12. Malazan, from Malazan Book of the Fallen
Malazan: Book of the Fallen is one of the more intimidating series out there. This high fantasy tale is written by Steven Erikson, who used his background in anthropology and archaeology to create an incredibly detailed account of the Malazan Empire. It may be the only fantasy world that compares to Tolkien’s Middle-earth in terms of scope, history and culture
Erikson makes the world of Malazan feel very huge and very old, slowly revealing the evolution and history of a people that has come to dominate the world, even if much of that history still remains shrouded. There are dozens of races and hundreds of thousands of years of history to explore.
Creating a memorable fictional world takes a lot of work, and Erikson put in the time and did the research. Nearly every author draws at least some inspiration from real cultures and history, but few have Steven Erikson’s background. He tackles the issue in a systematic, clinical way that really shores up the believability of his creation.
Another thing that makes Malazan unique is that it wasn’t created for a novel. Many of the ideas that made it into the novels were created for Erikson’s role-playing group. If you have the intellectual material, you might as well use it.