Forge of Darkness
Ratings25
Average rating4.3
this shit felt shakespearean man i can't explain it. thank you steven erikson
Phenomenal. Erickson's prose is probing and melancholy as ever yet with a new clarity and focus. This tale of creeping civil war, the ambitions of the forgotten, and the dreams of the young will stay with you forever.
I'll say it. This is one of the best fantasy books of all time. Erikson is at his absolute best here. This is epic thought provoking fantasy with a depth that is hard to match within the genre.
The Kharkanas trilogy details the descent into civil war of the Tiste race. It can be read on it's own but I would personally not recommend that, as it's even more impressive and rewarding if you finished The Malazan Book of the Fallen, the main series set in this world.
The worldbuilding is incredible. Erikson creates a civilization that feels so authentic, you'd think it really existed somewhere. He gives us glimpses into every class, every sort of person living in the realm of the Tiste. His fantasy is not just concerned with the noble men or the people doing heroic deeds, but with every day people like you and me and always shows how they're affected by what is happening. He uses the genre to ask questions about society and examine the human nature. There's deeply tragic personal stories in here that you would not ordinarily expect from a fantasy novel, mixed with an epic story set in a world as imaginative as any ever created.
Erikson is sometimes criticised for coming across as too preachy on occasion, when characters engage in lengthy discussions of philophical questions, but the way it is worked into the story is excellent and suits the tone of this book especially well. The story has a very Shakespearean feel to it, heightened by the way the dialog is written and the whole novel is permeated by a sense of imminent tragedy, creating an incredible dense atmosphere. That effect only becomes stronger with knowledge of the Book of fhe Fallen, as certain events being built up to are already established, even though the why and how is unclear. Forge of Darkness is a story of the downfall of a civilization, a morally and politically complex story that feels like an epic tragedy. I have never read anything like it and every time I think about it, it just gets even better.