So you’re looking for a new series to digest and have heard a lot of hype about Steven Erikson’s 10-book epic fantasy, the Malazan Book of the Fallen. You’ve heard that it’s huge and bewildering, or you’ve heard it’s an unforgiving slog, or you’ve heard it’s brilliant and sublime, or you’ve heard that it’s not nearly so impressive as everyone claims.
If you’ve heard none of these things, then, dear reader, I encourage you to quit this article, pick up the first novel Gardens of the Moon and begin your genre-warping journey through the high-water mark of modern fantasy. And if that single sentence of mine is not enough to convince you, read ahead regardless and I will explain what makes Malazan unique and worthy of your time. One thing upon which everyone can agree is that Malazan Book of the Fallen is dense as dark matter, and it is best to approach such epics knowing the full gravity of the undertaking.
Now, for those reading this who are keen on the Malazan Book of the Fallen, but might be stumbling over some inhibiting preconceptions, let’s get to the heart of whatever is preventing you from taking your shot at the series, exorcise it, and get you going. With any luck you’ll soon suckle from Togg’s teats like the rest of us. But first…
As book readers we seek one essential thing: an escape into which to feel.
Nothing is for everyone, but some works offer a far greater potential for engaging your mind. A far greater potential to inspire feeling. The Malazan series evokes a wide array of emotions in its readers because, in chronicling the history of an entire world rather than focusing on the story of a few select individuals, it brings with it a world’s breadth of passions and experiences: climactic convergences rife with dazzling magics, flashing daggers, brute strength and hectic action. Thoughtful moments of quiet observance, engaging philosophy, stoic wisdom and eloquent beauty. Brutal humanity. Animal ferocity. Humorous verbosity. Abject tragedy. With such formidable scope and a proven success rate at blowing people’s minds, Malazan should rocket to the top of your current To Be Read list, regardless of the commitment the series entails—it’s worth a read if only to find out what compels the legions of dedicated fans who’ve been converted over the years. (More on that later…) If this is not enough to convince the fickle among you, though, choose the quibble that’s holding you back and let’s start addressing some of the realities behind the series’ reputation…
You’ve heard it’s huge and bewildering:
Huge? Yep, Steven and Cam (Ian Cameron Esslemont, Malazan’s co-creator and author of associate novels) did nothing small when they created their world. In addition to numerous storylines roping across multiple continents, as well as an incredible number of worlds within worlds as found in the warrens (a chief aspect of the series’ magic system), they produced a land rich in history, where events thousands of years in the past still shape the present, both in terms of how decisions are made and in the very contours of the landmass. As an archaeologist and anthropologist by trade, Erikson brought a wealth of applicable knowledge to the project, using the growth of civilizations and the memory of the physical world as a backdrop upon which to depict the conquests of the Malazan Empire. Huge? Huge is good. Huge facilitates immersion.
Bewildering is not so good, but the term is not as much an overall assessment as it is a common reaction to the complexity of the novels, especially for beginners. It’s true that Malazan can be daunting for new readers, but here you’re in luck, because a whole community of fans have been working for years to build a supportive and incredibly helpful infrastructure online. Where theories once had to be pieced together by individual readers diligently digging through the text—working page by page like students researching homework back in the benighted days before the Internet—now these collective theories and research have been amalgamated into the Malazan Wiki page. The Malazan Empire forums are also a haven for debate, discussion, explanations, the communal piecing-together of information, hypothesis, and fact. You are in good hands. What’s even more exciting is that there are still depths yet to plumb…
One of the best aspects of Malazan Book of the Fallen, however, is that the series goes as deep as you want it to go. If you’re willing to gloss over moments where correlations are not always laid out in full, or the sometimes frustrating tendency of characters to avoid referring to one another by name, the series is still chock-full of rich action and inspired moments that keep the pace hurtling forward. Indeed, while reading the books, I came to realize that I lacked the mental gymnastics to keep everything ordered in my head—and letting go of this was freeing. I was staring up into outer space well past bedtime, awed both at the scope of what I could see unfolding and the awareness that there was so much more beyond the horizon. Life is not streamline. A moment in history cannot be fully understood without looking at what came before and what came after. A deeper conception of worldbuilding understands this fact, and then kicks it up a notch by insisting that such histories are often misinterpretations by unreliable narrators. Erikson knows history is bewildering, but you are the reader. You choose the level of detail you care to absorb. Let it go. Be of the world, don’t expect to grasp the world entire, and if you’re not determined to get to the bottom of every Easter egg and potential connective thread, give up any preconditions you have where you need to know. You’ll still have Caladan Brood and his massive hammer. You’ll still have ingenuitive wizard Quick Ben. You’ll still have the undead blademaster Onos T’oolan. And it helps to note that each book becomes less bewildering with each reread.
Of course, a lot of people say, “I don’t want to read a series if I have to reread it just to get it all.” It’s important to consider what kind of fantasy series inspires such rampant rereading in its faithful in the first place. Mediocre books reap no such devotion. Neither do a lot of excellent books where the story runs straight from beginning to end as the crow flies. So many fans of Malazan Book of the Fallen have read a wide array of other fantasy, and other genres, and yet they return to the series over and over in an effort to better comprehend the depth of the worldbuilding. To appreciate strands of the narrative web they missed before. Having reread books 1-9 myself back in 2011 (in preparation for the tenth book’s release), I can tell you from personal experience that the series shines upon revisitation. Loose threads become connections. Epiphanies uncover previously unidentified figures. Stray sentences and bits of interior monologue reveal themselves as dextrous foreshadowing. Some of these links and correlations are still being revealed, as a recent fan discovered an instance of foreshadowing from Book Two, Deadhouse Gates, that ties in to Erikson’s current Kharkanas trilogy—three novels set thousands of years in the series’ past that shed light on characters and races prominent throughout the Book of the Fallen. Those who love this series tend to cherish their rereads, and with no novel is this more true than Gardens of the Moon, where the action begins in media res and readers generally have a very different perspective on events the second time around, once free of what’s often considered “the slog”…
You’ve heard it’s an unforgiving slog:
The series is most definitely unforgiving. Whether it’s a slog is relative.
First, the “slog.” Yes, Gardens of the Moon in particular can be hard for some readers to get into. One of my closest friends tried three times before mustering himself to finish the book—and he had my enthusiastic guidance. Erikson himself admits this flat out in the preface to the republished Bantam UK mass market paperback edition:
Beginning with Gardens of the Moon, readers will either hate my stuff or love it. There’s no in-between. Naturally, I’d rather everybody loved it, but I understand why this will never be the case. These are not lazy books. You can’t float through, you just can’t. Even more problematic, the first novel begins halfway through a seeming marathon—you either hit the ground running and stay on your feet or you’re toast.
—Steven Erikson, Gardens of the Moon preface (xii), 2007
Some readers will hit the ground running and fall in love immediately. It happens all the time. The world resonates with ancient secrets and mysteries, whole races and various individuals flush with power. The novel is riddled with duels between rooftop assassins, cataclysmic battles, dreadful beasts and yes, even a few dragons. The core soldiers known as the Bridgeburners present a potent mix of witty quips and infamous efficiency. The deific presence of the Lord of Moon’s Spawn, Anomander Rake, Son of Darkness—who happens to possess Dragnipur, one of the genre’s all time bad-ass grimdark swords—is a palpable force that can easily draw a reader in without qualm.
Others will falter, and there is no shame in that. A slog is a slog if the novel doesn’t catch you right off. But Gardens of the Moon should be given greater leeway than your typical fantasy debut and here’s why: the story is vast, masterfully conceived, and it’s finished. The bigger the story, the bigger the potential payoff, and once you move beyond Gardens of the Moon that payoff becomes more and more apparent as you approach the final novel. This is a series that was conceived and plotted principally in the years before it was first published, meaning each novel progressively draws the readers towards a climactic end game. Unlike, say, certain hit TV shows—whose showrunners are forced to constantly expand and add to the premise of the first season, attempting to preserve continuity and create meaningful new storylines season by season—Malazan has always been, for all intents and purposes, pre-conceived and self-contained. This means that despite the weaving, challenging nature of the story, it rarely (if ever) gets tied up in knots of its own design or stumbles over plot holes or glaring omissions. Unlike many of the vast, sweeping epic fantasy series with no real end in sight, The Malazan Book of the Fallen is also satisfyingly complete; the stunning task of penning all ten books in a mere 12 years yet another indicator that Erikson is a special author. His commitment as a writer created a series more than worthy of commitment on the part of its readers.
