Gardens of the Moon

One of the most recurrent problems in fantasy novels concerns exposition, with the intricate world created for the story being described in too much detail, to the detriment of the characters and pacing. Sometimes, however, the opposite is true: the world is put aside for too long and so fails to capture our interest. In Gardens of the Moon, one of Steven Erikson’s greatest accomplishments is achieving the perfect balance, providing information to us in a measured but engaging way.

Gardens of the Moon is the first novel in a series of ten, entitled The Malazan Book of the Fallen. This one is centered on the process of expansion of the Malazan Empire, focusing on the attempt to conquer the last two great free cities: Pale and Darujhistan.

The beginning of the story highlights three specific plotlines: one follows a soldier named Paran, who always dreamed of a military career and now has a chance to pursue it; the second focuses on Sergeant Whiskeyjack, the commander of the regiment called “The Bridgeburners”, who is trying to keep them alive at all costs; and the last one follows the mage Tattersail, who seeks revenge for the death of her lover, Calot.

Readers are likely to be a little lost at the first pages of Gardens of the Moon, and that’s okay. The universe described by Erikson is complex and vast, containing countless creatures, peoples, gods, and races all mixed together in distinct factions and groups, all with their own agenda, and the narrative rarely stops to offer direct, straightforward explanations about them. Few characters will remember past events just to offer us some context about what’s happening now, going to their friend and saying something like, “As you know, that event occurred several years ago, and that important person is now in power, and this is their ideology.” Gardens of the Moon treats us like patient human beings who can put two and two together and don’t need to be fed everything right away on a silver platter. So, here, such information is only transmitted when it can appear organically in the narrative, which means that what moves exposition in Gardens of the Moon is not the need for it, but its inevitability: people talk about things only when it makes sense for them to do so. This approach turns lore into a valuable asset; it makes the process of uncovering and understanding the nuances of the world a rewarding experience.

In Gardens of the Moon, gods occupy a significant space in the narrative, for example, interfering with human affairs directly, manipulating, possessing, and even murdering people. They are unpredictable elements in the story: we’re able to grasp some of their goals, but their bigger plans remain forever elusive. And it’s by inspecting the scene of a massacre promoted by an elusive god, Shadowthrone, that the young Paran is recruited by the right hand of Empress Laseen, the Adjunct Lorn. His mission is to chase after a girl – suspected of being used as Shadowthrone’s receptacle – while becoming captain of Whiskeyjack’s regiment.

The sergeant, meanwhile, needs to worry about the welfare of his own squad after a disaster wiped out more than half of its soldiers. Whiskeyjack is an old companion of the military leader Dujek, and both actively participated in the ascension of Empress Laseen… but by fighting for the losing side. Therefore, fearing that the Empress’s growing paranoia may cost him his life, the sergeant must come up with a plan that ensures the survival of his regiment, as they are assigned to assist in the taking of the cities of Pale and Darujhistan.

The siege of Pale, the first great battle in the novel, gets us used to some of the story’s main elements, such as how magic and violence are portrayed. The only force preventing the city’s fall is a mysterious floating mountain, called Moon’s Spawn. Moon’s Spawn is supposed to be inhabited by ancient beings, the Tiste Andii, and no one knows for sure why it’s protecting Pale. Apparently tired of waiting for answers, Empress Laseen orders the mage Tayschreen to attack the mountain and take with him a group of experienced mages, composed, in addition to Tattersail and Calot, by old allies of the previous Emperor. It seems like a trap, it feels like a trap, it smells like a trap, and when the Lord of Moon’s Spawn emerges, it is sprung, and the battle begins.

Magic is a big factor in the world of Malazan, and it is introduced in Gardens of the Moon in a shocking way: during the fight against Moon’s Spawn, waves of fire and energy disintegrate and burn hundreds of soldiers in mere seconds, mutilating the bodies of mages and destroying everything in their path. Erikson makes us fear magic here by boosting its impact, constantly making it responsible for scenes of massive destruction, of carnage and horror.

