Gardens of the Moon

[Marcelo Rebelo Firqoralas]

Heh. Erikson is after all the author who in an interview said that he liked writing fantasy, just because you didn't have to bother with writing good prose.

I guess Martin really ruined me with ASoIaF; nowadays I have a really hard time finding epic fantasy with prose and characterization that doesn't feel flat. I stopped 200 pages into Memories of Ice for this reason; the prologue is really cool, with the huge perspectives and nifty world building, but when the story shifts to following a bunch of boring characters all over the continent I just lost interest.

Hell, I even gave up on The Darkness That Comes Before a couple of hundred pages in. Here the prose wasn't the problem (even though it was hardly as good as some people have claimed), but instead the world felt a bit bland. The whole metaphysical set up was fine, but the different cultures felt a bit standard to me, and the cultural and sociological part of world building is something that I have found is extremely important to me.

Don't get me wrong; these books weren't horrible and I do have plans to come back to them, but they didn't grab me by the balls the way ASoIaF does.

[Brys]

I think the problem is with people who read Martin is that when someone recommends another very good epic fantasy series, they immediately think "Yes, another ASOIAF", when in fact there are huge differences. Erikson and Bakker, for all their comparisons to each other and to Martin, are very different types of authors. Erikson writes large scale military fantasy/sword and sorcery - he returns to an almost extinct subgenre and combines it with a pretty much unparalleled scale. Martin writes a strongly character driven story with a fast moving plot and a number of shocking moments, but still a relatively traditional style and his skill as a writer shows through the excellent pacing. Bakker writes about a few key well developed characters, with an overarching Tolkienesque theme, mixed with significant historical parallels. They all write epic fantasy. But there's not a lot else which is similar.

Heh. Erikson is after all the author who in an interview said that he liked writing fantasy, just because you didn't have to bother with writing good prose.

He said that in the sense of not having to focus on the words, rather than the plot. He wasn't exactly advocating bad prose, he was simply saying that the other elements were more important than making your prose poetical, or in the style that literary critics like - the style that might win you the Booker prize (but seriously, who in fantasy does use a truly literary style? A lot of the magic realists, some of the New/Old Weird, but there's not one recent example I can think of in epic fantasy since fantasy's existence as a publishing genre).

I'm also surprised at how many people get upset over names. Ok, incongruous names can be annoying. But I don't think that's at all the case with Bakker or Erikson. Different cultures tend to have different naming conventions. People complain that the names in Bakker are too difficult, or too long and that somehow they aren't realistic - but how many of you find it easy to pronounce your average Eastern European name/Russian name (if you come from an English speaking country) - it's all just a matter of what you're used to, and IMO seeing a clear divergence in naming conventions is actually more realistic, and we shouldn't be that familiar. It's more jarring to see a modern, Western name in a fantasy novel than an entirely made up one.

[DemonKing]

I'm half-way through GotM at the moment and so far it's a pretty mixed affair - I think the biggest complaint I have is that at the beginning you're dropped into a world with no real explanations and a vast array of characters (some of whom are gods!) with rather silly names all running around with very few connecting streams. The nature of magic is also a bit confusing - at first I thought Warrens were a form of magical transportation only, for example.

Saying that, things have picked up a bit so I am half-contemplating continuing the series (although I also have book 1 of Tad William's Memory, Sorrow and Thorn to read plus the Eye of the World which I got for $5 even though I know if I start to read AWOT I'm letting myself in for big disappointment down the line).

I guess what I like about Martin is that he takes the time to step back and fill in some of the rich backstory from time to time. Call it exposition if you like, but the writing is so good I don't mind.

[Durckad]

One thing that annoys me is him naming the elite formation the "Malazan Marines".

Thus far they don't seem to actually *be* marines, in any sense of the word.

For godsakes, it's a fantasy novel. If Erikson wants Marines to mean something different, I think it's his right to have them be something different.

I enjoyed Gardens of the Moon though it took a little while for my thoughts to really sink in. I found it refreshing the way that he kinda 'dropped' the reader into the middle of everything. Info dumps are so damn boring. I also found his prose very simplistic, yet, I found it easier to read than DHG which, IMO, was chock-full of clunky writing.

He does get much better, Midnight Tides, the latest book is fairly well written, almost on par with Martin I'd say, though his descriptions still leave a lot to be desired.

As for the names bit, aside from a few (Surly... Surly?), I have no real problems with Erikson... or Bakker, who also seems to get a lot of shit for his overuse of the umlaut and really, long and complicated names.

[Mind Elemental]

I've read books 1-4 of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, though Midnight Tides is waiting on a ton of other stuff.

