Fantasy

Gardens of the Moon - A high Fantasy

Author: Steven Erikson

Series: Malazan book of the Fallen

Book1: Gardens of the moon

Either you will love it or hate it, there’s no middle ground here

Are you tired of listening to the same story line of a dark lord, an artifact and a small man turning to a hero? Hmm I was. Though being a huge fan of Tolkein, I was looking for something different, a new approach to the genre.I started reading this series a couple of months back when I was desperately searching for an author who writes excellent high fantasy.

This was written on the back cover of the book

Bled dry by interminable warfare, in fighting and bloody confrontations with Lord Anomander Rake, the Malazan empire simmers with discontent. Its legions yearn for some respite.

For Seargent WhiskeyJack and his Bridgeburners and Tattersail, surviving sorceress of the second legion, the aftermath of siege of pale should have been a time to mourn the dead but Empress Laseen’s gaze has fallen upon Darujhistan, for this ancient Citadel, last of the free cities of Genabackis, still holds out against her.

However, the empire is not alone in this great game. Sinister forces are gathering as the Gods themselves prepare to play their Hand.

And Gardens of the moon turned out to be a master piece. The story starts with a coupd’etat of an empire by the head of the assassin branch CLAW. What ensues is chaos in the noble class. There’s trouble in the empire’s borders. A group of marines marches at the head of the army to vanquish the rebellion.

The marines take the centre stage with a lot of interesting characters. Oh..there are intrigues, corrupt nobleman, warring factions, wizards, there are ascendants there are shape shifters and then there are GODS who play their games in the mortal realm. That’s hell of a lot of characters and sure you are going to fall in love with some of them and want to strangle some others.

The characters are deep, with almost real emotions, there’s a lot of funny rambling going on in the story line among the characters and frankly its interesting most of the times. The storyline itself is very rich spanning across millennia and evolves over the series. The story has an all new set of races (not the usual Orc, Elf, Dwarf, Human). War, magic and lots of action is ensured in the first volume.

This series was originally envisioned to be a RPG, however it came out as a fantasy masterpiece. If you are a fantasy lover then pick it up from the nearest stand, as i said either you will love it or hate it.

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