History Literature / MalazanBookOfTheFallen

* DropTheHammer: Caladan Brood wields a great hammer so badass that it has the power to awaken the sleeping earth goddess Burn (whose body is apparently the earth itself).

* SpiritualAntithesis: Creator/StevenErikson has stated that the impetus to [[AscendedFanfic fictionalize]] his and his friends' home brewed TabletopRPG campaign as the ''Malazan Book of the Fallen'' came from having a very visceral reaction to opening the first TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms boxed set, in essence saying "This is not what {{fantasy}} is supposed to be."

* ThemeTwinNaming: The series gives us the twins Envy and Spite, both named by their father. The [[Literature/TheKharkanasTrilogy prequel trilogy]] reveals that they're actually [[spoiler:triplets and the third one used to be named Malice]]. Draconus adds that if there was a [[spoiler:fourth]] one she'd be named Venom. He obviously had preconceived notions about his daughters.

** Per WordOfGod, the decline and collapse of civilizations is one of the central themes of the books, which at least [[BarbarianHero one character seeks to achieve]] in order to [[KnightTemplar save the world.]]

* ColourCodedForYourConvenience: The three Tiste peoples are easily distinguishable by their skin and hair colours. The Tiste Andii are midnight-black skinned and either black or white haired (with the occasional reddish-brown haired individual). The Tiste Liosan are porcelain-white skinned and have hair in shades of blond, gold and silver. And the Tiste Edur are grey skinned, with hair in shades of brown.

* ConstructedWorld: One of the most expansive examples, as it was initially constructed during role-playing sessions. Since both creators are anthropologists and archaeologists, there is [[ShownTheirWork quite a lot of verisimilitude]] to the setting. It has hundreds of thousands of years of history, a multitude of cultures and spans an entire planet with seven continents which, according to WordOfGod, is bigger than Earth. Of course, there are also the various non-human races with their ancestor and descendant races and several who are not native to that world as well.

* TheHerosJourney: WordOfGod has it, that the entire series is supposed to be the classical Hero's Journey ''for the reader''.

* KudzuPlot: Each book typically shifts between dozens -- if not hundreds -- of distinct, and often unimportant, viewpoints. Plot lines are set up on seemingly every page, and only a few are followed through. Per WordOfGod, this is very much deliberate, as the series was conceived as a high-brow work to begin with. It's also {{Justified}} InUniverse as [[spoiler:the Crippled God]] is presented as having penned the series so that [[spoiler:the sacrifices of those who freed him would not be forgotten]], meaning that all the details were deliberately placed there by the narrator of the series.

** The Eleint, also known as Pure Bloods or Ancients, stem from Starvald Demelain, reportedly the first realm, and are descended from T'iam, the mother of dragons (also known as "the biggest whore of them all"). They seem to be a mix between western and eastern dragons, are sentient and are said to be utterly feral, and when more than a couple gather in one place, their respective [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder blood lusts]] re-inforce each other and they form a Storm, each individual member having lost its identity to the hive mind. Too many in one place, and T'iam herself comes to crash the party. The Eleint fly on and breathe chaotic magic, not fire. They also tend to have their own personalities when not part of a Storm, but run mostly on selfish instinct and whatever catches their fancy, which got quite a few Eleint imprisoned for being power hungry nuissances. Additionally, due to a complicated bargain the Elder God K'rul made with the Eleint, many of them embody one of the [[FunctionalMagic Paths of Magic]] accessible to humans.

* RandomEventsPlot: Viewpoints shift constantly and often show events which have little to do with each other; piecing together the narrative is part of the charm of the series. Nevertheless, many scenes are seemingly unimportant to the overall story, and seem to serve little purpose. WordOfGod has it that the idea is to show just a slice of the events going on in the world; if something seems unrelated to the rest of the story, it's probably there to remind the reader that the world doesn't revolve around the main narrative.

