Gardens of the Moon

Published on: 6/3/2026

Written by itsajmk

GoTM

The story starts with a scene where a number of pivotal characters interact, and from the first scene we could glean the dynamics of their interpersonal relationships.

As it is with most fantasy, I thought Faran would be the protagonist of this story. But I was wrong; this wasn’t that kind of story. This was a story with multiple protagonists, I would say. As a reader, my taste leaned toward stories with one clear protagonist, so I was a little put off by it. But I didn’t wallow in that impression and instead plunged right into the book. One of the things I consciously did was pay attention to every passage I read, as opposed to reading in a sort of 70% active mode. I jotted down characters, their descriptions, and how they related to each other in my notes app. That, coupled with my full attention—or rather, extra attention to the passages—gave me a much deeper and broader understanding of the world and lore of Malazan.

It’s been one or two months since I finished the book, but if you ask me how I would describe Erikson’s writing, I would be hard-pressed to do it. It may be my reading style, or rather my lack of attention and experience when it comes to analyzing a person’s writing style, that makes me unable to come up with a suitable description.

One thing I’ve found about myself is that I’m a sucker for good, well-written action scenes. Now, in GoTM there is action, but it isn’t a predominant part of the narrative. It doesn’t make you exhilarated, pumped, or even out of breath; instead, it serves its purpose by driving the story forward without lingering too much.

I’ll say this about Erikson: he is a master at coming up with cool names. From experience, I can say that coming up with a memorable name is genuinely difficult. I’ve wasted many hours on that endeavor.

The main driving force of the novel is that it keeps you guessing what the hell is going on in the background. What stood out to me is that, if you had asked me what exactly was happening, it would have been hard for me to put into words. Yet I still had an instinctual feeling of what was going on. This curiosity to uncover the mysteries and revelations becomes one of the main driving forces of the novel’s pace. Especially take note when he starts switching POVs rapidly—something big is usually about to happen.