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  • Gardens of the Moon

  • The Malazan Book of the Fallen, Book 1
  • Written by: Steven Erikson
  • Narrated by: Ralph Lister
  • Length: 26 hrs and 3 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (424 ratings)

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Gardens of the Moon cover art

Gardens of the Moon

Written by: Steven Erikson
Narrated by: Ralph Lister
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Publisher's Summary

Vast legions of gods, mages, humans, dragons and all manner of creatures play out the fate of the Malazan Empire in this first book in a major epic fantasy series

The Malazan Empire simmers with discontent, bled dry by interminable warfare, bitter infighting and bloody confrontations with the formidable Anomander Rake and his Tiste Andii, ancient and implacable sorcerers. Even the imperial legions, long inured to the bloodshed, yearn for some respite. Yet Empress Laseen's rule remains absolute, enforced by her dread Claw assassins. 

For Sergeant Whiskeyjack and his squad of Bridgeburners, and for Tattersail, surviving cadre mage of the Second Legion, the aftermath of the siege of Pale should have been a time to mourn the many dead. But Darujhistan, last of the Free Cities of Genabackis, yet holds out. It is to this ancient citadel that Laseen turns her predatory gaze. 

However, it would appear that the Empire is not alone in this great game. Sinister, shadowbound forces are gathering as the gods themselves prepare to play their hand....

Conceived and written on a panoramic scale, Gardens of the Moon is epic fantasy of the highest order - an enthralling adventure by an outstanding new voice.

©1999 by Steven Erikson. (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

What the critics say

"Erikson is an extraordinary writer. My advice to anyone who might listen to me is, Treat yourself to Gardens of the Moon. And my entirely selfish advice to Steven Erikson is, write faster." --Stephen R. Donaldson 

"I stand slack-jawed in awe of The Malazan Book of the Fallen. This masterwork of imagination may be the high water mark of epic fantasy. This marathon of ambition has a depth and breadth and sense of vast reaches of inimical time unlike anything else available today. The Black Company, Zelazny's Amber, Vance's Dying Earth, and other mighty drumbeats are but foreshadowings of this dark dragon's hoard." --Glen Cook

"A world that is both absorbing on a human level and full of magical sublimity...a wonderfully grand conception...splendidly written...fiendishly readable." --Adam Roberts

Featured Article: The Best Fantasy Audiobook Series

From grim worlds of gritty war and betrayal to light-hearted stories of romance, adventure, and magic, fantasy has it all. It’s the genre to listen to for a little escapism and a lot of enjoyment. And it’s one that is constantly updated with new names, new voices, and new stories to explore.

What listeners say about Gardens of the Moon

Average Customer Ratings
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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Sink or swim

Oddly, this first book threw me right back to high school English class, where reading was more about struggling to parse and understand, and less about simply relaxing into an easy, accessible and well-loved fantasy novel.

This series was recommended by a few people in my life, and was praised and lauded as being one of their favourite series of all time. I took a stab at it a year ago, and found myself a few chapters in, and still not knowing which way was up.

Recently, I took another stab at it, having been told that the start is ‘slow,’ or something to that effect. The start isn’t slow. It’s different - atypical from most other books in general.

I had the thought out of the blue one day, as I was listening, that maybe I had accidentally purchased and was many hours into the SECOND BOOK. But no.

And that’s when it clicked. The world is built well before you get to it. You just need to patiently wait until you’ve stumbled along enough to understand. This could easily have been a book plucked from the middle of an existing series, in my opinion.

There are a few characters sprinkled here and there that act as that clueless entrypoint for the reader, who need to have things and plots and magic explained to them. But 90% of the time every character is all-in, and they start expounding and freaking out over implications and subtext that was completely opaque to me, who could barely make heads or tails of the magic system, races, military, countries, character dynamics, or subplots.

It did, in a lot of ways, come together in the end. About 3/4 or 4/5 of the way in, I was confidently sure that I knew what was happening.

Reading this still made me feel vaguely like an idiot, and I’m sure some people breezed through it quiet comfortably, but for those of you who are worried, and would prefer an easier read, maybe this isn’t for you?

But otherwise, keep treading water, because at some point you’ll figure out which way the shore is. It seems to be an interesting world so far, and I’m willing to see where it will go from here.

***Update

I did start reading the next booked after I wrote this review, and finally gave up. The second book starts in a similar 'in media res' of a completely different set of characters in another part of the world, so you basically start from scratch with almost no support from the knowledge you gained from the first book.

I get that once you get into the series, the later books are FANTASTIC. I, however, read for escapism, and have a hard time wanting to wade through the depths of confusion for so long, so I've give up. Maybe I'll return in a few years.

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43 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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Thought it would be a good listen

This review is my own opinion and does not reflect the quality of this book or other listeners experiences with this series.

Simply put I did not enjoy the audio version of this book, however I will give it a try and purchase a hard copy of the book to read.

I personally find it very difficult to follow the narrator, he seems to switch to a new character without any indication and I found that was causing me to constantly rewind to understand the story shift and that broke the immersion for me.

I did find the quality of the story to be rich and entertaining, well the parts I could follow anyways haha.

Overall I did enjoy the content to this series enough to be willing to purchase a hard copy and give it a try the old fashion way.

Id say give this book a try and you may be able to follow the narration better than I. If you don’t like it you could always return it.

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17 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

well done all around

I enjoyed this a lot, but found that there were little bits in both the writing and reading that could have been a little cleaner, that said, a very enjoyable listen and highly recommended.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Taking epic fantasy to a whole new level

Such an amazing series of books - it changed how I felt about all of my previous favourites. The sheer scale of Erikson's creation is unbelievable. The narrator, Ralph Lister, did a phenomenal job bringing the huge cast of characters to life.
Very highly recommended!

#Audible1

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great Book !!

Don’t give up on it takes a while to get into a little confusing with character development. A really worthwhile story over all though. I’m downloading the second as I write this fully hooked lol.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Not a Strong Story

Gardens of the Moon is not a book that I would recommend. I've read reviews stating that this book was an amazing fantasy novel I have to disagree. The plot was not strong and there was no clear direction of which character you needed to focus on because every character felt like an uninteresting sub plot

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Good story

This is a good story. Ralph Lister had some inconsistent voices, and also had some trouble creating differing voices over such a large cast, but he does a good job at reading it. Near the end chapters things got kind of confusing and I found myself listening to segments over and over again to discern what had actually happened. But overall this was a very enjoyable listen.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Extremely difficult to follow

After reading the mixed reviews I decided to give this book a listen. I was prepared to not be able to make sense of the story line in the beginning due to other reviews but was waiting for the “ah ha” moment when it all came together. Unfortunately, that never happened. Too many plot twists and characters able to change themselves so that their powers and capabilities increased finally got to the point of being ridiculous. It’s like having a number of super hero’s that are fighting against one another but they can suddenly acquire new powers that make the story go in a new direction. Basically the book became pointless. The ending was a complete let down. I was really wanting to like this book. It has some great ideas but, in the end, it was a waste of time. Incredibly confusing. It had some good characters but was difficult to follow and make sense of what all was happening. I would not recommend.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Pretty confusing at first because of the reading

Nobody cares if a 34 hour audiobook takes 35 hours. Have pauses between different storylines. Even 2 seconds. When you are reading one characters storyline then, without even a breath in between, you start on a completely different storyline it just makes it confusing and frustrating. Story was decent though. Original.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Amazing!

Erickson sets the standard one book at a time. Nothing else touches his and Ian esselmonts works in fantasy!!

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1 person found this helpful