Review: Gardens of the Moon

Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Anyone who follows my reviews will know that I read under typically unfortunate circumstances. I have many kids and little time. I've mostly been on a reading sabbatical, which as a reviewer I deeply regret. Therein lies the question of why I decided to start the Malazan series as a way to bring myself back to form. Especially with everything I have against me.

You see, Malazan is considered to be a "difficult" series. I talked with multiple people shortly after I started as to figure out why this is, and it came down to a few reasons. The main, of course, is that it suffers from the same illness many fantasy series do. Unusual names for people & places mixed in with tons of worldbuilding. The Malazan series is incredible with its worldbuilding. Erickson excels in it.

The short prologue sets the story up a little bit but takes place many years before the events of the rest of the book. Once you get into the first chapter you are treated to rapid pacing and information dumps relentlessly. There's probably close to twenty characters or more that you meet in the first two chapters and they aren't the entire cast. Nothing in this book is done on a small scale. Those information dumps are purely all over your lap, your hands, the floor. I've been told to "get" the Malazan Series you would have to study it. Seriously, that was my advice. The only way it was going to work was to commit my all to it. Well, that didn't happen. And you shouldn't worry about that either.

The book starts us out with possession, then a massacre, an investigation, and an important battle. What could be troubling is that during these events, little things may be occurring that get referenced but don't come fully to light until afterward. Gardens of the Moon makes you wait for the payoff. What slowed me, in the beginning, was keeping up with all the names, titles, and places thrown at me so quickly because the book does not stay put. It jumps from characters and situations frequently. Enough to make me want to write down who is who and what they are doing, whose side they are on? No. I did grow annoyed when people had multiple titles or nicknames and those were used interchangeably without mentioning their actual name but that is only really prevalent in the first part of the book. Also, I'm still not sure how many one-armed people exist.

All of this changes once the first battle ends. We've met a good portion of the major characters or else heard about them and the format of the book abruptly changes. The pacing slows. We spend a decent amount of time with fewer characters and then move on to the next big set-piece. Or course, once there we get a whole boatload of new characters and more things occur but it's like hearing the same story but told by someone else. This shift happens in Chapter 5 so if you are on the fence about sticking with it, make it at least through that chapter.

I was very impressed with Erikson's ability to merge stories and connect his large cast. I call this the Tad Williams quality I look for in authors. Some people can do it, some people can't. Tad always wins. Erikson doesn't just give us a story but a rich history of the world with different species and cultures too. I have the full collection of books to go through and I know a lot of things mentioned in this volume will come up again and be expanded. It's a series that you can get lost in and even live in for a while to escape from everything going on in our world.

I'd seen somewhere that Fiddler was a favorite character for his humor but I didn't notice Fiddler that much in this book, and never for a laugh. I enjoyed Captain Paran as well as Crokus and the rest of his crew. Adjunct Lorn also grew on me throughout the book. Curiously, with the first two, they are the closest we get to generic fantasy hero tropes. I'm talking about a stable boy or kitchen hand. Paran was a noble that decided when he was a boy that he'd rather be a Soldier. Crokus is the nephew of a known writer (and more) who can land himself in the higher circles of society but chooses to be a thief. With a cast so large it's odd that I find the two easiest characters to enjoy, but they also are used as pawns to the Gods (one in particular) so the focus is largely on them. Lorn then is someone who struggles between her duty as the Adjunct who exists solely as the hand of the Empress and the person she is. The more I think about this the more I realize how I enjoyed many of the characters. Excellent job Erikson.

The main plot focuses on the Malazan Empire planning to conquer the city of Darujhistan which is secretly run by High Mages and has rival Assassin clans. An Assassin War is a minor part of the book. Complicating the Malazan Empire's plan is Anomander Rake who is the lord of the Moon's Spawn which is a floating fortress with a city within it. He had made a pact with an earlier city, that of Pale, where the first battle of the book takes place and jumpstarts the events. Despite being opposed to the Empire, Rake ultimately comes across as a third party. It's team A versus team B but team C is involved because so and so. Got it. He has his own cards he is playing in Darujhistan, and everything comes together as books do.

I enjoyed the ambivalence of the characters. Although you can say a couple of people do things only to deliberately harm others, actions are often brought about because of the situations they find themselves in. Those I swore were the villains turned out not to be so at all. Even the Gods we meet, because they play huge roles, are typical Gods. I would compare them closest to the Greeks. They come, they interact, sometimes they help, sometimes they ruin things, and then off they go. It's like watching episodes of Xena with more interesting immortals and a lack of lesbian undertones. Mmmm Calypso.

The worldbuilding was impressive but not entirely my thing. On a geographical scale, I didn't mind it. When we dive into the history of non-human races, the first inhabitants of the world, etc, I start zoning out. Rake, who in Gardens of the Moon is 20,000 years old, is a Tiste Andii which is similar in appearance to a Drow. Dark skin, white hair. His people have a backstory as they are one of the elder races and I wasn't able to connect with them. At least at the time of reading. Now that I'm done I do appreciate more their storyline. There are also the Imass, the K'Chain Che'Malle, the Jaghut, and others. Each with details enough to fill a companion textbook. I just wanted to keep moving with the story, getting to the top of the figurative mountain without doing the climb. This is me as a person and not a fault of Erikson. It's a lot of information but none of it is hard to understand.

What I'm getting to is that if you are interested in the series but hesitant, I recommend you try it out to at least the end of chapter 5. Don't do a ten-page in and skip thing. This is involved fantasy to the fullest extent and you will be rewarded, I promise you. Read on a kindle to avoid papercuts. Ten big books mean lots of opportunities.

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