* RolePlayingGameVerse: The setting grew out of Steven Erikson and Ian Cameron Esslemont becoming frustrated with the strict rules of ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' and turning to ''{{TabletopGame/GURPS}}'' game mechanics to create their own world, in which they gamed extensively. A big portion of the first volume, ''Literature/GardensOfTheMoon'', as well as other key events, were gamed, [[WordOfGod up to and including]] the series' finale.

* SlidingScaleOfGenderInequality: The ''Malazan Book of the Fallen'' has both men and women serving in the military in all kinds of positions, including leading armies, and for most of the story, the Malazan Empire is ruled by an Empress who made her way to the throne through skills and cunning. And even in more gender segregated societies like that of the Tiste Edur, who have no warrior women while men are almost exclusively warriors and have more political clout, the women on the other hand have a lot more say-so in other areas starting from familial matters and going to matters of sorcery, with only the Warlock King having more sorcerous clout than the matriarchs of the noble families (even though both genders seem to be equally likely to have magical affinities). In fact, those families have both matriarchs and patriarchs. Gender equality through most--and possibly even all--cultures in the setting is, per WordOfGod, [[http://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/2vnkyp/rfantasy_exclusive_authorial_intent_discussion/ intentional]].

** The T'lan Ay are huge prehistoric wolves. And TheUndead to boot, as they've been extinct for about 320,000 years, when the T'lan Imass decided to include them in the Ritual of Tellann, which made the Imass undead.

** The Deragoth, or Hounds of Darkness, are supposed to be even bigger and to reseble bears in size. They may be even older than the Hounds of Shadow, old enough, in fact, to once have domesticated early humans as ''their'' pets.

** When the story begins, the Bridgeburners are the most famous army of the Malazan Empire, but because of their infamous difficulties with authority and Laseen being afraid of them, they get sent off for increasingly dangerous missions, just to get them killed. In ''Literature/MemoriesOfIce'' only a few Bridgeburners are left alive, and even less at the end of the series.

* BurningTheShips: The Bridgeburners' name invokes this. They are an elite company, the Emperor's favourite one, of which every member has "burned the bridge" to his or hers past. Even their company emblem consists of a silver brooch with ruby flames.

* GutturalGrowler: Count how many times "growled" or "grunted" is used as a dialogue tag.

* AscendedFanfic: The setting began as a homebrewed ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' campaign, then switched over to ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'' when the system limitations became too strict. According to WordOfGod, about a fifth of ''Fallen'' was gamed beforehand.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: The Seguleh have their social hierarchy based entirely on martial skill. They were founded by an army of the First Empire after the Empire was destroyed. It is later revealed that they have a parallel civilian hierarchy that exercises authority on all internal matters that don't pertain to the army. While the top ranks of the army act as the rulers of the nation, there seem to be other paths of advancement available to those not skilled with the sword.

* KillEmAll: Approximately half of the characters introduced in the first book are dead by (and mostly during) book three. 75% are gone by the end of book six (including most of the BigDamnHeroes from earlier on). It's called the ''Malazan Book of the Fallen'' for a reason. However, many of those characters are either reincarnated, resurrected or continue to play an active role as ghosts.

* MadLibFantasyTitle: Creator/StevenErikson tends to avoid this by using more descriptive and specific titles: ''Memories of Ice'', ''The Bonehunters'', ''Dust of Dreams'' (though that one falls into the mystical concepts territory). He does seem fond of the '<blank> of <blank>' construction, though.

* AnAesop: The series is a labyrinthine, complex, and at some parts overly confusing fantasy epic that in the very, very end settles on a moral usually reserved for kindergarten: compassion is important, and should always be given. [[spoiler:Even to someone as monstrous as the Crippled God.]]

* ExtremelyShortTimespan: The prequel novel ''Night of Knives'' takes place within 24 hours, which is unusual for a series known for taking huge and epic UpToEleven.

