Gardens of the Moon [Spoilers]

[Fist and Faith]

OH MAN!!!! THAT'S SO FREAKIN' COOL!!!!!!!!!!!

[duchess of malfi]

The finished product:


Coming from Subterranean Press sometime soon.

with a sword that big you know he's compensating for being unusually tiny in other areas

[Fist and Faith]

But since he does have that sword, I'm not gonna make fun of him.

[duchess of malfi]

But since he does have that sword, I'm not gonna make fun of him.

I will.

Hey buddy - betcha only got two inches behind your zipper, fully extended!!!

[Demondime-a-dozen-spawn]

*bump*

Okay, I just finished this novel and have started on book 2, Deadhouse Gates.

I liked it enough to read on, and have read several topics here that state that the years between the first and second were used to hone Erikson's craft somewhat.

That's good, because, while I did enjoy the book quite a bit, I also had some problems with it.

Too many magically powerful people. I mean, just about everyone in this book is a powerful mage of some kind. What's the point of everyone and their brother throwing indiscriminate magic around?

Erikson tries to add some uncertainty and moral dilemmas to a few characters, but it just comes off flat.

Who did what to who? You know what I mean, 'nuff said.

On the other hand...

I love Kruppe, an excellent character whom I hope to see more of. Same with Lord Anomander Rake. A bad guy who turned out to be not so bad after all, at least for now. I'm also hoping that at some point Toc the Younger is going to come back out of that rent he was tossed into. That seemed like a particularly glaring loose end tthat Erikson ignored in the wrap-up.

Many of these characters seem to switch allegiances at the drop of a hat, or rather, have various allegiances that don't all carry the same weight, or mean more or less at different times, which is an aspect of the book that I really like. You're never sure of just how someone is going to behave.

Interesting non-human races. The T'lan Imass, the Jaghut, the Tiste Andii ( the Hounds and the Ravens, too).

I'm assuming that many, if not all, of these "gods" started out as mortals, and that the Ascendant are mortals on their way to becoming "gods."

It warns of "Spoilers" in the thread title so I'm going to leave this post without them.

On to Deadhouse Gates....

[Waddley]

Just keep in mind that Erickson never leaves loose ends.

Enjoy DG! You meet some incredible characters in that one.

[StevieG]

I really enjoyed Deadhouse Gates - great characters. I was somewhat overwhelmed by Memories of Ice just because of the sheer number of characters that had built up over the series - and this is only book 3!

But I have managed to get over that, and am now really enjoying MoI as well - from what I've seen in this forum, Deadhouse Gates and Memories are 2 of the favourite books in the series.

And I agree with you: Kruppe and Anomander Rake are 2 of my favourite characters, as well as .... well, there's hundreds really - Quick Ben is another favourite.

[Demondime-a-dozen-spawn]

I may be a bit premature in panicking, but my local library has but the first three novels available for borrowing. What am I gonna do after that?

Spend money? <recoils>

[stonemaybe]

Can you not ask your library to obtain book 4 onwards?

Just finished re-read of Gates of the Moon. I'm going to invite scorn now and say it's my favourite of the series!

Demondime-a-dozenspawn had a bit of a problem with so many powerful mage-types around, but I found that refreshing and original. There isn't much cannon-fodder in this book! I love the way that the gods can be terrified of mortals' abilities and powers (as it should be! *evil laugh*)

[Onos T'oolan]

No scorn from me. It's probably my third, after MoI and DG.

[[Syl]]

Gardens of the Moon review by Charles DeLint
from the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Sep. 2000, p. 31

I'VE BEEN wondering lately when it was that the epic fantasy novel came to be pretty much solely equated with war. It's as if when writing Lord of the Rings, Tolkien had focused solely on the battle scenes, eschewing all the elements that create a sense of wonder and awe.

Steven Erikson's debut novel Gardens of the Moon is a good case in point.

Now don't get me wrong. Erikson gets a lot of it right. To start with, while this is apparently the first in a projected ten book series entitled The Tales of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, Gardens of the Moon, for all the obvious teases and plot lead-ins to further volumes in the series that become apparent toward the end of the action, stands admirably on its own.

Also to his credit, while he doesn't bog the reader down with unnecessary details, Erikson has clearly spent a lot of time building the world in which Gardens of the Moon is set. The background arises as we need to know it instead of being force-fed to us in large chunks of "historical" exposition. Even better, the story is character-driven, somewhat of a rarity in the genre of epic fantasy where all too often the characters are obvious foils, on stage simply to move the story forward.

Mind you, there are a lot of characters, each with a fascinating history and story, and it takes some time to get to know them all and keep them straight. The many plots and subplots, fast-paced and full of surprises, also feel like a hopeless tangle at first. But to his credit, Erikson quickly pulls it all together.

The overall plot is basic enough: There is the Malazan Empire, bent upon utter domination of all that surrounds it. Standing against it are a handful of Free Cities and a floating fortress called Moon's Spawn that is home to a mysterious and ancient race of sorcerer-warriors. Complicating matters is the internal strife within the Malazan armies, as well as the appearance of a number of this world's gods who have also entered the fray for reasons of their own.

