including the final book. Additionally, the list of characters in each new book is more a representative sample of important names, and in no way exhaustive. As the series goes on it leaves out more and more, since simply appearing in the character list counts as a spoiler for some events.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfRaces: The series is brimming with various different races. In addition to baseline humans, you have the [[{{Precursors}} Four Founding Races]] -- [[LizardFolk the K'Chain Che'Malle]], [[KnightTemplar the Forkrul Assail]], [[OurOrcsAreDifferent the Jaghut]], and [[DemBones the T'lan Imass]] who used to be that {{verse}}s [[AllCavemenWereNeanderthals cavemen]] before becoming collectively {{undead}}. There are also the K'Chain Nah'ruk, the K'Chain Che'Malle's ServantRace which rebelled. Then you have [[OurElvesAreBetter the three Tiste races]]: Tiste Andii, Tiste Edur and Tiste Liosan, who are alien to the planet on which most of the series is set and who are known as the Children of Darkness, Shadow and Light, respectively. Then you have the [[OurGiantsAreBigger Tartheno Thelomen Toblakai]], who have splintered into various offshoot races, most notably the Teblor, and are themselves descended from [[AllTrollsAreDifferent the Thel Akai]]. Then you've got a bunch of nonhumans who are part of the same general family as humans and their actual evolutional predecessors, the Imass, including the Barghast and the Moranth. Then you've got the Great Ravens and the [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Eleint]], both of which are sentient races. Finally, there's a whole plethora of sentient demons. This is justified, however, by the creators of the {{verse}} both being archaeologists and anthropologists and knowing ''exacly'' what they were doing when they created the setting, and evolution is an important factor in the development of all those different races, despite having a fantastic spin to their origins which includes [[PantheonSitcom a bunch of Elder Gods]] [[TheMaker playing creators]].

* NotUsingTheZWord: The series has the Tiste races and the Jaghut, who are basically [[OurElvesAreBetter elves without the pointy ears]] and [[OurOrcsareDifferent schorlarly orcs]], respectively. The K'Chain Che'Malle are the {{verse}}'s LizardFolk. And the Imass are [[AllCavemenWereNeanderthals Neanderthals in everything but name]], or were, since now they're {{undead}} Neanderthals.

* OurElvesAreBetter: The Tiste are basically elves minus the pointy ears. As a general rule, they are taller than humans, more slender, more beautiful, long-lived and can look back on an ancient civilization. They are also a massive [[{{Deconstruction}} deconstruction]], alien to the realm of the Malazan Empire and perceived as such, not to mention that they aren't in any way wiser or more peaceful than humans, as evidenced by [[spoiler: Scabandari Bloodeye, Hannan Mosag, Rhulad Sengar and his empire, Clip, the Tiste Liosan (especially those serving Kadagar Fant)]], and the entirety of the ''Kharkanas trilogy''. Also, neither Tiste people is known for any kind of crafts or archery.\\

** ''Literature/TheKharkanasTrilogy'': Erikson. A PrequelInTheLostAge trilogy primarily dealing with the [[OurElvesAreBetter Tiste]] and the civil war that led them to become sundered into the [[DarkIsNotEvil Tiste Andii]], [[ProudWarriorRace Tiste Edur]] and [[LightIsNotGood Tiste Liosan]] peoples and led them to invading the main world of the series.

** ''The God is Not Willing'' (2019)

* KudzuPlot: Each book typically shifts between dozens -- if not hundreds -- of distinct, and often unimportant, viewpoints. Plot lines are set up on seemingly every page, and only a few are followed through. Per WordOfGod, this is very much deliberate, as the series was conceived as a high-brow work to begin with. It's also {{Justified}} InUniverse as [[spoiler:the Crippled God]] is presented as [[LiteraryAgentHypothesis having penned the series]] InUniverse so that [[spoiler:the sacrifices of those who freed him would not be forgotten]], meaning that all the details were deliberately placed there by the narrator of the series.

* LiteraryAgentHypothesis: As mentioned above, [[spoiler:the Crippled God]] is the InUniverse narrator of the work, and the unorthodox style of the series is a direct result of the reasons he penned the series for. He's not quirky enough to qualify as a LemonyNarrator, but is nonetheless a pretty unconventional narrator.

** The Jaghut were mostly a race of solitary, pacifist scholars and mages, but every so often one of them would go mad and become [[EvilOverlord a Jaghut Tyrant]], effectively a GodEmperor to the younger races they enslaved. Suverted when more about the Jaghut is revealed. They seem like abusive precursors at first, but aside from the aforementioned occasional Tyrant they [[NeglectfulPrecursors just didn't care]] because civilization is for wimps. And they should know, [[spoiler: they used to have a thriving one until one of them aptly named the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Lord]] [[AwesomeMcCoolname of Hate]] convinced them to collectively sit down and stop being social]].

->''“Now these ashes have grown cold, we open the old book. These oil-stained pages recount the tales of the Fallen, a frayed empire, words without warmth. The hearth has ebbed, its gleam and life's sparks are but memories against dimming eyes - what cast my mind, what hue my thoughts as I open the Book of the Fallen and breathe deep the scent of history? Listen, then, to these words carried on that breath. These tales are the tales of us all, again yet again. We are history relived and that is all, without end that is all.”''

The ''Malazan Book of the Fallen'' is an epic fantasy series by Canadian author Creator/StevenErikson. The series is famous for its {{Doorstopper}} tendencies, for having LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters[[note]]the DramatisPersonae usually contains several hundred characters, and even then does not include numerous incidental ones[[/note]], its deliberate use of LostInMediasRes and for introducing an anthropological and geological perspective to the {{Fantasy}} genre. The series' main influence is ''Literature/TheBlackCompany'' by Creator/GlenCook.

