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timinbc's review against another edition
2.0
Nope, didn't work for me.
I've read maybe three of the Malazan series, so I knew to expect long, rambling sequences with a zillion characters, some weirdness, some battle stuff, ...
This is a tawdry combination of gloomy philosophy, implausible magic, and a large dose of violence porn in the Game of Thrones model. And mostly it's boring and confusing.
I can only assume that the high ratings here are from people who have read ALL the Malazan books, most of them more than once, and can recite the family trees of all the participants without notes. The kind of people who a generation ago learned to speak Klingon, and a generation earlier Elvish.
Mother Dark is amazingly powerful, apparently, but here her magic consists mostly of turning people's skin black when they get near her. Draconus is powerful beyond belief but doesn't do much, and can turn into a - well, if you know any Latin you'll figure it out - but doesn't use that ability for any practical purpose. Urusander is just Thomas Covenant, sulking in his tower while everyone else in the world thinks he's The Ultimate Warlord. Feh. The only fantasy trope I hate more than each-character-is-more-ridiculously-powerful-than-the-previous is players-with-awesome-powers-don't-use-them. Grrr.
Every time we meet a new character, we know that person is going to go one of three ways: (a) spouter of gloomy philosophy (b) listener to a spouter (c) victim of an extremely gory and explicitly detailed death. Some get to be all three!
Every armed troop has one noble philosopher and one lout. Inevitably the noble is going to give the lout a fearsome wallop, inflicting serious injury or more, just so discipline can be maintained.
Every time a soldier prepares for action, we get a detailed description of armour and weapons, which is OK but can get tedious, and Eriksen never fails to mention the vambraces because what a cool word.
And he can write good descriptive and action scenes. Probably because he has had so much practice in a career of kilopage books.
Several times we get a big buildup scene and at the climax something magical happens, but it's the WTF? What just happened? kind of magic. Kinda like building us up for a big football game, with detailed biographies of the coaches and players, and analysts making predictions, and when the Big Moment comes the author blows up the stadium, or has the two owners decide not to play the game at all. Feh.
And there's a lot of who did THAT? and WHY???
If you want to spend a thousand pages in a pre-Malazan world, you'll like this book.
If you want a good fantasy that stands on its own merits, look elsewhere.
I've read maybe three of the Malazan series, so I knew to expect long, rambling sequences with a zillion characters, some weirdness, some battle stuff, ...
This is a tawdry combination of gloomy philosophy, implausible magic, and a large dose of violence porn in the Game of Thrones model. And mostly it's boring and confusing.
I can only assume that the high ratings here are from people who have read ALL the Malazan books, most of them more than once, and can recite the family trees of all the participants without notes. The kind of people who a generation ago learned to speak Klingon, and a generation earlier Elvish.
Mother Dark is amazingly powerful, apparently, but here her magic consists mostly of turning people's skin black when they get near her. Draconus is powerful beyond belief but doesn't do much, and can turn into a - well, if you know any Latin you'll figure it out - but doesn't use that ability for any practical purpose. Urusander is just Thomas Covenant, sulking in his tower while everyone else in the world thinks he's The Ultimate Warlord. Feh. The only fantasy trope I hate more than each-character-is-more-ridiculously-powerful-than-the-previous is players-with-awesome-powers-don't-use-them. Grrr.
Every time we meet a new character, we know that person is going to go one of three ways: (a) spouter of gloomy philosophy (b) listener to a spouter (c) victim of an extremely gory and explicitly detailed death. Some get to be all three!
Every armed troop has one noble philosopher and one lout. Inevitably the noble is going to give the lout a fearsome wallop, inflicting serious injury or more, just so discipline can be maintained.
Every time a soldier prepares for action, we get a detailed description of armour and weapons, which is OK but can get tedious, and Eriksen never fails to mention the vambraces because what a cool word.
And he can write good descriptive and action scenes. Probably because he has had so much practice in a career of kilopage books.
Several times we get a big buildup scene and at the climax something magical happens, but it's the WTF? What just happened? kind of magic. Kinda like building us up for a big football game, with detailed biographies of the coaches and players, and analysts making predictions, and when the Big Moment comes the author blows up the stadium, or has the two owners decide not to play the game at all. Feh.
