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    Sleight of Hand: Chaos, Authorship & Humanity in the Malazan Book of the Fallen
    Sleight of Hand: Chaos, Authorship & Humanity in the Malazan Book of the Fallen
    Sleight of Hand: Chaos, Authorship & Humanity in the Malazan Book of the Fallen
    Ebook149 pages2 hours

    Sleight of Hand: Chaos, Authorship & Humanity in the Malazan Book of the Fallen

    By Mike Woods

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    About this ebook

    Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen represents a landmark in fantasy literature. The ten-volume series is a post-modern journey through the mind and soul of the characters and the author himself.
    The series is replete with thematic and symbolic explorations and genre tropes. Sleight of Hand explores a selection of the central themes appearing in the series, and is one of the first works to analyse those themes across the entire Malazan Book of the Fallen.
    In exploring the journey of the author and his characters, Sleight of Hand becomes an exploration of the journey of a reader and anybody with a tale to tell, as they seek their humanity.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMike Woods
    Release dateJul 25, 2014
    ISBN9781311344243
    Sleight of Hand: Chaos, Authorship & Humanity in the Malazan Book of the Fallen
    Author

    Mike Woods

    Mike Woods grew up in Perth, Western Australia. He moved to Melbourne, where he currently resides, to pursue a PhD in psychology.When not writing, he is usually reading...works by David Foster Wallace, Thomas Pynchon, Richard Powers, Gary Lutz, Steven Erikson, Michael Chabon, Cormac McCarthy and the like are usually close at hand.Night in Arbin is the first novel he has published.

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      Book preview

      Sleight of Hand - Mike Woods

      Sleight of Hand

      Chaos, Authorship & Humanity in the

      Malazan Book of the Fallen

      Mike Woods

      Contents

      Copyright Info

      Acknowledgments

      Introduction

      Part One: Chaos

      Chapter 1. Magic

      Chapter 2. Chaos as an Organising Force

      Chapter 3. Chaos as Structure

      Interlude: The Story Continues

      Part Two: Authorship

      Chapter 4. Authorship and Authority

      Chapter 5. Art as…Art?

      Chapter 6. Author and Reader as Hero

      Interlude: The End in Sight…

      Part Three: Humanity

      Chapter 7. Whither Humanity?

      Chapter 8. Identity

      Chapter 9. Hope

      Chapter 10. Compassion

      Conclusion

      Bibliography

      About the Author

      Books by the Author

      Copyright Information

      Sleight of Hand: Chaos, Authorship, & Humanity in the Malazan Book of the Fallen

      By

      Mike Woods

      Copyright © Mike Woods 2014

      Smashwords Edition

      All Rights Reserved

      Acknowledgments

      To Steve, for all you’ve given and all you’ve taken away.

      Dad, for all the books.

      Introduction

      Our war was with chaos itself, and, at times, with each other. We battled to shape all that would follow. – HoC p.584

      You saw what you wanted to see. No witness in truth but myself, regarding the events now being revisited. Revised, yes? – TBH p.865

      This is a book about books with many authors. In it I tell my story and, while its elements are not unusual, it sums to something unique. There is no moral to my story, and a good story doesn’t set out to teach one—but a good story can teach us something nonetheless.

      In the telling of my story I am hoping to reveal something about a bigger story, but that perspective can necessarily only be limited. It can only ever be mine, even if it rings true.

      Thus, failure is inevitable. It is only and can ever only be my side of the story, so it will always be incomplete. It’s a cop out, admitting defeat, making excuses upfront; but it is also a warning. There are no answers here, only more questions. Only my voice joining the chorus, seeking the truth.

      It is my tale. It is mine alone but perhaps there is something shared here. It is only my version of events so it may not be entirely true. At the very least, I am sure it is not the whole story.

      It was late 1999, or early 2000—even the simplest detail is shrouded in ambiguity. But the timeline doesn’t matter. My father shaped my journey as a reader in youth. He was the unwitting author of my literary world, and first and foremost was his reading of epic fantasy. He was as close to the forefront as you could be in the world’s most isolated capital in the years before the internet was such a grand repository of information and anticipation, and I followed his reading patterns closely, taking those battered paperbacks and glorious dragon-emblazoned hardcovers and following in his readerly footsteps through magical otherworlds, taking his advice on what to read and unquestionably accepting his judgments. Then came Gardens of the Moon with its mind-numbing array of characters and exotic settings, and he heaped praise upon it only halfway through, with a manic glint in his eye like he’d been hypnotised. I watched the wrinkled tip of his bookmark edge towards the journey’s conclusion over the next days, until finally it was bestowed upon me with an unreadable smile. A diligent student and ever needing control, I studied the maps and character lists and glossary for what must have been an hour, then turned the page and began.

      I failed. I made it about halfway and couldn’t continue, for whatever reasons.

      Then came Deadhouse Gates, and as his eagerness grew, so I felt duty-bound to give it another try. I struggled through GotM and plunged into its sequel. Weeks later—for I read slowly back then—I closed the cover and walked around dazed and humbled for a couple of days. I had just finished school, and spent the summer holidays extolling the virtues of it upon friends and strangers alike. I was hooked.

