Gardens of the Moon (Malazan Book of the Fallen : 1)

Rating:
Summary: Those who persevere with this will be rewarded BIG TIME...
Review: "Mane of Chaos...Anomander Rake. Lord of the black-skinned Tiste Andii...who has looked down on a hundred thousand winters, Who has tasted the blood of dragons, who leads the last of his kind, seated in the Throne of Sorrow and a kingdom tragic and fey...a kingdom with no land to call its own." - Steven Erikson, Gardens of the Moon

So Steven Erikson introduces one of his major characters. This series is quite simply outstanding, grandiose, magnificent - the word epic is often used as a cliche but if ever a series is worthy of being called that, this is it. It's staggering in its scope.

Erikson's narrative style is to throw you in the thick of the action with minimal background information. This can be quite disconcerting when starting this book - you just don't, and won't, know what the hell's going on. You won't understand how magic works, what a Warren is, where the Malazan empire actually is and what the hell is a Tiste Andii anyway??

It'll be like that for the first hundred pages or so. Keep up or be left behind. You'll find yourself rereading various passages, trying to glean some tiny seed of understanding. It can be pretty frustrating, not knowing a damn thing about anything. But Erikson gives you enough teasing glimpses of quality under the survace for you to feel that understanding is just around the corner if you keep perservering with it, even if you don't initially understand what's going on - Erikson's world is incredibly rich in detail and history, and this is slowly revealed as you get further into the book.

And the more this world - and the storyline set in this world - is revealed the more and more impossible it gets to put the book down. The originality is quite amazing, and it's a MAJOR rush when you start to piece things together. Everything starts to fall into place. It's called approaching comprehension - and it creeps up on you, till you get to the last page of the book and realise that you can't wait to go back to the bookstore to get the second in the series, Deadhouse Gates, just so that you can find out more about this world and the people who live in it. Then when you finish that you'll want to get the third, Memories of Ice. And the fourth, House of Chains. And the fifth, Midnight Tides. And so on and so on...and the best thing? It gets better and better and better as you get deeper into the series - if ever there's a world and a series to lose yourself in, it's this one. Not only that, the rereadability quality of this series is amazing - better than anything else I've read before. Two very enthusiastic thumbs up.

Rating:
Summary: Wow. Unreal. Fabulous. A top 5 book
Review: This book is absolutely fantastic. George RR Martin needs to set up a throne along side of him for Erikson as the reigning kings of fantasy. Huge in scope, massive, pleasantly dense, and one of the richest stories I have ever read.
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Not for the feint of heart, and certainly not for the "light" reader. Gardens simply takes your arms and yanks into the Malazan Empire and lets you choose sides. Wow, what an ambitious project. DO yourself a favor and buy this book--no matter the cost, because you will find a spot for this book right next to Martin, Kearney, Hobbs, Marco and Keyes as the best fantasy writers alive today (or ever?).

Rating:
Summary: Excellent series with a somewhat slow start..
Review: The book Gardens of the Moon is enjoyable. It's often compared to both Martin and Jordan, and to be quite honest, if you like both Martin and Jordan (or either), you will love this series as a whole.

There are few great fantasy writers out there that have good enough plots, characters, and intrigue to keep you going, and Erikson is certainly up to the task. This book is difficult to follow at first. You are thrust into the middle of things to an extent, and there is little explanation of all the events going on around you.

My first take on reading this book was that Erikson is a 9 year old dungeon master pitting too many super powers against each other with little control, rules, or thought. However, this illusion dies away as you read on through the series. At the time of this writing, there have been 4 books released, and the wonderful thing is each book brings you new understanding of all the books before hand. If permitted the time, I'd love to read this series a second time, because I'm sure all the books would take on so much more meaning.

Anyway, of fantasy authors I've read (and I've read virtually all of the major ones), I'd say Erikson easily is top 3. If you're into fantasy you've almost certainly read Jordan and Martin, and so you really have little to lose by picking up Erikson. Many people don't enjoy this book as much on first inspection. I emplore you to read through book 2 before making any decisions on Erikson as an author though.

Rating:
Summary: boring
Review: I would never have thought that a detailed description of carnage might be boring, but Steven Erikson has managed it. Page after page of protagonists trying not to retch, then riding about a bit, and when, on page 49, true emotional depth begins to color the tale and the characters might be filled with relevancy and turned from computer game stereotypes into human beings - the narrative breaks off and resumes two years later with the next field full of blood and gore and the next person not throwing up. Ha, ha. I will do that when my wife tries to talk to me while I watch baseball on tv. Skip the next few years, I mean, and she's gone. Makes for a peaceful life, doesn't it. Well, anyway, 50 pages is what ever book gets. Though this one had already put me off with the Dramatis Personae. I should have known better than to continue after reading stuff like "Anomander Rake, Lord of Moon's Spawn, Son of Darkness, Knight of Darkness", but I guess watching tv did not make we wise.

The cover deserves four stars. Hope it will be in "Spectrum", then I can throw this thing away.

