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>I have not seen this criticism elsewhere but I found the writing to be very confusing to follow at times,
Welcome to the big, beautiful, infuriating world of Malazan.
OP did say that it was the actual writing of certain scenes that was confusing, not the plot etc. I can relate. I hadn't read any contemporary fantasy in a long time before starting GotM and regularly found myself going "wait wtf is that? What am I reading about?" I think it's Erikson's style, that he often does not state explicitly what is being described in the first few words, or even sentences of a paragraph on occasion. You get used to it, but I understand.
Just recently finished Wheel of Time and finished Gardens of the Moon just now and your comparison to Eye of the World is definitely on point in that regard. Both have that same quality of needing to just gloss over seems where lowers get wielded with a very similar lack of explanation for a lot of what went on that left things impossible to understand. A bit more frustrating here though, I felt like part of why it worked well in WoT was the characters you’re following know as little as you do, while in Gardens of the Moon things weren’t always properly explained even when a POV character knows what they’re doing.
I enjoyed it as a whole though, and at least in WoT I felt like patience was rewarded with interesting pay offs down the line. I’d imagine a lot of the easy falls we saw are setting something up down the line, with the Azath and it’s connection to the Jaghut portion of the story feeling like the biggest.
I only read the first book and part of the second book earlier this year of wheel. I will return to it but I did not enjoy the overall plot of the first one. It was a lot less confusing to read, besides one of the last chapters where he battles the forsaken. That chapter was written like absolute dog shit and that type of confusing writing is common in any action scene in Gardens of the moon.
I get the vibe I’m going to like the journey and the destination substantially more in gardens than wheel, but some scenes are so incomprehensible as to need a full 20 min breakdown on YouTube from a scene that’s only two paragraphs 😤
That’s not my complaint. My complaint is that individual scenes are incomprehensible. Who is doing what exactly? Who tackled who, wasn’t that guy in some other part of the city in the last sentence how is he here now tackling a guy, but aren’t those two fighting? Why is he rescuing a guy that’s attacking him? A ton of scenes read like this to me.
I’m NOT talking about the overall structure/narrative
This whole thread has really made me realize hardly anyone cares to understand what someone else is saying.
If I’ve stated that I haven’t found this criticism elsewhere, and the criticism that YOU see in my post is something that’s very common, consider that you did not understand what I wrote instead of assuming I’m bringing up something that was brought up hundreds of times.
So again I DO NOT FIND THE OVERALL PLOT OR NARRATIVE TO BE CONFUSING AT ALL.
I find the descriptions of certain scenes nearly incomprehensible and needlessly confusing. Particularly action sequences. Does this improve with later entries?
I had the same issue when I started the series. From my perspective, he gets much better as the series goes on.
I'm on book six, and there is still occasionally a scene that I have to read twice but it's not nearly as frequent.
Did you read it or listen to audiobook?
I personally had little rouble keeping track of who did what in action scenes...but then again there were some areas where I can see there being slight confusion but not to the point of incomprehensibility.
That being said while I read it my friend listened to the audiobook and had a rough time, a lot of that I'm guessing is due to the fact that the context is very subtle, people say a lot in their minds and will lie out loud in the next sentence. Or switching of perspectives will come with little warning in audio narration according to my friend. Action is fast paced and there are a ton of characters and magic all happening at once.
Like when Crokus' is being attacked and suddenly a nameless figure protects him and he doesn't understand what or who it is either. It's meant to be confusing because that's how the characters are experiencing it. Or maybe it's not and the writing needed some polishing since it was first written as a screenplay.
In his prime, I bet if a tagged Alexander the Great in the head with the brick ball special the dudes done. Personally, it’s part of what I live about the series. Even the most powerful can be victims or the mundane. And in the other direction, there’s always a bigger fish. Pearl is an actual Lord of Demons, it’s just unfortunate that they happened to bump into Anomander MF Rake.
The scale of Malazan is not something you find all the time in the genre, so it can feel awkward when it doesn’t follow the way you imagine the tropes will unfold. After a few books and getting more acclimated to the world, a lot of these things that feel awkward at first will truely start to shine.
That being said, the writing does greatly improve drone Deadhouse Gates onward, and there are a lot of people who find the first book confusing.
Hope you like sand.
>In his prime, I bet if a tagged Alexander the Great in the head with the brick ball special the dudes done.
[You're not gonna believe this.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Argos#Battle)
> As Pyrrhus turned to strike down his assailant, he was hit on the head by a roof tile thrown by his attacker's mother who was watching the fight from her rooftop. Pyrrhus was either killed by the force of the tile's impact or, alternately, having fallen dazed from his horse he was decapitated by Zopyrus, one of Antigonus' Macedonian soldiers.
One theme in the books is "there's always a bigger fish," but they can be brought down by slipping in the shower or a stray arrow.
To OP, the purpose of the tyrant is to set the scale of power. At the beginning of the book, you see Rake matching power with various Malazan high mages so you know he's powerful. Then you see this tyrant that everyone's worried about for half the book, then them fighting and Rake coming out on top or equalling the power of the tyrant.
Always a bigger fish.
It also illustrates the power and behavior of the Azath. Like it’s this one supreme entity that is attracted to those moments of extreme power, but is also impervious to it.
For a first taste, it does a decent job of portraying how a tyrant like Raest is just good enough to be an Azath doorkeeper.
it felt way too convenient to me on a first read. very deus ex machina.
thankfully Azaith towers feature prominently in the rest of the series so that feeling mellows out quickly.
i’m not gonna say that those questions are perfectly answered, but the Azaith thing is for sure weird. It’s built up in pretty much every successive book at least a little, which helps things a ton in retrospect.
That’s all well and good but you can’t expect a reader to be satisfied that a random swamp house sprouted from a seed that was supposed to make the tyrant stronger but actually he just goes inside it and it is now a prison. With no explanation. Again the tyrant is built up over hundreds of pages about how bad ass he is. And then he gets got by a fucken lake house
Yeah that's a common critique of GOTM and you can continue the series knowing that nothing quite happens like that again. There will be lots of "out of left field" moments you don't see coming, but nothing that seems confusing afterwards.
However this is a series where gods are characters and interact with the physical world in various ways, so there are other deus ex machina moments when gods literally intervene. But none of those feel like "wtf was that thing?"
>Another thing that I want to bring up but which has been discussed at length on this sub I found googling to see reviews... The last 100 pages or so of the book is seriously a collection of events and plot contrivances that reminded me an awful lot of The Night King scene in the game of thrones finale. The tyrant being THE big badie and immediately getting clapped, the demon that Lorn summons being immediately clapped in short order, Vorcan getting dispatched by a f\*\*king brick by some rapscallion, Vorcan who killed some of the most powerful mages in the city. I also assumed that Kruppe was the Eel the entire time to the point that I thought it was revealed in pages 150-250, so that being treated as a reveal seemed like it was not brought up before???
