Gardens of the Moon Review

Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson Malazan Book of the Fallen, book 1

I read Gardens of the Moon a few years ago, and to this day, it stands as one of the most disorienting, ambitious, and quietly impressive reading experiences I’ve had. I didn’t know what I was getting into. Very few do. And to be honest, I’m not sure I fully understood half of it at the time.

“Now these ashes have grown cold, we open the old book. These oil-stained pages recount the tales of the Fallen... We are history relived and that is all, without end that is all.”

Steven Erikson doesn’t ease readers into his world. He doesn’t give you a tour guide, a warm-up act, or a helpful little map with arrows saying, “Start here.” You’re just dropped in—mid-battle, mid-conflict, mid-conversation—and expected to keep up. The Malazan world is already in motion, the gods are already meddling, the armies are already dying, and the politics are already spiraling. You get the sense that the world doesn’t care if you’re confused, because it was never built for you in the first place.

“We are all prisoners, Kalam. Most people are prisoners of their own illusions. The few people who break free, those are the dangerous ones.”

But here’s the thing: once you stop trying to get your footing and just let the current pull you along, something shifts. The book doesn’t necessarily get easier—but it starts to feel alive. The depth of the world, the layers of history, and the weight behind every name, every spell, every skirmish—they start to matter. Not because they’re explained, but because you begin to feel their impact, even if you don’t fully grasp their origin.

One of the things that makes Gardens of the Moon so distinct is its refusal to spoon-feed the reader. Erikson assumes intelligence, patience, and curiosity. He throws out ancient empires, complex magic systems, ascendants, warrens, and elder races like you already passed the exam. And while that can feel punishing at times, it also makes the discoveries feel earned.

The cast is sprawling, but two names still echo years later: Anomander Rake and Whiskeyjack. The former—a towering, mysterious lord of Moon’s Spawn, wielding a soul-drinking sword and commanding near mythic dread. The latter—a grizzled, deeply human commander trying to navigate duty, loyalty, and the impossible politics of empire. They, along with characters like Ganoes Paran, Tattersail, and Sorry, make up a rotating cast that somehow manages to feel grounded in a story that rarely is.

“Betrayal is the blade that cuts deepest, for it strikes against trust.”

Erikson's background as an anthropologist and archaeologist shows. The world feels ancient. Cultures aren’t just pasted in—they feel layered, eroded, rebuilt. Wars have consequences. Gods have agendas. And mortals, no matter how powerful, are often just pieces on a very old board.

“What are gods, after all, if not the perfect victims?”

If there’s a common refrain among Malazan readers, it’s this: “I had no idea what was going on, but I loved it.” That was my experience too. I didn’t follow every thread, but I felt the weight of them. I didn’t always understand what characters meant, but I believed that they did—and that mattered more.

This isn’t a book for everyone. If you need clean exposition, tidy arcs, or a single clear protagonist, you’ll likely bounce off it. But if you’re willing to endure the fog, to trust that there’s a reason the map is so hard to read, Gardens of the Moon offers something most fantasy can’t: a sense that you’ve stepped into something truly massive—something that doesn’t begin or end with you.

It’s not about you, after all. It’s about an empire, a continent, a world. And that’s exactly why it works.