Chat with Ian C Esslemont about Malazan (Spoiler Free) 

He achieves the impossible and summons an Ascendant from the lands of never WiFi! We appreciate this so much. I’m rereading all the ice right now. Making my way back through SW and love me some riders! ❤️

The truth about Dragnipur! This was a delight to watch, and informative as well. Speaking as a fan of Path to Ascendancy, I’m eager to read Novels of the Malazan Empire. Thanks to both of you for this extremely enjoyable discussion!

No way. Ian actually does interviews and interacts with social media? Great. I can't wait to listen to this, love this man's writing of horror elements and setting building, especially the latter half of his books. Blood and Bone still has the best goddamn forest in the genre I've come across.

Man, we are truly living a Malazan Renaissance. The amount of extremely high level content on YT is amazing. Thank you AP for bringing us this amazing content.

Wow, this is the first interview I've ever seen of Ian C Esslemont. Thanks. Btw, in the Netherlands there is 1 river (the Rhine) that splits into 3 seperate rivers before it flows into sea.

Mr. You have fulfilled a need of a lot Malazan world fans: an interview with Ian Cameron Esslemont, thanks.

Omg the summoning of Steve Erikson

This was extremely enjoyable! Thanks for this video, A.P. We're super lucky to have you. The fact that you know SE and ICE so well, your familiarity with them makes for some very warm and friendly discussions. And for us, the viewers, this is extraordinary. I can't wait to see the coming videos with ICE and Philip Chase. Mr. Erikson's appearance at the end of the video made my day, this was super great. P.S. Where did GotM go? :) (now that you clarified the origins of a certain sword being inspired from a certain author's books, the sword was nowhere in view)

With AP Canavan at the wheel, it turns out even a "deranged and scattered" interview will always be highly enlightening and entertaining. Esslemont has a great laugh and demonstrated the breadth of his literary background. Epic Zoomvergence at the end.

Just last night I finished all of the NotME and I've been dying to hear from Esslemont! Thank you so much!

YAYYYYYYYY This very exciting

Cam is utterly charming! It’s so nice to see him here!

Can't even describe how happy I am that Cam has joined the whole Malazan discussion - and with more book specific talks upcoming! This was a great first opener, very much looking forward to all that's to come 😊 Thank you , thank you , thank you. 🤘🙏

I’m about to finish Stonewielder. Love these books. Thank you for the interview.

It was such a delight to see Cam! I can't wait for the next interviews. I loved your choice of "mariners" instead of sailors (probably because our own word for sailor is marinar :P ) The bit about wanting to be there in the private Malazans meetings between Steve and Cam made me remember one of our greatest fantasy folklore heroes, Greuceanu (one would have to be Romanian to appreciate the name itself, since "greu" means "heavy" and this guy is quite the warrior). One of his abilities was to roll head over knees three times and turn into a fly and then go spy on the... bad guys, since I can't find a proper translation for our mythological evil arch enemy, the "zmeu" (some sort of demon / devil, scaled, horned creature, with super human powers and magical abilities, of course). I wished I could be Greuceanu and turn into a fly to spy on them :))) On a more serious note, I do understand that some people care about the whole influence on writing thing, but personally I think that's just bullshit. Everything we experience in our lives has an impact in the way we create, no matter what it is that we create, whether it's a literature, music, plastic arts or even tools. Every book we read, every movie we saw, every conversation we heard, every dream we had, every interaction with another human being will bear some influence on the process of creation. Some more than others, as is the case with everything else in life. I have never understood this eagerness to identify what influenced a writer's work and then, quite often claim that he stole or was not original. And I am in no way saying that this is what happened here, on the contrary. But I did see plenty such claims online and they irritate the hell out of me for being so narrow minded. It reminds me of a class of music's history when I was in high school and we learned about Richard Strauss. His music was relatively poorly received at the time, but he is now an acclaimed composer. Our teacher told us then that apparently one of the art critics of the time had written an article in a newspaper about this composer and one of the lines said "what a shame that he is Richard but not Wagner and that he is Strauss but not Johann", along with accusations that his music was not original and that one could sense influences of other composer's work in his music. I remember the anger I felt and how I decided right there and then that I resent art critics, whose purpose I could not understand at that point in my life. Of course there will be influences, because we do not exist alone. We are part of this world, and everything we experience shapes us, and that in turn shapes what we create. Why some people are so eager to find these things and then point fingers is beyond me. Once again, my comment is not aimed at you. I understand what you did here and I salute it. It is aimed at the vicious comments I have often seen online. Oh, and the new life form and fisting thing... priceless :)))