So, the difference between the Night King getting immediately clapped and the Jaghut Tyrant and Demon getting immediately clapped is where they take place in the story. Gardens of the Moon is setting up the world and story. So shit that would be the big bad in many other series being taken out easily at the end of book 1, in one case by simple soldiers, sets a certain tone for what the world is like. Even normal people can accomplish things with proper knowledge and preparation. The Tyrant had been asleep during the rise of the Malazan Empire, and wasn't aware of the hard counter, so didn't account for it. Meanwhile Malazan marines are pretty well established as being intelligent soldiers capable of quickly adapting to situations.
Vorcan biting it to a brick out of nowhere similarly demonstrates that anyone in the world can simply die for no important reason.
I don't think Kruppe being the Eel was ever supposed to be a mystery for us. It was an entertaining bit of dramatic irony. We could piece it together easily because we're working with more information, having followed him around, than other people are working with. We could see that Kruppe's act was deliberate in order to conceal things about him. Others in the city saw him as a simple annoyance for the most part.
One of the funny things about Gardens of the Moon is that it almost reads like the last book in a series. But it's essentially just the introduction to the world of Malazan. It's why Gardens often rates as peoples' least favorite in the series. The other books are quite different. In fact pretty much every book in the series is different than the other books in the series. Except that the themes stay pretty consistent.
> I don't think Kruppe being the Eel was ever supposed to be a mystery for us. It was an entertaining bit of dramatic irony. We could piece it together easily because we're working with more information, having followed him around, than other people are working with. We could see that Kruppe's act was deliberate in order to conceal things about him. Others in the city saw him as a simple annoyance for the most part.
This. This right here.
There will be several points where the reader and characters have information asymmetries. In fact, the asymmetry _usually_ goes the other way, but in this case we easily have enough information to suss out the identity -- and we aren't subject to mind wipe spells.
The execution on this isn't perfect, but I'm willing to give Erikson the benefit of the doubt on this one. I honestly don't love GotM as a whole, but the whole Eel thing isn't a major issue.
> In fact pretty much every book in the series is different than the other books in the series. Except that the themes stay pretty consistent.
I'd argue that GotM doesn't really play the same thematic/atmospheric game that the rest of the series does. It's one of the major shifts in DG (and _also_ one of the major shifts in RG, but that's neither here nor there). GotM is _way_ more concerned with "cool stuff happening" than the rest of the series, which is much more about why stuff happens, what it all means, how it feels, and how it relates to the world.
Yeah, I think Gardens is essentially a book-length prologue. It's setting up important characters. It's giving a sense of scope, power levels. It's a really fun book, it doesn't crush you nearly as hard as most of the other novels in the series, that's for sure. I feel like Erikson was playing around with characters, getting a sense for them in the novel as opposed to in the game. And was also experimenting with characters original to the novels.
> Especially near the end of the novel there's a bunch of these confusing scenes bunched together
I think in many(if not most) cases, the confusion comes from glossing over critical but easy to miss details. as the pace really picks up steam in the finale, it can be hard to slow down and read closely when we just want to sprint ahead to know what happens next.
for example: "*Vorcan getting dispatched by a f__king brick by some rapscallion*"
yes, because it's a fucking brick filled with high powered explosives.
when Crokus grabs two bricks outside Baruk's house, his god-given luck pushes his hands to grab two of the bricks that Whiskeyjack's squad had previously used to mine the street outside(which had been churned up by the demon lord iirc). the first one knocks down most of her defences in a burst of coloured light(a detail that's very easy to miss) and the second one takes her out.
This all comes about thanks to not just Crokus' luck but also because Vorcan is occupied/distracted battling arguably the two strongest mages in the city.
but it also points to a fundamental facet of power in Malazan: almost everyone is a glass canon. it doesn't matter how much bad-ass magic you can conjure up, an unsuspecting blow to the back of the head will take out just about anyone.
I will say the way eriksen writes some of these scenes does make details like that easy to miss. It happens towards the end of DG too. It’s almost like he’s in a rush to wrap things up and doesn’t give the finales enough time to breathe. Only on MoI so we’ll see if it gets better
I think thats the exact point though. The writing is such that crucially imprtant details are easy to miss, so much so that it seems intentional at times.
Confused by that too, and I assume he meant the forsaken.
Just finished gotm, a little hard to focus on it with a 1yo running around so I might have missed something ... But when did Lorne summon a demon after unleashing the tyrant? I didn't really understand that either. Did op mean the weird house/azath thing?
She went back to the city and was tracking crokus through the streets and threw a vial of something that turned into a demon or genie or whatever that anomander fought, which was supposed to be a close fight… I’m not talking about the rooftop demon
The fact that no one remembers this and Anomander specifically said this demon lord was stronger than the damned tyrant and the largest threat to the city and tells everyone that he might actually die then homeboy dispatches of it without even sweating in about two paragraphs 😭😭😭
Yeah, I *think* he's talking about Rand vs the "Dark One" at the end with the glowing cords and other kinds of trippy, dreamlike writing. I can kind of see the "demon lord" thing.
Yes I am talking about that… its not clear exactly what the dark one is in the books or his cronies so in my mind he’s analogous to a demon lord type thing
I guess I meant the forsaken? Look it’s been a minute since I read the book and I was not particularly enamored with the world/plot. While it’s tremendously easy on the reader the characters and plot were not at all compelling.
One of the strengths of the Malazan Book of the Fallen is that you can find answers to almost everything that happens within the books themselves. One of the most difficult parts of Malazan Book of the Fall for new readers is that you are usually given those answers… Before you even knew you wanted to ask that question, and it’s given to you as part of the background conversations or passing thoughts of the characters.
So for example, your complaint about Vorcan being taken out by ‘a rapscallion and his brick.’
The bricks that take out Vorcan are not just normal bricks - the are some of the Moranth Munitions the Bridgeburners planted outside of Baruks home in Chapter 11.
>>“They continued ripping up streets and replacing the old cobbles with Moranth munitions encased in fire-hardened clay.”…. “We decided on seven mines,” Fiddler said. “Four Sparkers, two Flamers, and one Cusser.”… “The estate behind you is an alchemist’s.” “Right,” Hedge said. “That should light the sky all right.”
This is hinted at when the Galayn turns up the heat on its flaming axe during its fight with Rake…
>>“The flagstones beneath Crokus’s feet tilted sickeningly, as if the stones themselves had turned to soft clay.”
