No Life Forsaken is the second book in Steven Erikson's The Tales of Witness.
STATUS: On 31 July 2024, Erikson announced he had sent the manuscript of the book to his publisher.[3] Manuscripts handed to the publisher for the editing process can take as long as a year before the book is released.[4] Erikson's publisher currently expects the book to be out in the UK on 23 October 2025 and on 28 October 2025 in the US.
In May 2024, Erikson revealed the Witness Trilogy was now a four-book series. He says he "was writing [No Life Forsaken] when I realised it was actually two novels, and I have about a month's worth of writing [remaining] for each of those two novels. So I'll be able to deliver them to the publisher almost back to back."[5]
Previously, in December 2023, Erikson said he was about 3/4 of the way through writing the novel when he "realised that I was writing two novels--not one. And so structurally, it was a mess. And so what I had to do was step back and reorder basically everything I had done up to this point. And then having reordered it, I realised I needed to start adding some bridging scenes and bridging chapters that could link them back up and make it a bit more of a cohesive storyline as opposed to two. So that's kind of what I'm hammering away at right now. It's weird to be working on Chapter 4 knowing I've got, I don't know, 17 chapters already written past that."[6]
Publisher's summary[]
A goddess awakens to a new world, only to find that some things never change.
Amidst the ashes of a failed rebellion in Seven Cities, new embers are flaring to life.
There are furrowed brows at the beleaguered Malazan Legion headquarters in G'danisban for it would appear that yet another bloody clash with the revived cult of the Apocalyptic is coming to a head.
Seeking to crush the uprising before it ignites the entire subcontinent, Fist Arenfall has only a few dozen squads of marines at his disposal, and many of those are already dispersed - endeavouring to stamp out multiple brush-fires of dissent. But his soldiers are exhausted, worn down by the grind of a simmering insurrection and the last thing Arenfall needs is the arrival of the new Adjunct, fresh from the capital and the Emperor's side.
The man's mission may be to lend support to Arenfall's efforts...or stick a knife in his back. 'Twas ever thus, of course. That a popular commander should inevitably be seen as a threat to the Emperor - such is the fatal nature of imperial Malazan politics.
And what of the gods? Well, as recent history has proved, their solution to any mortal mess is to make it even messier. In other words, it's just another tumultuous day in the chequered history of the Malazan Empire.
Front matter[]
Dedication[]
Acknowledgements[]
Maps[]
Editions[]
| Publisher | Format/Edition | First published | Pages | ISBN-10 | ISBN-13 | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom — No Life Forsaken | ||||||
| Bantam | Hard cover | October 2025 | 760 | 1787632881 | 978-1787632882 | First edition |
| Bantam | Trade paperback | |||||
| Bantam | Mass market paperback | |||||
| United States — No Life Forsaken | ||||||
| Tor | Hard cover | October 2025 | 760 | 0765323605 | 978-0765323606 | |
| Tor | Trade paperback | | ||||
| Tor | Mass market paperback | |||||
Plot Summary[]
Template:Chapters nlf
Trivia[]
- Erikson announced the title of the book on his Twitter account on 18 December 2021.[7] The title "came out of a rough poem I'd written, actually, and I don't particularly like the poem as a whole, but it had certain phrases that I thought might be useful, and so I took one which was "No Life Forsaken". And as soon as I wrote it as the title...on the title page, it just fit. Prior to that, I'd had two or three titles for the second book and I wasn't happy with any of them."[8]
- Erikson planned to start the novel on Genabackis, but commentary from a fan on YouTube convinced him that Book One should all take place in Seven Cities.[9][10]
- Erikson says he had so much fun writing the Malazan marines in this book that he had to "drag myself out of those scenes to get on with the story."[11]
- Erikson says one of the things he discovered in the book's writing process was that the Malazan Book of the Fallen and the Kharkanas Trilogy had already "tackled the heavy stuff, they carried all that weight" and he did not "feel inclined to repeat myself". So No Life Forsaken features "more of a comedic element" and he was "fighting myself in a sense that I'm trying to keep that reined in...because I don't know if I have the wherewithal to go for the heavy shit anymore...It plays out, yes, in The God is Not Willing. It will play out in this book, and certainly the third one. But everything that's leading up to that is in a little bit lighter vein, I think."[12]
Cover gallery[]
External links[]
Notes and references[]
- ↑ Penguin Random House UK
- ↑ Macmillan Publishers - Tor
- ↑ Steven Erikson Facebook post 31 July 2024
- ↑ Steven Erikson Live Q & A - Fantasy/Sci-Fi Focus - See 2:45 and 4:40
- ↑ Nightflier's Bookspace – Steven Erikson at Delfi Knjižara SKC, Belgrade - See 9:20
- ↑ Steven Erikson Discussion - Death in Malazan (Spoiler Warning) - Books with Banks - See 1:01:50
- ↑ Steven Erikson Twitter - 18 December 2021
- ↑ Steven Erikson Live Q&A - Fantasy/SciFi Focus - See 1:11:30
- ↑ Steven Erikson Live Q&A - Fantasy/SciFi Focus - See 1:29:15
- ↑ The Reader's Legacy (with excerpt from No Life Forsaken)
- ↑ Conversation on Malazan with Steven Erikson and AP Canavan (aka A Critical Dragon) - Green Team of the Legendarium - See 56:45
- ↑ Steven Erikson Discussion - Death in Malazan (Spoiler Warning) - Books with Banks - See 1:03:05