And there's a lot of who did THAT? and WHY???
If you want to spend a thousand pages in a pre-Malazan world, you'll like this book.
If you want a good fantasy that stands on its own merits, look elsewhere.
mehdfaisal's review against another edition
5.0
this shit felt shakespearean man i can't explain it. thank you steven erikson
benpurvis42's review against another edition
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
jurgenappelo's review against another edition
2.0
My God, what a slog. The prose is wonderful but ... nothing of interest happens. I got tired of reading page after page of people's thoughts on psychology, philosophy, and politics. And because there are far too many characters, I didn't care about any one of them. I was constantly confused about who was who. Most characters don't get more than a few dozen pages in the book. DNF at page 450.
scorpion_221's review against another edition
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
stv's review against another edition
3.0
I'm a sucker for all these Erickson/Malazan books. This one filled in nice "origin" gaps for the earlier (but continuity-based later) 10 malazan books. Some brutal scenes, but over all, to much fluff in this one. Only read it IF you've read (& loved) ALL the malazan books.
amandahart's review against another edition
3.0
Not a bad read. Got through it in a couple of days. I have nothing specifically bad or negative to say about it, but also nothing great or positive. But I gave it to my lab partner who is more into this type of fantasy and I think he will enjoy it!
jazramage's review against another edition
3.0
I haven't read anything by Erikson before and didn't realize this was the prequel series. The world-building here is impressive, and I really felt immersed in Erikson's universe. Unfortunately, that universe was nasty, brutish, and... not at all short, to paraphrase Hobbes. He introduces so many characters across so many settings, which can be great except very few of them have distinct personalities. Everyone philosophizes on the same themes of violence and war and death and the meaninglessness of life while graphic descriptions of said violence and death and meaninglessness abound. It was bleak, and felt gratuitously so. While the plot did pull me along and I do want to know how certain storylines resolve, I don't think I'll pick up another Erikson book for a while. Melancholy bleakness punctuated by brutal flashes of gore for over 600 pages was enough for me.
mxsallybend's review against another edition
3.0
Forge of Darkness, the first book of Steven Erikson's Malazan prequel, The Kharkanas Trilogy, struck me in much the same way that Gardens of the Moon did so many years ago. In both cases, it took me several aborted attempts to get through the book. In fact, it was only the arrival of an ARC of Fall of Light that convinced me to go back and give this one more try.
Normally, I wouldn't invest so much time or so many attempts in a book, but my persistence with his first series paid off. While several aspects of Gardens of the Moon kept putting me off, something eventually clicked. There was no 'ah-ha' moment that I can pinpoint, just a span of pages that finally pulled me down into the epic maelstrom and refused to let me go. That series went on to be one of my all-time favorites, so I was eager to read more, and even more eager to explore the history of Anomander Rake and the mythology of his epic sword, Dragnipur.
Unfortunately, many of those little things that bothered me about Gardens of the Moon weighed on me even more wit Forge of Darkness. Don't get me wrong, there are some awesome moments in the book, and some fascinating revelations of how the world of the Malazan Empire came to be, but there's far too much filler. This is a book that, for all intents and purposes, comes across an epic fantasy soap opera. It could have made for an interesting evolution of the saga, but it lacks much of the humor of the original books, settling instead for something dry and overly melodramatic. To make matters worse, the very nature of a prequel means we get stuck with whiny, immature versions of some of our favorite characters, forcing us to endure the same coming-of-age aspect that was so refreshingly absent from the original 10 books.
I'm not saying this is Erikson's Phantom Menace, but we all know how well that approach worked for Darth Vader.
I think there's an element of too much, too soon with this book as well. We were introduced to a lot of characters in The Malazan Book of the Fallen, but that was over the course of 10 books. There, we had a chance to get to know them, to understand them, and to appreciate their contributions to the story. Each of them had an extended spotlight that made them both memorable and relevant. Here, it feels like there are even more characters thrown into the mix, but all at once, over the course of a single book. It's confusing at best, and bewildering at worst. Even with the 4 pages of Dramatis Personae, I found my brain glossing over as to who was who, where they fit, and why the hell I should give a damn.
