There is almost nothing more exciting for me than buying a new book by an author I really like. This is especially true if it is a book that continues on a series. It's like getting together with old friends in familiar territory, and everybody having news to relate about what they've been up to since you all last met.

Then there is the process of reading. Word after word piling up to form thoughts and ideas. Such a deceptive appearance, passive, not doing much of anything but waiting for someone to read them, to bring them to life. A sword flashes, trees tower, mountains loom, clouds lower, lives are led out to their fullest, or end suddenly. I don't know about you, but when I read, I form little pictures in my head and visualize the events. From the clues the author has dropped I play out scenes, even after putting the book down. If the writer has done his or her job well, the characters live on and I continue the story in my head, or worry about how they are doing.

I'm constantly amazed by the authors who can develop layers of plot, not convolutions that confuse or show-offs who do it just to show they can, but those who build a succulent cake with icings of intrigue that keep us breathless and on the edge of our seat. Steven Erikson has accomplished just that with his The Malazan Book of the Fallen series. The sixth book of ten is due out in August, and I am already counting the days until publication.

These are not books for the faint of heart (or weak of stomach in places, because he holds no punches in describing the horrors of what men and women do to each other in times of strife); and those looking for a little light escapism should look elsewhere. The first book (Gardens of the Moon) plunges you into a maelstrom of turbulence: the schemes of Gods, men, women, wizards, and a variety of species (dead and un-dead, past, present and future) are all coming to fruition during the turbulent period in which the Empress Lasheen rules the Malazan Empire.

The first three books (Deadhouse Gates and Memories of Ice are the second and third) deal primarily with the Empire's internal strife, as it expands and consolidates its position through conquest and the suppression of rebellion. Enemies become allies, the dead are reborn as children, men become Gods, and the Gods walk among men as we travel across two continents through desserts, plains and across seas. Through it all march the men and women who are soldiers in the armies. People who cry and swear, kill their officers if they get out of line and battle with weapons (swords, lances, and shields) of hand-to-hand combat. There is no way to shirk the responsibility for your actions. You look into the eyes of the person you kill.