Gardens of the Moon (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, #1) in Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy"

May 19, 2012 Forrest rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Let me state right at the beginning that I am typically not a fan of fiction series. Too often, I have begun a series or made my way through the first two books in a series only to find that the writer ran out of steam (and new ideas) somewhere along the way. Being a writer, I understand this. Sustaining the intensity required to write one novel for any length of time is difficult. Being a reader, I've been bitten one too many times by this lack of staying power on the part of several authors. N Let me state right at the beginning that I am typically not a fan of fiction series. Too often, I have begun a series or made my way through the first two books in a series only to find that the writer ran out of steam (and new ideas) somewhere along the way. Being a writer, I understand this. Sustaining the intensity required to write one novel for any length of time is difficult. Being a reader, I've been bitten one too many times by this lack of staying power on the part of several authors. Needless to say, I picked up Gardens of the Moon only after carefully reading dozens of reviews here on Goodreads and elsewhere. Seeing the blurb by my friend Paula Guran under the front cover clinched it. Paula has discriminating tastes in fiction and won't pin her name on a book that doesn't deserve it. And so, I ventured forth.

For a book of 657 pages (of story), Erikson's novel read very quickly. This author has a good handle on how to keep the pages turning and how to move from character to character without seeming too choppy and without getting bogged down in one person's story. That isn't to say that Gardens was entirely glitch-free, particularly when it came to characters' actions or reactions. In fact, this is the first of my two criticisms of the novel: because so many sub-plots are being juggled here, and since we have such infrequent contact with all the players, there seem to be gaps between some characters motivations, reflections, and action. The most blatant example of this was manifested in Lorn, who takes a sudden swing from the disciplined, hardened Adjunct to a melancholy brooder on the self-destructive nature of human society on about page 427. I see where Erikson is trying to go with this - showing the struggle within Lorn's heart between loyalty to the Empress and feelings of responsibility for harm she has caused and the terror she is about to unleash. But it all seems so sudden, without precedent and without enough jarring of her experience to even cause her to consider questioning her past, present, or future actions. Whiskeyjack is also forcibly turned (by no other agent than the author's whim, it seems) toward a previously-absent sense of hope in humanity around page 500. This (newly-discovered?) sense of optimism just sort of pops out of nowhere. It's far too intense a feeling for the words and thoughts that preceded it; thus it feel disingenuous.

I suppose that Erikson felt he must show some kind of foil to the fatalism that permeates the work. There are no paladins in this book and very few heroes. Even those whose actions are informed by a sense of duty are often twisted by the service they give. And no one is quite what he or she seems. Masks abound, figurative and literal, and some of the characters are even masked from themselves, which creates a nice feeling of dramatic tension throughout the book.

The second flaw in the book is the muddled identity of the many non-human (more appropriately, "quasi-human") races that play key roles in the book, whether as individuals or as entire peoples. I had a very difficult time separating them out from each other. Maybe, after repeated readings, I'll get it all straight. But even the glossary was of little help and, in fact, added to my confusion regarding which races were which. Other than a few mentions here and there, racial characteristics were rarely mentioned. When they were, they were so far removed from other mentions of these characteristics that I found myself thumbing back through to try to find where that race had been mentioned before. I failed miserably. Frankly, the Dramatis Personae at the beginning of the novel and the Glossary at the end were not enough. I even went to the Malazan website to try to get enough information about the races to be able to visualize them in my mind, but to no avail. This book needs an index.

Now, given those two flaws, I hasten to say that these are the main reason that I gave this book only four stars instead of five. This is one of the better fantasy books I've read in some time. Yes, the characters could have used some more fleshing out, but I'm expecting to see some of them in later volumes in the series. Overall, I quite liked them. I was particularly enamored of Kruppe, whom I really hated when he was first introduced, not because he's a despicable person, but because the syntax of his dialogue ran counter to everything that preceded it. As the story went on, I saw why Erikson had portrayed Kruppe in this way and, in fact, learned to appreciate it. I also liked the outright wickedness of Hairlock and the conflicted internal struggle that Tattersail went through (which seemed much more believable than Lorn's internal struggle, mentioned above). I have to say, though, that Circle Breaker, one of the more mundane of the minor characters, was my favorite. He filled the role of "everyman," a working-class character who is eventually rewarded for good, old-fashioned hard work . . . of a sort.