I’m not sure how much this might have been a factor in regards to the Moorcock influence on Dragnipur, but the AD&D game, which is, I believe, the game that Erikson and Esslemont started playing with, was already drawing on Moorcock’s work quite extensively. First off, we have “The Sword of Life Stealing” in the AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide, and then there’s the sword “Blackrazor” from the module “White Plume Mountain” by Lawrence Schick (who is now a designer on the Elder Scrolls Online). Blackrazor is clearly riffing on Elric’s famous rune sword, and Schick has acknowledged this. Finally, we have the stats for Stormbringer itself included in the early printings of the Deities and Demigods book (before it was removed due to a legal hassle with Chaosium over which company had the Moorcock license). It seems obvious that Erikson and Esslemont were very much in the camp of creating their own stuff, but I just wanted to point out that this stuff was already in the air. D& D as originally constituted was a stew of Lieber, Vance, Howard, Moorcock, and Tolkien. Gamers loved the idea of taking cool stuff from the works they loved reading and then making that stuff their own in a story of their own. Dragnipur in its own right is maybe the most terrifying weapon I’ve come across in fantasy literature. However, because of the world it’s situated in and the way that world is portrayed, we get a starker picture of what the costs of bearing such a weapon might actually be (as A.P. has pointed out in his video about Rake on this channel).

Positively delightful, always good to hear from the other side of the dynamic duo!

SO happy for this discussion! Thanks guys!

Hey! Thanks a lot for this nice talk between friends. A nice leisurely pace, interesting revelations and moments insight into the creation of this amazing world. Until the troll showed up at the end :D You might want to take care with him, haha PS: jokes aside, it's awesome that you (and others, but especially you) are facilitating the stream of this Malazan content. PPS: Your Star Trek series is good fun too, btw...when you described the first contact scene, I was talking to my parents on the phone and I turned to my girlfriend with a bewildered look :D I've never seen Star Trek, except some of the more awful episodes in the latest season, and it's very funny :D Cheers o/

I am so excited, that I have to comment a few seconds into the video! Glad to finally see an ICE interview!

thanks for the great chat! thanks for coming on mr esslee monot

going from pretty much no info on ICE other than reading his books it's hard to think of what kind of guy he is. then boom we get these videos and get to find out that he's an awesome dude. thanks AP

This is fantastic! So glad to finally see Cam give interviews! Edit: Amazing interview! And let’s just say I did not expect that final question!

Thoroughly enjoyed this! Thanks, AP, for sharing your time with us.

I cannot watch now, but I'm going to still comment to say how excited I am to watch this tonight. ICE is an ascendent of literature.

get these guys to release a campaign setting for malazan.

This is very exciting. We rarely get to see or hear from Ian. It is fascinating to peel back the layers of the world created by these great minds.

Great to finally see an interview with the elusive ICE, somehow I had the impression that getting an interview with Cam was an effort similar to freeing Korabas from her chains. The MBoTF-10 are getting a lot of well deserved kudos now, but for me the 6 empire novels are really the cherry on the cake. Well done A.P., good to see fantasy is alive and well in the barren wastes of Norn' Iron'. "Krupp approves!"

Firstly thank you very much A.P. for bringing in Cam. It's really enjoyable for us readers to hear from our favorite authors. It's so uncanny how Esslemont and Erikson work well together in creating a unified vision of the Malazan world (what I really appreciate is how both respect the way they treat the narrative and motivations of each character) and as you mention their writing styles complement each other, distinct voices each but unmistakably Malazan. Can't wait for more.

I've never seen an interview with ICE I'm all in! Thank you Ian!

Wow cool we finally meet Ian/Cam! I've always wanted one of you to answer how Toll the Hounds and Return of the Crimson Guard marries up in light of Draconus' appearance in the Quon Tali civil war whilst being inside Dragnipor OR after he escaped. Thank you!

Since ICE pointed him out, any chance of having a chat about Karl Edward Wagner? I really feel like he is almost forgotten in the community. Love the Kane stuff(by the way I have the exact same editions.) Great interview. Looking forward to what is to come. Great to know that ICE isn't just a alter ego for Erikson. 😁

I just found out you're on YT! Loving the content; I need to go through everything now!