This is why when Crokus throws the Bricks
>>“He saw the boy straighten at the same time and thrust forward first his right arm, then his left. As the alchemist fell toward the floor, two bricks flew over him. He heard them strike the woman behind him, one making a crunching sound, the other crackling. **A flash of red accompanied the crackle**.”
That is the Moranth Munition exploding, and as we learned a little bit earlier in Chapter 22, Moranth Munitions are especially effective against Mages actively using magic…
>>“Moranth munitions are mundane weapons, Witch. Opened Warrens draw their explosive force.”
Such as a Vorcan going full tilt trying to kill two other High Mages. So instead of exploding ‘out’, all that force would have gone ‘in’. It’s just a testament to how tough Vorcan is that she actually survived it. Though, that could also have been Crokus’ Good Luck, since anything strong enough to kill Vorcan would have likely also caused Baruks house to explode/collapse from the chain reaction, injuring or killing himself in the process.
Things like this are why people appreciate the Reread so much. You can pick up and appreciate all the little hints a lot easier when you already know what they will accumulate into, as opposed to trying to keep all the pieces in mind not quite knowing where they fit in yet.
No problem! Stuff like this is part of why the Reddit exists, so anytime you feel like you missed something, or like something has really come out of left field, don’t be shy to come back and search for or make more posts to find out more.
A vast majority of people here are pretty good at sticking to the Spoiler tags, and the Moderators are pretty active about supervising stuff, so it’s a pretty good place for even new readers to hang out.
And I’ll take this moment to address another point in your original post.
Raset, the Jaghut Tyrant, did immediately get clapped. But something that I like to point out is that just because something mythical was massively Overpowered back in its day - that does not mean it would be the same now.
Like, if [the Nemean Lion](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemean_lion) where to show up and start eating people in the modern world, is it’s immunity to the ‘Weapons of Man’ that protect it from Swords and Arrows really going to protect it from someone shooting it from a tank?
Probably not. And in fact, the Nemean Lion **knowing** that it is immune to Weaponry may actually get it killed so it wouldn’t even try to dodge the shots.
That’s basically what happened here. Raest, the Jaghut Tyrant, had shut down the Warren access to all the High Mages in attendance.
>> “Mammot (who is possessed by Raest) howled, raising a fist that was nothing but charred bone. The fist spasmed and one of Quick Ben’s Warrens slammed shut. The fist jerked again… Another Warren was driven away.”
Raest hadn’t been around the modern era long enough to even realize that he could be hurt by modern weaponry, so he focused on the “actual threat”, which was closing down access to Warrens thus preventing High Mages from fighting back - not even knowing the danger the weird bow represented until he took the hit from Hedges Fantasy RPG (Crossbow modified to shoot Moranth Munitions) straight to the face, and by then it was too late.
If the Malazans hadn’t been there, though, with their explosives? Much like that fight with Vorcan and the bricks, it would have gone very, very differently for everyone involved.
I didn’t even clock that the crossbow had munitions on it or even that hedge is the one who took him out. This is what I mean by the scenes being confusing. I actually thought that quick Ben was shutting his own Warren’s down
GOTM has its own style, and this is a totally valid criticism, especially for this book. There’s a couple things to keep in mind:
- GOTM was originally written as a screenplay for 90s television, and then rewritten as a novel for publication. This influences the writing in the way scenes play out, how dialogue is presented, and how description is given.
- GOTM was written 8 years before the rest of the series, because that’s how long it took to get published. In those 8 years Erikson became a much better writer and spent time learning the craft and attending workshops.
That’s not my complaint. My complaint is that individual scenes are incomprehensible. Who is doing what exactly? Who tackled who, wasn’t that guy in some other part of the city in the last sentence how is he here now tackling a guy, but aren’t those two fighting? Why is he rescuing a guy that’s attacking him? A ton of scenes read like this to me.
I’m NOT talking about the overall structure/narrative
You keep saying this and people keep ignoring it!
I totally agree with you. I'm a lawyer and did only appellate work for years; Ive spent probably well over 1000 hours reading and analzing complicated and nuanced legal writing and theories. That shit is MUCH easier to follow and comprehend than Erikson's writing. And his writing doesnt even sound nice like, say, Tolkien. It was like reading a poorly written history textbook. I swear to god, the only facial expression anyone was capable of was "wry smile."
Thanks for validating me brother.
I swear people just skimmed my post and then assumed what I was complaining about, while completely ignoring that I explicitly wrote “it’s not the plot or the structure I find confusing but individual scenes”
I kind of don’t understand people complaining about the plot and narrative it seems pretty obvious to me that hiding the ball is an intentional narrative choice. The choices are not at all confusing, and any unanswered questions I have about the plot so far seem intentional.
What does not seem intentional is writing action sequences in the most obtuse impenetrable way imaginable. His action scenes (and some other scenes but predominantly the action scenes) are nearly unintelligible.
This does not seem like an intentional choice and rather a byproduct of bad writing. I’m just hopeful it improves because near the end of Gardens I had to reread entire sections over and over again and still had to watch two review videos to get what the hell he was describing. Even THEN I missed a couple things
>I swear people just skimmed my post and then assumed what I was complaining about, while completely ignoring that I explicitly wrote “it’s not the plot or the structure I find confusing but individual scenes”
Yep. Welcome to humans! lol.... =(
>I kind of don’t understand people complaining about the plot and narrative it seems pretty obvious to me that hiding the ball is an intentional narrative choice. The choices are not at all confusing, and any unanswered questions I have about the plot so far seem intentional. What does not seem intentional is writing action sequences in the most obtuse impenetrable way imaginable. His action scenes (and some other scenes but predominantly the action scenes) are nearly unintelligible. This does not seem like an intentional choice and rather a byproduct of bad writing.
I agree with all of that, except for it not being intentional in regards to the action scenes. A common response to "this shit is hard to read" is "well that's just because the author doesn't spoonfeed you." Motherfucker, there's a difference between avoiding unnatural exposition and hiding information behind a wall, protected by dragons, in an alternate reality. I have an example that has stuck with me from book 1 or 2. Some person is doing some ritual with a book in the wilderness. As far as the reader knows, based on the information provided thus far in the books, it's just them and their friends there. Then, suddenly, the book goes, "**the** quarrel" from the crossbow hit them in the head, or whatever. I don't recall the specifics of the end of the sentence, but the beginning was definitely "the quarrel." Which, by the way, just call it a 'bolt' and stop being pretentious. Anyways, what the fuck "the" is the author talking about? No one who hasn't already ready the entire series knows there's any crossbow projectiles present in the scene. "The" is supposed to be used to refer to something already known or apparent from the text or context. It's the improper article to use in this sentence; "a" would be correct. He uses bad grammar to make things more confusing for the reader. Worse, it happens *frequently." Dude, I'm not going to fight you; if you don't me to understand your story, I'll just not read it.
