Steven Erikson

Steven Erikson (born 7 October 1959) is the pen name of Steve Rune Lundin, a Canadian fantasy novelist best known for the ten-volume Malazan Book of the Fallen series (1999 to 2011).

Born in Toronto, Erikson trained as an archaeologist and anthropologist and graduated from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. His pen name comes from his mother's maiden name. He and Ian Cameron Esslemont created the Malazan world in 1982 as a backdrop for their role-playing games, first using a modified AD&D and later GURPS. The material became a film script called Gardens of the Moon, and when that attracted no interest Erikson turned it into a novel.

Gardens of the Moon was published on 1 April 1999 by Bantam in the UK and Canada and was shortlisted for the 2000 World Fantasy Award for Novel. The series continued with Deadhouse Gates (2000), Memories of Ice (2001), House of Chains (2002), Midnight Tides (2004), The Bonehunters (2006), Reaper's Gale (2007), Toll the Hounds (2008), Dust of Dreams (2009) and The Crippled God (2011). On selling the first book he signed with Bantam UK for nine further volumes, a deal reported at £675,000 and described as among the largest ever for a fantasy series. The books had sold more than 3 million copies by 2018. He has since written the prequel Kharkanas Trilogy, starting with Forge of Darkness (2012), and the Witness sequence, beginning with The God Is Not Willing (2021). Esslemont writes parallel Malazan novels of his own.

For collectors

The UK Bantam edition of Gardens of the Moon (1999) is the true first; Tor did not publish the book in the United States until 2004, five years after the British first. Subterranean Press produced a limited edition of Gardens of the Moon in 2008: 500 signed and numbered copies and 52 signed, lettered deluxe copies.