Some editors of this site claim that Steven Erikson‘s Malazan Book of the Fallen is ‘dark fantasy’. Others (Brehaut) dispute this claiming it is more in line with very graphically violent Sword and sorcery fantasy.
Some elements of the ‘dark‘ in dark fantasy?
- The protagonist(s) are not often going to be successful - despite some short term success, the hero will likely have a tragic ending (be this death or otherwise)
- A focus on characters flaws - the concept that any character could be inherently good doesn’t exist. Everyone has a dark side that cant be ignored forever.
- Elements from Horror fiction. the level of cross over here varies greatly but it seems to be a fairly common requirement.
— brehaut
Malazan Book of the Fallen
I (brehaut) would characterise this as a war and power focused sword and sorcery series (from the 2.5 books I have read). The graphic violence seems to exist to demonstrate the level of power a character can have, to promote shock (eg the children of the dead seed and related unpleasantness) and finally because the author seems morbidly fascinated by death.
Characters regularly succeed in long term ways, and situations often resolve positively, even if severly hindered by short term setbacks. Good characters exist without dark/tragic flaws.
— brehaut
Going by the definition above most of the earlier books would not classify as “dark fantasy”, though a couple of the later ones would certainly be boarder line having some elements that fit with the definition, in particular House of Chains, Midnight Tides and Blood Follows have elements that are much closer to the afore mentioned definition. -eonsim
see also: Dark fantasy at wikipedia.
