#even if I CANNOT stand book 9 (it's literally an Act 1 in ~380k words) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

optiwashere · 1 month

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I stopped reading Gardens of the Moon after 250~ pages because frequent character switches got confusing and I couldn't get a solid idea of the magic system. Does it ever get better?

I liked the the prologue, but I feel like they just dropped me into middle of 50 different powers scheming against each other after that. Also the coin is spinning.

TL;DR — This is a series that I love but really struggle to recommend.

Anon, it took me... ten years (?) to finish that book. I still think it's pretty terrible even having read the whole main series. So, I get where you're coming from lol.

That said, the writing quality immediately skyrockets when you hit Deadhouse Gates due to the fact that he wrote that book so many years after the first. But the books fly around a massive world and constantly switch around POVs, so...

If you don't like frequent POV switches, then you won't like the series. Flat out. There's something like 450 POV characters, but some of those brief POVs are some of the most powerful. Some of the characters are really high up in my faves of all time. Onos T'oolan, Tavore & Felisin Paran, Beak... Samar Dev??? Korlat!!! Itkovian, my beloved... there's some amazing characters mixed in with some truly awful ones.

And if you're someone that likes hard magic systems, you won't like Warrens. I don't like hard magic — when a book touts its "magic system" first, I'm immediately negatively biased towards it through no fault of the writer in 99% of cases — so it worked for me.

Pros:

Really broad worldbuilding with lots of cultural influences that aren't Western blended in with traditional Western fantasy.

Erikson has an excellent prose style later on (yeah, I know, it's very difficult to believe considering Gardens) and he has a very elegant way of expressing postmodernist ideas.

Extremely varied women characters (hell, Tattersail in Book 1 is already pretty unusual, sadly, in fantasy for being a fat character who's noted as extremely attractive — and Erikson doesn't stop at her when it comes to hot fat women, what a king.)

My favorite withdrawn, depressed, badass, ruthless lesbian commander character of all time, Tavore Paran.

Very strong messages about compassion and what it means to do "the right thing" in the face of overwhelming adversity.

Despite largely dealing with militaries and soldiers, the books are really about kindness, loss, and love, as well as finding the space within oneself to reject the notion of unconquerable despair.

Cons:

Erikson has, like, four character archetypes and they all blend together (barring a few standout characters.)

The worldbuilding is so broad that it sometimes feels pretty shallow.

Erikson loves using excessive epithets (the soldier, the ex-priest, etc.) and it's wild that those made it through professional editing.

Sometimes, Erikson likes his own prose style so much that we have to listen to identical characters internally monologue over identical woes and dramas. I love the Tiste Andii, but holy shit...

There are so many cases of plotting being hidden from the reader in transparent ways. Conversations where two people will refuse to elaborate their thoughts where they often cut off one another with inane, oblique reasons so that the reader is left in the lurch in a way that is often personally unsatisfying.

Possibly neutral or possibly a con, but there's a trillion content warnings scattered all through the books that are actually really, really serious (lots of sexual assault, and in several of those cases it's either completely unnecessary or actively detrimental to the story IMO.)

Having said all of that, I'll leave you with some quotes for why I still love the series despite its (to me) many flaws:

Open to them your hand to the shore, watch them walk into the sea. Press upon them all they need, see them yearn for all they want. Gift to them the calm pool of words, watch them draw the sword. Bless upon them the satiation of peace, see them starve for war. Grant them darkness and they will lust for light. Deliver to them death and hear them beg for life. Beget life and they will murder your kin. Be as they are and they see you different. Show wisdom and you are a fool. The shore gives way to the sea. And the sea, my friends, Does not dream of you. —Reaper's Gale

"No tyrant could thrive where every subject says no. The tyrant thrives when the first fucking fool salutes." —Toll the Hounds

Against a broken heart, even absurdity falters. Because words fall away. A dialogue of silence. That deafens. & The failure of hope has a name: it is called suffering. —The Crippled God

#hey you can ask me things!#malazan posting??? it's more likely than you think #the conclusion to the main series still sits with me to this day #even if I CANNOT stand book 9 (it's literally an Act 1 in ~380k words)

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