Now, you might also be wary of the ‘unforgiving” nature of the series. That description is absolutely true. Erikson approaches his books with the attitude that if you are having trouble keeping up you should read harder, which can be disconcerting for many readers who assume, relatively reasonably, that the chief job of an author is to tell his or her story with complete clarity. As stated above, these are not lazy books. Erikson works at making you work. The thing is, there are a metric ton of books nowadays that don’t make you work at anything, and are chock-full of explanatory exposition. It is easy to fall into the trap of reading nothing but fluff as the years grow longer and our lives grow more complicated with age. It is too easy. As Tyrion Lannister once said, “A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone.” Diverge too far from great literature and complex, ambitious works, like the many exceptional and challenging fantasy series uplifting the genre in recent years, and you go soft. It becomes difficult to find the time to challenge yourself. That’s why I praise the books’ unforgiving nature: in demanding attention and then rewarding that attention, they gradually build themselves into something both brilliant and sublime.
You’ve heard it’s too brilliant and sublime:
This is what’s staying your hand? You don’t enjoy brilliance? Sublimity perplexes and angers you? Relax. Dedication is required, far more than an impressive vocabulary or penetrating critical intelligence—you simply need the ability to see Gardens of the Moon as a stepping stone towards something bigger and read accordingly. And as I’ve noted above, if it turns out that you enjoy piecing together subtleties and foreshadowings after the fact, the series invites further investigation on any number levels once you’ve scaled the heights of all ten books.
You’ve heard it’s not so impressive as everyone claims:
First off, report the names of such rabble-rousers in the comments below! (Not really.) Second, a story:
I began reading Malazan Book of the Fallen in the early 2000s, around the time House of Chains was released. Despite impressive reviews and the support of Stephen R. Donaldson, it was relatively unknown—dwarfed by the success of A Song of Ice and Fire and (al)Thor-like magnitude of The Wheel of Time. Thus, when a stranger flat out insisted on the superiority of this newfangled series on an Internet forum, I was skeptical.
However, whose accolades are known are prone to challenge: we are creatures of habit, and we defend that which we love. One only needs to look at fandoms the world over to see how rooted we humans become in our choices, our favorites. These choices meld with our personalities. Fandom becomes a part of who we are and how we express ourselves. A stranger praises your favorite band? Instant connection. A stranger trashes your favorite movie? It feels like an unwitting attack on your ability to “correctly’” ingest media. But here’s the thing: when someone claims an unknown property is quantifiably better than your current favorite, everyone – everyone – gets their back up. As did I, along with a few other forum-using unbelievers.
So when these co-unbelievers opted to take this stranger’s challenge… only to come back utterly converted to Malazan Book of the Fallen… everything changed. That was not how it was supposed to work! What happened? How could they go and just prove the stranger right? What kind of series could walk all over my thrice-read favorite? Was it luck? Coincidence? Could it just be that good? The only way to find out was to start reading.
This is still true.
Seventeen years after Gardens of the Moon was first published, the accolades are numerous and well known. They are prone to challenge. The series has reached a level of fame where people who have not even read it nevertheless tend to have formed an opinion. Reddit forums like /r/fantasy are near sick to death with listening to the praise of faithful like myself, or filtering through the ongoing hype that refuses to die down. Understandable. There are lots of great fantasy series out there and very little time. We’ve probably all experienced this phenomenon before: the more dedicated a fantasy aficionado you are, the more tiresome and redundant the repeated endorsements of other more populist fans can become. This in turn leads to lower levels of tolerance and a kind of knee-jerk contrarianism. Boosters promote a book too enthusiastically, boo-birds attack a book too viciously, and newcomers are left to navigate the white noise. Don’t let this sway you. Such responses are both acceptable and inevitable.
See, it is typical that the more popular a property becomes the more detractors it takes on. There is a natural proclivity in people to discredit a work because they deem it disproportionately popular compared to their own personal likes and dislikes–the dreaded, dismissive “overrated.” But let’s not forget how a series becomes popular in the first place—particularly because Malazan is not like most series. Erikson’s popularity has risen at a steady pace over many years, the daunting nature of the series culling half-hearted readers early on until only dedicated fans remain. Its popularity should not be considered in the same light as series like The Wheel of Time or The Kingkiller Chronicle or A Song of Ice and Fire where success came relatively quickly, far-reaching and stratospheric. These series achieved exponential success. Malazan’s success is more linear, maintaining a gradual increase in popularity despite having started from an esoteric niche not necessarily conducive to immediate mainstream success. The elements that set the series apart, such as Erikson’s unorthodox incorporation of poetry and philosophy, serve to emphasize the magnitude of this anomaly, but also give us insight into the source of his staying power. Years later we faithful still crow! We still believe there is no greater success story in fantasy. We’re secure in our knowledge that Erikson has written a series that defies conventions, retaining the integrity and artistic merit of its most ambitious conception even as it grows in mass market popularity.
And this is all part of the criticism the series faces—whose accolades are known are prone to challenge. The difference between detractors and proponents may create a wider gulf with each review and discussion as new fans find their way to the series, but in the case of Malazan few who walk the walk find cause to disavow themselves. Of course, the only true way to expel inhibiting preconceptions or mixed messages is to pick up Gardens of the Moon and give it a whirl…
Joel Minty is the author of Purge of Ashes, Book One of his Imbalance series, and is currently seeking representation. He lives in Toronto with his wife, son and daughter, and can be found online at www.joelminty.com, on Twitter @JoelMinty, or anywhere good fantasy novels bring people together.
This is high on my list of books to start once I finish Wise Man’s Fear, but just a small physics peeve, Dark Matter is NOT dense. There is just a lot of it.
Ok, back to Malazan now.
As someone who just recently started Gardens of the Moon, I can see how the book is considered bewildering. It dives right in, explains very little, and the motivations for the various characters (beyond just survival) aren’t obvious. But at this point I haven’t fallen into either the “hate it” or the “love it” side of the debate. So far I’m interested, but it hasn’t pulled me in to where I can’t put the book down. Some books do that. I read each of the first two books in The Stormlight Archive within a couple of days of their release. I loved WOT and have re-read that series more than once. Other series never manage to pull me in. I’ve started ASOIF numerous times and never managed to make it all the way through the first book before deciding I just didn’t care. I recently started reading The Kingkiller Chronicle (because why not start reading several new books all at the same time) and so far I’m impressed. I’d like to think I’ll enjoy the Malazan books, but the jury is still out. This review makes me somewhat more wary; it’s good to know there’s lots of resources like wikis and forums, but that implies I’ll NEED those resources. I suppose I’ll see how the rest of the book goes.
Is it me, or is this article basically a big “it must be YOU, not the series” if you don’t like Malazan? Something about the tone…
@2, I’m in the middle of Gardens of the Moon and feel pretty much the same way. I don’t see myself putting it down though as there is a handful of characters I like and want to see where it goes. I’m also really stubborn when it comes to books. There’s only 3 books that I’ve put down unfinished. Based on everything I’ve read, I’ll give this series at least two books.
@Nick31
There are also a lot of resources on the WoT and the Stormlight Archives… but you dont need them. The same is true for the MBotF. You probably wont understand everything that happens or who everybody is in Gardens of the Moon. But if you can trust Erikson that it all does follow an inherent logic you will learn in later books that it actually did. Judging from the preferences in epic fantasy you stated you should probably read at least Gardens of the Moon and Deadhouse Gates – otherwise you risk giving up on the MBotF before you realized that you actually liked it ;-)
@sterling
This always the problem with this discussion. The MBotF is not for everyone. It cant be and is not meant to be. But the reasons some people really love it will alway sound condescending to those that dont like it.
MBotF ranks as one of my favorite fantasy series of all time.
Even if you’re confused by the steep learning curve and plethora of plots and characters at the outset, stick with it. Erikson is phenomenal at characterization. Not only does he write some of the best character pairs in the genre, he can introduce a character on one page and have you mourning their death on the next one.
To all – if you are considering a preliminary test drive of the series, I’d recommend sticking at least through Book 3, which is really, really strong. I’m less enamored of some of the later books but Book 3 is awesome, and should be read before you decide whether or not to proceed further.
I started reading this series almost 2 years ago (currently at the end of Dust of Dreams, with all of Esslemont’s books worked in from the order Bill and Amanda have posted in their re-read). It has taken me a long time because I’m a slow reader and because Malazan is so heavy, I chose to read one or two things that are a bit lighter between each book (stuff like Dresden Files or Sanderson’s Reckoner series).
Anyway, I was so incredibly lost at what was going on at first, but I definitely fell into the “love it” side once I got into it and started understanding what was going on. Great series, worth the time and energy invested (and I still have 1.1 books to read). I will eventually re-read the whole thing, but it might be a few years down the road before I do.
Bonehunters chapter 7 might be the best chapter of any book I’ve ever read. Could not put it down.
