Yes, it does get better. Massively so. Gardens of the moon is by far the worst of the bunch, and his style of throwing you right into the world without any background or explanations does not help it at all. Eventually you do get that background and everything ties together wonderfully, not to mention the characters and plots of the following books are much much better. The second third and fourth books might be my favorites of the series.
I read Gardens of the Moon years ago, have always meant to pick the second one up - but now I’m afraid I forgot everything and it’s, you know, where you have to remember it all. I liked some of the first book very much and found other parts to be incredibly boring - am I boned?
(Also, if any of you in this thread haven’t read Richard Morgan’s Land Fit for Heroes books, go do that. SO GOOD.)
Personally, I would suggest re-reading Gardens before you start Deadhouse Gates, just to refresh, but like I said, I’m in the middle of my second re-read of the whole series, so I may just be crazy.
The thing about Gardens is that it’s the first book Erickson got published. It didn’t sell all that well and he went on to write some other books instead before finally coming back to write Deadhouse Gates, which is so good that it deserves a treatise all by itself.
You can’t really skip Gardens, quite a lot of it is relevant for book number 10, but you could potentially skim it, go read the other nine books, and then come back to Gardens.
All of the books have passages where new characters and old plots weave in and out unexpectedly. Amazingly, it all does come together, both in the individual novels and in the whole series. While you’re reading, just go with it. Appreciate each scene as it happens and let the whole symphony carry you.
The thing is, the Malazan material started as a roleplaying scenario dreamed up by Steven Erickson and Ian Esselmont. They were two archeology students and they made up these stories while they were stuck on a dig in the middle of nowhere. They agreed to write them up with Esselmont taking events before the event known as The Night of Knives and Erickson taking events afterwards. Erickson got his stuff written and published first, however. So if it feels like you’re coming in in the middle, well you kind of are.
Esselmont’s books are now being written with an assist by Erickson, who’s working other Malazan material to kind of fill in the gaps. He’s now got a trilogy out about Anomander Rake. Esselmont’s books are good but more prosaic than Erickson’s stuff. They’re more straightforward and less likely to include 300,000 years of history.
One of my favorite features of the books is that the archaeological authors wrote all the Imperial Historians as asskicking geniuses.
Well, he’s STARTED a trilogy about Rake and company in the old, old, old, old, OLD days. The second book is supposed to come out later this year.
Esslemont is also in the middle of writing a prequel trilogy about the beginnings of the Empire and the Old Guard. And Erikson has promised there will be a trilogy (or whatever) about Karsa Orlong and his war on the rest of the world.
Witness, as I take the world…
Be picking that one up when it appears.
Have to go against the grain a bit and say I thought Gardens of the Moon was great - one of the best Malazan books. Show, don’t tell - hallmark of good writing and something that was less apparent the more he wrote.
I thought the second book about Rake was out, but I guess he got sidetracked with his Star Trek parody (which I haven’t read because I find book-length parodies kind of tiresome.) I’m waiting for all three books about Rake to be done and then binging them.
Esselmont, otoh, is up to book 6 and he’s sort of filling in spots around the world. I’ve read through #4, Orb Scepter Throne, which is killer. It’s set in Darujhistan, which is my favorite city in all of Fantasy literature and also answers a lot of questions about the Segulah.
Thank you to everyone who posted here. I think what I’ll do is tough out Gardens of the Moon, and then try Deadhouse Gates. After that it sounds like I’ll have a better idea about whether I want to eat the entire enchilada.