Reviews - Gardens of the Moon

3.3k reviews for:

Gardens of the Moon

Steven Erikson

3.85 AVERAGE

squigglyavo's review against another edition

3.25

adventurous challenging mysterious 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: Yes

One of those books where you just trust the author to bring everything together at the end. It takes reading up to about 60% to get some understanding of the bigger picture in this world, but then the story takes off at a great pace. The world looks interesting, and I feel there's so much more to be covered that just reading one book will not do this story any justice.

One thing that did strike me about the way Steven Erikson has chosen to write this book - there are no unrealistic conversations among the characters for the benefit of the readers, unlike in some books where they start throwing in details that should be known to everybody in the world just so the reader can follow along. Instead, we see things happening from multiple angles, and are trusted to figure out the details like putting together pieces of a puzzle. While I enjoyed that, the confusion this approach generates for a majority of the book is the reason why I'm knocking off a few points in my rating. Even after putting together the pieces, parts of the puzzle are clear, but much of the puzzle remains incomplete. I think I would rate this much higher on a re-read, once I've read the rest of this series someday.

aamui's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark tense medium-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: Yes

zerotonin99's review against another edition

2.0

3.5/5 Gardens of the Moon was undoubtedly an interesting journey, and I can say with satisfaction that there are many aspects of the books that I liked, but there are also many others that, although I would not necessarily say that I did not like, they most certainly did not connect with me. I'm quite certain that I will be reading the next book, and then we'll see if I end up falling in love with the saga or not.

tavern_bard's review against another edition

3.0

I'm going to keep this short, because everyone else already covered this. I'm lucky to have been able to read this with a group, cause it's the only way I think I would've got through it. I've been seeing everyone bring it up when they talk about fantasy books, like nothing compares to it in scope. And I will say that it's definitely a fun read. But I didn't sometimes understand the need for some of the confusion. It's always appreciative to be immersed and not being force-fed information, which I really, really loved. But when I have no idea what's going on, it just makes it a little frustrating.. can you tell I'm trying to be gentle?

With so many characters having their own POVs, it was hard to know who to vote for, because everyone thinks they're the hero of their own story. Good characters doing bad things, I do love that, but it was hard to identify and feel personally attached to any, especially when one can die at any time. It really felt a lot like an RPG, or DnD, and despite trying to be a different kind of fantasy, I could still see some of the basic characters in who we have. (Tanky Rake, Tricky Wizards, Light-Healing Girl, Young girl, Normal warrior Paran, Teen Lead Thief)

I admit, I was obsessed with reading it, I wanted to keep on and on and it was all so exciting.. up until about halfway, the 5th part, when it felt like dragging on just a little too long. Suddenly everyone was pulled together where they all needed to be at the same exact time, coincidentally, and it just reminded me so much of the 'they met at a tavern' trope, which KIND of irritated me, not gonna lie. It felt like 'okay, I'm tired of world building for a while-now let's have BATTLES' But I was able to look past that, because I genuinely wanted to know what exciting things were coming. There was so much mystery, and it makes you eager to learn more and more.

I have a feeling that I love the magic system, at least I THINK I do. But I just don't know what all those fancy words mean, and it's a shame because it's basically just like a complex gateway of elemental/planar magic or something. But if it makes my eyes cross trying to decipher a sentence, I can't enjoy the flow of following the pace.. and that makes me sad. :/

I was doing so good! Up until the last like three chapters and then everything suddenly went crazy, I'm just -- "what?? Who?? What happened?? Why? Who's that again?? Why are they acting like this is supposed to mean something?? Is that a dragon? What?"

I get the whole "gods vs freewill" thing, but I actually liked when a confrontation with a God is terrifying, like it's supposed to be. It just would look cooler, if we're taking that path to watch cool things, then stick to it, and let us see the Gods do cool things! I don't care about a statement at this point. And there were too many times when these 'brutal' characters decided randomly to let an enemy live. It didn't make sense to me, because it wasn't logical.

Everyone swears the first is the worst..and if this is the worst, I'm kind of excited to see where it goes and how it reads. These complaints are minimal, and not entirely the book's fault. I can't fault a story someone made up and then get mad when it doesn't make sense to me, it's their story, I'm just reading it. It should definitely be taken seriously as another epic fantasy <3

st_ilie7's review against another edition

5.0

The first book of an amazing series. I admit it was hard to read. Before I knew what was going on, the characters, the world magichesskata system gods ... But little by little I managed. And I can not wait to see what will happen in the next book in the Malazan Empire.

Steven Erikson, you're a great writer. :)