Malazan Book of the Fallen: Gardens of the Moon

I am now on my third, and final, try of the Malazan Book of the Fallen. My biggest problem the first time around is that I used the audiobook only. And I am an avid reader/listener of audiobooks and consume a lot of audiobooks every week. I listen about 40-80h a week depending on how much work I have that week.

The audible audiobook was horrible, and still is horrible, for me. The pauses between perspectives, the switching of characters and the voices are horrible. I get so confused and need to back up and redo A LOT. I usually am able to listen to audiobooks in 1,75 speed but Malazan was impossible and even with only 1.0 speed I forgot what was happening since it seemed so haphazard and random when I listened to it. So after finishing it the first time and having no memory of what actually happened – I still don’t remember how it ended – I had to watch a lot of booktube ((A term a community of book reviewers on YouTube uses that I follow, so I’ve started using it too) and reading on the wiki to get a basic grasp of things and then the eBooks.

With the eBook I read a few chapters along with the audio and it helped a lot. The physical text is good, you can follow what’s happening but it still seems very chaotic and it becomes more clear that it’s supposed to set the tone of the series like this. He’s doing a gigantic epic, and with it he wants to involve godlike beings and power levels of so many different kinds but without info dumps that he tries to make this a mystery plot. But it waaay too much and too incoherent for my taste. As soon as I continued from the kindle to audiobook only I got lost within an hour and had to relisten twice before I got what was happening. Too much focus was needed to get along with the story. This for me is frustrating and made me the first two times think – “Am I stupid? I usually think I can absorb information and understand things quite well. But, with Malazan, I feel like it’s shit but still everyone praises it so much.”

I want into Malazan as a counter-recommendation after giving another friend Stormlight Archive and Wheel of Time to read. I read physically a lot as well, but only books I know I enjoy since my time is very contested due to my workhours. And he gave me Malazan saying it is even more epic than both of these two. Never having heard of it I started with it and he is quite a… absent minded fella and when I went into this I went mad.

NOW, 4/5 into the book on my 3rd reread where I’ve listen and read and re-listened and read the book in segments and researched before and after every time I’ve spent with the book. I’ve finally gotten the book to stick in my mind and the main story is making sense. I’ve also pinpointed what makes the book so confusing for me and why I feel stupid while reading and listening to it.

I’ve also watched some videos that prepare one for this series. I’ve seen videos like “What you need to know before you start the Wheel of Time” etcetera but those videos are kind of something I’ve never understood or needed. Most book series I’ve read including China Mieville, this wasn’t necessary. But this world it was if you are like me and always want to be able to understand what is happening.

Because one thing I found from many people that liked the series are that they usually just ignore stuff when they read. Like places, characters and who is who and what is happening and why. I on the other hand cannot accept this and it frustrates me when a scene is about people talking with each other about something and then there’s NOTHING about it close to stuff. This is extremely annoying and mostly just makes me confused since it lacks soooo much information.

So now I understand it, but I’ve come to accept Malazan’s big flaws that I cannot forgive. Like the Magic System and the Divinities. I have nothing against gods. But the Gods here are following an impossible and to me seeming inconsistent set of rules that are absurd. I had to watch a video to even accept it and find it super stupid but now something I can put behind me as something I just don’t like.

Anyhow this time I am okay with the book. I really thinks this is the worst possible start you can have to a book

series and that Steven Erikson either did a fine job with this Trial by Fire, by killing of the readers that wouldn’t like his style. Because this book feels like a warning and a way to scare away people. That or that if you are braindead and accidentally just get through it you start to like it down the road and then have a lot of the answers Gardens of the Moon isn’t providing, you can THEN finally like the book.

So to sum it up. You shouldn’t need three re-reads to understand a book of fiction. And just the fact that the first two times I just forgot EVERYTHING that happened in the book other than the first 20 pages, should be a good indication to say that this threshold for a series is too tough. But now I will try the next two books, and if I can manage to get to book three, then it seems like I’m in. But I really didn’t like Gardens of the Moon.