Ordinary people are usually the unfortunate victims of such displays of violence; they’re the regrettable collateral damage of the great plans and deeds of the ones who rule them. And there are a lot of people in Gardens of the Moon. As the narrative moves from Pale to the city of Darujhistan, a dozen more characters appear, adding their motivations to the already complicated web of conspiracies. Among them, three stand out: the friends Crokus, Rallick Nom, and Kruppe.

Crokus is a street thief who has fallen madly in love with the daughter of a nobleman he was trying to rob. He is a naive young man who, oblivious to the real importance of his actions, becomes a fundamental piece in the plans of very powerful beings. Rallick Nom, on the other hand, is an assassin who wants to recover the assets that his friend Coll lost to a woman and so decides to set a trap during a party organized by her. And Kruppe is an enigmatic character, as his harmless appearance, his grotesque eating habits, and his manner of speech all contrast heavily with the wisdom of his thoughts and the gravity of his dreams that, because they contain conversations with long-forgotten gods about extremely relevant subjects, suggest an individual far less foolish than he appears to be.

Kruppe is also greatly responsible for the book’s charm, due to his unusual way of speaking. The character often refers to himself in the third person to convey naiveté while favoring vague terms and repeated words to instill confusion. Just notice the subtle but bewildering effect of the sudden jump in the count at the end of his answer, when asked about Coll’s health by his friend’s Murillio: “Twas healed magically, Sulty said. By some stranger, yet. Coll himself was brought in by a second stranger, who found a third stranger, who in turn brought in a fifth stranger in the company of the stranger who healed Coll. And so it goes, Murillio. Strange doings indeed.”

When Murillio questions Kruppe about his reasons for going to the party organized by Coll’s ex-wife, since he doesn’t even know the woman, Kruppe answers: “Not relevant to Kruppe’s argument, friend Murillio. Kruppe has been acquainted with Simtal’s existence for many years. Such association is made better, nay, pristine, for the fact that she has not met Kruppe, nor Kruppe her.” Kruppe is the most intriguing character in the book and further proves that, like any good author, Erikson is able, through language, to direct the readers’ attention to wherever he pleases, manipulating us as honestly as possible.

The book also excels when it comes to foreshadowing. There are hundreds of clues about important events spread throughout the narrative, sometimes appearing abruptly – the one that foretells Calot’s death at the beginning has a stunning effect –, sometimes more subtly – the mask that Crokus’ uncle wears during Simtal’s party adds a hint of dark humor to his fate –, which leads to a compelling narrative that rewards the most attentive readers.

Another one of the book’s strengths is the tension created by the increasing conflicts between each character’s goals. Taking advantage of a concept developed within the story itself – a kind of convergence of power –, Erikson structures the climaxes in the middle and at the end of the novel in a way that encompasses the resolution of several plotlines in a single scenario. The resulting chaos is minutely arranged, leading to scenes that thrill precisely because of their complexity and unpredictability.

The book, however, stumbles on some plotlines every now and then. The most troublesome one regards the mage Hairlock, a colleague of Tattersail who has his soul transferred to a puppet after his body is destroyed in the battle against Moon’s Spawn. His storyline is considerably tense at the beginning, which makes disappointing the anticlimactic way in which it rapidly ends. The mage Tattersail and the god Shadowthrone are also forgotten around the middle point of the story, which is a shame.

Erikson’s prose is dense, that type where we can see how each word has been meticulously chosen. The poems that open each chapter, for example, contain terms that carry out two functions: they reflect the theme of the chapter in question and develop others that will only be understood later, serving as foreshadowing. The time when Captain Paran reflects on gods and men, for instance, opens an inspired discussion on moral relativization: “Morality was not relative, they claimed, nor even existing solely in the realm of the human condition. No, they proclaimed morality as an imperative of all life, a natural law that was neither the brutal acts of beasts nor the lofty ambitions of humanity, but something other, something unassailable.”

Gardens of the Moon builds a complex narrative, makes exposition rewarding, has a great cast of unique characters, and discusses important subjects, telling a myriad of stories that thrill in the way they connect during the climax. Nevertheless, its most striking feature is how, going against the whole entertainment industry, the book has faith in our ability to understand things by ourselves, trusting us to care enough to engage fully in the act of reading.

December 24, 2024.

The review was originally published in Portuguese on March 12, 2015.