Reading this series is work. You can’t sit back and enjoy the ride because you will end up lost in the middle of the woods with no idea how you got there. I normally devour books, reading them whenever I have the smallest bit of free time; like walking from the parking lot to my office. This series was unique in that it was the first time I willingly set the book down and came back to it a day or two later without disliking the story. I simply needed time to recover and prepare myself. I think the series is great, but it isn’t a relaxing escape like most stories, it is a research project.
#5 @@@@@Kah-thurak – So you’re saying to just consider everything in this first book as an investment for later enjoyment? :) Fair enough. I can do that. There are enough interesting characters to keep me reading for at least a couple books, as long as I know that the pieces will start fitting eventually. You’re right about the resources for WOT; I didn’t know about those until I was well into the series. In this case I might take advantage a bit earlier, to at least sort out if I’m rooting for the good guys or bad guys.
#4 @@@@@Jason_UmmaMacabre – I used to be stubborn about finishing books, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that if I don’t feel like reading the end of a story then it’s probably not worth my time. The book has either annoyed me to the point of not caring or bored me. Either way the satisfaction I’d get out of finishing isn’t worth it. That isn’t the case here. It might not get finished right away, but I will make some time for it.
#10 @Nick31, It’s pretty much the same with me. Two out of the three books that I’ve stopped reading have happened in the last year. I think its because I have so much less time to read than I used to that I don’t want to waste the precious little time that I do have on a book that is just unsatisfying.
I started Gardens of the Moon, and couldn’t continue after several restarts. I’ve tried hard to figure out why Malazan doesn’t work for me, and I seem to have come to one conclusion: it’s for purely aesthetic reasons.
I have a friend who’s been dying to get me to fall in love with the books. I once confessed to him that one reason why it fails for me is how artificial it all feels: how “manufactured” the work is. On one level, I truly admire the vastness of his creation. I can’t for the life of me, finish my own fantasy story, so I give the author that respect. But I don’t read novels to enjoy the cleverness and craftiness of the writer: I read to share in the lives of the characters. And if anything gets in the way of an authentic relationship with fictional characters: if I feel they are not being genuine, I put them away like I do perceived “false friends”.
As I needn’t remind you, this is a very subjective matter: as subjective as love is. Objective qualities don’t matter at all, and I can hold both in my hands: I can admire the objective qualities of the work, yet not form an intimate relationship with it.
I remember reading Tolkien’s Return of the King in a quiet classroom one afternoon in high school. When Meriadoc stabbed the Witch King on the back of the knee, I screamed and got stairs. I was huddled in the library reading the Silmarillion, and shed a tear after the Nirnaeth. I was gloomy the rest of the day, because I mourned the loss of my friends.
I panicked when Tyrion Lannister nearly drowned, and speed read through the Red Wedding so I won’t experience the horror of the murder of the King of the North.
I’ve tried to fall in love with the characters of Erikson’s book. It’s just not going to happen.
Is it just me or is Tor really pushing this book right now for some reason? Is there an anniversary or something?
@@@@@ 6: Characterization is, I think, the biggest reason why somebody either loves TMBotF or doesn’t. I personally think that characterization is Steven Erikson’s weakness, especially consistent characterization. I mean character’s personalities, ages and backstories change from book to book (I know, don’t pay attention to the timeline!). The characters just feel like RPG characters that Steven and Cam were playing in their various RPG campaigns.
Also, I’ve seen a lot of people over the years say how they can fall in love with Erikson’s characters after one page but that is the opposite of what I’ve found. I have only really cared about two characters, Trull and Karsa (and it took some time for me to warm up to Karsa TBH). So it really shouldn’t be a surprise that HoC and MT are two of the three best books in the series IMO (my favorite Malazan book being MoI, like RobM said @@@@@ 7). I also liked parts of The Bonehunters and RG (although the actual Bonehunters parts of those books are what I found to be the weakest parts, YMMV) but like I said in one of the other posts I absolutely hated TtH and stopped reading the series at that point.
I haven’t read any of Cam’s novels. I have been thinking that maybe I should try out one of his books and see if that can compel me to finish this series.
At #3, I’m afraid I’m gonna have to say it’s you. This article goes waaaaaaay out of its way to make room for “different strokes for different folks” diplomacy, which is fair enough, and even acknowledges without bashing outright detractors.
I guess I am one of those few people who was hooked immediately. After the first 50 pages of Gardens of the Moon, I knew I was in it for the long haul. I thought Gardens was an excellent book, and didn’t have any trouble whatsoever learning the characters, or understanding the new magic system. I read for pleasure without trying to understand every single sentence, and didn’t worry if something seemed confusing. I would suggest, as another comment did, to read through book 3, Memories of Ice, prior to quitting the series. That might be the best book I’ve read in my life, no exaggeration. It was incredible beyond words, and is considered the best in the series by many fans.
@10 Small recommendation. I had similar issues trying to figure out who was “good” and who was “bad”. Stop trying to categorize every action and character. There is no “good” and there is no “bad”. There are characters who do what they do for various reasons at a given time. What they do one day may contradict what they do another. You’ll root against characters on one page and turn around and pull for them on the next. One thing about this series is that it will turn your already formed notions on their ear. This was most of the fun for me. And you can’t quit until you’ve met Kruppe, Karsa, Icarium, Tehol, and Bugg. You just can’t. To be clear I quit the series 3-4 times in the first couple books but because I kept seeing all the posts urging me to continue I committed to it and tried again. I have after all slogged through stuff that was worse in every way. Once I got into book three it wasn’t a commitment. It was an addiction. It’s over a year later now and even though I finish a book a week I’m still in the Malazan world. I may never completely leave.
A recommendation from my side: Maybe it’s better to start with Deadhouse Gates (the second book in the series) than with Gardens of the Moon.
DG is a much better book than GotM in any way you look at it. As far as I know, Steven has written GotM about 10 years prior to DG and it shows.
DG happens on a different continent, has only a couple of characters from GotM and starts several new story arcs. In my opinion, knowledge of what happened in GotM is not required to enjoy DG. Then you can go to GotM to learn more about the Bridgeburners and Pale and then off to MoI, for even more epic moments than in DG.
This is how I, and several other friends, were hooked on the series by our Malazan crack dealer. :)
@12 and @13 – this is exactly why I’m skeptical of starting the series. Every description I’ve heard of it is how sprawling and awesome the WORLD is, but I hear very little about the characters themselves. And now reading this, hearing that the work spans ages and doesn’t really focus on any character’s story but sounds more like a history, well, I doubt I’d enjoy it that much.
I’ve read tons of fantasy where the worldbuilding is strong. Sanderson’s got his whole cosmere thing going on, and while I don’t read much into it, knowing it exists is pretty cool. ASoIaF obviously is a huge world and GRRM has some histories laid out in the anthologies, but it’s not imperative to know. The series itself focuses on the characters, and how they’re shaping history.
Every time I read about Malazan, I get the impression that that’s not the case. I get glassy eyed when books turn into history lessons. I never liked history class because there was no reason to get invested — the events happened, I know the ending, and hardly anyone is sympathetic.
But, some day I will try to read it. Some day.
@18
The worldbuilding is extraordinary. But isn’t the be all and end all. The history is visible on the page, but not poured down your throat so if you care, you can piece together fragments through the books to understand a lot of what happened and why, but if you don’t, it doesn’t affect the core plot.
In honesty, Erikson excels at character. He can paint a sketch of someone’s entire life in a single page so well that when we move on it actually hurts. At one point a demon is summoned and dies barely a paragraph later, and almost every reader mourns the demon. That’s good writing. Most of the primary cast have their own journeys, cut short or no. Some few travel so far you can barely even recognise them from the character they started as.
The primary cast in any book (outside of the numerous soldiers) is really around a dozen characters and 3-5 main story threads, 2-4 main characters per thread. All the comments about a cast of thousands are true, the notable secondary cast is probably well over a hundred named people by the last books, but you learn who they are through accretion over time, and plenty die along the way to keep numbers manageable.
@18: It’s not so much that there are no great characters, but rather the opposite: there are so many of them, but explaining why they are so great would involve massive spoilers.
@17: I somewhat disagree: Kalam’s choice at the end of DG lacks impact if you don’t know about the events in GotM.
I picked up Gardens of the Moon at an airport bookstore 15 years ago. So far, I’ve re-read the entire series 3 times.
The best thing I can say about this series is that it makes me look at life differently in so many ways. When someone asks me why I have changed (hopefully for the better), the two things I point to are my family/kids and Malazan.
I’d like to say that it has made me a better, more compassionate person…
Plus, every time I re-read, I appreciate new and different themes. For example, I hate the Mhybe storyline until I became a dad. So I’m just waiting for the next time I can afford the emotional challenge of another re-read!
Some number of years ago I was talking with Glen Cook about Malazan and he mentioned, “Erikson is really good but he sure can be rough on his characters.” Erikson writes characters that I (and many others) care deeply about. You really can’t have tragedy if there isn’t also caring and compassion.
