Steven Erikson on writing the Malazan series

 

Did I intentionally design the series for re-reads? A couple years back it occurred to me that I never really learned how to write a novel: I learned how to write short stories, and when I set to writing a novel I simply scaled up. So you can consider the ten book series as the longest short story ever written. I approached every line as if under the burden of carrying as much information as it could withstand, balanced against the elegance, rhythm, word-choice, of the sentence itself. Just like in a short story. It's no wonder the books do well as re-reads, because let's face it, who reads a novel as if it was short story? The text is packed. It's bursting at the seams. I must have been insane. (http://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/q8zyv/hello_reddit_i_am_steven_erikson_please_ask_me/)