Gardens of the Moon
by Steven Erikson
fantasy / action
book 1 of Malazan Book of the Fallen
published 1999
read in November 2012
my rating: 6, read to pass the time
The book begins with an Introduction by the author. If the introduction does not put you off, okay. The author is smarter than us. He knows what makes a great fantasy book. Everyone else is wrong. So he says.
As one of those wrong people, I believe that an author should provide a story for the readers. A story. You know, one of those things with a beginning, a middle and an end. With plot to link them all. And characters to add interest.
Okay... in this story, Erikson has done that. So why am I complaining? It's not just the patronising introduction...
As I began to read, I began to think, these people are familiar. And yes, I have read another Erikson book. I read it in 2007, before I began this blog. The memory has stayed with me.
Erikson writes that his work is a history. So he can't help out if it's not a neat and self-contained story. What a cop-out! An author too lazy to pick out a coherent storyline, so he claims that it's part of a grander epic.
Just to interrupt this rant... Gardens is a coherent story. Feel free to read and, probably, enjoy.
Do not read later books on the series. Not unless you are prepared to read every book in the series.
My memories of that later book are awfully clear... One group of people battle across a continent, following another, smaller group. The smaller group do nothing much other than the minimum required to keep ahead of the first group. Meanwhile, two other people (?) also set off across the continent. Half way across, one of them is killed. Another person takes his place. The new two carry on.
The two groups do not interact. They never meet each other. The entire book is dedicated to journeys which would be one or two connecting chapters in any more reasonable book. As a single book -- a load of rubbish.
But, as I said, Gardens is more like a real novel. Beginning, middle and end. I have no trouble accepting a to-be-continued end to the book. At least the current adventure reaches some sort of conclusion.
Yet there are still problems with the author's view of his book as one chapter of a history.
Other authors use coincidences to link the plot. You know, the young man with the magic sword just happens to be the lost prince... It can be embarrassing. Done well, the links and coincidences can build to a gripping novel.
Erikson takes a simpler approach... Need to introduce some essential linking action? Just add a new character. Need more tension? Just add a new character. Need a reason for the characters to conquer a city? Introduce a new character who is mentioned in passing but never appears...
Gardens of the Moon is a mass of characters doing a loosely related set of exciting actions. In this book, it all adds up, eventually. In the one later book that I have read, the various actions fail to add up to a story. They remain as chapters of unrelated books. Total fail.
Read this book. Ignore the rest.
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Problems ? Solved
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