The darkest darks and the lightest lights combine to show us all of the gray in between and illuminate a world and story of stunning scope.
Enjoying the sensible discussion! Hope readers enjoyed my article regardless of what side of the Malazan they fall on.As for characters, there is an upcoming article which takes a light-hearted look at the characters to separate them from this entire debate – so anyone interested in focusing on the characters themselves, stay tuned to TOR.com…
Thank you. This has moved me to add Malazan to my “To Read” list.
I’m reading Gardens of the Moon right now, actually–started it last week, and I’m only about an eighth of the way through. It’s pretty good so far, though I suppose I’m not far enough along to really see the scope of it yet. Looking forward to finishing it though.
I started reading these books some years ago. Yes, they tend to be a bit of a slog but a rewarding one. As are the companion books not by Erikson, himself. A word of caution, though — I tried to read the new series on my Nook and it didn’t work for me. With a paper book you can easily go back and check something out, refresh your memory, etc. These digital dealies do not seem to be a good way to process this kind of density. I am going to try to reread Gardens of the Moon on my device, but I may end up having to find the hard copy book wherever I stashed it…
This sounds like my kind of series. I love worldbuilding, I love intelligent writing, I adore finding new things on rereads. I can’t start now, as I just started grad school and need to reserve my reading time for academic papers (siiiiigh), but I’ll put Gardens of the Moon on my list. Maybe I’ll read it during quarter break… or maybe I’ll wait until I’m done with my degree… I don’t want to become obsessed with something new in the middle of graduate work!
I’ve never understood the complaint that GotM is too dense. I’m not saying it’s a cakewalk, but it’s also no Book of the New Sun (just to grab at another mainstay of the f/sf genre). If anything, I’d prefer a little more concision — I’m only 3 books in, but so far it seems to me that if you removed all the times characters repeat stuff that the reader already knows (or ruminates on how awful war is), each book would probably be 100 pages shorter.
One other reason to dive in to Malazan that I almost never see anyone mention is that if you stop after book 1, 2, or 3 (and maybe the others, for all I know), you’ll feel like you got a complete story. There are definitely some series where it feels like the real meat of the story is just around the corner — I feel like even if I never read another Malazan book, I’d feel the time was reasonably spent.
I have read Gardens of the Moon three times trying to get a grip on it. I do not usually take so much trouble with a book that I find difficult. Now I intend to move on to the rest of the series. After I read the first one again. Just to be sure.
As the original author and several commenters have stated, new readers to Malazan have to be willing to read past areas where you are obviously missing context. The context will come, but not necessarily quickly. I can remember telling my wife upon my first read of GotM that I had no idea what the heck was going on in the first 100 pages. I’m sure glad I stuck it out.
I am currently on my second re-read of the series, about half way through, and I am picking up a lot of things I missed the first time. Especially the subtle humor and banter that many of the characters share. It’s like eavesdropping on old, dear friends that razz each other.
Finally, the range of emotions that Erikson evokes is enormous. He can take a character and make you care for them so much, then an awful tragedy happen and it rips your heart out. Conversely, sometimes, rarely, a character experiences beautiful joy. It’s rarity is probably why the impact is so great.
I loved Gardens of the Moon – I learned from reading Gene Wolfe that a great author rewards careful reading and this sure paid off. The whole series is a very impressive work, however a sour note did appear at about the halfway point. Erikson gives us more and more philosophy as the story rolls on and I just started to get tired of it. Too many characters have internal monologues about the nature and meaning of life and society. This becomes really noticeable once we encounter Lether and I have never been able to emotionally engage with those episodes set there as a result. None of it is individually bad, it’s just there’s so much of it.
I’m waiting to let time clear my palette before I read the last two volumes. The series is such a monument, so deep, so impressive and contains some of the best reading I’ve ever enjoyed. I don’t want to go into book nine with a bad attitude.
I think for me i didn’t really get sucked in until the 3rd book in the series (Memories of Ice). The first book was a big WTF am i even reading, the second is mostly different characters so it was like beginning anew, and while that one was ok the 3rd massive of all massive volumes was where i started to get goose pimples at the sheer majesty and scope. I will say that other series that made me work for it like Bakkers prince of nothing i found it all clicked a lot sooner than this series, but definitely worth it.
He’s a little shaky on the character building at first, but the world building is where this series really shines.
I like (not love, not hate but like) the series, but I hate this article.
I don’t like the author equating a byzantine plot with great literature. Those two are not correlated. Old Man and the Sea had a very simple plot, but it is a genuinely great novel. Malazan is entertainment. If you want to argue otherwise, THEN DO SO. Don’t simply state it as if the audience should accept this is as a known fact.
I also don’t like strawmanning critics as resenting the popularity of the series. What myopic vision led to this daft conclusion?
The only reason I knew about Malazan was because of a single person posting on a forum once. If I bring it up to anyone, even sf/f fans, they have no idea what I’m talking about. They have never heard of the Malazan series or Steven Erikson.
But the real problem is that the critics have legitimate viewpoints, which the author does not engage with but instead pretends do not even exist. I know that the point of a publisher owned blog is to sell more books, but c’mon! Give me a break! The author should have at least addressed common complaints and offered rebuttal.
I can’t imagine that this article would persuade people to read the series. The hyperbolic praise and the one sided view feels too cultish to be appealing. We really need to hear from more moderate minded readers. Not lovers, not haters. Just people that can have an honest discussion about the merits and flaws of the series.
I think I got up to the bonehunters before I gave the series a “break” to go read other things. Unfortunately this break has lasted YEARS and now I’ve no idea how I’m going to get back into it. I loved the books while I was reading them, but the thought of starting again is daunting. I’ve considered reading summaries of the books, but that feels like I’m going to miss so much.
However, reading this articles might have just given me the courage to hop back in back at the start…..
Also, I have no idea of this will be controversial, but I’d recommend reading Night of Knives before starting Gardens with the moon……it helped me get into Gardens of the moon much quicker than I felt I would have otherwise (this was recommended to me by a friend who had already read much of the series). However, there are things that people would consider spoilers for Gardens of the moon in Night of knives…..so be warned
@20 I would agree with you to start with GotM. In fact, I recommend everyone just read the books in the order they were published, not chronologically. The one time I avoided this advice I slipped in Return of the Crimson Guard in a recommended order according to the one of the timelines, and while it was good, it did ruin a few surprises for me that I otherwise wouldn’t have come across.
Nevertheless, it took me several times to really get into GotM. In fact, I initially wrote off the series after failing to get past about page 100 and then read Erikson’s intro where he states some people will love it and some people will hate. I figured I just fell into the hate it camp. Then, some time later after feeling that I should give it a second chance, everything just clicked. I still didn’t have a clue what was going on initially, but I felt as if the story being told was interesting enough to keep on going, and wow, does this series ever grip! How come the last time I couldn’t stand it, but now I love it? I’d say I progressed in my likes. If you asked me today, I would not hesitate at all to say that TMBotF is simply the best fantasy (hate to just limit it to that genre though) series of books ever written. In fact, the only series I’d say even approaches it would be LotR and the Silmarillion, but mostly in terms of scope, history, mythology (which to me really elevate a series). While I do love some others, they are clearly on a lower rung. Well, the various Sun series from Gene Wolfe are also excellent, but I have trouble comparing those to anything.
I LOVE this series, although I did find Dust of Dreams quite hard to read. I first read Gardens back in 2005 or so and I was hooked straight away. I love the world, but I love the characters more and the way little in-jokes get carried for the entire series (people getting Rannalled, for example). The duos are great too Fiddler and Hedge (Fid is one of my favourite characters in the books, and it was awesome finally seeing him play the damn fiddle later in the series) Trull and Onrack, Picker and Blend, Tehol and Bugg are just a few examples of these awesome buddy duos in the series. Hellian cracks me up, Hedge is amazing and just a bit insane, Iskaral Pust is great and the only priest in fantasy I’ve encountered who will deliberately piss off his own deity. I adore these books.
DavidW@33:You might want to take a look at the Malazan re-read posts here. They are chock full of every sort of review and insight one could desire — pro, con, like, love, hate. You name it, someone has probably mentioned it.
You are doing yourself a disservice if you don’t read at least the first two books.
After reading a couple eloquent tributes to the series on reddit, I went out and picked up Gardens of the Moon and Deadhouse Gates in July. I took to the first book slowly, reading it on the train or during lunch breaks. Although I was often bewildered, I just took each chapter as a new story, expecting it would all come together for me. It was, until I left the book on an airplane in August. I had maybe 100 pages to go. Fortunately, Tor gave out the free mobile copy two weeks ago so I was able to finish it after a four week intermission. The climax was spectacular, and I can say I’m invested and excited to read the next nine books. I started Deadhouse Gates yesterday at a diner.
