Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.85 AVERAGE
3.85 AVERAGE
Honestly took me a really long time to get invested into this. It almost went into my dnf. 200 pages of nothing making sense and following the lingo was difficult. Once you’ve figured it out though.. each perspective carries so much. There was a ton of thought put into this and the creatures involved are interesting. I’ll see how I feel after the next one.
I feel like this book just scratched the surface. So much more is clearly coming that it is hard to judge this one on its own.
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This book is a hard one to review. First things first: it's definitely what Farah Mendlesohn (author of Rhetorics of Fantasy) would call "immersive fantasy", and that in some ways is what makes it a difficult book to get into. The reader has to accept that they've been dropped into an unfamiliar world, largely without explanation, and just relax into that and trust that understanding will come as you go along - and for the most part it does.
A lot of this book definitely feels like set-up: preparation for an epic that's coming. That's not necessarily a bad thing. I definitely don't mind slow builds. Erikson does some pretty innovative world-building, too, and that I definitely appreciated. I'm really interested in the history of this world, and hoping there is more of that in the future.
I didn't find that I was immediately latching onto characters, but Erikson definitely writes very interesting, complicated characters, and I look forward to seeing more of them, and seeing which ones continue into the next books.
One of the things that made me hesitate to give this book three stars (my "enjoyed it but had issues" rating) rather than four ("really good, but didn't blow my mind") was that after I'd finished I found myself thinking about it for several hours afterwards. I was itching to read more, and that surprised me - but I did also race through the last 300 pages, so maybe it shouldn't.
Overall, looking forward to reading the rest, though for less dedicated fantasy readers this might be a rough start.
A lot of this book definitely feels like set-up: preparation for an epic that's coming. That's not necessarily a bad thing. I definitely don't mind slow builds. Erikson does some pretty innovative world-building, too, and that I definitely appreciated. I'm really interested in the history of this world, and hoping there is more of that in the future.
I didn't find that I was immediately latching onto characters, but Erikson definitely writes very interesting, complicated characters, and I look forward to seeing more of them, and seeing which ones continue into the next books.
One of the things that made me hesitate to give this book three stars (my "enjoyed it but had issues" rating) rather than four ("really good, but didn't blow my mind") was that after I'd finished I found myself thinking about it for several hours afterwards. I was itching to read more, and that surprised me - but I did also race through the last 300 pages, so maybe it shouldn't.
Overall, looking forward to reading the rest, though for less dedicated fantasy readers this might be a rough start.
Everything Malazan does well, it does really well. Characters are all introduced with very solid and human foundations, you can see decisions ripple out and affect pages in the future and locations miles away.
Its biggest fault comes in the cast itself. Every interaction, though interesting seems to be in some accelerated timeline, where one night with 2 characters is enough to set up an absolute infatuation with one another. Or where one conversation can crumble the foundation of a character's morals that they have themselves described to grow old with. Reading any character "evolve" in this book felt like they were growing past their own personalities within the space of each word. Its so fast that i struggled to understand the same characters' motivations within the same chapter. Culling the perspective of half the cast would probably ruin a lot of the books magic, but essential time growing each character is missing, so its left to the reader to fill each of these gaps themselves.
3.8/5
Its biggest fault comes in the cast itself. Every interaction, though interesting seems to be in some accelerated timeline, where one night with 2 characters is enough to set up an absolute infatuation with one another. Or where one conversation can crumble the foundation of a character's morals that they have themselves described to grow old with. Reading any character "evolve" in this book felt like they were growing past their own personalities within the space of each word. Its so fast that i struggled to understand the same characters' motivations within the same chapter. Culling the perspective of half the cast would probably ruin a lot of the books magic, but essential time growing each character is missing, so its left to the reader to fill each of these gaps themselves.
3.8/5
slow-paced
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
DNF-The audiobook narrator was very good but this is chalking up to be a bit slow for me. This was recommended as a high fantasy similar to Game of Thrones, and it seems like it will be. I'll revisit when I'm more in the mood for something slower paced.
I'm writing this review so that I can better remember my thoughts on Gardens of the Moon. I would not recommend reading this review because it's going to be poorly written stream-of-conscientiousness trash.
I liked it but did not love it. I'm still not really sure what the theme of the book was supposed to be. Maybe that authority is bad? But one of the characters protrayed as being highly honrarable was in a position of high authority. Maybe don't judge a book by its cover in regards to Kruppe? I don't know, seems like there are a few too many characters that live up to their appearance for that to be the case.
In general, I felt like there were just WAY too many characters and plot lines to keep track of. Maybe it's because I'm dumb (it probably is) but I didn't love that aspect of the story, and it seemed like that was sort of the point of the book. The plot was mostly interesting and I still largely enjoyed my time reading it, but there were more than a few times where I genuinely had no idea what was going on and not in a fun way. There are also still a couple of characters whose motivations I'm still confused about (this definitely happened often.) What was Hairlocke doing? Wjy did Quick Ben revive him? What was Lorn's motivation once she got to the city? What was Tool's motivation in the whole book? I don't know. Maybe that was the point. If so, I'm not a big fan of that storytelling style.
Kruppe is an amazing character. Like a fantasy Majima. He made every scene fun. Cool reveal that he was the Eel. In general the cast from Darujhistan I found far more compelling than the initial characters from the empire. I never managed to care much about Tattersail especially. It also seemed strange that Paran fell madly in love with her like instantly. I do like the fact that she was horny for like everyone though.
I had to read chapter summaries a lot to remember what happened. Uhhh I think that's about it. I hear the next book is better and I still liked this one, but didn't love it. What a great review.
In general, I felt like there were just WAY too many characters and plot lines to keep track of. Maybe it's because I'm dumb (it probably is) but I didn't love that aspect of the story, and it seemed like that was sort of the point of the book. The plot was mostly interesting and I still largely enjoyed my time reading it, but there were more than a few times where I genuinely had no idea what was going on and not in a fun way. There are also still a couple of characters whose motivations I'm still confused about (this definitely happened often.) What was Hairlocke doing? Wjy did Quick Ben revive him? What was Lorn's motivation once she got to the city? What was Tool's motivation in the whole book? I don't know. Maybe that was the point. If so, I'm not a big fan of that storytelling style.
Kruppe is an amazing character. Like a fantasy Majima. He made every scene fun. Cool reveal that he was the Eel. In general the cast from Darujhistan I found far more compelling than the initial characters from the empire. I never managed to care much about Tattersail especially. It also seemed strange that Paran fell madly in love with her like instantly. I do like the fact that she was horny for like everyone though.
I had to read chapter summaries a lot to remember what happened. Uhhh I think that's about it. I hear the next book is better and I still liked this one, but didn't love it. What a great review.