I didn't much like Gardens of the Moon my first time through (haven't reread it yet), thought Deadhouse Gates was brilliant but flawed, and thought Memories of Ice was plain brilliant. I more or less agree with Werthead's judgment of House of Chains.

On the whole, I prefer Martin, though I still like Erikson. Does that make me unsophisticated? I should hope not.

[Bittersteel]

I'm going to try to finish Gardens of the Moon, but I don't understand where posters like werewolf are coming from with the "unsophisticated" chants (not in this thread, but in others). Can't people dislike Erikson because he is a subpar writer?

At the moment, I am enjoying the world. It's enormous and pretty well fleshed-out (though I wouldn't say the history is any better than Martin; it definitely tops Bakker in that department, however). Vis a vis magic, I'm content to wait a book or two for the rules and such to be revealed, so that's not a concern. What is a concern is the poor writing, the sloppy, unrealistic dialogue, and the mediocre characterization. I'm glad that Erikson refrains from historical/world-related infodumps (Martin's ability to slowly leak info to the reader is what puts him at the top of my favorite author list) but he's got to start "showing" in other aspects. Lines like "He got promoted when the Commander was killed by an arrow wound in such and such a forest during the Battle of XYZ" get very annoying after a while. And Paroes' "bluntness" in the opening chapters seem more an excuse for laziness than anything else; by having him say everything, Erikson is not forced to subtly reveal emotion, an aspect of writing which often distinguishes the good from the bad.

All in all, it's not bad - but it definitely doesn't rank up there with A Song of Ice and Fire or The Prince of Nothing. Maybe I'll change my mind as the series progresses (this thread has convinced me to stay the course, at least until the end of Deadhouse Gates).

[werewolfv2]

I don't understand where posters like werewolf are coming from with the "unsophisticated" chants (not in this thread, but in others).

care to point out where I've said something about Erikson haters as being "unsophisticated" (or for that matter any Erikson fan saying that)?

[me399]

So...following the advice of many on this board, I just purchased Gardens of the Moon and (before I get too involved) I have one very important question: does the writing improve? I'm about forty pages in and, thus far, Erikson's prose has been dreadful. It doesn't even compare with Bakker's work in the Prince of Nothing or Martin's in A Song of Ice and Fire. To be honest, I can't help but wonder at Erikson's claim to a degree from Iowa's Creative Writing Workshop, given his (rather lamentable) writing ability.

It does not get better. If you dont like what your reading stop now. I read the first book and most of the second, that is almost 2000 pages of my life lost on garbage.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

I'm forty pages in and having trouble keeping it going. I read like 2 pages at a time and have to put it down. It just isn't...gripping I guess. The whole spoiled by Martin theory doesn't work either. I finished the craptastic Eragon at least. I also, since Martin, have read all the King Arthur books by Cornwell and thought they were fantastic.

[Bastard of Godsgrace]

Wel, I think that dialog (and humor) are things in which Erikson decidedly beats Martin (Tehol and Bugg, anyone?). I also prefer his names, even if I have to admit that Erikson overuses apostrophes. Martin's names are quite generic. It is also plainly obvious that they speak English in Westeros. I can live with it for the sake of the story (it is a fantasy novel after all) but I still think it is kind of lame. Bakker's names are decidedly better than both Erikson's and Martin's, though. Another annoying feature of Martin's naming is fact that so many his female names sound like stripper stage names.

Martin certainly beats Erikson (and almost everybody else) on description. I love his long descriptive passages. Erikson never describes anything and it is rather annoying. What Seren Pedac looks like? What is color of Karsa Orlong's hair? We don't know, and those are fairly major characters. He also needed several volumes to mention simple fact that Quick Ben and Iskaral Pust are black.

As for remarks that if you don't like Erikson you must be unsophisticated reader, they are simple reaction for very often repeated remakrs "I don't get it", "I can't figure out what was going on" etc. which are the most often voiced complaints against Erikson novels. Hearing some of them you could think that GotM is something written by James Joyce.

Allin all, I would put at this moment Erikson at the first place, a little bit above Martin and Bakker (TBH iscertainly far better novel than AFFC, IMHO). The important fact is, that both Erikson and Bakker are getting better whilst Martin does seem to have serious problems with his series

[Marcelo Rebelo Firqoralas]

He said that in the sense of not having to focus on the words, rather than the plot. He wasn't exactly advocating bad prose, he was simply saying that the other elements were more important than making your prose poetical, or in the style that literary critics like - the style that might win you the Booker prize (but seriously, who in fantasy does use a truly literary style? A lot of the magic realists, some of the New/Old Weird, but there's not one recent example I can think of in epic fantasy since fantasy's existence as a publishing genre).

