Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson

Gardens of the Moon: The Blurb

Vast legions of gods, mages, humans, dragons and all manner of creatures play out the fate of the Malazan Empire in this first book in a major epic fantasy series

The Malazan Empire simmers with discontent, bled dry by interminable warfare, bitter infighting and bloody confrontations with the formidable Anomander Rake and his Tiste Andii, ancient and implacable sorcerers. Even the imperial legions, long inured to the bloodshed, yearn for some respite. Yet Empress Laseen’s rule remains absolute, enforced by her dread Claw assassins.

For Sergeant Whiskeyjack and his squad of Bridgeburners, and for Tattersail, surviving cadre mage of the Second Legion, the aftermath of the siege of Pale should have been a time to mourn the many dead. But Darujhistan, last of the Free Cities of Genabackis, yet holds out. It is to this ancient citadel that Laseen turns her predatory gaze.

However, it would appear that the Empire is not alone in this great game. Sinister, shadowbound forces are gathering as the gods themselves prepare to play their hand…

Gardens of the Moon: The Review

I have to admit, I’ve been avoiding this book for a long time now. A younger, more optimistic Travis bought an omnibus of the entire Malazan Book of the Fallen series because it was on sale, and has been procrastinating ever since.

Fun fact: starting a 3 million word omnibus is intimidating. That’s a good sized novella for every 1% read in my kindle.

I won’t say much about the plot because a) at this point you probably already know or just aren’t interested, and b) the plot doesn’t really come together until late in the book anyway. Suffice it to say, the Malazan Empire wants to conquer, and people are a bit divided about how good that is.

After hearing so much about the series, I came into Gardens of the Moon with some pretty strong expectations. Let’s dive into those and see how they held up.

Malazan is EPIC

Yes, yes, 1000 times yes. It’s epic in scope, scale, cast of characters, and sheer destruction. There’s multiple magical races, characters who’ve lived hundreds of thousands of years, gods walking around with mortals, dream worlds, and so much more. If it exists in medieval European fantasy, it probably also exists in Malazan.

There’s a giant floating city, magical pocket dimensions with distinct flavors, and a demonic puppet I always thought of as Darth Pinocchio. All in the first few chapters.

It’s confusing and the learning curve is rough

Honestly, I think this is exaggerated. I’ve read several fantasy series that had far more to keep track of (Ever read Inda by Sherwood Smith? Every character has like 7 names.) I’ve read books that were far more disjointed (looking at you, Black Company). This isn’t to say that Gardens of the Moon is an easy read. But that’s not because some readers just can’t wrap their minds around Malazan’s brilliance.

For me, the issue was finding a reason to become invested in the story. And that came down to characters and withholding information.

The larger a cast of characters is, the harder an author has to work to make me care about any one character. Malazan just throws characters at you and hopes you like some of them, since we don’t get to spend much time inside any of their heads. Some are witty, some are badass, and some have goals you can’t help but to root for. But that doesn’t mean you’ll be emotionally invested.

And then there’s withholding information from the readers. There are multiple scenes where a key piece of information–usually a character’s identity–is hidden from the reader. Despite every character present in these scenes knowing those hidden details, we’re deliberately kept in the dark. When we’re supposedly riding around inside the POV character’s head at the time, the emotional distance that establishes between character and reader far outweighs the extra tension.

Overall I found the “difficulty” of Gardens of the Moon to be overhyped. I’ve read books more challenging to keep track of all the moving parts, but they were carried by compelling characters who pulled on my heartstrings.

There are lots of badass characters

100% agree! Anomander Rake is immortal, controls a floating mountain, and can one shot pretty much anything with his magic sword. Paran has either the biggest balls or strongest deathwish of any character I’ve read in fantasy. And Kruppe may act like a fool, but he always seems to have something up his sleeve.

I do wish there had more women in the book. Pretty much every prominent woman dies, sort of dies, or gets no time on screen.

The prose is deep and philosophical

I saw enough nuggets of pure gold to suspect that there are some truly beautiful lines in Malazan. But there are some clunky ones as well, and the epigraphs seemed designed to appeal to lore enthusiasts on their third reread rather than first time readers.

Closing thoughts

For me, this was a book that promised something truly incredible to come but didn’t quite deliver by itself. From the amount of praise I’ve seen, I can only assume that later Malazan books are what convert casual readers into die-hard fans. I loved seeing the obvious influence of Glen Cook’s Black Company as well.

I will likely continue on to the second book, which hopefully does more to invest me in the characters. I’m also hoping the action scenes make me feel that the stakes are higher and put me in the moment rather than describing things from a distance.

Gardens of the Moon has definitely piqued my interest, and I’m curious to see what comes next.

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