Monday 12 August 2013

Updated MALAZAN release dates

Amazon's latest information suggests that both of the next Malazan novels - Ian Cameron Esslemont's Assail and Steven Erikson's Fall of Light - have unfortunately been delayed.



According to Amazon, Assail will be released on 27 March 2014. The blurb is as follows:

The final chapter in the awesome, epic story of the Malazan empire.

Tens of thousands of years of ice is melting, and the land of Assail, long a byword for menace and inaccessibility, is at last yielding its secrets. Tales of gold discovered in the region's north circulate in every waterfront dive and sailor's tavern and now countless adventurers and fortune-seekers have set sail in search of riches. All these adventurers have to guide them are legends and garbled tales of the dangers that lie in wait -- hostile coasts, fields of ice, impassable barriers and strange, terrifying creatures. But all accounts concur that the people of the north meet all trespassers with the sword. And beyond are rumoured to lurk Elder monsters out of history's very beginnings. Into this turmoil ventures the mercenary company, the Crimson Guard. Not drawn by contract, but by the promise of answers: answers to mysteries that Shimmer, second in command, wonders should even be sought. Arriving also, part of an uneasy alliance of Malazan fortune-hunters and Letherii soldiery, comes the bard Fisher kel Tath. And with him is a Tiste Andii who was found washed ashore and who cannot remember his past life, yet who commands far more power than he really should. Also venturing north is said to be a mighty champion, a man who once fought for the Malazans, the bearer of a sword that slays gods: Whiteblade.

And lastly, far to the south, a woman guards the shore awaiting both her allies and her enemies. Silverfox, newly incarnated Summoner of the undying army of the T'lan Imass, will do anything to stop the renewal of an ages-old crusade that could lay waste to the entire continent and beyond. Casting light on mysteries spanning the Malazan empire, and offering a glimpse of the storied and epic history that shaped it, Assail is the final chapter in the epic story of the Empire of Malaz.
Meanwhile, Steven Erikson's Fall of Light, the second volume of The Kharkanas Trilogy, is now listed for 5 June 2014. No blurb is yet available.

3 comments:

Wilbur said...

I am confused about this book.

I thought that the Book of the Fallen concluded with The Crippled God.

But this book seems to continue the story of the characters from the MBOTF such as Silverfox.

And yet it is also the second book of the Kharkansas trilogy, which I thought was set thousands of years before the MBOTF.

How does this book fit? I am happy to read another Erikson, it just seems confusing.

Adam Whitehead said...

The article is about two more books. FALL OF LIGHT, by Erikson, is the second KHARKANAS novel, set 300,000+ years before the rest of the series.

ASSAIL, by Ian Cameron Esslemont, is the sixth and final book by Esslemont tying in with Erikson's series and picking up loose ends and elements left unresolved by Erikson. ICE's books are just as integeral to the overall point of the series as Erikson's own.

Wilbur said...

Got it - thanks, Adam.