Re-read review: Gardens of the Moon, by Steven Erikson (Book 1 in The Malazan Book of the Fallen)

 

I spotted this in my favorite used book shop just after hearing a rave review of the Malazan series. It was only after I started reading that I realized I’d read it before, nearly fifteen years ago. The fact that I hadn’t remembered it and never read the rest of the series didn’t seem promising, but I thought that perhaps it would strike me differently now. The reviewer had noted that a challenging feature of the book is the way it drops you right into a complex world with no explanations, which is something one can better process as a more experienced reader. Well, I certainly did appreciate it more this time around, but I also now can articulate why it doesn’t work for me.

The world-building is the strongest yet in some ways most frustrating aspect of this book. We have an expanding empire trying to take over a continent, looming civil war, interfering gods, mages who draw power from realms called “warrens”, soul transfer, multiple human and non-human cultures including one based in a floating rock, assassin guilds, dragons, shadow hounds, a sword that chains the souls of those it kills to a giant cart forever, the resurrection of a long-dead tyrant with tusks, demons, strangling root things that weave themselves into buildings… All of that is very cool, but it is a lot for one book! The rest of the series likely expands on many of these ideas but introducing so many at once means that they mostly don’t feel well connected in this story¹ Also, how do you write a city called Darujhistan, a center of spice and silk trade, and populate it with mostly white people²? Then we’re told they have a spring festival that involves priestesses running around with fur strips to signify skinning the wolf of winter, but we have to spend the night at a standard masked ball? Talk about missed opportunities! Finally, this is kind of silly, but I’m a little disappointed that there were no “gardens of the moon”. As mentioned, there is an inhabited floating chunk of rock known as “the moon’s spawn”, but we never get to see inside and it is not mentioned to have gardens – so why the heck does the book have that title?

 

1. Compare this approach with ‘Lord of the Rings’: Tolkien starts the reader off with one fantasy race, the Hobbits, and allows a lot of time (too much for some readers’ taste) to get to know their “normal”, with hints of wizards, elves, and a wider world outside the Shire. Gradually, he drops in ringwraiths, nature spirits (Tom Bombadil), barrow-wights, dwarves, balrogs, Ents (not introduced until book 2), and so on, building the world out from the central anchor of characters we already care about.

2. In a similar vein, pretty much everyone has made-up fantasy names (Caladan Brood, Crokus, Lorn, etc.) or odd nicknames (Whiskeyjack, Quick Ben, Sorry), but one of the Darujhistanis is named Murillo – an actual Hispanic last name - and I found that a bit distracting.

 

The weakest part of the book is the character development. There is a huge cast of characters and I struggled to care about most of them. One issue is that, as with the worldbuilding elements, so many are introduced so fast that we don’t get to spend much time with any. Details also come in the wrong order for building up tension about the fate of the characters. For instance, I rather liked the mage Tattersail³ but we only see a flashback to her being happy with her lover after we learn that he is dead, and then we see him die as she thinks back to the battle scene⁴. Another character gets murdered and brought back to life so soon after being introduced that I felt absolutely nothing about either event.  He supposedly falls in love with one of the other characters, but I didn’t buy the emotional connection; she wears a sexy dress, they save each other semi-off-page, and that’s it. Moreover, most characters come across as grim and tired. That isn’t exactly unrealistic, especially for the soldiers fighting an unending war. But that mood works best when you can contrast it with either the same characters at an earlier point (eg. Frodo in the Shire vs. Frodo slogging across Mordor) or a cynical experienced soldier with a perky new recruit (eg. the two soldiers in the film ‘1917’). There was an opportunity to do that with Paran, a young aristocrat who joins the army, but the book just skips over his transition to jaded as well as most of the experiences that would be new to both him and the readers, like wading through a mysterious slaughter, or riding the giant dragonfly things the Moranth use for aerial cavalry.

My favorite characters were probably Crone the Great Raven and the plump, talkative Kruppe, simply because they seemed to be having a bit of fun and are also more powerful and devious than they look. Sergeant Whiskeyjack and his squad grow on you; I particularly like the friendship between the mage Quick Ben and assassin Kalam, though I kept forgetting who some of the others are. The thief Crokus is treated as important though he never does that much -  besides taking out a powerful mage with a couple of bricks (I found that very funny, but I’m not 100% sure its supposed to be). But as one of the few wide-eyed innocents in this world he is a rare beast and rather endearing, so you worry for his safety.

 

3. Or I was starting to, before something kicks her out of the story for most of the rest of the book!

4. Happy couple – battle - tragic death is the classic and much more effective order for making the reader care. If a story is going to be dark, I want it to build up my hope and then stab me in the heart, damn it!