      At last count, among my immediate family we have purchased seven copies of that first volume, including one special edition and a tenth anniversary edition (whose introduction is worth the price of admission)—two had been back-broken and dog-eared beyond readability, and as children flew the coop of course they needed a copy of their own.

      Slowly I reread those first two volumes when the third, Memories of Ice arrived. I knew even then that there was value in rereading. Through the fate of the Bridgeburners and thenceforth to the defamiliarisation of Karsa’s tale in House of Chains.

      It was then that I stopped. Life, studies, a growing obsession with cinema, all got in the way and I barely touched a book for pleasure for a couple of years. When I finally began from scratch once more, I had all seven current volumes awaiting me on my shelf—and was just in time for the release of Toll the Hounds. I then felt part of the family once more, a wandering child come home, as I waited in anticipation for the final two volumes.

      A decade in which I’d tried and failed, laughed and lost, moved across the country, and most importantly grown up, and my journey reflected the Book of the Fallen in so many ways. I was reluctant to close that final volume, but it had to be done.

      I have read somewhere that Proust’s In Search of Lost Time is something to be read across your lifetime. As you grow and learn, so you will find new reflections in that myriad work, that as your own time stretches so the poignancy of those tomes find deeper root within you. I feel the same about the Malazan Book of the Fallen. Each step I take through its pages opens more mystery to me. This is not merely depth or the ability of true art to reflect the audience, but something more. It is fractal and unending, because it discusses those facts: time, pattern, death and rebirth, the dance between author and reader.

      This book is an attempt to scratch the surface of some of these ideas. Of some of the ideas that for me, in this stage of my life, are what I see reflected upon the pages of the Book of the Fallen. It is only a hesitant tap upon the mirror’s silvered surface, and I have already announced it is doomed to fail, but I must try nonetheless. It will discuss three grand recurring themes through the series: chaos, authorship, and humanity, for these enable a deeper understanding of the mysteries of the books, and become a framework, a jumping-off point, for exploring deeper and related ideas and themes.

      The book is organised by these ideas, yet there are always going to be themes that run throughout, that cross the arbitrary divisions I have imposed upon it. The chapters and themes will bleed across each other, resisting the unnatural order I’ve compelled thereon. Themes such as pattern, layers, and repetition, which by their very nature must weave in and out of the tale.

      Clearly, I cannot discuss everything within one book. I am convinced that any writing of depth needs three times as much to be written about it as was written in the piece itself, to be truly conveyed. Writing works because it is the most concise way to deliver the ideas. This is a beginning. It is my timely interjection into the conversation, which I hope continues.

      I will not draw too often on the facts and details of characters, plot and events within the books, but when I do my mentions of them will be offhand and such interpretations peripheral to the points I’m arguing. So, if I get things wrong, tough.

      If, maybe, I’ve used a misguided interpretation of a detail to stretch a thin argument, I do apologise, and humbly shield myself beneath the defence that my reading of the ideas affected my interpretation of the detail, and not vice-versa. Kind of like the timeline doesn’t matter, so I hope you can squint through it. In the end, the weight of evidence will still bolster the arguments.

      I will be quoting liberally, and sometimes taking liberties with context. I will only abbreviate book titles, as the character names and so forth are hard enough to track as is. See the bibliography for the editions I’ve used to draw page numbers from—it’s not consistent: mostly paperbacks, some hardcovers. Somehow that messiness fits.

      Part One: Chaos

      Chapter 1. Magic

      Few recall…the chaos of the Malazan Empire in those early days. – TtH p.431

      There is chaos in a human soul – it is your mortal gift, but be aware – like fire it can turn in your hands. – DoD p.423

      Magic is a hallmark of epic fantasy. It places us in that context: you see magic, you know where you are. Maybe not where, but you know it is not here. It is, if you will, a powerful device.

      While breaking the rules of the real world, magic in a story shows the reader the rules of the world being drawn for them. It also tells us how far and how fairly the rules may be bent, and indeed broken.

      Magic is inevitably a symbol, a signpost of the world we’ll inhabit, the fenceposts demarking the boundaries of that world, and a postmodern device that tells us how to read it.

      Thus, we must start with magic.

      In the world of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, magic is interwoven with its history, and the reader is afforded a sense of the depth and complexity of the world and its past through revelation of magic’s workings. Depth, because we can breathe the very ancient air when we are thrown to the world of Holds after barely coming to terms with the Houses. Complexity, because there are as many ways to the magic as there are wizards.

      From early in GotM we see a mage battle, and we see ways of using the magic: possession, warrens, soul shifting, coruscating waves of power, healing. And then we see the Deck of Dragons. The possibilities and creativity don’t stop coming through the entire ten volumes.

      Magic can be accessed by Warrens, we learn at first. Different Warrens have different flavours of magic attached, and these are linked to certain aspects: Light, Dark, Shadow, Fire, Illusion, and more. Some of these are attached to Houses—sort of families of ascendant powers—that are detailed (loosely) in the books’ glossaries. Among this chaotic representation we try desperately to maintain a hold on which is which and who fits where and which type of magic is associated

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