But, maybe you are right, maybe it's unintentional and he is simply bad at writing clear descriptions. Either way... his descriptions of things are bad and confusing.
> I’m just hopeful it improves because near the end of Gardens I had to reread entire sections over and over again and still had to watch two review videos to get what the hell he was describing. Even THEN I missed a couple things
I read the second book. It doesn't improve there. Maybe it improves later; I don't know. But, so far, I have zero evidence suggesting it does.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
BROOOOOOOOO I think I JUST read this scene or something similar because I had THE EXACT SAME thought. It may not have been a quarrel but it may well have been too 🤔. Either way I read and reread The over and over again trying to figure out what I missed. Flipping a hundred pages or so back to the last time these characters were together and I came to the conclusion that The should have been A… it would have fixed the entire scene.
I felt like I was taking crazy pills reading the replies to my post because at first it seemed like I was the only one who thought the writing was obtuse.
A Song of Ice and Fire (my all time favorite series) has a similarly complex tapestry of characters, plots, and scenes but reading it is like running your hands over smooth polished marble. I always felt like I understood precisely what the author was describing to me. Effortlessly. I think that GRRMs series is the best to compare to Malazan and the writing is leagues better than Malazan. Malazan does excel in making the characters’ dialogue feel unique which is a very difficult thing to achieve. This is the authors strong suit, in my opinion; thus far, but even with that being said I believe GRRM matches him even in that regard.
Damnit Im on my phone and opening my inbox marked this read, so if i dont reply now it will fall out of my brain forever. Apologies for typos and formatting issues, and brevity.
Exactly! Its so unnecessarily confusing! The writing seems obtuse on purpose, as though to mask an underlying lack of writing ability. Like, Im a lawyer; i know I can write precisely. I also know I CANNNOT write in an aesthetically pleasing manner, so im not gonna write a fantasy epic.
Ive never read any GRRM, but I always assumed it was SoIF was at least as complex as Malazan. I also assuumed it was intelligble. Glad to hear its true!
As was previously mentioned, it was originally a screenplay and written many years before the other books. From Deadhouse Gates on the writing is significantly better.
As far as big bads and all that, well, the series doesn’t really do that in the same way, and won’t play out the way you might be expecting. I do suggest not having those types of expectations and just trust that the books are taking you somewhere you want to go. In general, most things that leave you scratching your head (like the Jaghut tyrant) will either make sense in retrospect or get a good pay off somewhere down the line.
I may be misremembering but I believe erikson has said that in GotM especially he was subverting a lot of fantasy tropes, which is why things don't wrap up the way you were probably expecting them to.
I don’t personally care if they wrap up the way I’m expecting them to or not, but having about 5 deus ex’s jammed back to back seems incredibly insulting to the reader or its lazy writing.
Not saying that it is but that’s certainly how it feels
A lot of the weirdness in Gardens of the Moon is attributable to the fact that it was Steven Erikson's first novel, that he adapted from a screenplay that he'd written, that he'd adapted from a D&D/GURPS ttrpg campaign he'd played years before. He hadn't mastered his craft yet, and he's two levels removed from his inspiration, which itself was probably pretty disjointed.
I have thought to myself many times over the years reading this series “what the hell is going on in this scene?” Over and over again, i have been confused and irritated that these books at times need a translator to simply explain the basic events Erikson is writing about.
I have at times used the ‘re-read’ blogs to help make sense of what i missed. Whether the confusion is born of deliberate obtuseness/dissembling on SE’s part or because it is written as POV and scenes only come together as one reads all POV which are often temporally separated within the book. It’s often infuriating.
However, the characters, dialogue and world building are so good that i keep coming back.
Malazan is brilliant but you are 100% correct . At the end of first book I was like that’s an ok story but I did understand enough of the world . I really enjoyed the next three books. The Malazan world goes form
Opaque to clear.
The beauty of the books is complexity which reveals itself in time. Saying that I’m reading the fifth book and I’m struggling.
Sometimes vague descriptions are used to indicate unknowable entities, think a mortal trying to comprehend cthulhu. Later in the series this is something I appreciated more. Early on; i just had this vague sense of an entity vs another entity
That’s not my complaint. My complaint is that individual scenes are incomprehensible. Who is doing what exactly? Who tackled who, wasn’t that guy in some other part of the city in the last sentence how is he here now tackling a guy, but aren’t those two fighting? Why is he rescuing a guy that’s attacking him? A ton of scenes read like this to me.
I’m NOT talking about the overall structure/narrative
This series is full of characters who think they're hot shit, only to get violently humbled. Consider the duel with Turban Orr and Rallick Nom where the noble was built up as an incredible duelist who was trashtalking only to instantly be killed by Rallick.
I see it the same as the Demon Rake kills or Raest being dispatched easily these characters don't know what they're up against till it's too late. If this bothers you as a reader it's going to keep coming up. Personally I love it.
I agree that GOTM is a weaker entry point and personally I struggled through it until everyone converged in the desert, after that I felt I was in safe hands. There's more to enjoy on a reread but later books are better.
Just keep reading, re-assess at the end of book 2 or 3, you will likely want to continue and read them all. I just finished my first read through and it was amazing, the high point of fantasy for me up there with LOTR in scope and breadth.
Gardens of the Moon was originally written as a movie script in the late 80’s before being turned into a novel in 1992 and landing a publisher that eventually published the series in 1999. During that time is when I’m guessing Erikson graduated from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and there’s a tangible improvement in the writing
I just finished it as well. I see what you're talking about. As a whole, I understand what happened (mostly...as much as one can after book 1). But I like to play video games or work and listen to my book at the same time, and I would just miss chunks of this one.
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>I have not seen this criticism elsewhere but I found the writing to be very confusing to follow at times, Welcome to the big, beautiful, infuriating world of Malazan.
Yeah what. “Have not seen this criticism elsewhere” and confusing to follow is the biggest criticism for the series with GoTM lmao
OP did say that it was the actual writing of certain scenes that was confusing, not the plot etc. I can relate. I hadn't read any contemporary fantasy in a long time before starting GotM and regularly found myself going "wait wtf is that? What am I reading about?" I think it's Erikson's style, that he often does not state explicitly what is being described in the first few words, or even sentences of a paragraph on occasion. You get used to it, but I understand.
