The Novels of the Malazan Empire are a series of epic fantasy books based in the same universe as the Malazan Book of the Fallen, often with overlapping characters, written by author Ian Cameron Esslemont. The series contains six books, starting with the small novel Night of Knives and progressively getting more complex. A number of the locations and storylines followed are alluded to in the Book of the Fallen but are not expanded upon, with the lands of Korel, Jacuruku, Assail and to an extent Quon Tali only explored in this series.