The ''Malazan Book of the Fallen'' is an epic fantasy series by Canadian author Creator/StevenErikson. The series is famous for its {{Doorstopper}} tendencies, for having LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters (the DramatisPersonae usually contains several hundred characters, and even then does not include numerous incidental ones), its deliberate use of LostInMediasRes and for introducing an anthropological and geological perspective to the {{Fantasy}} genre. The series' main influence is ''Literature/TheBlackCompany'' by Creator/GlenCook.

* DramatisPersonae: The ''Malazan Book of the Fallen'' and its related side stories by [[SharedUniverse both authors]] each open with a Dramatis Personae (explicitly labelled as such). In the later books of the series, [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters these can stretch over many pages]].

* JigsawPuzzlePlot: The ''Malazan Book of the Fallen'' has three major RotatingArcs, a larger number of subplots, no clear individual protagonist among its LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters even for most individual ''books'', and much less the whole ten-book series, and takes place across several continents. The complexity is only increased by the fact that it starts ''[[LostInMediasRes in media res]]'' and doles out actual exposition sparingly, leaving the reader to figure most things out by context. It ''does'', however, eventually converge into a single central MythArc about the Crippled God.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Each book has about four pages devoted just to listing the characters that appear in it. Book one throws at least 100 names at you to remember as well as an INCREDIBLY complicated (and intentionally not very clearly explained) backstory, and then Book two introduces a whole new cast the same size... This goes on up to and including the final book. Additionally, the list of characters in each new book is more a representative sample of important names, and in no way exhaustive. As the series goes on it leaves out more and more, since simply appearing in the character list counts as a spoiler for some events.

* LukeNounverber: The series has few true examples out of the [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters huge cast]]. There are lots and lots of epithets though: soldiers in the Malazan army are [[OnlyKnownByTheirNickname generally known by their nicknames]] (e.g. Mudslinger and Throatslitter) and some characters have heroic epithets attached to their name (e.g. Dujek Onearm, Scabandari Bloodeye).

* OurGiantsAreBigger: The [[LoadsAndLoadsOfRaces various races]] collectively known as the Tartheno Thelomen Toblakai and their derivatives, the Teblor, the Tarthenal and the Trell, stand over seven feet tall or more and are both wide and muscular, even the women. They are perceived as slow, not particularly smart and most of them, especially the Tarthenal on Lether, only reinforce that perception, though certain individuals greatly defy it. They are all descended from the [[AllTrollsAreDifferent Thel Akai]], although they have acquiered a flesh and blood physique somewhere on the way, instead of the stone of the Thel Akai. Also, most of the Tartheno Thelomen Toblakai races have bodies adapted to their size by having multiple organs, such as two hearts and four lungs. They are also mostly longer-lived than humans.

* ThoseTwoBadGuys: Bauchelain and Korbal Broach.

* {{Calvinball}}: Fiddler and the Bridgeburners will occasionally play a game akin to poker with the tarot-like Deck of Dragons, except they -- but especially Fiddled who has a prophetic gift -- make up the rules as they go along. Because they are playing with a deck of cards used to represent their world's pantheon, the games end up being more than a little prophetic -- as well as disconcerting to onlookers, as the Deck is actually dangerous to use, and playing with it is paramount to blaspheming against the pantheon.

* HumanMomNonhumanDad: Inverted. Ryadd Eleis's -- also known as Rud Elalle -- mother is a goddess and [[VoluntaryShapeshifting dragon shapeshifter]] who raped a human man. Granted, he was unwillingly possessed by a wyval at that moment, but the point still stands.

* GenderIsNoObject: Most of the cultures are largely equal-opportunity when it comes to daily life and war, especially the dominant Malazan Empire which considers itself egalitarian in all aspects. Two noted exceptions are the Tiste Edur tribes where the women rule the house and the men are warriors, and the military of the city of Capustan, which is noted as being abnormal in their refusal to recruit women as warriors or soldiers. Fortunately for them, the Grey Swords, a mercenary band sworn to the god of war, have no such compunctions.
* TheGhost: Plenty of characters are namechecked but never appear in the main story -- the most prominent being Admiral Nok and High Fist Greymane.