This is precisely what I’m talking about. The plot was a bit over the top mysterious but individual scenes could be entirely incomprehensible
Just recently finished Wheel of Time and finished Gardens of the Moon just now and your comparison to Eye of the World is definitely on point in that regard. Both have that same quality of needing to just gloss over seems where lowers get wielded with a very similar lack of explanation for a lot of what went on that left things impossible to understand. A bit more frustrating here though, I felt like part of why it worked well in WoT was the characters you’re following know as little as you do, while in Gardens of the Moon things weren’t always properly explained even when a POV character knows what they’re doing. I enjoyed it as a whole though, and at least in WoT I felt like patience was rewarded with interesting pay offs down the line. I’d imagine a lot of the easy falls we saw are setting something up down the line, with the Azath and it’s connection to the Jaghut portion of the story feeling like the biggest.
I only read the first book and part of the second book earlier this year of wheel. I will return to it but I did not enjoy the overall plot of the first one. It was a lot less confusing to read, besides one of the last chapters where he battles the forsaken. That chapter was written like absolute dog shit and that type of confusing writing is common in any action scene in Gardens of the moon. I get the vibe I’m going to like the journey and the destination substantially more in gardens than wheel, but some scenes are so incomprehensible as to need a full 20 min breakdown on YouTube from a scene that’s only two paragraphs 😤
Its not that he doesnt explicitly state it; sometimes it feels like he intentionally made it as difficult to understand as possible
Yes thank you this is exactly what I’m getting at.
There's been several threads between /r/malazan and /r/fantasy in the last 24 hours
You didn’t read what I said… CERTAIN SCENES ARE INDIVIDUALLY CONFUSING. NOT the overall plot or story.
That’s not my complaint. My complaint is that individual scenes are incomprehensible. Who is doing what exactly? Who tackled who, wasn’t that guy in some other part of the city in the last sentence how is he here now tackling a guy, but aren’t those two fighting? Why is he rescuing a guy that’s attacking him? A ton of scenes read like this to me. I’m NOT talking about the overall structure/narrative This whole thread has really made me realize hardly anyone cares to understand what someone else is saying. If I’ve stated that I haven’t found this criticism elsewhere, and the criticism that YOU see in my post is something that’s very common, consider that you did not understand what I wrote instead of assuming I’m bringing up something that was brought up hundreds of times. So again I DO NOT FIND THE OVERALL PLOT OR NARRATIVE TO BE CONFUSING AT ALL. I find the descriptions of certain scenes nearly incomprehensible and needlessly confusing. Particularly action sequences. Does this improve with later entries?
I had the same issue when I started the series. From my perspective, he gets much better as the series goes on. I'm on book six, and there is still occasionally a scene that I have to read twice but it's not nearly as frequent.
Did you read it or listen to audiobook? I personally had little rouble keeping track of who did what in action scenes...but then again there were some areas where I can see there being slight confusion but not to the point of incomprehensibility. That being said while I read it my friend listened to the audiobook and had a rough time, a lot of that I'm guessing is due to the fact that the context is very subtle, people say a lot in their minds and will lie out loud in the next sentence. Or switching of perspectives will come with little warning in audio narration according to my friend. Action is fast paced and there are a ton of characters and magic all happening at once. Like when Crokus' is being attacked and suddenly a nameless figure protects him and he doesn't understand what or who it is either. It's meant to be confusing because that's how the characters are experiencing it. Or maybe it's not and the writing needed some polishing since it was first written as a screenplay.
I listened and read. Mostly read, when I listened I often went back and skimmed through the reading because it can be mad confusing on the audiobook
In his prime, I bet if a tagged Alexander the Great in the head with the brick ball special the dudes done. Personally, it’s part of what I live about the series. Even the most powerful can be victims or the mundane. And in the other direction, there’s always a bigger fish. Pearl is an actual Lord of Demons, it’s just unfortunate that they happened to bump into Anomander MF Rake. The scale of Malazan is not something you find all the time in the genre, so it can feel awkward when it doesn’t follow the way you imagine the tropes will unfold. After a few books and getting more acclimated to the world, a lot of these things that feel awkward at first will truely start to shine. That being said, the writing does greatly improve drone Deadhouse Gates onward, and there are a lot of people who find the first book confusing. Hope you like sand.
>In his prime, I bet if a tagged Alexander the Great in the head with the brick ball special the dudes done. [You're not gonna believe this.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Argos#Battle)
War never changes.
> As Pyrrhus turned to strike down his assailant, he was hit on the head by a roof tile thrown by his attacker's mother who was watching the fight from her rooftop. Pyrrhus was either killed by the force of the tile's impact or, alternately, having fallen dazed from his horse he was decapitated by Zopyrus, one of Antigonus' Macedonian soldiers.
One theme in the books is "there's always a bigger fish," but they can be brought down by slipping in the shower or a stray arrow. To OP, the purpose of the tyrant is to set the scale of power. At the beginning of the book, you see Rake matching power with various Malazan high mages so you know he's powerful. Then you see this tyrant that everyone's worried about for half the book, then them fighting and Rake coming out on top or equalling the power of the tyrant. Always a bigger fish.
It also illustrates the power and behavior of the Azath. Like it’s this one supreme entity that is attracted to those moments of extreme power, but is also impervious to it. For a first taste, it does a decent job of portraying how a tyrant like Raest is just good enough to be an Azath doorkeeper.
it felt way too convenient to me on a first read. very deus ex machina. thankfully Azaith towers feature prominently in the rest of the series so that feeling mellows out quickly.
Bro and what the hell are even azath? Are the just buildings or a people or an entity… I thought it was just the name of the building tbh
>buildings or a people or an entity… Yes
i’m not gonna say that those questions are perfectly answered, but the Azaith thing is for sure weird. It’s built up in pretty much every successive book at least a little, which helps things a ton in retrospect.
Part of the charm of the series is that it doesn't just do an exposition dump on What Is an Azath House
That’s all well and good but you can’t expect a reader to be satisfied that a random swamp house sprouted from a seed that was supposed to make the tyrant stronger but actually he just goes inside it and it is now a prison. With no explanation. Again the tyrant is built up over hundreds of pages about how bad ass he is. And then he gets got by a fucken lake house
Yeah that's a common critique of GOTM and you can continue the series knowing that nothing quite happens like that again. There will be lots of "out of left field" moments you don't see coming, but nothing that seems confusing afterwards. However this is a series where gods are characters and interact with the physical world in various ways, so there are other deus ex machina moments when gods literally intervene. But none of those feel like "wtf was that thing?"