He may not be advocating "bad" prose as such, but he does seem to be saying that you don't have to write good prose to write good fantasy, and I would strongly disagree with such a sentiment. I mean, you don't have to go all James Joyce to write good prose, but I do think a writer should make an extra effort to make it something of value in itself. Martin is a perfect example of this: he may not write with a prose that draws eyes to it, but to me it's a joy to see how expertly he writes dialogue, how effortlessly he shows off the world and how skillfully he writes realistic characters who feel as one with the world. I Eriksons case I find myself reading despite the prose, and that's not how it should be.

As for Booker prize winning prose, I agree with you that there aren't really any examples of epic fantasies that are that well written, but I really wish there were. I would pay good money for a epic fantasy novel that can be comparable to the best prose-wise. I guess that The Book of the New Sun is as close as we'll get, but one could of course make the argument that it's not proper epic fantasy.

[crows drink ale]

I enjoyed GoTM by the end - it wasn't what I was expecting, from the praise here, but it was engaging enough to get through (quick disclaimer- I was still on winter break and utterly bored). DG didn't impress me, the writing style IS annoying (I agree about knowing what people look like - is it so hard to say "Joe (or Joe'hrulu'ar) has black hair?") and his "surprise" moments seem to come with one standard execution (haha). Something happened to me after I put it down, though - I kept thinking about the characters and the plot. Almost obsessively, to the point where speculation about the fate of the Malazan Empire was interfereing with normal everyday activities. So I picked up MoI, read it in 48 hours, and am now jonesing for the next two (arriving by mail sometime this week, woot!).

So the verdict is - If you can make it through the books and let the ideas grow on you, I think it's worth doing. I think fast readers who can swallow large loads of info without comprehension (and then slowly let things digest until weeks later, they say: "hey, that was good!") will be best off. My partner is a very slow reader and can't make it through most of my favorite stories bc the writing distracts him too much from the plot - he is a "know as you go" reader who doesn't trust that things will make sense AFTER you finish the book. He likes nicely written and perfect sentances in order to help him digest books in little tiny peices. In contrast, sometimes beautiful prose distracts me from the storyline... and i think in a sweeping exercise like the Malazan books, where even the humans are superhuman (unless they are minor characters) that would be deadly for the overall story arcs. THe sparse writing helps keeps me focused, and whether that is intentional or not, I think it works for Erikson. It would be deadly for Martin since so much of his story is in the relationships between characters instead of the epic fantasy arc, so he writes differently. Wow. Ive just reached chicken-and-egg problems in my own logic, so I'll stop here.

[Lord Bloodraven]

I picked up Gardens of the Moon several weeks ago and have tried at least three times to read it, but i can't seem to get past the first fifty pages. I think someone mention thinking of books as the next ASOIAF, and then when you start reading, its a big letdown.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

Stripper names? Brienne? Arya Horseface? Sansa? Dany? I've been to a lot of strip clubs in my time and strippers often have names such at "Elektra" "Vesuvius" "Angela" and other exotic things but I have never heard a stripper called Ygritte or Cersei.

Maybe Kat. Which is close to Cat. But really that's about it I think.

[Ormond]

Another annoying feature of Martin's naming is fact that so many his female names sound like stripper stage names.

I know this is tangential to the main topic of this thread, but I am just mystified by the above comment. Can you give examples of female names from Martin that you think sound like "stripper stage names"? I can't think of a Martin name that sounds anything like a stripper to me. Cersei Lannister, Arya Stark, Arianne Martell, Myrcella Baratheon, Lysa Arryn, Daenerys Targaryen, Asha Greyjoy --- none of those sound anything like Gypsy Rose Lee, Blaze Starr, Candy Barr, Dixie Evans, Fanne Foxe, Chesty Morgan, Sally Rand, or Tempest Storm to me. What strippers can you possibly be thinking of who would have stages names like Margaery Tyrell?

[Jussi]

Well, Gardens of the Moon was nominated for World Fantasy Award in 2000. So the prose can't really be that bad.

[Bastard of Godsgrace]

Come on; Ashara Dayne, Lyanna Stark, Jeyne Westerling, Myranda Royce, Arwyn Oakheart, Jennelyn Fowler, Meredyth Crane, Arianne Martell, Roslyn Frey, even Lysa Arryn or Genna Lannister, incongruos as it seems, all those sound to me as pseudonyms of actresses playing in dubious films or, at best, authors of Harlequin romances.