Like most things, Malazan is overpraised by its fans to the point of lunacy, but also criticised by its critics rather unfairly. I think most readers appreciate that it is, in the main, a highly above-average epic fantasy that tries to do things differently with enormous narrative and literary ambition, and it sometimes comes close to fulfilling those ambitions and sometimes it falls massively short.
The good points are the anthropological approach, where each race has lots of different cultures and societies that are informed but not solely defined by their racial characterisitics; its gender-blindness when it comes to politics and warfare; characterisation of the primary cast, who are complex and diverse figures; the use of people of colour for almost its entire primary cast; it’s highly unorthodox but powerfully effective plot structure; its prose ambitions; making each novel stand alone whilst simultaneously part of a wider tapestry; a surprisingly effective use of humour; its sense of morality (scenes of mass carnage and warfare are presented as morally reprehensible failings of diplomacy); and its interesting magic system and metaphysics, which are initially defined but constantly interrogated and rearranged as the series progresses. It also has tremendously broad worldbuilding, with a world of hundreds of nations, races, cultures, religions and languages, a real melting pot on an epic scale.
The weak points are characterisation of the secondary and trinary cast who are often made up of interchangeable idiot-savants and philosopher-soldiers; occasional descents into purple prose; frequent and occasionally jarring retcons; scant, if any, attention made to the timeline; inconsistent geography (entire continents mysteriously move around between books); a little too much reliance on other books and even other authors to resolve key plot points that really should have been resolved in the core series; characters being bizarrely obtuse with one another about information they all privy to solely to preserve reader surprise at forthcoming plot twists; and an over-reliance on deus ex machina endings, particularly the first novel in the series which is almost undone by it. A key weakness is that the worldbuilding is very broad but also rather shallow: there is a sense that neither Erikson nor Esslemont is particularly interested in the core details of their socities and cultures, and almost no interest whatsoever in their histories. You won’t see detailed fan essays on the history of the Malazan Empire or Lether like you do about Andor, Westeros or Middle-earth because those details simply do not exist.
Whilst the Malazan series is rife with problems, I do feel that it rises above them to become something quite different to a lot of epic fantasy on the market. It aims for the stars and if it falls rather short, it’s still trying to do something interesting, original and progressive, with more of a moral sense to it than other fantasy series which reveal in violence for its own sake. Certainly I feel that, at the very least, Deadhouse Gates and Memories of Ice are required reading for any serious fan of modern fantasy. It’s a key but not flawless work.
@@@@@ Werthead. I think that’s a very fair description of Malazan. I don’t agree with all of it but, hey, different people, different strokes. Firstly, I think you’re right about the characterisation. Critics talk about the poor characterisation and I genuinely wonder if they’ve even read the books. Wonderfully brought to life and much more so than other more popular fantasy authors. But that’s the main cast and the lesser characters, yeah, idiot savants and philosopher soldiers does sum them up to a certain extent.
I wouldn’t say scant attention was paid to the time line but there are definitely a few children who shouldn’t be as old as what they are depicted as being.
The exact position of the continent of Lether has been rather vague.
Too much reliance on other books and Esslemont to resolve key points? Yup. Can’t disagree with that. There were a few storylines that seemed to drop out of the series that had been built up to be important.
I disagree with the deus ex machine endings. Some were set up in advance, others were just kept frustratingly vague.
Your last point about history. Well, I think that’s a matter of taste. One of the things I love about Malazan is the subversion of tropes. Sometimes Erikson takes a flamethrower to them and I really appreciate that and maybe, pure speculation here, maybe that’s what is going on here. The detailed histories and obsessiveness of detail that fantasy fans crave, and I’m just as guilty as anyone, can be a trope in itself. Endless appendices and releasing details on author blogs and so on. It’s fun but really, it’s not that important. It’s the themes of Malazan that are important. War and hatred and greed for wealth or power, certainty of judgement. All of this is shit. We should be more compassionate and caring. We should be doing our best to leave the planet a better place for our kids, not fucking it up for banal and venal reasons. That’s where the real value of Malazan lies. That and a fantastic story too.
Phenomenal article, Joel!! Very nicely done and majestically executed!!!!
The author of the article basically admits that you have to read the entire series, and even goes so far as to suggest you re-read the series, in order to fully comprehend/appreciate it.
Sorry, not going to do it when the first book was so unbelievably weak. I honestly have trouble believing that the other books are better written. Rather, I believe that people simply got so invested in the characters and story as they continued to slog through (yes, slog), that they couldn’t stop themselves from actually finishing after having invested so much time and effort.
A good example of this, with me, is the Wheel of Time series. The first few books were fairly well written and exciting. I was enjoying the series immensely up until book 5 or 6ish. At that point the series dove off a cliff and became a slog in the most brutal sense. More characters were introduced, more of the world was uncovered, more plots and sub plots started meandering along… all for the sake of ‘world building’. I seriously wanted to shoot myself in the head it was so awful, but I could not stop reading. I was so invested at that point that I had to know what happened. I had to finish. Fortunately, towards the end of the series (just before Jordan passed away and after Sanderson took up the reins), things really picked up again and started hurtling forward at a break-neck pace again. The end wasn’t perfect, but at least the journey was over and I had my closure (15 books later). If you ask me to this day whether they were good, my answer is a definitive ‘meh’. I made it through, but did not enjoy all aspects of the journey.
Summed up = Density and complex world building do not a good book make or good writing equal. In fact, I pretty firmly believe the opposite. Want an example of good writing? Try Hemmingway’s minimalist approach. What’s not said speaks volumes more than some complex web of inter-related garbage that can only be deciphered through multiple readings.
This is where my middle finger goes up and stays firmly in a solid salute position. He basically indirectly insults my intelligence and insinuates that I didn’t ‘hit the ground running’ or was ‘lazy’ if I didn’t like his first book.
I have read dense books that were good before, but yours was not one of them. You know something is utter garbage when an author has to write an apology/explanation to try to excuse themselves in the preface.
I don’t have enough patience to push myself through multiple books while I wait for the story to ‘get good’. It’s one of the problems I have with the Fantasy genre in general. Some authors ask for way too much of my patience. At least make book 1 interesting, for heaven’s sake.
I also have a problem with the idea of a book being good only after you’ve read the whole series. I went back to Good Reads and read the reviews for Gardens of the Moon again the other day. Almost every 4 or 5 star rating came from someone who had already read all the other books. Almost all of the lower ratings were from people like me = first timers.
To me that means the book, taken in and of itself, is pretty terrible. So stop trying to sell me on Gardens of the Moon being a good book, it’s not.
@43/44 The author of the article is not saying you MUST finish the series or reread it to enjoy it, but that there is so much that is either subtle or unnoticed during a first read that later has a much larger affect than expected or that isn’t explained until later because of just how far reaching the other actions in other books are. The scope the series attempts to cover means that something that happened 50 years ago or on another continent still has relevance to what you are reading in the moment. In book A so and so drops their knife while running away, and then in book M so and so happens to find this knife at just the right time. You don’t appreciate or see the relevance the dropped knife for like 6 books, and even then you may have missed that it is the same knife until you reread the series.
As for the whole “hit the ground running” line implying that lazy readers won’t like it, that isn’t quite true. Firstly, most people read as a leisurely hobby. I don’t blame anyone who doesn’t think having to use an appendix on occasion for a hobby is relaxing. It’s also a complex series with hundreds of characters minor and major that takes place over decades. Keeping things straight without constant info dumps will be hard for almost anyone. Look at how they had to simplify Game of Thrones for the show. For a lot of people it’s just more than they want to keep track of for what should be a relaxing and enjoyable activity. Erickson saying that you will need to read the books like you do a text book for your final is not him insulting anyone’s’ intelligence or work ethic, it is him warning readers as to the degree of intensity of the books.
And using Hemingway as a comparison…I don’t recall Hemingway ever writing anything where there are cultures, laws of physics, and magic that don’t exist outside of his writing that need explaining…It’s probably not an accurate comparison.
It seems like the critics for GotM are being unbelievably harsh for what is essentially entertainment. It isn’t as though someone is forcing anyone to read these works. Personally I enjoy novels that make me work for it at least a little bit. WoT, SA, ASoIAF, all three of these epics make the wheels turn, albeit in different ways. All three have their strengths and flaws. I don’t know if Malazan will turn out to be as great as those three for me but I for one am willing to continue. I read GotM and it hits all points on the complexity meter. I also like books that can stand up to a reread and still reveal new things.
It’s a subjective thing. I was hooked on SA from the beginning but I read a lot of Sanderson previously. It took a book and a half for WOT and 3 books (Red Wedding) on ASOIAF to become rabid. They all gave me enough to continue even when they dragged at points. Gardens gave me enough so far, even with the degree of difficulty. There is a good sign. After I finished I was compelled to read something, anything. It honestly made me a bit restless. Basically I have a new series to buy. YMMV of course.