The Malazan Empire is yet in its infancy, but it has already seen its first betrayal. Surly, Master of [[SecretPolice the Claw]], has assassinated Emperor Kellanved and his closest companion, Dancer, and taken the throne under the name Laseen, continuing the Empire's policy of ruthless expansionism, though she is continually mistrusted. Almost immediately, the new gods of the Shadow Realm, Shadowthrone and Cotillion, launch a plot against her, but stumble into [[GambitPileup a web of far grander plans]] among their fellow [[PhysicalGod Ascendants]]. So begin the Tales of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, a grand tragedy told from the perspectives of dozens of characters[[note]]hundreds, counting minor points of view[[/note]] across [[RotatingArcs three arcs]], each beginning on a distinct continent.

* AllTrollsAreDifferent: The Thel Akai -- meaning "the People" -- , also called Children of the Earth, used to be stone giants who worshipped the Enchantress, also known as the Queen of Dreams. They are almost entirely gone by the time of the main series, and are the progenitors of the Tartheno Thelomen Toblakai, the Teblor and the Trell.

** The ability to use magic occurs at random in all races and social classes and usually manifests in some way -- if the mage hasn't been formally taught it develops into some kind of latent gimmick, like Blend's ability to remain unnoticed if she so desires [[note]](although she thinks it's a gadget thing because she once bought a stone from some hawker who told her it's magical)[[/note]]. The direction of one's magic can be influenced by one's surroundings, though: e.g. Bottle uses shamanistic magic because his grandma taught him, High Alchemist Baruk is a scholar, and most squad mages seem self-taught warren-users. There's certainly an individual limit to how much power any mage can channel before it begins to affect him physically. Additionally, mages are limited to what warrens (Paths of Magic) they can access by personal inclination and race, with humans having access to more varied but less powerful warrens while most other races have their own racial warren.

* RaisedByWolves: Born as Stayandi, Setoc was taken in and raised by a pack of wolves when her parents died during a raid. In ''Literature/ReapersGale'', she is found by the [[ProudWarriorRace Barghast White Faces]], who take her in, but their shamans proclaim her spirit-touched and the "holder of a thousand hearts" and forbid the hunting of wolves, so that her 'first' family can stay close to her. She becomes known as Setoc of the Wolves and never shakes free from the imprint the wild has left on her. She eventually becomes the Destriant[[note]]High Priestess[[/note]] and the voice of the Wolves of Winter, the recently risen [[WarGod Beast Gods of War]], who war against humanity in {{revenge}} for the pollution humans have brought upon nature. Over time, her eyes turn to a wolf's eyes, one silver and one amber, and she becomes perpetually surrounded by thousands of wolf spirits who are willing to fight for her. [[spoiler:Setoc dies when the Wolves of Winter use her to manifest themselves in the mortal plain.]]

** The [[WeirdTradeUnion Rat Catcher's Guild]] based in Letheras purposes to catch rats and other vermin. In truth, they act as the unofficial [[MurderInc assassins guild]], the guild of thieves [[note]]although some independently minded thieves refuse to join[[/note]], a refugee smuggling ring ''and'' are conveniently contracted by the crown to investigate disappearances.

* ManInWhite: The Tiste Liosan have a tendency to wear all-white armour. They also tend to be self-absorbed jerks and eventually turn out to [[spoiler:have partnered with the Forkrul Assail to bring about the end of humanity]]. This is part of the series's running theme of DarkIsNotEvil and LightIsNotGood, with the Tiste Andii, who are dark-alined, being the good guys and the Tiste Liosan, who are light-aligned, being the bad ones.

** The Azath Houses seal away both [[SealedGoodInACan good]] and evil in the name of balance, the theory being that too powerful beings are bad for the world and need to be restricted. The Azath Houses cannot differentiate between good and evil, as they lack sentience, so anyone powerful enough who walks onto the Houses' grounds is quickly caught and {{buried alive}}. [[FameThroughInfamy Scabandari Bloodeye]] has used that to his advantage by having his perceived rival [[HeroicAlbino Silchas Ruin]] disappear from history for a couple millennia.

* LeaningAgainstTheFourthWall:

* BreakingTheFourthWall:
** In the last two books there is a storyline which many first-time readers tend to skip/skim, as it is a meandering, long-winded narration about a group of starving children fleeing through a desert, told by a girl obsessed with poetry. However, if one reads closely, one finds the girl acknowledging the presence of readers and even actively calling them cowards for wanting to skip her harrowing tale:
--->'' 'Do not flee us. Do not flee this moment, this scene. Do not confuse dislike and abhorrence with angry denial of truths you do not wish to see. I accept your horror and expect no forgiveness. But if you deny, I name you coward.\\
'And I have had my fill of cowards.' ''
** And at the beginning of the final book, ''Literature/TheCrippledGod'', there are excerpts from an in-world poem titled "[[TitleDrop The Malazan Book of the Fallen]]", which are an essential TakeThat to those who thougt the author could not pull the series's end off satisfactorily:
---> [...] Take what you're given\\
And turn away the screwed face.\\
I do not deserve it,\\
no matter how narrow the strand\\
of your private shore.\\
If you will do your best\\
I'll meet your eye. [...]

** These munitions are still tightly controlled since only the Morath warrior clans are able to manufacture them on a large scale and are picky on who they trade them to. When a Malazan army recruits an alchemist to make their own versions, the final products are very effective but are essentially biological and chemical weapons rather than pure explosives.
** The Morath also keep the most powerful versions for their own use. While the standard munitions are extremely lethal, when an army's sappers get their hands on some stolen advanced munitions, they end up blowing an opposing army to smithereens in the opening action of a battle with a single salvo. It's no wonder that the Morath keep such tight control over these weapons.