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syllareads 's review for:
Gardens of the Moon
by Steven Erikson
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
So perhaps I made the mistake of starting both the Wheel of Time and Malazan: Book of the Fallen at the same time and what about it?
There are fantasy books like WoT, where the reader might get overwhelmed by the number of names but where the unknowing protagonist saves the day by acting as a bridge between the knowing cast and the reader.
Then there is Malazan, a book that bothers with explanations exactly zero but drops bombs on you like "oh, hey, here's a god" and "also, there's Elder Races that are literally thousands of years old, bye!"
You absolutely cannot expect any help from this book whatsoever and yet I love it.
Gardens of the Moon is the first book in the Malazan - Book of the Fallen Series by Steven Erikson, and, as I already mentioned, it's a lot. The world feels unbelievably old, partly because of said Elder Races, partly because there's just so much history connecting the entire Malazan Empire, there's so much history with the Ascendants (a title the Gods in this series carry...ascended from what though??) and generally, there's just. so much.
What struck me as fascinating was that mostly, things seemed to happen to the protagonists instead of them making things happen - often, meetings happened by chance (Hah!) or opportunities presented themselves to the cast from out of nowhere. Missions and dreams seemed to carry the plot as much as anything live humans did (I bother with this distinction for...reasons). There's something incredibly old and loaded behind the arguably young cast (in comparison; most of the cast is anywhere around 30 and....40? 50? I have no idea honestly) and I'm intrigued to find out more about it!
All in all: Malazan is imo far more complicated at first glance than WoT; my two comparisons for the two series, at least for the way they work, would be Eragon for WoT (yes, obviously WoT is far older and also far larger than Eragon but the unknowing protagonist is a trope Paolini uses well in his series!) and The Black Company for Malazan; both of the latter are very much in medias res books about a battle-weary people stuck in an endless war between their lords and whatever else there is in the world. I have to say, I'm connecting easier to Malazan than I did to the Black Company because there's at least some explanations here and there but so far, I think I can say with confidence: I don't get it and I will not get it until I continue on.
And I can't wait.
There are fantasy books like WoT, where the reader might get overwhelmed by the number of names but where the unknowing protagonist saves the day by acting as a bridge between the knowing cast and the reader.
Then there is Malazan, a book that bothers with explanations exactly zero but drops bombs on you like "oh, hey, here's a god" and "also, there's Elder Races that are literally thousands of years old, bye!"
You absolutely cannot expect any help from this book whatsoever and yet I love it.
Gardens of the Moon is the first book in the Malazan - Book of the Fallen Series by Steven Erikson, and, as I already mentioned, it's a lot. The world feels unbelievably old, partly because of said Elder Races, partly because there's just so much history connecting the entire Malazan Empire, there's so much history with the Ascendants (a title the Gods in this series carry...ascended from what though??) and generally, there's just. so much.
What struck me as fascinating was that mostly, things seemed to happen to the protagonists instead of them making things happen - often, meetings happened by chance (Hah!) or opportunities presented themselves to the cast from out of nowhere. Missions and dreams seemed to carry the plot as much as anything live humans did (I bother with this distinction for...reasons). There's something incredibly old and loaded behind the arguably young cast (in comparison; most of the cast is anywhere around 30 and....40? 50? I have no idea honestly) and I'm intrigued to find out more about it!
All in all: Malazan is imo far more complicated at first glance than WoT; my two comparisons for the two series, at least for the way they work, would be Eragon for WoT (yes, obviously WoT is far older and also far larger than Eragon but the unknowing protagonist is a trope Paolini uses well in his series!) and The Black Company for Malazan; both of the latter are very much in medias res books about a battle-weary people stuck in an endless war between their lords and whatever else there is in the world. I have to say, I'm connecting easier to Malazan than I did to the Black Company because there's at least some explanations here and there but so far, I think I can say with confidence: I don't get it and I will not get it until I continue on.
And I can't wait.