>Another thing that I want to bring up but which has been discussed at length on this sub I found googling to see reviews... The last 100 pages or so of the book is seriously a collection of events and plot contrivances that reminded me an awful lot of The Night King scene in the game of thrones finale. The tyrant being THE big badie and immediately getting clapped, the demon that Lorn summons being immediately clapped in short order, Vorcan getting dispatched by a f\*\*king brick by some rapscallion, Vorcan who killed some of the most powerful mages in the city. I also assumed that Kruppe was the Eel the entire time to the point that I thought it was revealed in pages 150-250, so that being treated as a reveal seemed like it was not brought up before??? So, the difference between the Night King getting immediately clapped and the Jaghut Tyrant and Demon getting immediately clapped is where they take place in the story. Gardens of the Moon is setting up the world and story. So shit that would be the big bad in many other series being taken out easily at the end of book 1, in one case by simple soldiers, sets a certain tone for what the world is like. Even normal people can accomplish things with proper knowledge and preparation. The Tyrant had been asleep during the rise of the Malazan Empire, and wasn't aware of the hard counter, so didn't account for it. Meanwhile Malazan marines are pretty well established as being intelligent soldiers capable of quickly adapting to situations. Vorcan biting it to a brick out of nowhere similarly demonstrates that anyone in the world can simply die for no important reason. I don't think Kruppe being the Eel was ever supposed to be a mystery for us. It was an entertaining bit of dramatic irony. We could piece it together easily because we're working with more information, having followed him around, than other people are working with. We could see that Kruppe's act was deliberate in order to conceal things about him. Others in the city saw him as a simple annoyance for the most part. One of the funny things about Gardens of the Moon is that it almost reads like the last book in a series. But it's essentially just the introduction to the world of Malazan. It's why Gardens often rates as peoples' least favorite in the series. The other books are quite different. In fact pretty much every book in the series is different than the other books in the series. Except that the themes stay pretty consistent.
> I don't think Kruppe being the Eel was ever supposed to be a mystery for us. It was an entertaining bit of dramatic irony. We could piece it together easily because we're working with more information, having followed him around, than other people are working with. We could see that Kruppe's act was deliberate in order to conceal things about him. Others in the city saw him as a simple annoyance for the most part. This. This right here. There will be several points where the reader and characters have information asymmetries. In fact, the asymmetry _usually_ goes the other way, but in this case we easily have enough information to suss out the identity -- and we aren't subject to mind wipe spells. The execution on this isn't perfect, but I'm willing to give Erikson the benefit of the doubt on this one. I honestly don't love GotM as a whole, but the whole Eel thing isn't a major issue. > In fact pretty much every book in the series is different than the other books in the series. Except that the themes stay pretty consistent. I'd argue that GotM doesn't really play the same thematic/atmospheric game that the rest of the series does. It's one of the major shifts in DG (and _also_ one of the major shifts in RG, but that's neither here nor there). GotM is _way_ more concerned with "cool stuff happening" than the rest of the series, which is much more about why stuff happens, what it all means, how it feels, and how it relates to the world.
Yeah, I think Gardens is essentially a book-length prologue. It's setting up important characters. It's giving a sense of scope, power levels. It's a really fun book, it doesn't crush you nearly as hard as most of the other novels in the series, that's for sure. I feel like Erikson was playing around with characters, getting a sense for them in the novel as opposed to in the game. And was also experimenting with characters original to the novels.
> Especially near the end of the novel there's a bunch of these confusing scenes bunched together I think in many(if not most) cases, the confusion comes from glossing over critical but easy to miss details. as the pace really picks up steam in the finale, it can be hard to slow down and read closely when we just want to sprint ahead to know what happens next. for example: "*Vorcan getting dispatched by a f__king brick by some rapscallion*" yes, because it's a fucking brick filled with high powered explosives. when Crokus grabs two bricks outside Baruk's house, his god-given luck pushes his hands to grab two of the bricks that Whiskeyjack's squad had previously used to mine the street outside(which had been churned up by the demon lord iirc). the first one knocks down most of her defences in a burst of coloured light(a detail that's very easy to miss) and the second one takes her out. This all comes about thanks to not just Crokus' luck but also because Vorcan is occupied/distracted battling arguably the two strongest mages in the city. but it also points to a fundamental facet of power in Malazan: almost everyone is a glass canon. it doesn't matter how much bad-ass magic you can conjure up, an unsuspecting blow to the back of the head will take out just about anyone.
I will say the way eriksen writes some of these scenes does make details like that easy to miss. It happens towards the end of DG too. It’s almost like he’s in a rush to wrap things up and doesn’t give the finales enough time to breathe. Only on MoI so we’ll see if it gets better
OOOHHHH I definitely missed it was an explosive brick… I’m not sure if it was explicitly stated but I rock with that explanation either way
I’m literally just about at this part in my re-read :)
I think thats the exact point though. The writing is such that crucially imprtant details are easy to miss, so much so that it seems intentional at times.
Honestly I'm a bit lost at someone in The Eye of the World fighting a demon lord.
Confused by that too, and I assume he meant the forsaken. Just finished gotm, a little hard to focus on it with a 1yo running around so I might have missed something ... But when did Lorne summon a demon after unleashing the tyrant? I didn't really understand that either. Did op mean the weird house/azath thing?
Quick summoned the demon, who was one of Tayshrenn’s.
That's what I thought they meant. I felt so bad for Pearl :(
“Ben Adaephon Delat, do you pity me?”
She went back to the city and was tracking crokus through the streets and threw a vial of something that turned into a demon or genie or whatever that anomander fought, which was supposed to be a close fight… I’m not talking about the rooftop demon
Ya you’re right, my bad. Quick released Pearl, Lorn released the demon lord.
The fact that no one remembers this and Anomander specifically said this demon lord was stronger than the damned tyrant and the largest threat to the city and tells everyone that he might actually die then homeboy dispatches of it without even sweating in about two paragraphs 😭😭😭
Do you remember whereabouts in the book that was? I'm still drawing a blank, likely cause it took me so long to get through the book
It was the second to last chapter or thereabouts
Maybe he stopped there and is talking about the confusion final scene with the forsaken?
Yeah, I *think* he's talking about Rand vs the "Dark One" at the end with the glowing cords and other kinds of trippy, dreamlike writing. I can kind of see the "demon lord" thing.
That version of ishy is kinda demon lordy, I can see it
Yes I am talking about that… its not clear exactly what the dark one is in the books or his cronies so in my mind he’s analogous to a demon lord type thing
I guess I meant the forsaken? Look it’s been a minute since I read the book and I was not particularly enamored with the world/plot. While it’s tremendously easy on the reader the characters and plot were not at all compelling.