The world of Malazan is a fully-fleshed out world, and Erikson does a good job of presenting its richness to the reader by using the dialogue between characters who have obviously known each other for some time to open windows to past events and cultural history. Some characters are famous enough that it is assumed that anyone in this milieu will know of them and their exploits. Casual bits of information about these characters are thrown about in bars or in private conversations, almost as an afterthought. But since no one is quite what they seem, it is only through seeing the characters' actions that these larger-than-life heroes'/antiheroes' legends are verified. Anomander Rake is a prime example of this. He definitely lives up to all the hype.

And so does the novel.

I am a man of limited time. I don't enter into a series lightly, and I will bail out at the first sign of fundamental weakness I detect. I simply don't have the time to waste on bad books. For now, though, Erikson has me hooked. Time will tell if he stands the test of time: timelessness. So far, so good. ...more

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Jan 26, 2009 Chris Haught rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-owned-ebook, read-owned-paperback, malazan-books, humble-bundle

This book is an incredible introduction to the series. It is a little confusing at first, but gripping at the same time.

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Jan 23, 2021 Carrie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: mgr, fantasy, goddess-gods, dark-fantasy, epic-fantasy, assassin, own, mage, mages

Now that is some good fantasy reading, I loved every moment.

Thoughts to come.

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Sep 24, 2010 Mike rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook

Note: this is really a review, mostly just thoughts on a re-read.

I first came upon Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen series on the old wotmania (RIP) Other Fantasy forums and quickly ordered a paperback copy of Gardens of the Moon from amazon.co.uk. I blew through the novel in a matter of days and was absolutely floored by what I read. Sure it dragged in some sections, and focused on a surprising number of characters for an opening novel in a series but there was something special abou Note: this is really a review, mostly just thoughts on a re-read.

I first came upon Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen series on the old wotmania (RIP) Other Fantasy forums and quickly ordered a paperback copy of Gardens of the Moon from amazon.co.uk. I blew through the novel in a matter of days and was absolutely floored by what I read. Sure it dragged in some sections, and focused on a surprising number of characters for an opening novel in a series but there was something special about Erikson’s world. A world where gods, and beings of great power visit mortal realms and where men and women dip into godly realms with a seeming ease. Where power comes at a great personal cost. It was a world filled more with the strange and terrifying than the wondrous and the amazing and for some reason, for me at least, that made it feel all the more real.

Gardens of the Moon is many ways a difficult book. It isn’t ridiculously long but it is fairly dense, with multiple points of view and very little explanation or back story to place everything in context. That lack of back story is one of the things that makes this series rather difficult at times, yet at the same time something I find admirable. Context is never present from the start and the full implications and the weight of what is occurring is not always readily apparent. Take for example the sword Draginpur. First glimpsed here in Gardens of the Moon (something of homage to Stormbringer) we learn that it is a realm unto itself and that its victims do not die but are chained to a sorcerous realm housed inside. It appears again various times in the series and its importance, and its tragic nature, constantly hinted at. It isn’t until Memories of Ice (book 3) that we begin to explore the sword further and it isn’t until Toll the Hounds (book that its ultimate purpose and destiny is revealed. Or even Quick Ben who late in Gardens of the Moon says cryptically “Awaken the seven within” somehow boosting his magical powers but the detail and full explanation of Quick Ben’s power is not explored until much later in the series. That long payoff is indicative of the series at large and the fact that much of the world remains such a mystery is one of the reasons I love the series so much.

Conversely it is also the reason I often have difficulty in getting others to get into the series as well. As an individual novel Gardens of the Moon is something of a sprawling mess hopping amongst various characters from multiple factions and lacking a central narrative to hook new readers. At first glimpse it’s easy to finger Captain Paran, particularly in the early chapters, later you might think it’s Tattersail, even later it might be Crokus or even Kruppe but the truth is no single character emerges as a definitive protagonist. Furthermore, while the narrative leans to several groups filling in for the role of protagonist those groups (for the majority of the novel) often have wildly divergent goals. The shifting factions and murky motivations would be difficult enough if we knew these characters or world before we started the novel but we don’t and so it turns the novel into a quagmire of multiple perspectives that obscures the truth and paints of everything in shades of gray. Moral ambiguity doesn’t make for particularly easy reading but it captures the tone of the series quite nicely.

