It was December 2006 and I was visiting my parents – flew in from Bombay to New Delhi for more-than-a-month long vacation. The long vacation was primarily to clear my head and take a decision on whether the marriage was working or not and also to wind down and let my parents pamper me some.

My introduction to The Malazan Book of The Fallen

A childhood friend [ @shadeheart ] was also on a vacation from his Merchant Navy job and we decided to catch up for a bit. It had been ages since we’d had a chance to hang out and the plan was that Bharat would come and pick me up from home and we would drive down to Gurgaon to hang out at one of the many malls. We decided on The Metropolitan Mall – I’m not sure why or even ‘who’ decided that.

Bharat and I were sitting on one of the benches near the elevators and the Om Book Shop was visible from the corner of my eye. If memory serves, Bharat suddenly decided to show me some of the stuff he was reading – he warned me it might not go down well – it was epic fantasy and I’d never read any – but I do love books. Bharat thought it would be a good idea if I started with something light like David Gemmell but I decided to take the plunge and not only did he buy me a copy of one of Gemmell’s books, we also found Steven Erikson’s Gardens of The Moon [ or maybe Bharat loaned me his copy - which is highly unlikely because he doesn't like lending hos books - neither do I for that matter. ] My memory sucks – I follows the rule that the secret to a happy life is a short memory.

Apparently, that was the point where Bharat and I realized that we had a lot more in common than we had originally believed. And we also did not know anyone else who so much as ‘knew’ about The Malazan Book of The Fallen.

Life goes back to normal, the book takes over.

We went our separate ways. Bharat sailing and me back to Bombay after a disastrous New Year ‘celebration’ in Goa. Disastrous for me that is. Once back in Bombay, I decided to get a divorce and moved out to a new place. Gardens of The Moon turned out to be a tough read – I skimmed many pages without a thorough read but one thing was certain – I was definitely going to be reading more from The Malazan Book of The Fallen. In Bombay, I looked high and low for copies of the other books from the series and they were exceptionally tough to locate – even book stores like Strand and Sterling, ancient, well-known and exceptionally well-stocked, did not have copies of ANY of Erikson’s books.

Bharat and I were exchanging emails for a while and discussions invariably led to Erikson’s book. It was as if I’d found a new way of expressing myself – referring to events in the book, characters, dialogs, slang – it was like a whole new world. [ It still is. ] One of my closest girl friends was flying to the US and I asked her if she would please get me as many of the books as she could – I wanted all after Gardens Of The Moon and I was aware that many had been published in the States and elsewhere.

Priyanka managed to get me three of the books and I was over the moon. Since I was dying to read them, I skimmed till I hit Memories Of Ice. There is NO WAY you can skim that book. Absolutely no way.

Crazy lady at the book store

I still wanted the others and after another couple of months of running around from one book store to the other, I was The Infinity Mall’s Landmark bookstore – it was about to close for the night but I managed to get in. As always, I walked over to the “Fiction/Fantasy” aisle and screamed when I saw that they had all SIX Erikson books! The people who work there were first scared-shocked, then it quickly turned to ‘crazy-lady-shocked’ and soon turned into ‘wow-sales-shocked’! They told me they knew quite a few book fanatics but they’d never heard someone scream quite the way I did. I don’t quite remember when this was but I bought all of them – even though I had copies of some of the books – but because the covers were different. I had a purpose in life!

Many favorites stored on the NOTES on my mobile phone

This is a dialog between Stormy and Quick Ben from The Malazan Book of the Fallen, when these two and Kalam are staring at the looming K’Chain Che Malle SkyKeeps over their heads and wondering what the fuck they’re doing there.

“You know what’s the problem with you? I’ll tell ya. I’ll tell ya the problem. You think too much, and you think that by thinking so much you get somewhere with all that thinking, only you don’t. Look, it’s simple. Something you don’t like gets in your way, you kill it, and once you kill it, you can stop thinking about it and that’s that.

But what if that “something” is too big, or too many, or nastier than you?

Then you cut it down to size.

And if you can’t?

Then you find someone else who can. Maybe they end up killing eachother and that’s that. You think you can make all sortsa plans? Idiot. I squat down and shit on your plans.”

And then my favorite by far – the dialog between Tool and The Adjunct.

“Tell me, Tool, what dominates your thoughts?’
The Imass shrugged before replying. I think of futility, Adjunct.’
‘Do all Imass think about futility?’
‘No. Few think at all.’
‘Why is that?’
The Imass leaned his head to one side and regarded her. ‘Because
Adjunct, it is futile.”

There are way too many to list on blog post! It IS an epic series after all.

How it all has a life of its own

The series has gotten darker – a lot more morbid than book one. Some times I used to feel like the book was running my life. I was evaluating things based on what Kalam would have done or Quick Ben would have done! Comparing my love life to Kalam and Minala’s! It was obsession. My friends were tired of hearing about ‘this book that she reads’.

I moved to Gurgaon where my parents are settled and am only now looking at options of reading Erikson’s novellas.

I finished reading Dust Of Dreams, book 9 about a couple of months back and so far, it is the darkest book yet. And I’m not thrilled that I will have to wait more than twelve months for The Crippled God to come out. I am dying to know what is going to happen next. None of the other books leaves you the way Dust Of Dreams just picks you up and slams you – picks you up with all the new stuff that happens and slams you down with what Erikson’s not telling – not just yet. Damn.

Till the time The Crippled God is out, I’m going to read the novellas – I’m currently reading Esselmont’s Return Of The Crimson Guard and it’s nothing compared to how Erikson writes. Esselmont’s writing seems disjointed and he doesn’t seem to have the ability to connect stories like Erikson does. Maybe it’s because I haven’t read Knight Of Knives, which is supposed to be the prequel to Return Of The Crimson Guard.

I also have to re-start the series – each time a new book is published, I go back and start reading from book one – one of the down sides of a short memory I think! So I’ve read 1 and then 2; then 1, 2, 3; then 1, 2, 3, 4; then 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; then 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; then 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7; then 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8; and then 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Now till the time no. 10 is out, I need to go back to Gardens Of The Moon and start again. Another chance for an absolutely fantastic journey! It takes some self-discipline to stay objective and keep real-life separate from the book – the book truly does have a life of its own.

End well, into a new beginning. Just like Erikson tying everything together so well

In other related news, Bharat and I are engaged and we’re getting married in January 2010. So now we have more than two copies of each book. Every time I see a new edition with a new cover, I buy that as well. Still have to start on the hard cover collection – the only one I have with a hard cover is Dust Of Dreams. Maybe something gilded? We’ve also discovered quite a few Malazan fans on Twitter – mostly thanks to the efforts of Rahul Vohra. And there seems to be some big news in the offing as well.