Stonewielder (Malazan Empire Series #3)

by Ian C. Esslemont

Overview

Stonewielder is an enthralling new chapter in the epic story of a thrillingly imagined world that takes place in the timeline right after the New York Times bestseller Dust of Dreams left off.

Greymane believed he'd outrun his past. With his school for swordsmanship in Falar, he was looking forward to a quiet life, although his colleague Kyle wasn't as enamoured with life outside the mercenary company, the Crimson Guard. However, it seems it is not so easy for an ex-Fist of the Malazan Empire to disappear, especially one under sentence of death from that same Empire.

For there is a new Emperor on the throne of Malaz, and he is dwelling on the ignominy that is the Empire's failed invasion of the Korel subcontinent. In the vaults beneath Unta, the Imperial capital, lie the answers to that disaster. And out of this buried history surfaces the name Stonewielder.

In Korel, Lord Protector Hiam, commander of the Stormguard, faces the potential annihilation of all that he holds dear. With few remaining men and a crumbling stone wall that has seen better days, he confronts an ancient enemy: the sea-borne Stormriders have returned.

Religious war also threatens these lands. The cult of the Blessed Lady, which had stood firm against the Riders for millennia, now seeks to eradicate its rivals. And as chaos looms, a local magistrate investigating a series of murders suddenly finds himself at the heart of a far more ancient and terrifying crime – one that has tainted an entire land....

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780765329851
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/10/2011
Series:	Malazan Empire Series , #3
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	640
Sales rank:	225,379
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

IAN CAMERON ESSLEMONT grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He has studied archaeology and creative writing, has traveled extensively in South East Asia, and lived in Thailand and Japan for several years. He now lives in Alaska with his wife and children and is currently working on another novel set in the world of Malaz, a world he co-created with his friend Steven Erikson.

Read an Excerpt

Stonewielder

BOOK I

The Sea

The so-called Malazan 'empire' began as a thalassocracy. That is, rule by sea power. In the undignified scholarly scramble to identify and distil the empire's early stages this truly defining characteristic is usually overlooked. Yet the Malazan expansion was undeniably one of sea power and this was the key to its early successes. It was also the key to one of its early failures: the ill-conceived incursion into the archipelago and subcontinent known variously as Fist, Korel, or the Storm-cursed. For this archipelago was itself a supreme sea power, if non-expansionist. And in the end of course it was the sea that so definitively, and with such finality, put an end to all hostilities.

Imperial Campaigns (The Korel Occupations) Volume II, Fist Imrygyn Tallobant

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Of the Malazan Expeditionary Force

Greymane / High Fist, Commander of Expeditionary Force

Orjin Samarr

Malazan 17th Squad, 4th Company, 2nd Division, Fourth Army

Others

Of the Malazan Sixth Army

On the Stormwall

In the Kingdom of Rool

Of the Jourilan Army of Reform

Of the Crimson Guard

Blues Fingers Lazar Shell

The Synod of Stygg

Totsin Jurth the Third Brother Carfin Sister Gosh Sister Esa Sister Nebras Brother Jool

In the Shadow Realm

Of the Sea-Folk

Copyright © 2010 by Ian Cameron Esslemont

Interviews

On Co-Creating A World by Ian C. Esslemont

Steven Erikson and I met while working on an archaeological dig at Lake of the Woods. We shared a tent that summer – which is an excellent test of mutual tolerance – and since we didn't kill each other we became fast friends. We worked together on a number of digs and went on to be roommates as we pursued degrees in creative writing. All this time we gamed, swapped novels, and talked over what we loved (and hated) in literature, be it literary, fantasy, or science fiction.

The aggregated body of work from our talks and gaming sessions became the World of Malaz. Since we wanted to do something with it, we first set out to co-author screenplays. We pitched a number of them but none made it past the option-for-development stage. During these years life went on. Steve entered graduate school at Iowa. I went to grad school at the University of Alaska, where I took the challenge of living in a cabin without running water or indoor plumbing for five years. I met my wife in the program and we went further abroad to Thailand where we taught English at a university in Bangkok.

During this time Steve and my mass of sketches, first drafts of novels and screenplays, all exploring the world of Malaz, lay idle and may never have come to anything – at least in terms of published work. Though it had all been very creatively satisfying at the time.

Steve, however, was prepared to give the work one last try. He asked if he could take a shot at novelizing one of our screenplays. Since I wanted to see the world realized just as much as he, I gave my blessing. The result was Gardens of the Moon.

Now, with the tenth and final novel of Steve's Malazan Book of the Fallen series soon to be published, it may look as if it was all inevitable. Far from it. Gardens was a hard sell. A number of publishers thought it too confusing, too dense, for the fantasy audience. They also objected to the absence of any one identifiable “hero” to serve as the traditional genre protagonist. This was a particularly difficult hurdle since from the beginning this was one of the stereotypical elements of heroic fiction Steve and I wished to challenge. However, Steve persisted, and the series was finally picked up in the UK.

When Gardens first came out, I was busy pursuing a Ph.D. The success of his Malaz books thrilled me and gave new life to my own ambition to pursue writing. With Steve's encouragement, I picked up the old manuscripts and reworked them. Eventually they too found a home, and with that success I was able to turn more time to writing. And so, many years later, together we had achieved the dream we so very naively and idealistically set out so long ago of putting forth a vision of the fantasy genre returned to its traditional role: that of examining and questioning what it means to be human, a member of any society, through the use of the epic form.

Editorial Reviews

This is Ian Esslemont's third standalone novel, set in the Malazin Empire, the world he co-created with Steven Erikson. Stonewielder tells the story of Greymane, a warrior who believed mistakenly that he could escape the thrusts and counterthrusts of history. War, however, comes calling, and at he discovers that turning his back can only get him killed. A trade paperback original.

Epic fiction at its finest.” —Seattle Post Intelligencer

From the Publisher