Gardens of the Moon

Steven Erikson

Finally, Gardens of the Moon is a fantasy book by Steven Erikson. It's the first book in a planned series of 10, based on a fictional empire called the Malazan empire. The story starts out with a war and the entire book is driven by this same war. This book is different from the usual fantasy quest stuff, because there are no obvious good and bad people. They are all people with different points of view fighting on different sides of the same war. Initially the number of characters makes it confusing to figure out who is on which side and why. Added to that is the fact that gods who seemingly exist on a different plane have a hand in mixing up events too. But slowly, Erikson draws you into the story as the seemingly disparate strands are linked together and it does seem to make coherent sense in the end. Read this if you like fantasy stories set in grim settings of a seemingly never-ending war where people aren't universally good or bad, and all they are trying to do is to stay alive. And sometimes they discover the occasional beauties of friendship, honour and loyalty.