Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson

The series title "The Malazan Book of the Fallen" sucked me in and I had to give this book a try. The first few chapters had me a little anxious about the book, the author just sort of throws you to the Hounds as it were. Then suddenly BAM you are sucked into a world of extreme action and power! Just when you think that one of the antagonists is all powerful and unstoppable, the author throws another in that makes the first one look like a child! At first I was thinking, ok, this is nuts, there is too much magic and power being tossed around here, but the author makes it work and tosses you on a roller coaster of epic magical battle the will blow you away. There is no really good way to try to tell you what this novel is about, I will however say if you are looking for a story from the likes of a Weis or a Salvatore, then this is not the story for your. This novel is intelligent, and very complex, but totally worth it.

I'm pretty good at giving books 150 pages before I give up. However, after 140, I had to shelf this one. The characters are cloaked in too much mystery and this leaves the reader feeling that he/she is reading a scattered outline of ideas. There is no focus, which works when done correctly, but here, I did not find it successful. There are some great concepts that I feel the author should have spent more time drawing out within the first 50 pages. The whole thing feels like trying to swallow a horse pill with a teaspoon of peanut butter.
I had great hopes for this book, but feel let down. I really tried to like it, but just couldn't. I may pick it up again in the future... I'm giving it a rating of two only because it had potential to be better.

Erikson is no George R.R. Martin. Flat characters and lack of descriptions prevented me from ever getting into this book. Even Goodkind is a better storyteller, and he's a joke. I found myself at the end of the book not really having any emotional reaction to the events or the characters. Besides Kruppe, none really had an interesting personality. It was all very lifeless as if someone were describing the events of a video game on paper. Also the amount of magic at everyones fingertips made it a little silly and even boring. This was a huge disappointment after seeing so many positive reviews. I was really hoping for another Wheel of Time or Song of Ice and Fire to jump into.