I Read Books: Gardens Of The Moon

Gardens Of The Moon

The Malazan Empire has conquered ten of the twelve free cities of Genabackis, and is on the verge of defeating the besieged city of Pale. But it’s not all their own way; over the city is Moons Spawn, a flying castle that is the home of the Tiste Andii, whose legions fight a war against the Malazan to the North. If I say that the Tiste Andii are immortals who came out of the dimension of dark (a “warren”, which is also a source of magic) thousands of years ago after a disagreement with Mother Dark, their goddess, you kind of get what’s going on here.

But that’s not the only deep history . Under the previous Emperor the Empire had the command of an undead legion, the T’lan Imass, mummified stone-age warriors, who made themselves undead to fight the Jhagut. The Jhagut were powerful, able to command minds and dominate, so much so that they lived alone or in tiny families out of fear of their own power. This all took place hundreds of thousands of years ago but the war is going on, in slow motion, with the Jhagut almost vanished. A Jhagut tyrant, the thing they feared they all would be, was entombed near the last free city, Darujhistan, the next target of the Empire.

This weaves into the fact the Empress took over after the Emperor’s assassination (as she was the second-best assassin in the Empire makes her the prime suspect) and has been putting the Emperor’s favourites into the most dangerous spots. Some of them are being sent to Darujhistan. Her Adjunct, her troubleshooter with an anti-magic sword, has put her protegee, Ganoes Paran, in charge of them; also she intends to go there and wake the Jhagut tyrant, hoping to have it and the Tiste Andii clash and destroy each other, also they’re after someone who has been possessed by a god of Shadow (distinct from Dark).

There’s at least one other god getting involved, a lot of intrigue in Darujhistan, the Moranth who are insected-helmed Genabackis locals with explosives and giant flying insects, plus the Deck of Dragons. The good news is that this is a very thick book so you get spoon-fed all this between explosive action scenes, long, languid descriptions, well-characterised if wordy conversations and some amusing if slightly ponderous jokes.

This is pretty cool High Fantasy, that is interested in many aspects of its world. If sometimes it shows it’s D&D world-building skeleton a bit, it also has the conviction to embrace the internal contradictions.

Read This: For a complicated fantasy novel, the first in a series of ten
Don’t Read This: If you aren’t going to sit still for one 700 page fantasy let alone ten of them