| Book review: Gardens of the Moon |
[Nov. 20th, 2009|02:48 pm] |
Let me begin this review by saying I cordially despise most of what is passed off as fantasy literature in the modern world, more especially if it is "high fantasy" or "high concept." I am that rare reader of the genre who couldn't get past the beginning of the second book of the "Sword of Truth" books, am saddened by the profusion of Shannara lit and don't even get me started on the wheel of Slime. George R. R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" renewed my faith that somebody could still write in this genre, but it's a damned lonely place for me of late.
So I began Steven Erikson's "Gardens of the Moon" which is the first of a trilogy called the "Malazon Book of the Fallen" with great trepidation, little commitment and my hopes very low. And damned if it didn't completely snare me, seduce me and win my heart. It's complex, morally ambiguous, tightly plotted, with a lot of characters to care about on all sides of the multilateral conflicts that form the skeleton of the story. In fact, it was difficult for me to choose whom to root for as just about everyone was against just about everyone else, and many of them were worth caring about, even the ostensible villains of the piece.
It's a dark, high magic world where gods and mortals interact quite directly, though the interactions are hardly one-sided, which is one of the more interesting parts of the attraction of the world for me. Magic is nicely mysterious yet self-consistent, a really hard trick to manage. The hints about the history that I have so far show a richly conceived and textured place. The non-humans are not Tolkien-fodder at all, and the spice of their difference adds more to the tasty brew.
I don't want to say too much about the plot, as it would be difficult to avoid spoilers, even in a short summary, but suffice it to say that it involves a conflict between a young empire and old, non-human powers, in which gods intervene directly, though not in the Iliad sense of things. Within that basic structure are a bushel of personal and cultural conflicts that leave you guessing who is on which side and why.
My only quibble is that the ending felt a little anticlimactic, as certain character arcs were short-circuited by other character arcs, leaving one a wee bit dissatisfied with their lack of resolution. Of course, this is book 1 of 3, so the arcs will continue on and I may be happier with the story as a whole. This alone prevents a perfect score, but I'm still giving it four and a half coins of luck out of five. |
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