Gardens of the Moon
Malazan Book of the Fallen #1
by Steven Erikson
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I discovered this fantasy series through Jeff Cannata, one of my favourite podcasters. He has released a YouTube “book club” series where he discusses the entirety of the 10-book Malazan saga, which made me interested in reading along. After Foundation, I was looking for another big series to dive into.
The novel takes place in the Malazan Empire, and we spend time with two main groups of characters: on the one hand, we have soldiers and mages who fight on behalf of the Empress, and on the other hand, we have the citizens of the city of Darujhistan, the next target of the empire’s conquests.
The series has a reputation for being confusing and difficult to get into, and I would have to agree. We often encounter scenarios that are already in progress, and the context is left unexplained until you read further and the pieces come together. Add to that the sheer number of characters, all with shifting loyalties and secret agendas, and it can be a head-scratching reading experience at times.
At first, I enjoyed the feeling of cluelessness, or rather, the feeling of slowing clueing into how the world of the novel functions. Every scene has enough cool stuff going on–magical spells, hand-to-combat combat, political intrigue, meddling gods–that it’s always entertaining. It wasn’t until around halfway through the book that I began to understand which characters to root for, and I mean that as a compliment.
But I have to admit that I eventually grew fatigued and lost track of the plot. The fantasy elements remained fun enough for me to enjoy it on a scene-by-scene level, but it became difficult to care about any specific characters because their motivations were no longer clear to me.
I don’t think this is the fault of the author, and I believe that he succeeded in telling the type of story that he wanted to tell. It just requires a bit more commitment from the reader than most books. If I’m to continue with the series, I’ll probably need to take notes as I go along.