Gardens of the Moon

Malazan Book of the Fallen #1, Gardens of the Moon, by Steven Erikson

Since the summer of 2011, I can't have been the only one to go looking for more fantasy epics to tide me over as I waited patiently for the next Song of Ice and Fire installment. I never got either, but I did get thousands of pages of the Malazan series written within that time frame.

I really wanted this to be a complete replacement. I put too much faith in those "series to read whilst you wait", "series better than..." articles and respectively online posts.  

Erikson sells us this us a novel, but it's clear to me this book is far more interested in showing the reader his world and lore rather than having any interest in narrative or a story (treating them as heresy, it would seem). It's of no surprise this came from a world Ekikson and Esslemont created together for their tabletop RPG, and they've both respectively tried to write novels based in their world.

At any given opportunity there's an injection of nouns, history, or constant factual annecdotes and musings. Even character dialogue consists (even on introduction of new characters) of them talking back and forth as if reading from encyclopaedic entries. Even basic conversations they'll be talking at each other like amateur historians. It's like walking in on Skyrim NPCs. We've all heard of "show, don't tell" - but Erikson's approach is inverse. The characters don't want to be human, they just want to citate each other's lore. Even in the few scenes where a character is alone, we're never given any sort of introspection into their thoughts (let alone emotions). They're simply used as a lens to prattle on about historical lore-oriented events they've read.

The prose isn't juvenile, and the command of language strikes me as coming from someone who could be rather competent in a technical writing field. Colour and seasoning is exclusively applied to passages of prose that again, like most of the dialogue, want to articulate geography and topology.

Scenes are a laborious slog. There's little notion of transitioning. The chapter division makes no sense with yet another cookie cutter character being introduced in a following paragraph. Character pacing and progress is micromanaged and feels like everyone's moving around performing a video game fetch quest.

I suppose it's admirable seeing how large this series has become (27!) since the first entry here from 1999. There's real passion there. However, an eyebrow is raised not simply at the number of books now in the series (with more on the way) but how quickly they're being released. Erikson alone pumped out the first 5 books in 4 years before Esslemont joined in, and between them there's no slowing down. These aren't small books, we're talking 700-1200 pages for most. No doubt GRRM's still waiting on his Malazan membership approval... 

Conclusion:

Gardens has provided me with a taste of the Malazan series and I must admit, I am in awe at just the sheer volume of output that's here and the passion for sharing and building a vast and intricate world created from an imaginative mind. There is honestly a sense of envy in me for readers who have genuinely revelled in every book release, and who are rewarded year upon year with another entry from either author in the series. In the year of 2012, fans of the series were rewarded with 3 books! However, I don't feel any compelling urgency to make that journey based on a fundamental of quality vs quantity. 

Whether it be in the first 50 pages or the entire 700+ of your first novel, if the signs along the path give me a sense of the direction, I already know I don't want to board that train.