Steven Erikson and I have a similar background. We’re both anthropologists by education and roleplaying gamers by inclination. Those two things are self-reinforcing, I find; studying how the world works and creating imaginary worlds are natural complements. Worldbuilding provides infinite opportunity to run anthropological thought experiments, and to extend the theories we apply to human beings to weird cases, to fictional species and imaginary histories.
Despite sharing those two things, I’ve never read any of Erikson’s Malazan novels… until now. I picked up Forge of Darkness, since it is a fresh jumping on point for new readers, and looked at it from the paradigm of a roleplaying gamer and an armchair anthropologist.
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