Steven Erikson, born as Steve Rune Lundin on October 7, 1959, is a Canadian novelist educated and trained in both archaeology and anthropology. He is well-known for his epic fantasy series, Malazan Book of the Fallen, which spans ten volumes. This series began with the publication of Gardens of the Moon in 1999 and concluded with The Crippled God in 2011. As of 2018, over 3 million copies of the series have been sold worldwide.

The series has been praised by SF Site as "the most significant work of epic fantasy since Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant," and described by Fantasy Book Review as "the best fantasy series of recent times." Fellow authors Glen Cook and Stephen R. Donaldson have recognized the series as a masterwork, with Donaldson praising Erikson's approach to the fantasy genre.

Erikson has also embarked on a prequel trilogy titled The Kharkanas Trilogy, along with seven novellas, and a short story. He is currently working on a sequel trilogy, the first book of which, titled The God is Not Willing, was published in 2021. In addition to fantasy, Erikson has written a comedic science fiction trilogy The Willful Child Trilogy, which spoofs Star Trek and other genre tropes, and a First Contact novel titled Rejoice, a Knife To the Heart, published in 2018.