Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Gardens of the Moon
    Unavailable
    Gardens of the Moon
    Unavailable
    Gardens of the Moon
    Audiobook26 hours

    Gardens of the Moon

    Written by Steven Erikson

    Narrated by Ralph Lister

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The Malazan Empire simmers with discontent, bled dry by interminable warfare, bitter infighting, and bloody confrontations with 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 dreaded Claw assassins.

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

    However, 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 voice.

    "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
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781469225692
    Unavailable
    Gardens of the Moon
    Author

    Steven Erikson

    STEVEN ERIKSON is an archaeologist and anthropologist and a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. His Malazan Book of the Fallen series has met widespread international acclaim and established him as a major voice in the world of fantasy fiction. The first book in the series, Gardens of the Moon, was shortlisted for a World Fantasy Award. The second novel, Deadhouse Gates, was voted one of the ten best fantasy novels of the year by SF Site. He lives in Canada.

    Related to Gardens of the Moon

    Related audiobooks

    Fantasy For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Jay Kristoff

      Sep 8, 2021

      MOST NOVELISTS HAVE AT LEAST ONE book in a drawer that represents an early effort, a text that will never be offered up to a wider readership. In the case of Jay Kristoff, this book was a tale of bloodsuckers he wrote in 2008. “It was right at the ta

      3 min read

    • Article

      100 Best Fantasy Books Of All Time

      Oct 23, 2020

      100 Best Fantasy Books Of All Time
      27 min read

    • Article

      Total War: Warhammer III

      Oct 4, 2022

      Total War: Warhammer III
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Hurricane Wars

      Nov 1, 2023

      RELEASED OUT NOW! 470 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook Author Thea Guanzon Publisher HarperVoyager Making a “new” series out of a popular fan fiction can work out very well – just ask EL James. It’s a success story many have hoped to emulate, includi

      1 min read

    • Article

      Total War: Warhammer III

      Sep 15, 2022

      Iwas vibrating with excitement when I fired up the Immortal Empires beta. Despite its diminishing returns, I really dug Total War: Warhammer III’s Realm of Chaos campaign, but it felt like a starter designed to whet the appetite before the mega campa

      3 min read

    • Article

      'The Raven Tower' Rises From Shakespearean Foundations

      Feb 26, 2019

      Ann Leckie's new fantasy novel is packed with family intrigue, throne-room maneuvering and nods to Hamlet in its story of a son who comes home to find his father missing and his uncle in power.

      2 min read

    • Article

      Sword Catcher

      Oct 4, 2023

      Sword Catcher
      3 min read

    • Article

      'Mirage' Is A YA Marvel That Weds Sci-fi With Courtly Intrigue

      Sep 25, 2018

      Somaiya Daud's debut novel sets the story of a court rebellion in a Moroccan space fantasy.

      3 min read

    • Article

      5 New Fantasy Novels Invigorate Old Tropes

      May 18, 2023

      Spell books, dragons, mermaids, fairies and a magic circus all take on new life in the pages of these five enchanting tales hitting shelves in May and June.

      5 min read

    • Article

      City Of Last Chances

      Nov 30, 2022

      City Of Last Chances
      2 min read

    • Article

      'Queen Of The Conquered' Serves Revenge With Delicacy And Savagery

      Nov 14, 2019

      In their new novel, Kacen Callender builds a vast, immersive landscape based on the colonial history of the Caribbean, but it's their morally conflicted heroine who will really hook readers.

      2 min read

    • Article

      Reckoning ball

      Feb 12, 2024

      Reckoning ball
      7 min read

    • Article

      Their Finest Hour–again

      Apr 29, 2020

      MY routine is now rigorously Benedictine. I’m awoken at Lauds, by the ruddy birdsong (‘Laud’s sake, do shut up!’). Prime, which I am wasting, sees golden light cascading into the chapel, as cheerful and as annoying as Maria von Trapp. Terce (can you

