This is the first book of Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen series. I read this in January 2025. I had heard good things about this series and author from a few people. He was sometimes mentioned alongside Gene Wolfe which intrigued me greatly. I had also heard it was a difficult but rewarding read.
Gene Wolfe and Steven Erikson
To quote illustrator Nathan Anderson, Steven Erikson’s “work is detailed, but lacks nuance in theme and language, unlike Wolfe’s.” This is more or less how I felt about comparing the two authors. Both prefer indirect and subtle exposition, both are rewarding when reread, and both feel very satisfying when you make connections between distant parts of the book, but beyond these I don’t think they are much alike. I think Wolfe was certainly a better writer overall, though I base this on only one Erikson novel. I have the impression that even if you could fully “solve” The Book of the New Sun or any other work of Gene Wolfe, you would still be left with the feeling of having read something fully imbued with meaning. Although when I finished Gardens of the Moon I still had lots of questions and knew that I had certainly missed things here and there, I had that sense that I would pick a lot of these up if by rereading, or perhaps just continuing with the series. In other words, it would be possible to retell the story of Gardens of the Moon in a very simple, straightforward way, without any mystery. I don’t think that’s true of any Wolfe story.
Gardens of the Moon
A friend of mine said:
There’s absolutely no introduction, you just get dropped into an incredibly complex world, metaphysics, history, plot, magic system, etc., and have to feel your way. One bit of advice I’d give is don’t try and hold all that’s thrown at you too tightly or systematise it. You can’t see Malazan from above, as it were, you have to learn to walk in the perspective you’re given and accept you don’t know or understand a lot.
Despite not comparing well with Gene Wolfe, Gardens of the Moon is not without its own merits. It is a world thought out in great detail and a plot worked out meticulously. It has a cast of thousands, everything is interrelated, and you can get swept along and discover it. I think the quote above from my friend captures very well the fun that can be had here. The world is based on an RPG world that Erikson and his friend I. C. Esslemont came up with, and I think that does come through. That’s not a criticism, simply a fact, as I know some people really enjoy that.
Characters
One thing that is missing though is a more classical protagonist, a relatable person who is also discovering the world. I actually struggled to like or care about any of the characters until Book 2, Ch. 5, when we meet some of the Darujhistan crew. I suppose this is a problem with having a cast of thousands.
The characters felt somewhat modern as well, despite inhabiting a fantasy world with medieval technology. Early on something that bothered me was the high proportion of female soldiers in the Malazan army and the vague sense that men and women were a bit interchangeable. I thought a bit of the film Starship Troopers where women fighting on the front lines of a sci-fi military is used to great comedic effect. But there was no such comedy here and it just seemed improbable. I wondered if it was a product of having been published in 1999. Maybe that seemed edgy then. We’re a quarter century on from that now and a lot has happened. I’ll leave it at that.
That said, these feelings about the characters subsided as we got to Darujhistan and as I mentioned above I found the Phoenix Inn regulars a lot more enjoyable to spend time with, especially Kruppe and Crokus.
Also, Anomander Rake is a brilliant name. And Dassem Ultor. And Rallick Nom.
I tend to agree with this reviewer guy, who couldn’t finish the novel, that Gardens of the Moon, heavy on plot, light on characters. The plot is very intricate and there are many characters, and many points of view, but we aren’t given many reasons to care about them. Named characters die (and come back again!), but the reader was not invested in them and so is not affected. For a novel, especially one that was originally meant to be a movie, this seems like a flaw.
Things it reminded me of
- Dune, especially the first book. The hopelessness of the Atreides’ cause on Arrakis reminded me a bit of the persecuted Bridgeburners and their mission. Also beginning each chapter with some lore-poem reminded me of Dune.
- The old computer RPG Daggerfall: many factions, cast of thousands, complex plot, difficult to figure out everything that happened.
