Quote Originally Posted by pennywise86 View Post
I just finished Gardens, after having tried it a couple months back and being put off by the begining. This time i read it all the way through. I didn't find it that confusing; in fact it was a really interesting and well-written read. The only thing i had a problem with was that nothings really explained, ex: the warrens, the ascendants, and that was what confused me the most near the begining.

What exactly are the ascendants?

By the end of the book, though, i realized that I could hardly remember what happened to the characters just in the previous chapter, because there's so much going on that its hard to keep up with it.

Another problem that i had, is that it's hard to really get to know any of the characters well since we're not given anything about their motivations and hardly anything about their pasts. We don't know who they are, and that makes it hard to relate/like or cheer for them.

Having said that, I liked this book and im def checking out the second one.
https://starvalddemelain.pbwiki.com/Ascendancy

Ganoes Paran: 'Ascendants who find worshippers become gods, and that binding goes both ways. Ascendants without worshippers are, in a sense, unchained. Unaligned, in the language of the Deck of Dragons. Now, gods who once had worshippers but don't have them any more are still ascendant, but effectively emasculated, and they remain so unless the worship is somehow renewed. For the Elder Gods, that means the spilling of blood on hallowed or once-hallowed ground. For the more primitive spirits and the like, it could be as simple as the recollection or rediscovery of their name, or some other form of awakening. Mind you, none of that matters if the ascendant in question has been well and truly annihilated ...ascendants, whether gods or not, seem to possess some form of power. Maybe sorcery, maybe personality, maybe something else. And what that seems to mean is, they possess an unusual degree of efficacy...They’re trouble if you mess with them, is what I’m saying. A mortal man punches someone and maybe breaks the victim’s nose. An ascendant punches someone and they go through a wall. Now, I don’t mean that literally — although that’s sometimes the case. Not necessarily physical strength, but strength of will.When an ascendant acts, ripples run through...everything.' (BH, UK Trade, p.381-2)