      3 min read

    Reviews for Gardens of the Moon

    4/5

    1,897 ratings94 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Hard book to review as the first part is just overwhelming with details and so many characters. Fortunately, the second half is better once you start to know who is who and what they're trying to achieve. But there are still many fuzzy plot points and even a bunch a new characters being thrown at you in the last new chapters. So quite an ambitious novel, but on its own, it's not great. Hopefully the next book in the series will be more enjoyable.
    • 3/5
      This was a good read with some really memorable characters but in the end was not focused enough. There was just to much going on, magical weapons, mage's, demons, dragons, assassin clans, the undead, gods old and new. No lie, Pinokio even showed up. A lot of great Ideas but they were developed and discarded to quickly.
    • 4/5
      Interesting epic fantasy story with a lot of meaty characters. Tended to jump around in a somewhat hectic fashion. Events would sometimes occur in a Deus Ex Machina style.
    • 4/5
      I am now on Toll of the Hounds in this series. Love, love love the storytelling of Erikson. This is the first book and I was a huge fan of the Bridgeburners as soon as I was introduced to them. This is a very intricate story line with a plethora of different groups of people to follow each with very different paths so you have to pay attention. The books may be long for some, but I was right at home with this epic tale. I love the action as well as the humor sprinkled in which was a pleasant surprise. If you can push through some of the confusion this series is awesome!
    • 4/5
      Massive. Epic. Ensemble cast. At times, reading this was a drag (not because of a lack of action, rather the confusing melange of plots and character groupings thrown in here). I only persevered out of the expectation of everything somehow making sense in the end. And although threads and characters finally come together in something of a climax, that didn't magically reveal 'the reason for it all'. But the sheer scope and complexity of the world, history, cultures portrayed compelled me to pick up the next in the series.