Some thoughts on the gods and religion
The gods are apparently capable of being killed, and we hear of people “ascending” or becoming gods. In a very strange scene, inside Anomander Rake’s sword, Paran is even able to grapple and threaten a god, the male version of Oponn, whose protegé he is. One wonders if “god” is even a good word for this state. The gods do have temples and priests and altars though and the plot of this book revolves around the consequences of gods meddling in mundane affairs. A few times characters are advised to avoid being noticed by the gods if you want a good life.
A couple times some slightly different facets of this world’s religion emerged. For example, Book 5, Ch. 16, p. 498, Paran is musing to himself after his encounter with Anomander Rake, and the events within his sword, and now feels more friendship to Whiskeyjack and co. than to the Empire itself. He thinks about a kind of transcendent justice:
Some things went beyond a single man’s life, and maybe justice existed outside the minds of humanity, beyond even the hungry eyes of gods and goddesses, a thing shining and pure and final. Some philosohers he’d read during his schooling in the Malazan capital, Unta, had asserted what seemed to him then an absurd position. Morality was not relative, they claimed, nor even existing solely in the realm of the human condition. No, they proclaimed morality as an imperative of all life, a natural law that was neither the brutal acts of beasts nor the lofty ambitions of humanity, but something other, something unassailable.
Another interesting passage was Book 6, Ch. 19, p. 567, when Crokus and Apsalar are on top of the tower of K’rul’s temple and Apsalar wants to talk about the Moon. The real moon, the shining one. Then she spouts some sort of legend of a Moon Messiah:
“Do you see its oceans?” Apsalar asked. “What?” He turned. “Its oceans. Grallin’s Sea. That’s the big one. The Lord of the Deep Waters living there is named Grallin. He tends vast, beautiful underwater gardens. Grallin will come down to us, one day, to our world. And he’ll gather his chosen and take them to his world. And we’ll live in those gardens, warmed by the deep fires, and our children will swim like dolphins, and we’ll be happy since there won’t be any more wars, and no empires, and no swords and shields. Oh, Crokus, it’ll be wonderful, won’t it?”
And so I’m left wondering whether all the gods are just really powerful mortals? Are there any truly godlike gods in the series? Is there any transcendent God above them all?
Poe’s The Raven
In Book 2, Ch. 6, once upon a midnight dreary Crone the Great Raven comes and raps at Baruk the Alchemist’s window lattice. This made me wonder whether there are any other literary references in the book.
The ending
There was something of a deus ex machina ending where the azath “house” thing, which I don’t think we’d heard of before, came out of nowhere in order to imprison the Jaghut tyrant’s finnest “horcrux” thing in a swamp in another dimension or something. Meanwhile in the Lady Simtal’s garden the same house thing — which we thought at first was the finnest growing since we saw Adjunct Lorn plant it as an acorn — seized the Jaghut tyrant himself (who was possessing Uncle Mammot). The confusion around the thing growing in the garden not being the finnest, and the azath ex machina, made this an unsatisfying end to the Jaghut tyrant, though I am open to the possibility that I haven’t actually undestood the sequence of events. Perhaps this would all be more satisfying in light of information from later books, but it does make Gardens of the Moon much less of a stand-alone novel if that’s the case.
I did think the part about Uncle Mammot becoming possessed by the Jaghut tyrant was interesting, as if he is a scholar that has hungered too much for ancient knowledge, has delved too deep into arcane lore, and this made him especially susceptible to possession by the Jaghut. His party mask was a Jaghut after all!
Conclusions
There’s a very intricate plot, some good and intense action sequences, and an impressive scope. I wonder if the series as a whole is as interconnected. I sometimes found it difficult to keep track of all the characters and their relationships, but I was reading it over the course of a month with little spare time for reading. Having enjoyed some aspects of the book as well as not enjoyed others I’m of two minds regarding continuing with the rest of the series which is very long (10 doorstops?!). I think this book would be really good in a social context where you can read it together with friends and discuss.