In Forge of Darkness, the magisterial opening volume of Steven Erikson’s Kharkanas Trilogy, the deep past of the incredible world introduced in the beloved ten-volume sequence, The Malazan Book of the Fallen, is masterfully explored. Erikson’s Malazan novels have been described as the greatest fantasy epic of the modern age, and his extraordinary imagination is given full flower in this tale of darkness and war.

Set hundreds of thousands of years before the Malazan novels, Erikson makes able use of his background as an archeologist and anthropologist. A gift to devoted fans, who will be rewarded with clues and characters presaging the Malazan Book of the Fallen, this is also a splendid jumping-off point for first-time readers of Erikson.

Here is a world populated by different races, but these are not the elves and dwarves of typical fantasy fare. Instead, we meet the powerful but xenophobic Jaghut, the masters of magic and masonry known as the Azathanai, and the savage, shapeshifting Jhelek. The focus is on telling the story of the long-lived Tiste Andii, servants of the monarch known as Mother Dark, who may be ascending to godhood. Her people are on the brink of civil war, the political and familial dynamics of their ruling class a complex web of arranged marriages, military rivalries, and exchanged hostages.

Erikson’s trademark use of dozens of characters acting in numerous interweaving subplots offers up intrigue, battle, magic, an ancient threat from a dead sea, and the everyday travails of everyday people. All of this is done in a style that pairs excellent prose with the sense of poetry and rhythm of the great Elizabethan dramatists.