      In the end, my respect and faith in the fantasy genre was renewed. If somebody could create something completely imaginary, breathe that much artistry and reality in it as to make me feel and believe strongly in it, and craft it all into a massive tome that still seems too short...yeah, hats off. Even with zombie armies, wizard duels and puppets, godly avatars in thrall, and dragons flying overhead, it feels real.
    • 2/5
      I finished this book several weeks ago, but have struggled with how to rate it. It's very frustrating, as I was intrigued by the magic system and some of the cultures. Once I figured out what the hell was going on that is. Hence the low rating. I'm of the opinion that while info dumps are bad in your books, it's worse to just offer absolutely no explanation whatsoever, giving the impression you are deliberately trying to leave your reader as confused as possible. If I hadn't had a couple people urging me to keep going because they were certain I would enjoy it I would have tossed into a forgotten corner after two or three chapters. I may go back at some point in the future and reread, now that I have a better grasp of how the world works, but I have no pressing urge to continue with the series despite the intriguing glimpses here and there.
    • 4/5
      The first book in Erikson's saga certainly lays the groundwork for a huge, epic fantasy tale. Was it captivating? Yes. Was the magic over the top? Of course. Did the author throw you right into the middle of a narrative with little background information. Certainly. Did I grow emotionally attached to the protagonists/antagonists? Not yet.My only 'gripe' with this book is that I have to read "Deadhouse Gates" (Book 2) before I can decide how I feel about the Malazan universe. Don't get me wrong, WOT is similar in this regard and it happens to be my favorite series of all time.Ultimately, I would highly recommend this book. My review of Book 2 should shed more light on my opinions, though.
    • 5/5
      This book is amazing! Without being a Lord of the Rings copy, Gardens of the Moon manages to reach the height of contemporary fantasy.If you're looking for high fantasy, a la Lord of the Rings, you might be disappointed here. Gardens of the Moon isn't about linguistics or mythology the way LoTR is - it's more about the tiny, gritty details that Tolkien didn't put into his mythos. Amazing stuff.
    • 4/5
      This was not my favorite fantasy novel. I felt like there was a lot going for it, but it fell short in a lot of places for me. It had all the right ingredients, war, magic, different races, epic destiny's, etc. However small things left me feeling frustrated. For example the author failed to really describe anything that was unique to his world, like different races or creatures. He would describe a beast as big and hairy...OK...and? That doesn't give !e much to go on. He described one race as dark skinned and tall; again...its hard for me to form a picture based on that. I felt like he could have given a better idea of what these different creatures and beings looked like to help me.His action scenes were great and full of perfect detail that really allowed me to get into it! I think there were too many characters, that sort of distracted from the story. Still, overall I would say it was a good fantasy novel, but not a great one. I am willing to continue reading the series so its good enough to keep me interested.
    • 3/5
      I'm really not sure what to say about this one, except that, if you read it, PAY ATTENTION TO EVERYTHING. Parts were really good; parts were really sloggy. I really like some characters; I really dislike others. I hate books that have huge infodumps, but this one....it could have used a few. Erikson barely gives you anything, and what he does give, he leaks in dribs and drabs. And he only gives you the barest amount of info to give you a vague idea of what is going on. The further you read, the more sense it makes and everything comes together. And leaves you with many more questions. I'm definitely interested enough to check out the second book, but unsure whether I'll make it through the whole series. I don't read many books that leave me so firmly on the fence.
    • 5/5
      An incredible book, although it took me a second pass through to truly understand it.
    • 2/5
      Very complex and quite hard to follow. I struggled to care about any one particular character (probably because of the above). If the plot had been clearer and the pace more measured I think I would have enjoyed this book. I feel like the author was in a rush to get all his thoughts onto the page, which isn't a bad thing, but because of this it doesn't come across as well edited.
    • 3/5
      I tried so hard to enjoy 'Gardens of the Moon.' I really did. It's clear that the author has put an astonishing amount of work into his world and this book, and there are some really fascinating and original ideas in both. Yet, I found it close to impossible to give a damn about a single one of Erikson's (many, many) characters and subplots, nor how they were impacted by the complex storyline.I love a good, long, complicated book. When done well, I find myself aching for further complexity, for the author to dig deeper and deeper and explore every inch of the characters and world they have created. While reading 'Gardens of the Moon', however, what I wanted most of all was for Steven Erikson to slow down and explain what the hell was going on before moving onto yet another group of characters and subplots. This book is the bad kind of complicated, where the complexity seems to come less from the intricacies of the plot and more from deficiencies in the author's craft and an unwillingness to provide necessary exposition.Because when examined closely, the plot of 'Gardens of the Moon' isn't really THAT complicated. There's an army waging a lengthy military campaign to invade new territory, some wizards in said army dealing with several bizarre undead creatures and demon-things from other realms, the dark lord partly responsible for those creatures, and a gang of thieves operating in a city that the army is trying to invade, who come into conflict in various ways. Compared to, say, any of George RR Martin's 'A Song of Ice and Fire' books, its all pretty straightforward. What makes it complicated is Steven Erikson's refusal to provide anything beyond the bare bones of exposition about his world and how the various factions and cities and the like are connected. I mean, yeah, if you're really paying attention, you can generally piece it all together, but by the time you've gotten your head around the current crop of characters, their motivations and the stakes that they are facing, a new set turns up and you're back at square one again. The best example of this occurs about halfway through. Already, an enormous quantity of different characters have been introduced, and by this point in the book, I felt I more or less understood who they all were in relation to each other and to the plot, and was actually starting to care about what happened to them and to be excited to find out what would happen next. Then the author suddenly shifts to an entirely new (and equally enormous) group of characters, all living in a city that hadn't appeared yet in the book. It was like starting a completely new book, and it took what felt like an eternity for any of the old crop of characters to become part of the story again. Or take the book's title, for instance, which refers to the main bad guy's stronghold, located in, well, a garden on the Moon. And that's fine - it's fantasy, very magic-heavy high fantasy, in fact, so I have no problem with a character living on the Moon, provided that it works within the book's internal logic. Whether it does or not in this case, I honestly don't know. Is this the actual Moon, as in a giant orbiting satellite with no atmosphere located hundreds of thousands of miles from the Earth, with magic providing oxygen and the like, or a mini-Earth capable of supporting life, or a much smaller satellite that's within this world's atmosphere, or some levitating chunk of rock in the sky called "the Moon", or, hell, just some random geographical location that for some reason is named "the Moon"? Your guess is as good as mine. All we know is that this dark lord-esque character lives on the Moon, and that he sends a bird-familiar-thing down from it spy on and attack other characters. Maybe this gets explained in later books, maybe not, but I don't think a few lines explaining how the magic or science behind this works is too much to ask for, especially when dealing with a something as out-there as a medieval fantasy character who LIVES ON THE MOON.Which brings me to the book's other big problem: the characters are, by and large, not particularly interesting. They aren't completely flat, and there were some that I rather liked, but for the most part, the many, many, many characters in 'Gardens of the Moon' are pretty unremarkable. It's been three years since I read it, and I honestly cannot recall a single one that made an impression on me. In the introduction to the edition I own, the author talks about his dislike of infodumping and how he intended these books to be the sort where the reader isn't spoonfed and you really have to pay attention to what is happening. He succeeded. Unfortunately, the result is a book that often feels more like working through an academic text than reading popular fiction. I dislike unnecessary exposition as much as the next reader, but there's an art to subtly working exposition and worldbuilding into a narrative, and on the basis of this book, at least, Erikson has not mastered it.I didn't hate this book. In fact, there were many, many things I liked about it. But the primary emotion I felt while reading it was continued frustration. I may still pick up the next book some day, but I can't say I'm at all disappointed at the prospect of never returning to this series again.
    • 4/5
      I loved the interpretation and the story was very much to my liking although sometimes the plots may have been a bit too intricate.
    • 3/5
      I’m sure this was a very good book. However, listening to it - audiobook version- was very difficult. The frequent scene jumps were difficult to follow and all the different characters almost impossible to know who was who. I need to read the book now to understand the story.....
    • 3/5
      Wow! What a challenge! So many characters and it switched point of view constantly. It probably made it even more confusing not being able to see it on paper. You have to be tuned in every moment which can be difficult especially with how long this is. I nearly stopped a few times. However, I found a Wikia site online that helped me figure out who’s who and get a better grasp at what’s going on. Books shouldn’t be this difficult. However, I am intrigued in this massive world and will likely try the next book.
    • 5/5
      It's an amazing fantasy work. It's a complicated world building but it's worth it.
    • 5/5
      It’s not going to hold your hand. If you want your stories challenge you, to require your engagement, then this is for you. If you need 100% context, a beginning & end well, go read Harry Potter. Here be dragons!
    • 5/5
      I have both read and listened to Steven Erikson's entire Malazan Book of the Fallen 10 book series. I was shocked to see such a mediocre review on Scribd.

