You guys left a mess in here!

[SoulBiter]

Looks like a party went on and I walked in after everyone left. LOL

Starting Gardens of the Moon: Book One of The Malazan Book of the Fallen this weekend. Better late than never.

I wont be going into the threads here to comment right away, and only as appropriate as I finish books. I don't want to spoil things.

[Onos T'oolan]

WELCOME!!!

[SoulBiter]

So a couple chapters in. Dead bodies of civilians and soldiers. Horribly mutilated along with the horses. Some sorcery where a lady somehow passed herself to a young girl. More where a sorcerer is using it to travel. Another where a guy is only part of a body but doesn't seem worried. Hmmmm

So far I am intrigued.

Edit to add rather than a longer thread.... so catching up... the book seems to show things, then we figure out how we got there, or at least so far.

Spoiler

So big ass battle, we get some history of the mages. Apparently there are many less than there used to be. There is a big attack where the Archmage is, but it seems they 100% underestimated the archmage and the preparations. Thus we end up with Hairlock the mage being the one that halved, but some other mages were summoned by him and they perform something that many thought lost and moved his soul to a marionette or puppet of sort. Tattersail is given this thing and she takes it back to her tent and is a bit surprised to be speaking with Hairlock, who still seems pretty powerful.

I assume the girl that had the old lady moved to might be "Sorry" but not really sure at this point. I will read and find out. Putting these down like this has helped organize my thoughts on what I am reading.

I may start a new thread for this book, so that I, and anyone else that is now reading (cough cough Peter) will have a place to put their thoughts without seeing a more complete thread where others have posted that may spoil things.

[Fist and Faith]

Too, too cool!

[SoulBiter]

I created a new thread for my read through book 1. I didn't want to just add to the current thread so that I don't see spoilers of things I haven't read yet. I will be adding future responses to book 1 there.

[peter]

Hey SB!

I'm two books in.

Found ' Gardens' to be quite confusing at first, but a really useful list of Dramatis Personae helped a bunch (and the glossary type section at the back).

Not going to spoiler anything here, so I won't get into story commentary, but overall, by the end of the first book I was well in! The book (and the same can be said for the second book, Deadhouse Gates, was quite...disjointed shall I say....for a while, but gradually seemed to gell (at least a bit) as I progressed. Not easy reading, but exceptionally good character creation and outstanding in terms of creating that dark and serious atmosphere of really good fantasy writing. And suddenly, at the end, it seemed to unexpectedly fall into place, the disparate elements of the story folding together and creating a satisfying whole.

And then in the second book it does the whole thing again.

These are very definitely books that require you to read the whole series. They are stand alone - but only just, as say some chapters in a book might vere away from a central theme. I'm betting that the whole will ultimately come together (in terms of the individual books) in the same way as the books do individually, in a culmination at the end of the series. It doesn't make for the easiest of reading - there is work to be done by the reader here - but the satisfaction is proportionate to the effort.

My advice from the small sample I've so far sampled, is not to sweat if it seems to be running away from you. It's a measure of Ericsson's skills as a writer that he can do this to you, and then pull it off at the end. And it works. Donaldson has heaped high praise on this man, and I think justifiably. His writing is demanding, not for the fainthearted, and he isn't going to hand it to you on a plate. But stick with the course and it'll pay off.

I suspect that by the end of this, I'll have read one of my best fantasy series of all time.

[Fist and Faith]

Hey peter! Well done! All you say is true. And I certainly hope you'll still think this way when you're done:

I suspect that by the end of this, I'll have read one of my best fantasy series of all time.