I think that there is a basic misunderstanding going on here. Gardens of the Moon is not a bad book. It is actually pretty good. I rate it a 7 or 8 out of 10. Most other series reach these ratings with their best books if at all… The point here is that GotM does not show the full strengths of the MBotF while having most of its weaknesses. So if you stop reading the series at this point you never get to see what Erikson can (or at least could) do at his strongest. And you only need to read one more book to do so. So everyone who likes the MBotF will say: At least read Deadhouse Gates before you give up.
I’ve had Gardens of the Moon for a while now, but have never been in the mood to start, but since the Tor.com ebook club recommended it, the skepticism factor has definitely set in. I’ve started it, and I don’t love it or hate it thus far, (I’m only on the third or fourth chapter) but I’m intensely skeptical about any popular books/series that people keep raving about. It’s like that for me going into GotM. A Song of Ice and Fire and Throne of Glass also fit this description for how I first got into them, of these two, I liked the former fine, but I didn’t love it, and I could not stand the latter, I was barely able to finish it. For me the skepticism kind of keeps me at a distance, preventing me from being immersed in the story. I find that when I do start to read books like these, I go into it with a (perhaps overly) critical eye, I would look for almost any flaw to justify my skepticism. For example, at the moment, I’m wondering when and where the bicycles would show up in the Malazan world because a character is described as having a handlebar moustache. I don’t like that I’m obsessing over this description, but I can’t help it.
@45, I don’t read text books for finals, but I find myself flipping back to the beginning of the book to check stuff even though I’m only a couple chapters in, mostly because I’ve been warned how complex this book is. But the thing is I don’t think I should have to read it like a text book, there are only so many hours in a day. The history and geopolitical landscape of a fictional world does not interest me. It’s the characters that make me stick with it, and that’s what made the difference for me for ASoIaF, which hasn’t been happening yet for me in GotM. I think I would tend to agree with @44 about books that get good after you finished the series (though I never thought that the author was trying to insult my intelligence). In the look-back post for the Malazan Re-read, one of the reviewers mentioned the entrance of Anomander Rake as a significant/totally awesome event, and I’m just wondering if that’s the Sorcerers’ battle at the fall of Pale or if there’s a trick in there somewhere, ’cause I didn’t see what’s so great about it if it is his big entrance. I think it goes back to the character thing, Anomander Rake doesn’t mean anything to me yet. Maybe later if I get far enough in the series I’ll look back and be impressed at how the author arranged the events and it’ll take on a new meaning, but being impressed like that would be on an intellectual level for me, and I don’t think it would be an emotional engagement with the characters.
All this is not to say that I’ll stop reading, nor even that I won’t come to love the book, I’m just tired of people telling me how good it is and why it’s so good. Can I please be allowed to decide its merits for myself? I guess I’m a little conflicted about this series. I hope like it, but I’m dubious and I don’t want to just agree without really thinking about why.
@tkThompson
What people mean by the “entrance of Anomander Rake” is something that happens later in the book, not the Battle of Pale.
I think that most people who like the MBotF realize that not everyone will share that opinion. If you take (the early books of) ASoIaF as a comparison one of the reasons for this is pretty obvious: one of Martins strengths has always been to make the actions of characters completely comprehensible to the reader, even if they are actually pretty irrational.Erikson does not even want to do that. You get some insight into the motivations of the characters, but not much more than with people you might meet in real life. This is in the end a matter of taste. Some people read books exactly to get what Martin delivers – those will always find it difficult to like the MBotF. Others, like myself, like both approaches for their different advantages (though I am deeply dissappointed with developement of ASoIaF after A Storm of Swords – but that is another matter entirely).
EDIT: Also, you probably should not get too involved in trying to figure out every detail of GotM by flipping back and forth in the book – it cant be fun and wont really work anyway. Just read it, and either you will read it again some day because you really want to and find out what some things were about or you wont.
@45 I think you missed the point of my comment on Erikson’s quote. His first sentence acknowledges that the book is polarizing (which is the only good sentence in the quote), but then he spends the rest of the paragraph trying to defend his writing by passing the onus for the bad writing onto readers that were ‘lazy’ or ‘didn’t hit the ground running’ (whatever that means). He absolutely knows what he wrote was trash, so he felt the need to add an excuse to his preface. It’s a classic example of someone trying to scapegoat their own short comings by pointing the finger at someone else. Erikson strikes me as the lazy one here.
Fine, you want to split hairs on my comparison, then I’ll choose another = Enders Game. Enders Game is written in a very straight forward and almost simplistic style. There’s very little nuance to the prose and in many ways it could, stylistically, be compared to a book written for young inexperienced readers. Yet, it delivers an emotional rollercoaster of a ride, makes you question many of the character’s and society’s motivations, and leaves you with both a feeling of triumph and tragedy. It’s a very satisfying and complex narrative, all while avoiding excess verbosity, heavy-handed metaphors, and over-wrought plot arcs that only matter if you make it to book [insert number here]. It’s a vastly superior book in every possible measure, despite being far more simplistic, especially because it does not require me to read 9 more books to fully appreciate it.
That aside, in the end, the story in Gardens of the Moon is just not that good. A lone city preparing to defend itself against an evil empire that unleashes an ancient horror on the city… yawn… all pretty basic. The fact that it gets needlessly convoluted and meanders through a huge cast of un-likable characters doesn’t really help it. I can’t help but think that a lot of people rate it highly simply because they think Anomander Rake is cool (he is, but not enough to make the story good).
@50 I don’t think I did miss your point, I just disagree with your interpretation of it and of your acceptance of the different reasons people read what they do and the different styles of writing they prefer. I also disagree that it’s trash. At a basic level, whether you like the story or style or his use of techniques, the intricacies of plots and the skilled use of linking random realistic events coupled with his world building should be acknowledged. To call it trash is simply not accurate. Maybe it isn’t you’re cup of tea, maybe you think it’s over-rated, or maybe you are just tired of hearing about it. Either way, on a literary level there is no way it can be considered as bad as you say. At first, it was a bit too fantastical for me, but I then came to enjoy the change from the classic high fantasy style, the different character types (which, yes, aren’t as fleshed out in GotM as they could be) and their strange loyalties (that protagonist type characters seemed to be working for antagonist type systems interested be greatly), and the confusion/complexity that realistic information/misinformation/rumors/POV brought to the book. It was these things that made the first novel worth reading to me, which don’t necessarily stem from the world-building, and I can see how they require a certain interest and focus (as opposed to intelligence or being willing to work hard) that not everyone will share that Erickson is including as part of his reasoning for having to work for the series.
As for Ender’s Game, I did enjoy that book and those that followed and agree with your assessment of them, but I still disagree with using that as a comparison. My point about inaccurate comparisons and the depth to which Erickson goes (great depths in order to bring his world to our imaginations) in his world building is because we have no basis to understand his world unless he writes it. Ender’s Game is based on the future of our world, of Earth, and so concepts and backgrounds for the Ender’s Game world are ones that Card assumes we already know, needing only to explain the world from a certain point on, as one would in a textbook. Card goes from us here and now to his story. Erickson goes from as far back as his characters cultures can remember to what you are reading now. Other books or book series that take place in different worlds not based on our own offer up true comparisons.
As to the story, yes it is simple and not as original as it could be, but how Erickson does it that I found enjoyable (the stuff listed above).
@gwar
Yes,,, except that it isnt. That is, so to speak the very first layer. There are more if you care to look for them. And even if you only consider Gardens you can find them. But obviously you dont have to. I love Enders Game. It is a very different book, but certainly among the best SF I have read so far. And if that is exactly what you are looking for in a book I can understand why you dont like the MBotF very much… to get the personal connection to the characters you get in Enders Game, you have to read at least 3, maybe more of the books. That simply isnt Eriksons focus. You should consider though: Not everything that is different from what you personally like best is “trash”.
@49 Kah-thurak, thanks for clearing up my question about Anomander’s entrance. I was flipping back and forth just trying to remember the characters at the beginning until I can keep them more or less straight, Erikson doesn’t really focus on any character for too long in the first couple of chapters. I’m getting used to that style now, so it’s slightly easier going, but it’s still really dense. I think the way I read secondary-world fantasy is to see the world through the eyes of the characters, and I can’t do that with Gardens of the Moon. It’s a bit like the later Wheel of Time books (Before Sanderson), I can’t really remember what all the words were about except for one or two huge events (I forgot that Rand lost a hand for crying out loud!). And GotM doesn’t have the benefit of characterization done in earlier books. I want to say that I don’t see the advantages of making characters opaque to readers, because I don’t think I can care about what’s going on if I don’t care about the characters it’s happening to, but as I haven’t finished the book yet, I don’t want to judge it prematurely.