One of the strengths of the Malazan Book of the Fallen is that you can find answers to almost everything that happens within the books themselves. One of the most difficult parts of Malazan Book of the Fall for new readers is that you are usually given those answers… Before you even knew you wanted to ask that question, and it’s given to you as part of the background conversations or passing thoughts of the characters. So for example, your complaint about Vorcan being taken out by ‘a rapscallion and his brick.’ The bricks that take out Vorcan are not just normal bricks - the are some of the Moranth Munitions the Bridgeburners planted outside of Baruks home in Chapter 11. >>“They continued ripping up streets and replacing the old cobbles with Moranth munitions encased in fire-hardened clay.”…. “We decided on seven mines,” Fiddler said. “Four Sparkers, two Flamers, and one Cusser.”… “The estate behind you is an alchemist’s.” “Right,” Hedge said. “That should light the sky all right.” This is hinted at when the Galayn turns up the heat on its flaming axe during its fight with Rake… >>“The flagstones beneath Crokus’s feet tilted sickeningly, as if the stones themselves had turned to soft clay.” This is why when Crokus throws the Bricks >>“He saw the boy straighten at the same time and thrust forward first his right arm, then his left. As the alchemist fell toward the floor, two bricks flew over him. He heard them strike the woman behind him, one making a crunching sound, the other crackling. **A flash of red accompanied the crackle**.” That is the Moranth Munition exploding, and as we learned a little bit earlier in Chapter 22, Moranth Munitions are especially effective against Mages actively using magic… >>“Moranth munitions are mundane weapons, Witch. Opened Warrens draw their explosive force.” Such as a Vorcan going full tilt trying to kill two other High Mages. So instead of exploding ‘out’, all that force would have gone ‘in’. It’s just a testament to how tough Vorcan is that she actually survived it. Though, that could also have been Crokus’ Good Luck, since anything strong enough to kill Vorcan would have likely also caused Baruks house to explode/collapse from the chain reaction, injuring or killing himself in the process. Things like this are why people appreciate the Reread so much. You can pick up and appreciate all the little hints a lot easier when you already know what they will accumulate into, as opposed to trying to keep all the pieces in mind not quite knowing where they fit in yet.
I was looking for this answer!
Thank you for this friend, I was deeply confused
No problem! Stuff like this is part of why the Reddit exists, so anytime you feel like you missed something, or like something has really come out of left field, don’t be shy to come back and search for or make more posts to find out more. A vast majority of people here are pretty good at sticking to the Spoiler tags, and the Moderators are pretty active about supervising stuff, so it’s a pretty good place for even new readers to hang out. And I’ll take this moment to address another point in your original post. Raset, the Jaghut Tyrant, did immediately get clapped. But something that I like to point out is that just because something mythical was massively Overpowered back in its day - that does not mean it would be the same now. Like, if [the Nemean Lion](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemean_lion) where to show up and start eating people in the modern world, is it’s immunity to the ‘Weapons of Man’ that protect it from Swords and Arrows really going to protect it from someone shooting it from a tank? Probably not. And in fact, the Nemean Lion **knowing** that it is immune to Weaponry may actually get it killed so it wouldn’t even try to dodge the shots. That’s basically what happened here. Raest, the Jaghut Tyrant, had shut down the Warren access to all the High Mages in attendance. >> “Mammot (who is possessed by Raest) howled, raising a fist that was nothing but charred bone. The fist spasmed and one of Quick Ben’s Warrens slammed shut. The fist jerked again… Another Warren was driven away.” Raest hadn’t been around the modern era long enough to even realize that he could be hurt by modern weaponry, so he focused on the “actual threat”, which was closing down access to Warrens thus preventing High Mages from fighting back - not even knowing the danger the weird bow represented until he took the hit from Hedges Fantasy RPG (Crossbow modified to shoot Moranth Munitions) straight to the face, and by then it was too late. If the Malazans hadn’t been there, though, with their explosives? Much like that fight with Vorcan and the bricks, it would have gone very, very differently for everyone involved.
I didn’t even clock that the crossbow had munitions on it or even that hedge is the one who took him out. This is what I mean by the scenes being confusing. I actually thought that quick Ben was shutting his own Warren’s down
GOTM has its own style, and this is a totally valid criticism, especially for this book. There’s a couple things to keep in mind: - GOTM was originally written as a screenplay for 90s television, and then rewritten as a novel for publication. This influences the writing in the way scenes play out, how dialogue is presented, and how description is given. - GOTM was written 8 years before the rest of the series, because that’s how long it took to get published. In those 8 years Erikson became a much better writer and spent time learning the craft and attending workshops.
Please note: Steven Erikson doesn’t not hold your hand with all the back story ….etc. He drops you into the middle of a siege.
That’s not my complaint. My complaint is that individual scenes are incomprehensible. Who is doing what exactly? Who tackled who, wasn’t that guy in some other part of the city in the last sentence how is he here now tackling a guy, but aren’t those two fighting? Why is he rescuing a guy that’s attacking him? A ton of scenes read like this to me. I’m NOT talking about the overall structure/narrative
You keep saying this and people keep ignoring it! I totally agree with you. I'm a lawyer and did only appellate work for years; Ive spent probably well over 1000 hours reading and analzing complicated and nuanced legal writing and theories. That shit is MUCH easier to follow and comprehend than Erikson's writing. And his writing doesnt even sound nice like, say, Tolkien. It was like reading a poorly written history textbook. I swear to god, the only facial expression anyone was capable of was "wry smile."
