There is a saying in Darujhistan, the city of blue fire, that love and death shall arrive together, dancing . . .

It is summer and the heat is oppressive. However the discomfiture of the small round man in the faded red waistcoat is not entirely due to the sun. Dire portents plague his nights and haunt the city’s streets like fiends of shadow. Assassins still skulk in alleyways, but the hunters have become the hunted. Hidden hands pluck the strings of tyranny like a fell chorus, and strangers have arrived. While the bards sing their tragic tales, somewhere in the distance can be heard the baying of hounds. All is palpably not well. And in Black Coral, where Anomander Rake, Son of Darkness rules, memories of ancient crimes are stirring, intent on revenge. Could it be that Love and Death are about to arrive . . . hand in hand, and dancing?

This new chapter in Erikson’s monumental series is epic fantasy at its most imaginative, and storytelling at its most exciting.

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Steven Erikson is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His first fantasy novel, the critically acclaimed bestseller, Gardens of the Moon, marked the opening chapter in the epic sequence The Malazan Book of the Fallen.

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