Similarly, while many of the narrative tangents and philosophical discussions in the original series were interesting, adding color to the characters we already knew and loved, here it's too much again. There were pages upon pages where we got mired in nonsensical conversations about grand, esoteric concepts, which did nothing to advance the plot. Instead of accentuating the characters, these discussions defined them - and when you're already struggling to keep tabs, that makes a confusing tale a boring one as well. Add that to a serious pacing issue, with hundreds of pages passing between events of interest, and you have a book that is challenging even to fans.
I kept thinking of how Goodkind went off the rails with his repetitive, heavy-handed philosophy, and that's not a comparison I thought I'd ever make with Erikson.
Now, like I said, there are some awesome moments. T'riss was, for me, the absolute highlight of the book. Her emergence from the sea of Vitr and journey to Mother Dark is full of action, horror, imagination, and humor. It's like Erikson took everything that made the original series great and put it all into her. Anomander and Silchas Ruin had some great scenes together that evoked memories of Malazan (just not enough of them) while Lord Draconus was a welcome surprise in how strongly he dominated the tale.
Having said all that, I will still give Fall of Light a read, because I believe Erikson can do better, although I am worried a trilogy may not be enough time to win me back.
Originally reviewed at Beauty in Ruins
Normally, I wouldn't invest so much time or so many attempts in a book, but my persistence with his first series paid off. While several aspects of Gardens of the Moon kept putting me off, something eventually clicked. There was no 'ah-ha' moment that I can pinpoint, just a span of pages that finally pulled me down into the epic maelstrom and refused to let me go. That series went on to be one of my all-time favorites, so I was eager to read more, and even more eager to explore the history of Anomander Rake and the mythology of his epic sword, Dragnipur.
Unfortunately, many of those little things that bothered me about Gardens of the Moon weighed on me even more wit Forge of Darkness. Don't get me wrong, there are some awesome moments in the book, and some fascinating revelations of how the world of the Malazan Empire came to be, but there's far too much filler. This is a book that, for all intents and purposes, comes across an epic fantasy soap opera. It could have made for an interesting evolution of the saga, but it lacks much of the humor of the original books, settling instead for something dry and overly melodramatic. To make matters worse, the very nature of a prequel means we get stuck with whiny, immature versions of some of our favorite characters, forcing us to endure the same coming-of-age aspect that was so refreshingly absent from the original 10 books.
I'm not saying this is Erikson's Phantom Menace, but we all know how well that approach worked for Darth Vader.
I think there's an element of too much, too soon with this book as well. We were introduced to a lot of characters in The Malazan Book of the Fallen, but that was over the course of 10 books. There, we had a chance to get to know them, to understand them, and to appreciate their contributions to the story. Each of them had an extended spotlight that made them both memorable and relevant. Here, it feels like there are even more characters thrown into the mix, but all at once, over the course of a single book. It's confusing at best, and bewildering at worst. Even with the 4 pages of Dramatis Personae, I found my brain glossing over as to who was who, where they fit, and why the hell I should give a damn.
Similarly, while many of the narrative tangents and philosophical discussions in the original series were interesting, adding color to the characters we already knew and loved, here it's too much again. There were pages upon pages where we got mired in nonsensical conversations about grand, esoteric concepts, which did nothing to advance the plot. Instead of accentuating the characters, these discussions defined them - and when you're already struggling to keep tabs, that makes a confusing tale a boring one as well. Add that to a serious pacing issue, with hundreds of pages passing between events of interest, and you have a book that is challenging even to fans.
I kept thinking of how Goodkind went off the rails with his repetitive, heavy-handed philosophy, and that's not a comparison I thought I'd ever make with Erikson.
Now, like I said, there are some awesome moments. T'riss was, for me, the absolute highlight of the book. Her emergence from the sea of Vitr and journey to Mother Dark is full of action, horror, imagination, and humor. It's like Erikson took everything that made the original series great and put it all into her. Anomander and Silchas Ruin had some great scenes together that evoked memories of Malazan (just not enough of them) while Lord Draconus was a welcome surprise in how strongly he dominated the tale.
Having said all that, I will still give Fall of Light a read, because I believe Erikson can do better, although I am worried a trilogy may not be enough time to win me back.
Originally reviewed at Beauty in Ruins