Steven Erikson finally gets a Bestseller with The Crippled God
Justin Golenbock, publicist at Tor, tells us that Steven Erikson’s The Crippled God, the last book of The Malazan Book of the Fallen, will debut at #12 on the print bestseller list in the March 20 edition of The New York Times. It’s only the second time for Erikson — last year his previous novel barely made the list.
As Justin puts it:
Steven’s first novel, Gardens of the Moon, came out in 1999 to much fanfare…and flopped. We spent the next ten years and eight novels telling everybody and anybody who would listen that this was THE fantasy series to be reading, the best that no one knew about. The depth and breadth of its world, characters and cultures, its heartbreaking yet addictive story, and the level of pathos and philosophy embedded into every narrative layer is staggering. Erikson’s core fans knew; so many of our top-selling authors kept telling us, he’s the guy who deserves it more; yet it was on us to convince everyone else.
Then last fall, Steven’s ninth novel, Dust of Dreams, finally squeaked its way onto the NYT extended bestseller list, claiming the last spot at #35… and it was just this afternoon that we learned that the tenth and final novel in his Magnus opus will get the due he so richly deserves.
During his 2008 book tour Steven confirmed that he had signed to write six more Malazan novels; two trilogies, one of which would be a prequel to the main series, detailing the history of Anomander Rake and Mother Dark. He also plans six additional Bauchelain and Korbal Broach novellas, set in the same world.
Congratulations to Steven Erikson, Justin Golenboc, and Tor books on a job well done!
Last week I discussed Olaf Stapledon’s Star Maker as an example of a true literature of ideas: a work structured not as a traditional narrative, with plot and character development as we know them, but instead built around the ideas that the work’s presenting, so that the book’s material is defined not by narrative but by the ideas at the core of its theme. As it happens, I recently stumbled across another example of this sort of thing.
Traveling around the world in eighty days is not only quite possible, but a leisurely journey. One could, on this trip, stop to smell the roses, perhaps do a little sight-seeing on an island or two, and pursue adventure in remote locations. Really, if one were pressed for time, anyone with a passport and a few plane tickets could circumnavigate the globe in about a week or two, depending on the flight paths of the planes.
It won’t be long now…
Astronomer James Elliot gets a featured obit because he discovered the rings of Uranus (okay, wipe that smirk off your face). What’s also noteworthy is that he apparently did so in a kind of jury-rigged fashion. According to the Times obituary:
Also in the news is the tsunami and the largest earthquake in a century or more that hit Japan. Whatever our global technological progress (even while world politics continues to destabilize), we tend to forget just how fragile we are as a species even without our efforts to do ourselves in. During the Cold War, the end of the world was nuclear. Then it was terrorism and religious fanatacism. But, maybe it will end up just being good old Mother Nature. Time to go reread J.G. Ballard.
What a TRIP…