Rumblings
Prose and Worldbuilding in Fantasy (Steven Erikson)
Gardens of the Moon
“Then into his path came the first of the Imass, creatures who struggled against his will, defying slavery and yet living on. Creatures of boundless, pitiful hope. For Raest, he had found in them the glory of domination, for with each Imass that broke he took another. Their link with nature was minimal, for the Imass themselves played the game of tyranny over their lands. They could not defeat him.”
“He fashioned an empire of sorts, bereft of cities yet plagued with the endless dramas of society, its pathetic victories and inevitable failures. The community of enslaved Imass thrived in this quagmire of pettiness. They even managed to convince themselves that they possessed freedom, a will of their own that could shape destiny. They elected champions. They tore down their champions once failure draped its shroud over them. They ran in endless circles and called it growth, emergence, knowledge. While over them all, a presence invisible to their eyes, Raest flexed his will. His greatest joy came when his slaves proclaimed him god – though they knew him not – and constructed temples to serve him and organized priesthoods whose activities mimicked Raest’s tyranny with such cosmic irony that the Jaghut could only shake his head.”
I just finished reading this book last week and I’m pretty excited to have the rest of the Malazan series to look forward to. The worldbuilding is incredible. One of the things I enjoyed about this book and love about fantasy in general, is when an author builds that world around you without explicitly stating what things are out of the gate. Assuming I’m given a bit of context and the rest of the story is interesting, I’m the type who will happily stand by and let the mysteries of the world I’m in pile up around me.
In Gardens of the Moon, Erikson channels Spinal Tap in this regard, turning this approach to worldbuilding up to 11. The world feels fully built and absolutely massive, and Erikson spends little time explaining any of it. He simply drops you into the middle of the story and he’s off. Somewhere around 20% of the way through GotM, I’m trying to keep up with the absolutely insane amount of information being presented when everyone and their mom starts hinting at a mystery in Darujestan(sp?). Fuck me. This whole book is a mystery at this point, and what the hell is a Darujestan? Whatever, I let the mysteries pile up and move on because Erikson has a beautiful writing style, a ton of interesting ideas, and a sprawling cast of easy to identify characters with excellent names – the latter point here being especially noteworthy as a writer and RPG gamer who spends thirty minutes thinking of character names before actually playing.
I digress.
The point i’m trying to make, is that after spending the entire first book being relentlessly served the literary equivalent of amuse-bouche with regards to explanations (what the fuck is a T’lan Imass or a Jaghut, and where are these people/things from?) we are given the awakening of the Jaghut Tyrant, Raest, who proceeds to fill in a whole host of background information in a way that’s incredibly satisfying. Aside from the fact that the whole sub chapter of Raest’s awakening is particulalry well written, it also makes sense. Obviously this long slumbering monster is going to contextualize his renewed awareness against the experiences of his past. It’s a perfect opportunity to “info dump.” We learn that through enslavement, the Jaghut are responsible for turning the Imass from “creatures of boundless, pitiful hope” to what Onon T’oolan describes as creatures who think only of futility, and we learn of the Tyrant’s growing Empire and eventual imprisonment at the hands of the individualist Jaghut who formed a community to fight and imprison him. It’s a part of the book, that, for me at least, answered a lot of questions and because it came when it did, felt earned and all the more satisfying for it.
I’ve only just begun Deadhouse Gates and I’m positive I could pull nearly endless exerpts of great worldbuilding from Erikson’s writing. Frankly, I’m tempted to try, if only for my own education. While most authors in fantasy try to build an “iceberg” with their worldbuilding, Erikson builds what feels like a galaxy while only focusing on a stray comet. In doing this, he leverages his creativity against the reader’s curiosity to great effect.