 

Another thing that makes both the characters and the story hard to care about is that it takes a really long time to find out what their goals are, and therefore whether you agree. The first ones we meet are essentially in the position of orcs in LOTR or WWII Wehrmacht soldiers – tools of an empire aiming to smash and assimilate all surrounding states. They didn’t seem like intrinsically bad people, but I didn’t want to root for them without knowing whether the empire has any redeeming features. Luckily most eventually rebel in one way or another, ending that dilemma. Starting in Darujhistan, a city that is the empire’s next target, would probably have been a better hook. The characters we meet there immediately seem more varied and interesting, and the threat of an invasion provides good tension. But even there almost every character has some kind of secret plan that is not divulged to the reader, so we don’t know why they are doing things or if we should want them to succeed. Even when we do know it doesn’t always help. For instance, Rallick Nom wants to restore power to an aristocrat who was brought low by a treacherous wife. But, while I can see wanting to right an injustice, why do multiple people want this nobleman – who spends most of his page time either drunk or injured and never displays any particularly notable skills – back in city government? Why is the empress so keen on capturing Darujhistan that she’d unleash a potentially uncontrollable ancient force? Is there some important consequence if she didn’t conquer the city?  We also have no idea how anyone will match up in a fight, since their powers and weaknesses are rarely clearly established beforehand, and new magical beings or powers get introduced constantly.

In terms of descriptive writing, there is some good stuff here:

“Anomander Rake’s skin was jet-black…but his mane flowed silver. He stood close to seven feet tall. His features were sharp, as if cut from onyx, a slight upward tilt to the large vertical-pupiled eyes.”

Or:

“In the empty eyes of this child, he’d seen the withering of his own soul. The reflection had been unblemished, with no imperfections to challenge the truth of what he saw.”

Or:

“Squatting on their grass mats, local Rhivi plainsmen called out in their nasal singsong endless descriptions of fine horseflesh...Daru fishermen walked with spears of smoked fish…Catlin weavers sat behind fortresses comprised of bolts of brightly dyed cloth…Kruppe strode down the market street with a jaunty step…As he walked, the chaotic dance of his arms was timed to catch apples flying from baskets, pastries leaping from trays…He strode on, a connoisseur of edible delicacies of a thousand cultures”

But this descriptive effort is often expended in odd places. We get an exceedingly detailed description of one guy we never see again (“The goldsmith, narrow-faced and pebble-nosed, leaned hawkishly on his counter, his weathered hands before him bearing tiny gray scars that looked like raven tracks on mud”), but after 656 pages I still could not sketch you a picture of several of the main characters. Also – what does Tattersail’s fancy gown look like? Multiple characters comment on how amazing it looks, how it explains why she carries this big trunk around with her, how it catches the attention of one of the other main characters, but it is never actually described! Is it hoop-skirted? Body hugging? Low cut? What color is it, even!? I don’t quite know why this frustrated me so much, except that, like having nearly every female character⁵ be of romantic interest to some dude but never hearing their thoughts on the matter, it practically screams “a man wrote this⁶”.

 

5. Except for the criminally under-used Meese and Irlita, who are unexpectedly badass and fun any time they show up…and who are so joined-at-the-hip I kind of hope they’re a couple. Granted, they ARE the only women to comment on the attractiveness of a man (so far as I can remember), but that doesn't rule anything out!

6. Not bashing all male authors here; My list of favorites contains at least 60% men (Pratchett, Gaiman, Vandermeer, Shakespeare, etc.). But those authors typically write about feminine-coded things or women’s thoughts in a way that feels reasonably authentic - yes, even Tolkien, who just doesn't do it ENOUGH. This book, like some others I’ve previously reviewed (notably “The Overstory” and “The Wind-up Bird Chronicles”) does not.

 

Overall recommendation: This is the original introduction to a series well-loved by many. There are a lot of good elements in this book, but the whole was not to my taste. You might enjoy it if you like well-written fight scenes or complex political maneuverings, but character-focused readers or those who like steady planting and payoff to magic systems and world-building may be frustrated. I will probably not continue the series myself, since from the descriptions of the next few books they each follow a subset of the original characters but continue to add yet more complexity to a story that already seems over-loaded. What I’d actually love to see is a collection of short-stories that fill in the gaps around my favorite bits: A tour of the Moon’s Spawn through the eyes of Crone and her ravens, more of Meese and Irlita being a power-couple with some explanation of who the heck they are, a view of Darujistan’s spring festival from street-level instead of the mansions, something about demon magic from the point of view of the demons (who are supposed to be scary but always seem to end up dying ignominiously, poor things!), the early adventures of Quick Ben and Kalam, and so on. Who knows, maybe something like that exists…even if one has to turn to fan fiction to get it!