Gardens of the Moon

GotM is the best fantasy novel I've read in a long time, perhaps ever. I'm overjoyed that there are 9 more to go.

Some thoughts on what I heard about the series vs what I read:

- The first chapter was a bit overwhelming, and the language felt clumsy and confusing - I had to read a few sentences more than once to wring meaning out of them - and that fit what I'd heard. And it cleared up after the first chapter and is not at all representative of the rest of the book.

- People said Erikson throws a million characters at you and they're hard to keep track of. Pfffft. If you've read A Song of Ice and Fire, and managed to keep even half of the characters, families and relationships straight, GotM is a cakewalk.

- I'd heard that much of the world is obscure and unexplained. It is (so far). This is a GOOD thing. Tedious, multi-page info dumps (I'm looking at you, Mr. Jordan) are not how anyone speaks, and they're, well, tedious. Erikson explains enough to make sense, but not enough that you feel like an expert on this bizarre world you've just stumbled into, and has left me with quite a few nagging questions that keep me avidly reading.

- Specifically, the magic system. We all love a good magic system, and usually, some wise mage coincidentally lectures another character about how it all works, so we readers know. Here, magic is brutal, complex, and mysterious, and we see it happen, but rarely is it explained. There's obviously a system behind it, but it's not laid out in detailed exposition for us in the first book. I have QUESTIONS. Again, this is good.

- The story does indeed jump around a lot. This isn't “Chosen One and plucky companions seek McGuffin to save the world from Bad Guy”. It's a complex story, told masterfully, with dodgy good guys and sympathetic bad guys, where winning often means doing bad things for good reasons, and even after the victory, there's not much happily ever aftering. In this sense it's the most realistic, adult fantasy I've ever read.

- As a roleplayer, I was delighted to hear this all came about from a game Erikson was running, and I so very much want to play in this world. And that's the only thing that sucks about Malazan - there are no gaming materials for it. Considering the GotM came out over 20 years ago, this is confusing, sad and unforgivable. Okay, maybe not unforgivable, but c'mon.

Thank you Mr. Erikson, and and now onto Deadhouse Gates!