[Werthead]

I'm up to Memories of Ice on my re-read and the jump in quality of the writing from the first two books to the third seems quite pronounced, much more so than when I read the series first-time through. There's some great stuff going on, although Erikson's love of interminable internal dialogue (particularly with Paran in the early MoI chapters) is still a problem. Erikson does have a nice line in humour as well, such as Toc offering (sarcastically) to strike dramatic poses against the sunset for Lady Envy's amusement or Tool's increasingly difficult duels against the Seguleh desperate to prove themselves in battle with a T'lan Imass.

The names I thought were stupid the first time round as well, but second time I noted that the Malazan soldiers seem to have some kind of formal system of picking nicknames which they are known by. Quick Ben, Whiskeyjack, Fiddler, Hedge, Antsy, Gruntle etc are all based on the person's characteristics (although the only time I remember Fiddler's fiddle actually being mentioned was in the prologue to Gardens of the Moon). This is stupid on one level (is it possible to have 100,000 seperate descriptive nicknames?) but at least makes more sense than them just having those names from birth.

Erikson's dialogue improves from book to book. But nowhere does he equal Martin's more memorable moments (such as pretty much anything said by Tyrion). Erikson I feel occasionally drifts into the trap of giving many characters 'the author's voice' so many characters become indistinguishable from one another. For example, many characters say something along the lines "There's one on the Seven Cities continent," or "We could annex half this continent". I don't know about you, but I don't often say, "My aunt lives on the Australasian continent" or "I would like to visit the African continent one day" in everyday conversation. It's similar to something that Jack Vance did a lot (every character, from kings to stableboys, is gifted in witty repartee), but in Vance's case it was more forgivable because it was generally pretty funny.

[Jerol]

He may not be advocating "bad" prose as such, but he does seem to be saying that you don't have to write good prose to write good fantasy, and I would strongly disagree with such a sentiment. I mean, you don't have to go all James Joyce to write good prose, but I do think a writer should make an extra effort to make it something of value in itself. Martin is a perfect example of this: he may not write with a prose that draws eyes to it, but to me it's a joy to see how expertly he writes dialogue, how effortlessly he shows off the world and how skillfully he writes realistic characters who feel as one with the world. I Eriksons case I find myself reading despite the prose, and that's not how it should be.

As for Booker prize winning prose, I agree with you that there aren't really any examples of epic fantasies that are that well written, but I really wish there were. I would pay good money for a epic fantasy novel that can be comparable to the best prose-wise. I guess that The Book of the New Sun is as close as we'll get, but one could of course make the argument that it's not proper epic fantasy.

I read an interview with Erikson and his complaint about the Iowa writing experience was so much attention was paid to prose, to crafting beautiful sentences, and no one was concerned with what drove the story, with believable plot lines. I know what he's talking about, those artsy novels that get praised to death from literary critics for their sheer beauty but have only the barest of a coherent story. Too many times have I been suckered in by extravagent reviews and awards and left with a novel that goes nowhere.

And as someone noted just above, Erikson is addictive. You end up thinking about this stuff A LOT after you're done, especially MoI and MT. There is so much detail and backstory hidden in between the lines and he's only getting better at it. Go over and read the threads at the Malazan Empire forum, there's fans there that have read these books through a few times now and are still discovered details they've missed or are just understanding after hashing it out on the boards. And obviously that's something that Martin does to a person too, as evidenced on this board.

[Ormond]

Come on; Ashara Dayne, Lyanna Stark, Jeyne Westerling, Myranda Royce, Arwyn Oakheart, Jennelyn Fowler, Meredyth Crane, Arianne Martell, Roslyn Frey, even Lysa Arryn or Genna Lannister, incongruos as it seems, all those sound to me as pseudonyms of actresses playing in dubious films or, at best, authors of Harlequin romances.

I know this is subjective, but honestly I do not get that feeling from any of the above. The one that comes closest to the "author of a Harlequin romance" to me is Arianne Martell. I might not be surprised to see Myranda Royce or Meredyth Crane on such a book cover, but the others don't seem like romance author names to me. Arwyn Oakheart actually seems like one of GRRM's most Tolkienish names to me. And if by "dubious films" you mean porn stars, these don't sound much like those to me either. They seem much too sophisticated for porn names; Wikipedia gives Jenna Jameson, Tera Patrick, Briana Banks, Ariana Jollee and Silvia Saint as among the most well-known porn stars of the late nineties and the early 2000s.

And the names of actual Harlequin Romance authors don't seem to fit in with that stereotype, either. Seems there is some confusion between authors' names and characters' names, perhaps:

http://www.harlequinromanceauthors.com/aut.../meet_home.html

http://store.eharlequin.com/t10_view_serie...10&PRIM_MONTH=0

What sort of female character names would be examples of the kind of names you think would be appropriate for "medieval alternate world" fantasy but would NOT sound like "romance novel" names?