It’s obvious to me that whatever this book is, it certainly isn’t trash. I don’t believe for one second that trash books could maintain the following and fanbase that this series has. Whether it’s a particular reader’s preference is a completely different ball of wax. For example, I am not a fan of Twilight, books or movies. Yet my wife and millions of fans besides will swear by that series, are absolutely in love with it. It resonates with a great many people. Therefore, not garbage.
Maybe Malazan isn’t your thing. Eriksson acknowledges from the get go that these novels will not appeal to everyone. It’s not a bad thing. As far as me, I liked the first installment, didn’t love it. I liked it enough to want to continue. I can say the same for Wheel of Time and Song of Ice and Fire. I’m willing to invest my time in what may be a great read but if you aren’t then that’s obviously up to you.
For the record, I also loved Ender’s Game. It’s the novel that started me in the sci fi fantasy genre in the first place. However I think it would get boring if every book I read was like that. Complexity isn’t bad, nor is variety.
I think that the big problem that people are having with these books is that they fall into the realm of literature rather fiction, the difference being that literature requires a little work on the part of the reader, while fiction can just be read through easily.
That’s totally fine if the reason you read is simply to enjoy a really good yarn, like you are watching a TV show, but more cerebral. It still exercises the brain muscle, and you become more smarter for having done it. My grandmother was an avid reader, two trips to the bookstore every week. She devoured books like no one I’ve ever met before or since. Granted, all of those books were romance novels, or Tom Clancy, or Clive Cussler, or the like, but she still had one of the sharpest minds I’ve ever encountered. So no fault exists on the part of those people out there who just enjoy fiction.
Erikson isn’t just fiction. He is a man who clearly loves language. He makes you use a dictionary because he uses the words he loves without worrying if others are offended by encountering things they don’t know. He loves the techniques of great writing. He laces all of his work with complex foreshadowing and symbolism. He writes poetry, GOOD poetry to lead off chapters. He doesn’t write easily, so he can’t be read easily.
His only crime is the genre he writes in. Thomas Pynchon doesn’t get people trolling forums calling his books trash. No one goes to James Joyce fansites to say what a shitty writer he is. I personally never got past the first 50 pages of Ulysses or the first 10 of Finnegan’s Wake, but that wasn’t because Joyce wrote “trash”, it’s because I wasn’t willing to put forth the required effort to enjoy it. There is no blame to be cast at me or him. It’s simply the way it is. But Erikson and Esslemont write challenging fantasy, so they are fair game for anyone with a keyboard and five minutes to spend shitting on the lifeworks of other people simply because they wouldn’t put forth the effort and felt that someone needs to be vocally blamed for it.
Erikson and Esslemont have spent years of their life creating a fully-realized universe that was intended to up-end all of the genre tropes we have gotten used to, including the one that says fantasy novels are easy to read. They challenge the idea of easy answers and one-sided moralities that we have gotten used to in the genre. They do it with a style and emotional commitment that brings fully adult humans to tears, repeatedly.
So if you’re showing up just to call these works “trash”, you’re simply using your precious time on earth to attempt to invalidate and shit upon the thoughts and feelings of a large amount of people who have just as much right to think and feel as you, the difference being they don’t shit on the things that are meaningful to you. So, gwar, and any others who feel the same, perhaps these books aren’t for you after all, because first and foremost, these books are about compassion and empathy. So please read what you want but don’t come trolling. I assure you, your input and your “middle finger” will not be missed.
And yes, I wrote “more smarter” intentionally.
@51 Ok, I understand your interpretation of his quote. I don’t agree with your interpretation, I still feel he was trying to scapegoat his bad writing, but I get it.
Still splitting hairs on the comparison… so sad. There are far superior contemporary works that are also set in alternate worlds. Tigana and the Name of the Wind are two that pop to mind immediately. Far superior to Gardens of the Moon, despite them both leaving much up to interpretation, having a lot of unexplained magic, mysteries, and character motivations AND simple contained plots that are housed within the framework of a larger and more complex narrative/world. Happy yet? They are both so much better than Gardens of the Moon that I feel somewhat bad even comparing them to it.
@53-56 All of you, working together, basically proved my whole point for me. My entire point is housed in comment #43. Gardens of the Moon is not a good book. It’s just not. It may be part of a good series of books, I’m willing to admit that’s a possibility, but all of you (including the author Erikson) have basically said that I have to read more for it to be good. I have a problem with that logic. I think that makes it a bad book, not a good one. For first timers like me, there’s not much to love.
Instead I get the response that I need to read even more and slog through more to get to the good. Sorry, not going to happen. Gardens of the Moon was absolute trash; I would need a better first book to motivate me to read more. I’ll just quote myself again here:
Edit: This comment was erased because it should never have existed in the first place. My better angels are still frowning on me. Even when one feels provoked (and feelings are always unreliable), one should not act in anger. My sincere apologies to the moderator for the necessity to get involved, for anyone who read the post, and to gwar for any hard feelings engendered.
@57, 58 – This discussion is becoming too heated and personal. Let’s agree to disagree, and move on.
My ramblerant, having just finished first-reading GotM but not started the rest:
I didn’t love or hate it, and am unsure why I should have. I found it mildly entertaining, sometimes more enjoyable (usually when Kruppe was around, because Kruppe is wonderful) and sometimes less. It didn’t seem any more complex than WoT, ASoIaF, or Stomrlight Archive, but Tor rereads have showed me that I was oblivious to a megaton of complexities (especially in SA) while greatly enjoying those books. More exposition would’ve been nice, but the guides provided or linked by Tor compensated well enough that I sometimes understood what was happening. I read books mostly for the characters, language, and setting, which were fairly good in GotM; a comprehensible and uniquely interesting plot would be a bonus. I plan to continue reading the series. But for my simple but firmly-held tastes, it’s frankly gonna need more wildlife, and preferably something and/or someone aquatic, to have a good chance of being truly memorable and loved. More purple prose would also be nice.
It makes sense that a large series of large books, intrinsically requiring a large time investment to read, would tend to inspire stronger differences of opinion between those readers who found it worth their time and those who didn’t. I might’ve given up on GotM if I’d have the print version. But as audiobooks providing background noise while I do other things, Malazan is intriguing enough for now.
Gardens of the Moon is a book filled with mysteries. It starts in the final stages of a huge war which is barely explained, the characters all seem to have decades of history behind them and their motivations aren’t clear and there is little in the way of explanations with only Ganoes Paran as a surrogate. The magic system is extremely obtuse.
However the characters are interesting, the writing good and the world seems real in a way that other high fantasy just had never matched when I read this. I was hooked with GotM; I wanted to find out more, to figure out just what was going on. Everything going on in this book is eventually made clear as the series continues.
However as the series goes on more and more mysteries are introduced and many of those do not pay off very well. The world starts to show itself to be far broader than it is deep. Eventually cracks in the narrative start to appear (the timeline issues, etc).
Still there is much good stuff to be found here, but I would recommend this series only to people who already like reading epic fantasy series. The Malazan Book of the Fallen is very good for a fantasy series, but it is not great.
[I can only recommend the first two of Esslemont’s Malazan Tales series.]
i picked up Gardens of the Moon to have a series to read in between stormlight archive releases. Turns out this series will most likely surpass my love of that series or at least be equal to it. This book was instantly awesome for me. I agree with this article 100%. Don’t be afraid of a challenge. Also I personally found the story in this book not to be too hard to follow. After page 100 I couldn’t put it down. The last time I felt this way about a first book in an epic was when I read The Way of Kings. Except this series is finished!!!!
I cut my teeth on the Lord of the Rings when I was thirteen. After that experience neither length nor complexity can intimidate me anymore!
Length is good, it means you won’t run out of reading material quickly. Complexity……well wikis are wonderful things don’t you agree?
I was deeply bored by it. I wanted to like it, but no one really grabbed me and while the warrens intrigued me there wasn’t a lot to go on. I started it again and again and never really felt immersed or as though it was worth it to hunt down who was talking. I’ll try it again eventually, but it just isn’t interesting.
@64 HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Yeah, ok, princessroxana. Read the Malazan series first and then come back and say that. Those books are some of the most complex (but still enriching) in all of the fantasy genre.
@66: What’s so funny? That’s how I felt before listening to the Malazan series, and how I still feel after finishing it. Length is desirable — 400-500 audiobook-hours, in this case. Complexity is OK and wikis are helpful, as is the Malazan Reread of the Fallen.
Also, I still do not love or hate it. I enjoyed it well enough to listen to the whole thing, but it wouldn’t make the Top Ten in the fantasy serieses I’ve read. Not a matter of writing quality, just an imperfect mesh with my exact tastes. I guess this means I’m extremely weird, though I knew that already.