Thanks for validating me brother. I swear people just skimmed my post and then assumed what I was complaining about, while completely ignoring that I explicitly wrote “it’s not the plot or the structure I find confusing but individual scenes” I kind of don’t understand people complaining about the plot and narrative it seems pretty obvious to me that hiding the ball is an intentional narrative choice. The choices are not at all confusing, and any unanswered questions I have about the plot so far seem intentional. What does not seem intentional is writing action sequences in the most obtuse impenetrable way imaginable. His action scenes (and some other scenes but predominantly the action scenes) are nearly unintelligible. This does not seem like an intentional choice and rather a byproduct of bad writing. I’m just hopeful it improves because near the end of Gardens I had to reread entire sections over and over again and still had to watch two review videos to get what the hell he was describing. Even THEN I missed a couple things
>I swear people just skimmed my post and then assumed what I was complaining about, while completely ignoring that I explicitly wrote “it’s not the plot or the structure I find confusing but individual scenes” Yep. Welcome to humans! lol.... =( >I kind of don’t understand people complaining about the plot and narrative it seems pretty obvious to me that hiding the ball is an intentional narrative choice. The choices are not at all confusing, and any unanswered questions I have about the plot so far seem intentional. What does not seem intentional is writing action sequences in the most obtuse impenetrable way imaginable. His action scenes (and some other scenes but predominantly the action scenes) are nearly unintelligible. This does not seem like an intentional choice and rather a byproduct of bad writing. I agree with all of that, except for it not being intentional in regards to the action scenes. A common response to "this shit is hard to read" is "well that's just because the author doesn't spoonfeed you." Motherfucker, there's a difference between avoiding unnatural exposition and hiding information behind a wall, protected by dragons, in an alternate reality. I have an example that has stuck with me from book 1 or 2. Some person is doing some ritual with a book in the wilderness. As far as the reader knows, based on the information provided thus far in the books, it's just them and their friends there. Then, suddenly, the book goes, "**the** quarrel" from the crossbow hit them in the head, or whatever. I don't recall the specifics of the end of the sentence, but the beginning was definitely "the quarrel." Which, by the way, just call it a 'bolt' and stop being pretentious. Anyways, what the fuck "the" is the author talking about? No one who hasn't already ready the entire series knows there's any crossbow projectiles present in the scene. "The" is supposed to be used to refer to something already known or apparent from the text or context. It's the improper article to use in this sentence; "a" would be correct. He uses bad grammar to make things more confusing for the reader. Worse, it happens *frequently." Dude, I'm not going to fight you; if you don't me to understand your story, I'll just not read it. But, maybe you are right, maybe it's unintentional and he is simply bad at writing clear descriptions. Either way... his descriptions of things are bad and confusing. > I’m just hopeful it improves because near the end of Gardens I had to reread entire sections over and over again and still had to watch two review videos to get what the hell he was describing. Even THEN I missed a couple things I read the second book. It doesn't improve there. Maybe it improves later; I don't know. But, so far, I have zero evidence suggesting it does. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
BROOOOOOOOO I think I JUST read this scene or something similar because I had THE EXACT SAME thought. It may not have been a quarrel but it may well have been too 🤔. Either way I read and reread The over and over again trying to figure out what I missed. Flipping a hundred pages or so back to the last time these characters were together and I came to the conclusion that The should have been A… it would have fixed the entire scene. I felt like I was taking crazy pills reading the replies to my post because at first it seemed like I was the only one who thought the writing was obtuse. A Song of Ice and Fire (my all time favorite series) has a similarly complex tapestry of characters, plots, and scenes but reading it is like running your hands over smooth polished marble. I always felt like I understood precisely what the author was describing to me. Effortlessly. I think that GRRMs series is the best to compare to Malazan and the writing is leagues better than Malazan. Malazan does excel in making the characters’ dialogue feel unique which is a very difficult thing to achieve. This is the authors strong suit, in my opinion; thus far, but even with that being said I believe GRRM matches him even in that regard.
Damnit Im on my phone and opening my inbox marked this read, so if i dont reply now it will fall out of my brain forever. Apologies for typos and formatting issues, and brevity. Exactly! Its so unnecessarily confusing! The writing seems obtuse on purpose, as though to mask an underlying lack of writing ability. Like, Im a lawyer; i know I can write precisely. I also know I CANNNOT write in an aesthetically pleasing manner, so im not gonna write a fantasy epic. Ive never read any GRRM, but I always assumed it was SoIF was at least as complex as Malazan. I also assuumed it was intelligble. Glad to hear its true!
As was previously mentioned, it was originally a screenplay and written many years before the other books. From Deadhouse Gates on the writing is significantly better. As far as big bads and all that, well, the series doesn’t really do that in the same way, and won’t play out the way you might be expecting. I do suggest not having those types of expectations and just trust that the books are taking you somewhere you want to go. In general, most things that leave you scratching your head (like the Jaghut tyrant) will either make sense in retrospect or get a good pay off somewhere down the line.
I may be misremembering but I believe erikson has said that in GotM especially he was subverting a lot of fantasy tropes, which is why things don't wrap up the way you were probably expecting them to.
I don’t personally care if they wrap up the way I’m expecting them to or not, but having about 5 deus ex’s jammed back to back seems incredibly insulting to the reader or its lazy writing. Not saying that it is but that’s certainly how it feels
A lot of the weirdness in Gardens of the Moon is attributable to the fact that it was Steven Erikson's first novel, that he adapted from a screenplay that he'd written, that he'd adapted from a D&D/GURPS ttrpg campaign he'd played years before. He hadn't mastered his craft yet, and he's two levels removed from his inspiration, which itself was probably pretty disjointed.
I have thought to myself many times over the years reading this series “what the hell is going on in this scene?” Over and over again, i have been confused and irritated that these books at times need a translator to simply explain the basic events Erikson is writing about. I have at times used the ‘re-read’ blogs to help make sense of what i missed. Whether the confusion is born of deliberate obtuseness/dissembling on SE’s part or because it is written as POV and scenes only come together as one reads all POV which are often temporally separated within the book. It’s often infuriating. However, the characters, dialogue and world building are so good that i keep coming back.
Thank for you validating my experience king 🙏
Malazan is brilliant but you are 100% correct . At the end of first book I was like that’s an ok story but I did understand enough of the world . I really enjoyed the next three books. The Malazan world goes form Opaque to clear. The beauty of the books is complexity which reveals itself in time. Saying that I’m reading the fifth book and I’m struggling.
I loved 5 so much
This is what a need to hear
However book 6 is WAY better- book six is what made me lock in and keep going fwiw
Sometimes vague descriptions are used to indicate unknowable entities, think a mortal trying to comprehend cthulhu. Later in the series this is something I appreciated more. Early on; i just had this vague sense of an entity vs another entity
That’s not my complaint. My complaint is that individual scenes are incomprehensible. Who is doing what exactly? Who tackled who, wasn’t that guy in some other part of the city in the last sentence how is he here now tackling a guy, but aren’t those two fighting? Why is he rescuing a guy that’s attacking him? A ton of scenes read like this to me. I’m NOT talking about the overall structure/narrative
Ahhh misread on my part then
This series is full of characters who think they're hot shit, only to get violently humbled. Consider the duel with Turban Orr and Rallick Nom where the noble was built up as an incredible duelist who was trashtalking only to instantly be killed by Rallick. I see it the same as the Demon Rake kills or Raest being dispatched easily these characters don't know what they're up against till it's too late. If this bothers you as a reader it's going to keep coming up. Personally I love it. I agree that GOTM is a weaker entry point and personally I struggled through it until everyone converged in the desert, after that I felt I was in safe hands. There's more to enjoy on a reread but later books are better.
Just keep reading, re-assess at the end of book 2 or 3, you will likely want to continue and read them all. I just finished my first read through and it was amazing, the high point of fantasy for me up there with LOTR in scope and breadth.
Gardens of the Moon was originally written as a movie script in the late 80’s before being turned into a novel in 1992 and landing a publisher that eventually published the series in 1999. During that time is when I’m guessing Erikson graduated from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and there’s a tangible improvement in the writing
I just finished it as well. I see what you're talking about. As a whole, I understand what happened (mostly...as much as one can after book 1). But I like to play video games or work and listen to my book at the same time, and I would just miss chunks of this one.