Our sympathetic viewpoint characters range from all sides of the struggle, an interesting strategy that allows no one side to be obviously in the right.

The down sides of the novel (and one assumes the series as a whole, unless Erikson plans some major changes in his approach in later volumes) are two:

The first is the lack of any believable female characters. There are certainly women present, but they are either stoic warriors, assassins, and mages (basically men in women's bodies), courtesans, or in one case, a young girl possessed by gods and turned into a killing machine. Except for one strong female lead, the mage Tattersail, there's no distinct female perspective to set the female characters apart from their male counterparts.

The other is that, as mentioned above, this isn't a fantasy novel that evokes any sense of wonder or awe. Plainly put, it chronicles a war. It's a dark and bloody book, full of battles and campaigns, complex attacks and counterattacks, Machiavellian plotting and intrigues. Gods appear, awesome magics abound, but it's all treated rather matter-of-factly. Its antecedents can be found in Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian, rather than Lord Dunsany or other classic fantasists.

Which isn't to say that Erikson needs to treat his material differently. He's done a remarkable job of world-building and in describing the horrors and uncertainties of men caught up in the ravages of war. And there's no question that he's a strong writer, adept at characterization and capable of a real vigor in his prose. But by concentrating on the plot and character elements that he has, he's pretty much limiting his audience to boys and men fascinated with the business and heroics of war.

[aliantha]

Well, he has a point. A *lot* of the novel consists of battle scenes, and a lot of the characters are soldiers. But jeez. No strong women characters? The Empress isn't a strong woman? Tho I guess he hadn't met Hellian yet. Or Ganoes' sisters, really.

Fascinating that he thinks only guys will be interested in reading this series. We've got quite a few women of the Watch who are fans....

Given what DeLint himself writes, I'm not really surprised at his opinion. Anybody read any of his stuff? I read "Widdershins" awhile back. The gods were cool, but the fairy kingdom was kind of annoying....

[lucimay]

yeah. freakin faeries. what ever.

[I'm Murrin]

I've had similar thoughts myself regarding female characters in the Malazan books, to be honest. A lot of the characters, male and female, are remarkably similar.

[wayfriend]

To be fair, he doesn't say there are no female characters, just no strong ones that aren't basically male in all but name - that bring femininity to their character. For example, certainly the Adjunct is one of those she-male types. As is Sorry.

I've remarked that to myself before. As you go through the series, and get introduced to so many characters that you need exponential notation to count them, he does seem to flip a coin to determine if any given character is a man or a woman. And then whether or not they are a woman seems irrelevant to anything that they do subsequently.

Yes, there are exceptions. Which I can't mention here for spoilers.

You could argue that the Malazan world is mercifully free of the ravages of misogyny and gender-bias, I suppose.

But, dammit, women bring something to the table when it comes to stories. There should be a perspective that includes them.

[Onos T'oolan]

It's true that Tattersail is the only female character I can think of in GotM who is both strong and feminine. There are certainly some later on.

Spoiler

I'm pretty much in love with Korlat!

But maybe it's difficult for men to write such characters. We're talking about trying to make a feminine character who is strong in masculine ways. Something of a contradiction. Maybe masculine and feminine don't combine in a single person very well. Maybe it's an extraordinary thing that he was able to do it so very well in the case I mentioned in spoilers. I've actually pondered this very thing. I'm not a writer, but I've wondered how I would write a strong female character. I wouldn't want her to be strong like a man is strong. I'd want her to be strong in the ways women are strong. But maybe a man can't write that as easily, because we don't see strength when the character is physically weak. So in what way can a woman be strong if she needs to be rescued from a rapist or murderer? And yes, I'm well aware that I'm rambling now. Just not sure I can help myself. Frankly, you're all lucky I'm using punctuation!

[StevieG]

Onos, I'm still getting over the fact that you're another manifestation of that damned multi-personality they call Fist and Faith! I'm just going to pretend you're real *sniff*

I agree with Wayfriend, when I was reading GotM, and the next couple of books, I read the names of characters and only found out they were female when he wrote "her" - I couldn't tell from the text. The names are all so strange that there's no other way of telling their gender...

But, I really agree with your spoiler Onos - she is a brilliant character.

[Avatar]

I think Ericson does his battles very well. The siege in MOI for example.

Agree that the male and female characters are almost interchangeable...but then, I just put it down to a world free of gender bias.

(While I'm at it, somebody tell me where Night of Knives and Crimson Gurad fit into the timeline? I'm about to get my hands on them.)

--A

[I'm Murrin]

Night of Knives = Pre-series, set shortly after the GotM prologue. It's the story of Kellanved and Dancer's last night.

Return of the Crimson Guard = After The Bonehunters, shows the events in Quon Tali after Bonehunters ended, and follows the reunion and return of the Crimson Guard to that continent. Also features Traveller's storyline before he turns up in Toll the Hounds. (Roughly concurrent with Reaper's Gale, then.)

[Avatar]

Awesome, thanks Murrin. Will read "Night" before starting my reread, and "Guard" in the appropriate place during it.

--A