Gardens of the Moon

This series is famous, or infamous, among fantasy fans.

It is said that these books are difficult, and for many people, these books are therefore a formidable opponent. I have only one response to this: don't let it bother you.

Gardens of the Moon is not difficult in the sense that the language used is complex. It's also not difficult due to complicated theories (as in the case of Neal Stephenson).
Yes, there are many characters, but that's the case in many (fantasy) series. And, this is actually the crux, Erikson simply starts somewhere in the middle of a history of an empire. At least, that's how it seems. This empire is the Malazan Empire. No background is given, nothing is explained. The prologue just starts, and as a reader, you can only let yourself be carried along in the story that Erikson is telling you. And you must trust that things will become clearer as the story progresses.
If you, as a reader, find this annoying, then this book can indeed be perceived as “difficult.” Difficult to deal with, difficult to understand, and especially difficult to accept.

I have no problem with this at all. Imagine the Roman Empire, which was immense at its peak. It encompassed countless peoples. There were local rulers, generals, intrigues, wars, assassination plots everywhere. All at the same time. Now, just imagine that you are focusing on a specific event in that vast history and span of the Roman empire. Movies and books do this all the time. It helped me a lot translating this attitude towards this book.

From the beginning, Erikson gives you the feeling that you are part of an immense epic story, even if your view of it is still very limited. On one hand, a high-level chess game unfolds where various individuals are moved around the board like pawns; on the other hand, Erikson also shows the human side.
Everything slowly converges as if it were a kind of comedy. Independent storylines intertwine, with coincidences that sometimes seem like a “deus ex machina.”
This might be a point of criticism from my side. If this were a stand-alone book, the author might have taken some shortcuts in certain respects. A deus ex machina plot device has never been my favorite. So, I also trust that some things will be woven into the story as the series progresses.

For me, after the first read, this is a 4 to 4.5-star book.
It's possible that this could increase or decrease as more of the Malazan world becomes clear.

Executive Summary: This is not a book for the faint of heart, or the first time fantasy reader. Mr. Erikson makes you think, and READ. No skimming allowed. Every word can be important. It's certainly not for everybody, but if you stick with it, I think most people will find their efforts greatly rewarded.Full ReviewThis is a case of, you were right Good Reads recommendation engine. Why didn't I listen to you?Shortly after joining good reads last year and putting all my books in, I checked out the recommendations page. This book was prominently listed based on several of my shelves. I read the description, and some of the reviews, and wasn't too impressed and moved on.Fast forward about 6 months and a few of my newly made GR friends were making a group to do a series re-read. A few others decided to join in as first timers. I was convinced to give the series a try.I'm glad I did. I can't say how I'll feel after all 10 books, but after the first one, I'm hooked!The group is probably a large part of my enjoyment. I can see this book being very hard to read by yourself. There were a few parts that confused the hell out of me, that were explained to me by people who had been there before.I'm very much a go with the flow and enjoy the ride type of reader. I'm OK if things don't make sense right away, so long as I get there eventually. Everything that confused me at the start was cleared up by the end. I'm not 100% if that was all book, or our great group discussion, but it doesn't matter.The book certainly has left me with a lot of questions to be answered, but that's to be expected as the start of a 10 book series.Mr. Erikson is an excellent writer. His descriptions, characters and language are all top notch. My only (minor) complaint would be that he sometimes seems intent on showing you just how good his vocabulary is.The highlight for me is the character development. This book involves some very powerful people. And just when you think “wow, what a badass”, someone more powerful shows up. I don't know if Dues Ex Machina possible when the gods themselves are part of the cast.He also paints a very grey picture. One or two chapters in, I started to feel I knew who was “good” and who was “bad”. Five chapters in, I had to re-evaluate my initial assessments. I wouldn't be surprised if 2 books in, I re-asses them again.Mr. Erikson introduces an interesting magical system with his use of Warrens. Unlike Brandon Sanderson who gives you a lot of detail and rules about how magic works, at least through 1 book the details are quite murky.All and all, a great start to the series. It's a 4, but it's a very high 4, and the ending almost pushes it to a 5 for me. I'm already looking forward to continuing on with [b:Deadhouse Gates 55401 Deadhouse Gates (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, #2) Steven Erikson https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1385272744s/55401.jpg 3898716] in two weeks.

It feels like you're starting the book in the middle of the story. The characters and places are not properly introduced and there is no attempt to make you care about them. They also all sounded the same. Before you kill someone or destroy some city, make us care about them.

The author clearly have a message to transmit, a big world with a meaningful story. He just does not present them in a readable way. The whole thing is a mess of poorly constructed stories, with no cohesion and no reason to be emotionally interested in them.

Annoying features of the book
- Prologue: they can be interesting and might help to set up the mood of the book. I've seen prologues more interesting then the whole book by a wide margin, thus a misleading way to start the story. Then there is the ones that feels like an excuse to tell a bad short tale, one where you don't have to worry about describing your characters, nor to make sense for the reader, because it is assumed that after reading the book you might have a clue about the importance of what just happened. This prologue falls into the second category.
- Excerpts of other books: each chapter starts with a citation of a supposedly famous book inside the fictional world. Another mood setting tool I believe, again this sometimes might work. It did not work for me in this book, they were too long and boring like a history textbook excerpt. Or just a senseless poem.
- Start with a side-story: and if the preface, maps, list of characters, epigraph, lament (whatever that is) wasn't enough to NOT start the story, the first chapter doesn't do it either.
- Lots of thrown in proper names and/or made up words.

Reading other comments, people tend to agree with my opinion. The book starts slow, bad, confusing, the prose is not great, there are problems with his exposition. However despite of that, he gets 5 stars because if you manage to get pass that, you are rewarded with a deep, complex and satisfying story.

My favorite comments:

“The book is not well written; specifically, it is bad prose written by someone who is very intelligent, but lacks an ear for poetry, or in fact, language in general ... the sentences are disjointed in a kind of technical way that often left me rereading them because I had somehow missed the sense in them as I grappled with their structure.”
Ben

“... There's no story to speak of... it is just a collection of scenes and events that occur in the same “world”. None of it makes sense...“
Becky

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