Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #527175 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 1.14" h x 4.20" w x 6.83" l, .68 pounds
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 666 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
With a field as crowded as heroic fantasy, a reader is entitled to know what makes the latest blockbuster worth his or her attention: but Bantam books are throwing considerable marketing weight behind Steven Erikson, because they clearly believe he is the Next Big Thing. They may be right--he has the breadth and detail of imaginative vision, he is able to create a world that is both absorbing on a human level and full of magical sublimity, and, above all, he can write.

Gardens of the Moon concerns the military campaign by the Malazan Empire to capture the last remaining Free City on the Gernsbackian continent. War is waged with conventional soldiers as well as powerful magicians, and gods mix with mortals in a complex, but rewarding, series of narrative threads that come chiefly out of the school of Feist's Magician, although there is also something of the flavour of Gavriel Kay's celebrated Fionavar books. The moon of the title is a wonderfully grand conception, a sort of floating mountain that moves through the skies of the war-striken continent, and is the home of the 'Son of Darkness'. The various magical battles are splendidly written, and the characters are well realised. Rewardingly mellow and fiendishly readable. --Adam Roberts

From the Publisher
Stephen R. Donaldson praises 'Gardens of the Moon'
I thought amazon.co.uk's SF and Fantasy fans would be interested to know that Stephen R. Donaldson, author of the classic 'Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever' recently wrote to us and very generously had this to say about Steven Erikson and his tremendous first novel...

"Steven Erikson is an extraordinary writer. I read 'Gardens of the Moon' with great pleasure. And now that I have read it, I would be hard pressed to decide what I enjoyed more: the richly and ominously magical world of Malaz and Genabackis; the large cast of sympathetically-rendered characters; or the way the story accumulates to a climax that hits like machinegun fire. 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."

Praise indeed from one of the true masters of the genre!

About the Author
Steven Erikson
An archaeologist and anthropologist, and a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Steven Erikson recently returned to Canada after a number of years in the UK and now lives in Winnipeg. His first fantasy novel, GARDENS OF THE MOON, was shortlisted for a World Fantasy Award and the second, DEADHOUSE GATES, was voted 'one of the 10 best fantasy novels of the year'.