Finally found time to watch this!

What a pleasant surprise to find Esslemont here, and on a camera no less.

So awesome to see an Interview with Ian. I absolutely LOVE Ian's books and they are by far my favorite Malazan books. I really like main series but Ian's are where it's at for me. Thank you both so much.

Thanks a lot to ICE and AP for the great interview. Can't wait to hear more about Novels of the ME. And Steve popping at the end was so unexpected and hilarious)

Yes! We got him!

Awesome interview. Looking forward to see the others coming.

Great interview. It really sold me on Night of Knives! At first I was going to wait with the Esslemont novels until I was finished with Malazan Book of the Fallen, but I don't think I can wait that long so now I will read them in the order they were published.

Whoaaaaaaa! Is this a first?! Welcome ICE!!

I love that Steve couldn't help subverting his own cameo.

Thank you so much for this, just yesterday I wondered on Mike's Book Review Reddit if I missed any ICE interview cause Steve has been on many lately and I loved each one. And here it was, only a few days old. Great! I won't have time to keep up with all the Malaz rereads, but eventually I'll catch up, and it's great to know all these amazing talks will be out there by then ;-)

That little surprise at the end was very endearing hahaha

Ahhh Amazing stuff here! Thank you very much for that!

There are definitely horror elements to the books, I just finished the Wurms of Blearmouth short story and I would love to know who came up with the cookie trick, I almost threw the book across the room. It was brilliant.

First of all, hope your father is doing better (and thus, also, you). Second, Sir! How can I say this? I have been struggling to phrase correctly if you could, ever, try to bring Esslemont for a talk, and then, Voilà! It Is Done. Thank you. I am currently reading Esslemont's novels, and I am just loving them! Some day, I really wish you could walk us (un-initiates) through the differences between Erikson's and Esslemont's style. Because there is one (obviously). Yet I fail to understand it, because, well, I lack the theories and the concepts to be able to articulate such distinctions. I am beyond unsatisfied to read post on reddits or goodreads and whatnot saying stuff like "one is writing better than the other". I don't know about that. Maybe? The problem is, the only thing I can get from this is that one's like one better than then other. But it does not help to me understand what's going on with the texts themselves. So no pressure (because, well, what can I do?). Oh, and by the way, if you ever want to do something like this, don't hesitate to, I don't know, bring along Philip Case and / or Christine Vallestad. Just sayin ;). Anyway, hope you are doing well.

Should have asked him about the Golden Shower tree in Blood and Bone! or why Kellenved turned away(with fear) from invading Shal Morzin on Seven Cities.

That was fast AP.

Rivers flowing backwards isn't all that unusual. You don't even need a strong tidal push for it. The Spree, one of the rivers that flow through Berlin, does that if we have a longer dry-period in summer.

Yeeees! ICE!

This is awesome 👍

Finally, an interview with Ian Cameron Esslemont. There's lots of interviews with Steven Erikson here in RU-vid but no interviews with Esslemont until now. I'm sure many Malazan fans will accuse me of blasphemy, but I personally prefer Esslemont's writing to Erikson's, as Erikson's writing can get pretentious and self-indulgent sometimes.

Awesome!

You did it! You crazy son of a b****, you did it. When are you releasing your Esslemont content with Philip? After the MBotF re-readthrough or interspersed? His work has been largely neglected by the Malaztube and I’m looking forward to writing some essays on his stuff; the first essay that began my RU-vid misadventure was actually inspired by Night of Knives. Can’t wait to see your future content with Esslemont and about his books! -Jagarr (let’s see if Google has it out for this account as well)

Hilarious. Your skills as a interviewer may be sorely tested with both. well you know in preindustrial countries people often have multiple names... I call shenanigans - they just made them up. If you want to annoy your GM ask every NPC their name. I recall the Dragon article 'what donyou mean Jack the Samurai' after Oriental Adventures came out to provide Japanese names. Couldn't resist bringing up Discovery. Surprised you didn't ask his opinion on holograms. Perhaps next time. And really looking forward to it. Thank you very much.

And looking at your shelve and Cam's shelve makes me cringe thinking of mine :))) Mine is very much like Steve's :P

Doctor Wu. Holy shit I lost it

Halfway through Deadhouse Gates, would any Malazan readers here recommend the Esslemont books?

is this spoiler free?

Fix your shirt! It's buttoned wrong and I can't stop looking at it.