You know, in attempting to figure how to begin writing a review for such a beast as this, I think I've come to realize how much of a flawed masterpiece it really is. Or at least why people could refer to it as such.
Gardens of the Moon introduces us to the Malazan Empire. It throws us in the middle of their conquest of the city of Pale, a continent away, moments away from setting sight to the one last Free city, Darujhistan. It introduces us to a host of characters who are for or against these conquests, who hail from the empire, from the free cities, or from somewhere else. Who have agendas, planned betrayals, or seek survival. Even gods and ascendants have a vested interest somewhere along the highway, and some are more than happy to personally join the fray.
Gardens of the Moon is, in a way, a subversion of two (and then of a lot other) things fantasy readers commonly look for, or are at least accustomed to, in the genre: Ease of reading and clearly explained worlds. Take myself, for example. One of the main points I take into account when deciding to read a book is how well it 'flows,' so to speak. But this book, and to a lesser account, all the subsequent ones in this series, don't really 'flow' easily. This book is not all that easy to read. At times, it can be heavy and cumbersome. At times, the way it goes on and on without providing much in the way of explanations can feel rather stifling. Doubtless, some people's first impulse will be to qualify it as poorly explained, awkward, heavy, or too verbose. To think twice and thrice about whether to even finish it.
Not knowing, all the while, just how close they are to missing one of the greatest epics in the fantasy genre. But how can something be so bad and still be good? The short answer is that while some technical flaws in the writing (in both prose and characterization) are real enough, most arguments against the book are born out of readers' sheer unfamiliarity with the approach of being utterly submerged into a fictional world, left to proverbially fend for themselves. To survive, as it were, until the understanding starts trickling in, always small in dose, but making the piecing together of things all the more satisfying because of that.
Let's speak of the characterization. It is... sub-standard. Its not terrible, but there is a certain same-ness among the personalities of the soldiery in the book(Some think this is just a side-effect of there being so many characters). But the worst is the abruptness of development among the characters who experience any kind of change. It feels like there is no transition, just black-and-white swaps of mentality that are a bit hard to believe. This doesn't happen every now and then, but when it does, you'll notice, and I can almost guarantee it will be hard to swallow.
You will, however, because the story never lulls for long. And whatever flaw of characterization inhabits them, the characters are not flat. They do elicit empathy. They are, for the most part, rather interesting, either for themselves or for the window they provide into the plot and the wonderful, vast world Erikson has built.
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