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A review by zeph1337
Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
This was not my first time trying to read this book. I did it around 10 years ago but I tapped out pretty quickly, early into the second part, mainly due to being very confused.
And yeah this book certainly doesn't take you by the hand and explains things. You get thrown right into the world and the action and you have to figure out pretty much everything yourself.
The style the author uses for that is pretty unique and just has been described to me as: Listening in to conversations. Which is very accurate as you get lots of different scenes and POVs already in this first book. And this will only continue as the world expands in further books.
I read this as a buddy read with a bunch of other people and I also used the companion guide which basically is a Powerpoint presentation with chapter overviews and some (very awesome) pictures. I feel like atleast one of these things was certainly needed.
While I had a much better time with the book than on my first go, I still discovered a lot after reading a chapter that I missed a few things or some things might have just been intentionally confusingly written so I need something like the companion guide to give me clarification on what the hell just happened.
On the other hand though if you catch/discover things on your own it really makes for a very satisfying reading experience and this definitely a huge part of the fun.
We already got so much worldbuilding thrown into this first book and it is frankly just fascinating. I also really enjoyed the characters. Everyone fells lively and uniquely different. Although a lot of them already feel kind of overpowered. But if everyone is owerpowered it might just mean that no one is overpowered anymore!
There is also a fair of bit camarederie und humor already which really resonates well with me.
This certainly already lays the groundwork for many epic things to come. I hope I get more used to the writing style because currently I can't really read more than 1 or 2 chapters in a row and pretty heavily rely on the reading assistants just to not get lost. And with this being a very long series this might become annoying further down the path. For now though I am commited to contuining and having a great time at it.
And yeah this book certainly doesn't take you by the hand and explains things. You get thrown right into the world and the action and you have to figure out pretty much everything yourself.
The style the author uses for that is pretty unique and just has been described to me as: Listening in to conversations. Which is very accurate as you get lots of different scenes and POVs already in this first book. And this will only continue as the world expands in further books.
I read this as a buddy read with a bunch of other people and I also used the companion guide which basically is a Powerpoint presentation with chapter overviews and some (very awesome) pictures. I feel like atleast one of these things was certainly needed.
While I had a much better time with the book than on my first go, I still discovered a lot after reading a chapter that I missed a few things or some things might have just been intentionally confusingly written so I need something like the companion guide to give me clarification on what the hell just happened.
On the other hand though if you catch/discover things on your own it really makes for a very satisfying reading experience and this definitely a huge part of the fun.
We already got so much worldbuilding thrown into this first book and it is frankly just fascinating. I also really enjoyed the characters. Everyone fells lively and uniquely different. Although a lot of them already feel kind of overpowered. But if everyone is owerpowered it might just mean that no one is overpowered anymore!
There is also a fair of bit camarederie und humor already which really resonates well with me.
This certainly already lays the groundwork for many epic things to come. I hope I get more used to the writing style because currently I can't really read more than 1 or 2 chapters in a row and pretty heavily rely on the reading assistants just to not get lost. And with this being a very long series this might become annoying further down the path. For now though I am commited to contuining and having a great time at it.