While it doesn’t merge into a cohesive narrative whole what I love about Gardens of the Moon is Erikson’s phenomenal ability to capture epic moments. The massacre in Itko Kan, the slaughter of the mage cadre at Pale, Quick Ben’s confrontation with Shadowthorne, Raest’s battle with Silanah and the black dragons, and Paran’s journey into Draginpur remain fixed in my head long after the novel is over. Erikson gets better at pulling these types of epic moments into a greater narrative whole as the series goes on and what is on display here is only a bare glimpse of what is seen later in the series, or even in Deadhouse Gates (book 2).

By and large Gardens of the Moon feels like a much different beast than the later books in the series. It isn’t something I can quite put my finger on but the Malazan world feels a bit in flux. As if Erikson hadn’t decided precisely how things would work. Gardens of the Moon really feels like a lot of ground was laid for future installments. Offhand comments, cryptic hints, and foreshadowing in this novel ripple throughout the entire series. I feel like Erikson really stuck to the groundwork he put in here over the course of the series and there is really very little seen here that isn’t touched upon later in the series. However, one of those things, the thing that gave the novel its title, has gone curiously unexplored as far as I can remember. The scene occurs in the last quarter of the novel as Aspalar talks to Crokus about the moon:

It’s [the moon's] oceans. Grallin’s Sea. That’s the big one. The Lord of the Deep Waters living there is named Grallin. He tends vast, beautiful underwater gardens. Grallin will come down to us, one day, to our world. And he’ll gather his chosen and take them to his world. And we’ll live in those gardens, warmed by the deep fires, and our children will swim like dolphins, and we’ll be happy since there won’t be anymore wars, and no empires, and no swords and shields…

While the hopeful nature of that passage is obviously at odds with the overall tone of the series it is notable in that it is one of the few instance where a local custom/belief doesn’t at least tie in some way into the overall arch of the series. On its own, absent of having read the rest of the series, that quote is easily ignored. As it is, knowing that local custom in Erikson’s stories are frequently interpretations of the same thing (Fener/Tener/Tennerock being an excellent example since the boar god of war is referred to Tennerock quite a bit in GotM and as Fener in the next book). Grallin is never mentioned again as far as I can remember. Hell, it could mean nothing. It’s just that later experience has proved that local beliefs and legends, by and large, prove to be rather important.

I did come across a thread on the Malazan Empire forums that quotes some comments from Steven Erikson regarding the re-readability, and some of his process, going into Gardens of the Moon. You can read those over here and it’s well worth a look if you’re heading back to the beginning of this series. I’m still daunted by the volume of materials that lays ahead, but also excited to see how my knowledge of future events impacts my experience. ...more

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Mar 19, 2020 Chompa rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, grimdark, 2020

This was my third attempt to read this book. Both of my previous attempts resulted in me saying, "This is horrible, I'm done with it." Why on Earth did I try it again? Good question. It is frequently said that this is the best fantasy series of all time. It is also said, people love it or hate it. It is also said, "If you can get past the first book or two, it becomes fantastic." Based on that and urging from a guy in my D&D group, I thought I'll give it one more try.

It was a slog this time, bu ...more

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Nov 23, 2008 Jason Waltz rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: heroic, fantastical, series, favorite-authors, fun, awesome-characters, keeper, own, favorite, malazan

reread upgrade to 5 stars. there's been a lot of history and time between first and second reads. there was no difficulty this time; it was truly sublime to be among dear friends again; the wonder continues, expands; the emotions - witness!

I haven't reread since high school. I did always intend to reread the MBOTF...not until ICE's DANCER'S LAMENT however did the right triggers get released. this is my second book in the Malazan world reread now, with at least 2 more ahead. this is a wondrous wo ...more

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Feb 15, 2009 Nora rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Well it took 2 reads of this book for me to understand it and while it was hard the first time it was worth it the second time. Brilliant. Now for the rest of the series

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Mar 26, 2015 Mike Ray rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Intentionally dense and complicated world, but enjoyable. Multiple characters and viewpoints and wide-ranging magic. It had all the right elements, but it didn't possess me like some other fantasy epic openers have. ...more

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