Rating:
Summary: Incredible Work by Great New Author
Review: I have read many of the best out there: Jones, Tolkien, Brooks, Martin, etc. I would put Erikson right there with these guys. Gardens of the Moon is a no-nonsense book where there is seldom a slow dowm in the action. I read 100 pages one night and simply could not believe what I had just read - I had to read it again the next night to make sure I didn't dream it! One warning: This book is not for those who like a simple plot. If that's you, don't read it. It is a big book with several story lines that pull together in the end. This makes it hard to follow sometimes but if you read on, the answers are there. Awesome book - cant wait to read the next one!

Rating:
Summary: Chaos incarnate
Review: This the first book of the series started of by making me think i would never get on top of plot and characters, witch i didnt, not at first anyway... this series is a MONUMENTAL work, so many cultures, characters, plot lines and agendas.... i didnt know where to start AT ALL... but in the end i had to read the second one witch is proporbly one of the best books i've EVER read!!! and i consider my self a fairly knowing person... RR Martin, Jordan, Goodkind, Weis, Tolkien, Crown of stars... hell i read it all, and this series is one of the best i have ever read if not THE best...

Rating:
Summary: Not excellent, but good
Review: Steven Erikson made a very interesting debut with Gardens of the Moon. The sheer scope of the story and the magnitude of his creation are indeed staggering, with a cast rivalling War&Peace. Erikson's writing is above par, his descriptions vibrant, and his anthropologic and archaeologic knowledge garnered from his professional life show in this book.
On to the flaws: Erikson makes liberal and quite literal use of the dreaded deus ex machina, involving the gods themselves if need be to save a given situation. Though his writing is very good, words like "grin" and expressions like "must needs" and "one and all" are quite prolific, and on occasion detract from the reading through ad nauseam repetition. The plot is somewhat clumsy, and Erikson on more than one occasion seemed not to know how to get a situation to happen, resorting to the abovementioned deus ex machina or a set of totally random events. Erikson's work has been classified by some as "power fantasy", and I can't say I disagree. The characters are very powerful, and they seem to gain more powers like Dragonball characters, frequently through mere happenstance. Some might like it, others not.
That said, I still think it's a good book, I've bought the other three volumes and I look forward to the next. Not excellent, not very good, but definetly good and worth the paperback price. It makes for an enjoyable read and is definetly superior to most other recent fantasy books.

Rating:
Summary: Complex, Brutal Fantasy
Review: Although this book deserves 5 stars, I would probably have given it 4.5 just so that I could give the rest of the books in the series a higher rating. It is a great beginning, but the series improves with each volume as you are drawn further and further into a world as inventive as any world in fantasy fiction. By the time it is finished, it will be one of the best fantasy series ever written.

Yes, the books are complex and hard to read at times, but it is worth the effort. One of my favorite activities is to reread a book and not have the same experience. With this series, you continually find new depth and relationships within the book as well as with the other books in the series. You find yourself saying "Oh, yeah" as something clicks into place and you realize the vastness and inventiveness of the author's vision.

There are no stereotypical good and evil characters. At times you even loose track of where your sympathies lie. Good characters do evil things and vice versa. You are given the motivations of each side of a conflict and each might seem equally compelling. In other cases, the true motivation may not be revealed until the next book in the series. There are plots and counterplots and manipulations interwoven through series. But, for most, there are no decisions other than what it takes to survive.

Erikson also provides great visual descriptions, both of the geography and the non-human characters. And that is something to note; nothing ruins a great fantasy or SF story more than when the author veers from inventive to ridiculous (for example, Jar Jar Binks). The non-humans in Malazan are convincing, very individualized and can be very scary...

Rating:
Summary: This is a great indroduction into a great series
Review: What you have to remember with "Gardens of the Moon" is that it is part of a series that interlinks and forms a intriguing and rivetting tapestry. I will admit that it is not as good as the rest in the series that I have read, but it is still a great read and what flaws it may possess can be forgiven for introducing you to the others.

"Gardens" is one of those books with which you lose time, turning page after page without noticing until you see that an hour has passed by.

I found Gardens of the Moon well paced and leaving enough mystery to keep you in anticipation of what's to follow.

The characters are a refreshing change from the traditional "pure young hero" type as each possess flaws and behave as real people would. Erikson is also unafraid of challenging the old invicible hero theme, which (admittedly) is more apparent in the next book [decidedly so], the characters are as mortal as anyone else and their mortality gives them a greater sense of reality.

A great read which introduces you to even greater books in the series.

Rating:
Summary: Only THE INTRODUCTION
Review: On the overall context of the series, Malazan Book of the Fallen, I give this book 5 stars. As a stand-alone book, 4 stars. Erikson did write this book several years before Deadhouse gates, so it isn't as seamless as the other 3 books that came after it. I do have to say that Gardens of the Moon is a PERFECT introduction for the series. It hooks you enough with enough mysteries and unfinished stories to want to read the rest. True, there are situations where you wonder why they were introduced in that particular part of the book and not enough descriptions were written. But you have to understand, this is a 10 book series. The composition and writing of the book is top-notch! The British do know how to structure sentences. If you can get past this first book, the following books are MOST DEFINITELY 5 stars. If I could give them higher ratings, I would. But potential readers, I highly recommend this series to not just epic fantasy readers, but book lovers from all genres.