Review of Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson

A decade+ ago, I burned through Steve Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen in about 6 months. I was trying to get at the core of why the series was lauded. For anyone who has read the series, they know this is a bad tactic. I did not arrive at the core, or any core. In fact, I was left partially mystified. The world is big and imaginative. There is magic—a bit nebulous, but perhaps magic should be. Plotting is large and complex. The story eschews good vs evil. But beyond these potential reasons for being 'great', the book had challenges. The incredibly broad scope of characters possesses minimal detail—detail needed to make said characters stick and resonate. There is minimal (sometimes average) sense of place and setting—average to good needed for a secondary world to come alive. And story flow is mostly a flat procession of two-three page scenes with occasional, tiny spikes of drama. But like every reader, my interests and awareness evolve, and so I decided to give the series one more try, starting with Gardens of the Moon (1999).

Gardens of the Moon tells of the ambitious empress of the Malazan empire, Laseen, and her ruthless campaign to conquer the continent of Genabackis. The jewel of Genebackis is the neon blue-green city of Darujhistan. After taking the neighboring city of Pale, its there Laseen sets her sights, with the Bridgeburner brigade, and its collection of colorful soldiers, at the vanguard. Opposing the Empress is Anomander Rake, the eternal Tiste Andii lord of Moon's Spawn, a massive rock island that floats above Genabackis. At his beck and call are armies of large ravens and mage-assassins, entities Rake deploys to carry out his own mysterious plans.

One level deeper than these world-turning ambitions is a host of characters caught in and stirring the milieu. The soldiers of the Bridgeburners. The empress' Adjunct Lorn and her magic-cancelling sword. The mages and high mages of the Malazan army. The assassins and thieves who call the roofs of Darujhistan home. The city's nobles plotting for one side, another, or their own. And above them all, the mysterious gods in their warrens of magic, playing puppet masters—Shadow, Chance, Death, and others. It is a thick, clotted mix the reader must pay close attention to parse matters.

No review of Gardens of the Moon would be complete without mentioning the obvious influence in style Glen Cook had on Erikson. Anyone who has read The Black Company, for example, will immediately see the similarities. The steady pace. The flat plot with abrupt rises that quickly calm. The quirky character names. The portrayal of all sides of a conflict without prejudice. The minimal details of setting. It's all there. To be clear, Erikson's creation is 100% his own. No plagiarism of ideas here. But Cook's style is 100% an inspiration.

Gardens of the Moon is often categorized as epic fantasy. If size is the determiner, then yes, epic it is. But sword & sorcery feels the better analog. Yes, it is not sword & sorcery in the classic hero-centric mold (a la Conan or Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser), but that mode, that ground-level view to the action (as opposed to the sky-level of much epic fantasy) is Gardens of the Moon. There are epic battles, but there is no omniscient perspective to provide size and scope. It's a limited view, one from individual characters' views, that relays proceedings.

Accordingly, Gardens of the Moon is not a typical work of “epic fantasy”. A couple of the major touchstones many readers expect are missing. For one, details of setting are sparse. The book is significantly more an exercise in plot building than world-building. Likewise, it is not a character-centric book. There is a massive amount of characters, and Erikson does a lot with a little, shaping characters with a few, deft lines. But the reader does not get deep into them. Instead, each treads a fine line of serving plot versus serving character.

There are a handful of large fantasy series on my shelves that I plan to re-read until I pass from (into?) this Earth. Having read Gardens of the Moon for the second time, I don't feel there will be a third. A me-thing not an Erikson-thing, I enjoy the complex plotting; I respect the ambition; I appreciate the imagination inherent to the world; I love that it looks beyond good vs. evil. But the lack of developed characters, the inability (or the lack of interest in) building scenes, and the flatness of tone don't beckon to me like a siren, begging me to re-read. Erikson doesn't ensconce me under a night lamp until 2:00 AM, begging to find out what happens next. I need deeper characterization for that. Again, a me-thing. But possibly it's not a you-thing? Maybe the size of the world, the (well-done) blue-collar banter, the lack of rails to imagination, the vast and complex interplay of story events will capture you?