Gardens of the Moon; a review

I don't usually do book reviews, but I think I've put in way too much time and effort into making bookmark notes for every chapter to a point where doing a review for this just felt... necessary? whatever.

So I've officially hopped into Malazan, and Gardens of the Moon was a great entry. I'll admit, the criticisms of it being "difficult" and "inaccessible" did scare me off for a while, but after reading the book I can honestly say that these criticisms are in my opinion, overblown. It is true that there are offhand references to things that you don't know about, which in turn leads to lost understanding. It is true that the prose tends to be unclear, and you'll be left stumped trying to figure out what the sentence you just read really means. It is true that you're thrown into a clustershit without the context you need to walk smoothly through it. But even despite these confusions, I still managed to pay attention and keep track of the main plot. Admittedly I used the guide plenty but it doesn’t change much; I got through this!

This review will mainly be divided into two parts; plot and character. Obviously, there are more aspects to a book like GotM, and I will cover the ones that I personally found once I’m done with the two parts.

Plot: Gardens of the Moon’s plot was a complex weave that was made up of many individual plot threads which moved at their own pace, but eventually they all converge. There is no way I can articulate my thoughts for each plotline in this book and every small thing that happened in them as there’s just too much, but generally, I enjoyed how the plot moved. Progression felt natural as some characters found relevant information that gave them the incentive to push the plot ahead, while other characters just get shit thrown at them over and over again, and through it all, they grow and find their own reasons to move forward. Every scene was packed with small details that I suspect will come to play in future books.

The one criticism I have with GotM’s plot is just how many throwaway lines there were pretty much in every scene. These lines feel like they’ll reward rereads, but as a first-time reader I just got lost. Aside from that, GotM’s plot was enjoyable.

Light 8/10

Characters : In Erikson's stories (GotM at least), there's a wall that he builds between you and the character which prevents you from getting up close and personal with them like you do in other stories such as WoT and SA. I understand how this wall between the character and the reader is jarring for some, but it's not a bad thing for me and I don’t think it's a great criticism of Malazan's characterization; it's just another way to do characterization that's not for everyone imo.

Personally, I enjoyed that wall. The wall between the POV's and me as a reader helps me to know them better, in a way. Other fantasy series bring you close and personal to the POV characters, but that's not exactly realistic because you don’t usually know someone to that level of closeness(not a criticism or a bad thing, just an observation I'm making). In Malazan, that wall prevents you from getting too intimate, which gives you room to speculate and think about who they really are and what exactly motivates them ; I find this to be more realistic as it's closer to what knowing someone in real life really is like.

And thus, it probably wont be a surprise if I tell you I really liked GotM’s characterization. Each character had their own goals, motivations, and conflicts. POVs were distinctly different, especially for certain characters like Kruppe and Adjunct Lorn. Erikson also used his characters to explore themes, and I really enjoyed how he used certain characters (whom I shall not name because spoilers) to explore the theme of how identity and responsibility can come into conflict; should they stay true to who they are, or should they allow their loyalties and duties drive their actions? Not to mention, GotM probably has the most badass characters I’ve read about, and all of their fights and skirmishes were exciting to read.

Strong 8.5/10

Extras : Malazan’s world is honestly the most intriguing world I’ve journeyed into throughout my reading journey. It truly is an epic world, filled with ancient races of powerful beings like the T’lan Imass, gods who involve themselves with the affairs of mortals frequently, and cool magic. Normally, I don’t enjoy books with too much worldbuilding but in Malazan, many aspects of the world were key in pushing the story forward.

My main criticism for Gardens of the Moon is the ending. Don’t read ahead if you want to walk into the ending blind, just skip the brackets and go ahead to the paragraph after the bracketed ones.

Spoilers ahead ;

((((GotM’s ending pretty much gave me zero emotional closure. Cool shit happened on page, I'll give it that; Rake vs Lord of Galayn was an amazing duel, and Lorn's death was a tragic end to her character. But aside from that, there wasn't any closure to any of my favourite characters' arcs. It just opened new pathways for them, which brings me to my next point:

 it's mostly setup. In the grand scheme of things, setup endings work to establish plotlines, characters, and worldbuilding in the future but as a result the ending of the book used to set up stuff suffers. That happened with this book for me. I'm looking forward to seeing how everything established here turns out, butl if every MBOTF book ends like this, I just might DNF Malazan. Full judgment will be reserved until I can see how all of it plays out.

The ending was a big mess as well. Although I expect things to make more sense as I move along, I cannot deny that it was messy here. Out of nowhere, Mammot got possessed and a street fight occurred, then Fantasy Groot popped up, then Ganoes goes doggystyle, and bla bla bla. You get it. With how the book was paced I was expecting so much more of an end, which I certainly didn’t get; a lot of the book felt like it was building up to an epic conclusion. Hopefully, the endings of later books are better than this; I’m expecting more closure and epicness. )))))

End of spoilery section

Overall, I enjoyed Gardens of the Moon, and I’m very excited to continue Malazan. Gardens of the Moon gets a solid 8/10 from me.

p.s if you wanna start GotM anytime soon, consider using the guide as you read along. it's really helpful. 

Link to Gardens of the Moon's Book Depository page :

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