malazan book of the fallen gardens of the moon

But after the intimidation passes, and you make friends with the sharks, this ocean has infinitely more to offer than the standard deep end of the traditional Epic Fantasy. Our response to that would be, simply, it is. If reading Epic Fantasy is like diving into the deep end of the pool, this book is like diving into the ocean, with sharks.That may sound intimidating. And Erikson makes no apologies for this difficulty, and shouldn’t have to. Despite the length of the series, it comes across as a very day-in-the-life-of. The difference is that Erikson doesn’t bother going into it all.

Of course as with all Epic Fantasy, this world the story takes place in has been around for ages, with its own history and what have you. There isn’t, and that is what intrigued us initially. Maybe asking if there was a novel before this.

It is possible for even the most experienced fantasy reader to feel a bit… behind. As opposed to the more traditional approaches to Epic Fantasy, where we have page after page of exposition, Erikson throws us right in the middle of the action. OK, we exaggerate a bit, but you get the point. When you start GARDENS OF THE MOON, you will be introduced to approximately 9 million characters. A book a year is the pace Erikson has set, which is downright awesome. The best part of all of this? Erikson doesn’t make us wait half a decade between his encyclopedia-sized tomes (you know who we are talking about).

We tell you this so you will understand the investment of time, should you start this series. Currently we have eight novels released in the series (with the ninth out in the UK now–yeah, yeah, we are waiting for our import copy), three short stories, and two other novels written by Erikson’s co-creator of this vibrantly imagined world, Ian Cameron Esslemont. GARDENS OF THE MOON is the first tale in Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen series. This review will be a tad longer than usual, but it deserves nothing less. GARDENS OF THE MOON by Steven Erikson ( Amazon) is not a simple novel–in fact this novel has, arguably, the steepest learning curve of any fantasy novel to date. Since DUST OF DREAMS ( Amazon) is coming to the US soon, we thought we would go back to the series’ roots to both introduce newcomers and invigorate the old-timers.

Malazan book of the fallen gardens of the moon