      A lot of the reviews complain of confusion due to too much detail. This is understandable as there is an extraordinary amount of detail and world building in Gardens of the Moon and throughout the series. You are thrown into the story, midbattle, and it does take time to find your footing but once you have its a wonderous story.

      This collection is not for the faint of heart.
      This is not Game of Thrones or Wheel of Time, series' which though colourful possess simpler worlds, emotions, characters, and storylines.

      This is high fantasy at its finest. I have nothing but a glowing review for the Malazan Books of the Fallen. They sit at the very top of my bookshelf with The Name of the Wind and the Lord of the Rings.
    • 4/5
      Huh? ….who? ….what? Ehhmmm, wow thats dope!

      I cant say i fully understand this fantasy epic, and when i realized that was the point i enjoyed it more. So many names, places, times and events that i cant keep track of. At first it was frustrating but with time i found it evoking a curiosity and awesomeness (the older meaning of the word) for the world and characters, and what can be better in a high fantasy book!
      It is a bit like game of thrones with a dozen characters with their own motivations and plots going on under times of political coups and wars. Unlike game of thrones thou, here the magic elements are turned up to super saiyan mode. E.g one guy kills a mountain with a punch, just to flex.

      I really liked it, but i would not recommend it to my more fantasy casual friends.
    • 5/5
      Dope af, buddy does an amazing job reading it all.
    • 5/5
      This is one of my favorite series, bar none. The narration fits it perfectly. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Onward to the Deadhouse.
    • 5/5
      Amazing story, this is my second read through the book. First by hard copy then audiobook. Do not be discouraged if you get confused. Think about the story in a wide angle or a panoramic view. This series can be overwhelming to new readers but is the best if you are an experienced epic fantasy reader. This is definitely considered to be a God Father of Epic Fantasy genre.
    • 3/5
      The book has a really hard start. It's hard to follow the main characters.
    • 2/5
      I think this book works better as a book. The author doesn't spend anytime explaining anything. It gives the book a solid feeling because it forces the listener to gist everything from context. But as an audio experience, I found myself struggling to keep track of all the different names, or just stuff happening. You really have to focus on the audio because there are a lot of different characters, the plot jumps around in the timeline, and while the voice acting is great, there are many characters that are just plain hard to understand in a book that already requires your full attention. If you were to read this book, keeping track of the different characters would be a lot easier. The parts of the story that are subtle or confusing could be pondered before continuing. The two stars are for the audio experience and not reflective of the story. I only got about 5 hours in and found that I could not properly enjoy this book while doing other things. If I have to only focus on a book, I might as well just read it.
    • 4/5
      Good story but some chapters were hard to follow. Good read though.
    • 5/5
      I have read the book, but listening to it was another experience. It was better than I could imagine.
    • 2/5
      Perhaps reading this title would be preferable to listening to it. It didn’t seem to make much sense as I listened, and it was difficult for me to keep track of the characters. I do not plan to follow the rest of the series. YMMV.
    • 5/5
      I loved Gardens of the Moon. It touched every single positive trigger I have and then some. You even have a touch of romance thrown in.
      You'll get characters that disgust you, that you hate and you cannot wait for their fall. Then you have characters that are larger than life.

      It is a great feat when a book this long doesn't drag. There is always something or someone you'd be interested in. All that thanks to the way the story is presented - divided into books that are divided into chapters which consist of short scenes, each featuring different setting or a character. It never leaves the main thread of the story though. I loved the way it is written.

      I didn't rush and I was prepared for being thrown into the story. You would expect a lot of info dump in this case. There isn't any and yet even with the unexplained events or characters you won't be lost in the story.

    • 4/5
      This book was dense and yet pretty amazing. I ran out and got the next two books and can't wait to read them!