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 _{The Lord of Moon's Spawn  ✉}  21:23, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

DRAFT The Kharkanas Trilogy ARTICLE

The Kharkanas Trilogy is an epic fantasy series written by author Steven Erikson. The series consists of three novels, two of which — Forge of Darkness and Fall of Light — have already been published. The series serves as a prequel to Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series, and tells the story of the Tiste, Jaghut and Azathanai, three hundred thousand years before the Malazan Empire began it's conquest on Ganabackis, with a focus on characters such as Anomander Rake, Draconus, Hood, Gothos and K'rul. The series draws inspiration from the Shakespearean declamation style, and is framed as being told by one poet to another. It was received positively by critics as well as readers.

Plot Summary

Set 300,000 years before the events of Malazan Book of the Fallen, the story is divided into three main narratives. The first revolves around the Tiste and the events leading up to their divide into the Andii, Liosan and Edur. The second revolves around the Jaghut and the events leading up to the declaration of war on Death. And the third around the Azathanai, some of whom are generous, while others who would only take advantage.

Themes and Style

Much like in the case of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, the Kharkanas Trilogy draws inspiration from Erikson's background as an anthropologist and archeologist.^[1] The fact that many of the revelations from the Malazan series seem to be discredited as the story in the two published novels progress, gives credence to the fact that depending on the interpreter, historic events get distorted or forgotten and reinvented all the time. This is especially the case with long-lived characters.^[2] That's not to say that the styles of the two series are similar; the author made an intentional choice to the contrary. Where the Malazan series sprawled outward, the Kharkanas trilogy sprawls inward; down scaled and as close to claustrophobic as possible. The reason behind this was already alluded to in the Malazan series, where the author spoke of ambition and railing against the notion of the word being a pejorative. So since he'd already drawn inspiration from Iliad for the Malazan series, he went in an other direction — Shakespearean direction. He noted that Shakespeare was all about declamations, and sentence structures dictated by breath-length, and that he'd fallen in love with it.^[3]

That the characters — even commoners — of both the Malazan series and the Kharkanas trilogy seem to be engaged in long philosophical discussions and introspection, can be attributed to the fact that Erikson has actively tried to dispel the notion or assumption that exists regarding the level of intelligence or lack thereof directly corresponding with a persons' class. In his experience, he has met numerous people who have shown evidence to the contrary.^[4]

There are themes that are running through the trilogy which relate to how civilizations destroy themselves, and one of the themes I’m advancing is that the various forms of art have to be destroyed first — the meaning of art, if you will.

— Steven Erikson, Wired's Geek's Guide to the Galaxy ^[5]

Again drawing inspiration from history, Erikson notes, "when art ceases to oppose — or to stand outside — the desires of the power bloc of a particular civilization, it gets into trouble".

Development and publication history

Overview

Before completing the Malazan series, Erikson was already contracted to write two Malazan-related trilogies. Working on the eighth novel in the Malazan series, Erikson already had an idea how he wanted to approach his next project. He began planting seeds by adding flashbacks and introducing characters that would set the stage for the Kharkanas Trilogy. He also approached the project with both new readers and well as old readers in mind, so as to give new readers a new entry point in the Malazan universe.

The first novel,