After i finished the series, i read Esselmonts books and realized that Gardens would have been easier had i read Night of knives first. Maybe this will help some people to appreciate Gardens. Anyways, I’ve read a lot of Fantasy in the last couple of years and MBotF is on top of my list.
This article is as long, rambling, disjointed, and boring as the books.
Don’t give the world building excuse. That is simply an excuse for the above descriptors. Long does not mean good. Switching between many different threads does not mean a book is intricate or deep. There is something, in fact a lot, to be said for writing with an economy of words. Folks like Tolkien did it, weaving a world as deep and immersive as any ever created, with far less description and rambling.
Erickson’s writing reminds me of MMORPGs. Lots of details, threads, directions, and rambling, and no compelling, cohesive story or plot. But it surely sucks in many that can’t seen the monotony.
Tell me a damn story, don’t relate a boring history in a billion words
I actually began Gardens of the Moon because I was searching for a fantasy series that was reminiscent of FromSoftware’s Dark Souls series of games, and some random reddit user recommended MBotF. I am a massive fan of GRRM’s SoIaF series, so much so that I compare my reading life thus: books I’ve read before A Game of Thrones, and books I’ve read after it. Gardens of the Moon is nothing at all like AGoT. However, I do care for the characters, I enjoy the magic, the deities, and the grim-dark vibe of the world.
It reminds me of Michael Moorcock’s Elric saga, of which I am also a huge fan. Anomander Rake is a bit like the negative of Elric, at least aesthetically. I do see myself reading Deadhouse Gates, but probably not before delving into some of Mark Lawrence’s stuff (I’m very curious to see if the hype is real). As far as Gardens of the Moon, I think the grimness does remind me a bit of Dark Souls, in that it is a bit confusing and ambiguous at times. Erikson employs a writing style in which something happens in this chapter, only to be explained in the next chapter, which can be a little off-putting, but I’ve actually come to enjoy it.
Well, I don’t think there is a more divisive series out there – definitely a marmite sandwich set of books. I’ve read them all, bought them in one set to see what the fuss was and leapt straight in. I actually enjoyed Gardens of the Moon, Deadhouse Gates and Memories of Ice. The rest – not so much. Some good characters, decent battles in places but a general tendency to be very repetitive, especially with regard to the characters. I can almost hear an editor going ‘Okay Steven, what’s different about this character’. ‘He’s a very powerful warrior – with a sword.’ ‘Oh okay, but didn’t the other fella have a sword too?’ ‘This one’s got ghosts in it.’
Some of the powerful ‘characters’ and tribes are so similar as to be almost indistinguishable. I liked the bridgeburners, and some others, but there isn’t a lot else to love. The storyline isn’t as complex as some are making out, (and there does seem to be a tendency amongst fans to deride anyone who doesn’t like the series as not being clever enough to ‘get it’) – the worldbuilding isn’t actually that deep. Oh, and the prose – there is one book that had a bunch of kids wandering around a desert philosophising as they went – I nearly stopped reading there.
The whole series suffers from being based on an overly long RPG campaign that should probably have been a lot shorter. It’s epic in length only.
Ah. Yes. I’ve heard this so many times. I’ve tried to get friends into the series, but they just can’t make it through book 1.
I loved it from the first pages. I don’t know why people find it so hard to get into. It is by far the best, best series I have ever read. When I finished it, all other fantasy was ruined for me because it was just too simple and predictable. (“The Lord of the Rings” is most definitely not included here, because I still love that story.) The only series I’ve truly enjoyed since is “A Song of Ice and Fire” by Martin. The story isn’t as complex as some think it is; it just takes dedication and attention. Erikson is a philosopher, and maybe people feel he can ramble too much, but I enjoyed it. It was like taking a walk inside his mind.
I could go on and on about why I love the Malazan story so much, but I’ll keep it simple:
1. It is totally unpredictable.
2. The characters are very unique. There are no stereotypes.
3. Anomander Rake. Silchas Ruin. Tehol and Bugg. Need I say more?
4. It had my attention the whole way through.
Okay, I will stop there. My one big gripe is that I can’t find the 1st edition hardcovers of “Deadhouse Gates” and “Memories of Ice”. Not without paying $300 each, which I can’t justify.
These works are so divisive, I think, because in the end, everyone is right. In other words, these works are both brilliant and infuriating. Midway through the series, I’m still not sure whether I like or hate the books. That they are masterful works is unquestionable. They are genius and astounding. But do I actually like them? Well, I’m finishing them, which is more than I can say for a lot of stuff out there. Each book contains parts I absolutely love. For me, the crux comes down to Erikson’s tendency to be impenetrably vague. Some folks seem to revel in the lack of clarity, enjoying both I think the challenge in reaching comprehension, and the sense that such obscurity filters out the common rabble. A lot of fantasy readers I think like to feel like they belong to a select secret and elite group. Being a fan of these works automatically puts you into such a group. Or at least, that’s the perception I get. There are many out there for whom I’ve recommended really excellent works of fantasy, but who opt not to read the work, solely because of its popularity. I was at my wits’ end with someone who felt that way over Name of the Wind. Fair enough, if the work has reached such wide acclaim that almost everybody likes it, then it must not be that good. A fallacy, but there are many works out there that fall into this category, and so the inclination is understandable. The question I keep coming back to as I’m reading is, what did Erikson want me to get out of this? It’s one thing to craft a puzzle. It’s one thing to rely on incomplete information to move the story forward; in fact a character’s lack of complete information is what most often moves *any* story forward. It’s another to withold information by reflex, or out of a desire to create mystery. Imo it’s a story-telling faux-pas to be in a character’s mind, have access to all their thoughts, then suddenly have the character allude to some obscure and unexplained topic *in their own mind.* This happens constantly in these books, for reasons I cannot discern except to intentionally keep the reader in the dark. There certainly can be excellent story-related arguments for doing so, but it’s tough not to suspect Erikaon of doing this just because he likes to, and not really for any greater purpose. It’s the illusion of mystery, but is instead an empty sleight of hand. But it does create a feeling in the reader of being swept up into events on a grand scale, events they can’t possibly understand or fathom. I’m merely pointing out that I’ve read novels that generate that same feeling and still manage to tell the reader what’s going on. Implying that one merely need be smarter, or more alert, or “read harder,” whatever that means, seems to me an exceedingly snobby way of defending sometimes needlessly unclear storytelling. All this is to say that there’s nothing wrong with loving and idolizing these works; those sentiments are completely justifiable, but there’s nothing wrong or deficient in the folks who feel too lost or annoyed too often to really embrace these works, either. There’s no getting around the sense that on occasion, our sense of the world is only hurt by the lack of clarity, rather than strengthened by it.
With great effort, I read GotM. Slogged through Deadhouse Gates, and finally stopped. This was not enjoyable. While I enjoyed the story, I simply could not read it. My wife absorbed the books without effort (being transported from this world and reappearing days later ready to pick up where life left off).
Only now, having listened to the audio-book version of GotM can I fully appreciate and enjoy it; picking things up that I had missed in the reading.
So for anyone who struggled with reading; anyone who has ADHD or dyslexia or who struggle just to read average-level material, I highly recommend the audio-book versions. I listened to GotM each day, driving to & from work. Then made excuses to run to the store to pick something up, or other errands or excuses to be able to just drive around and enjoy the story. My brain is just not wired for this type of reading. My wife’s apparently is.. Give it a second chance.
I just started Gardens of the Moon yesterday and burned through the first 150 pages. From the very beginning readers are thrown right in next to the characters and feel and see everything as the characters do. I have only been reading fantasy for 4 years, and, as a result have many books to read. Currently though, Gardens of the Moon is the most immersive book I have ever read. As I haven’t finished the book, I cannot rank it. But, already Steven Erikson has vecome my favorite author.
I can see the complexity and sense of not knowing what is going on daunting. I went into the book knowing this, and I think that was for the better. However, if you get past that, the complexity and feel of the book is refreshing and makes for an unputdownable read. You have to know more about the world and characters.
Took me over two years but I read all the 10 books – and I would not recommend them to anyone. The first ones are good, but the three last ones are such a slog. They clearly need an editor, you could cut the books by a third without losing anything.
Many interesting points have been made so I will not repeat them but just add:
– Erikson is in love with himself and his writing and you can feel it. Pages of poetry that nobody reads, hundreds of page of low level philosophy about how life is suffering and meaningless and nihilism.
– There is no story. A friend asked me to explain what the books were talking about and I could not. No idea even after I finished them. It’s a succession of events, with no real story. The main plot makes no sense and is just retcon after retcon. The whole world is incoherent and inconsistant.
I did love some parts, some characters were great (Tehol and Buff and a few others), and I feel there is a good story somewhere inside this mess. But it needs to be reworked.