Gardens of the Moon discussion

I'm about a little more than a quarter of the way through the book and I'm really struggling to care about anything happening. All of the characters are very flat and have the same "no, war is bad" comment while staring wistfully in the distance characterization which has happened for six different characters now.

The other information we get told (because Erikson doesn't want his characters to think about what they were doing because that would make it too organic and instead when we do get information on the world its through really clunky dialogue) feel like likes? We're told that Tattersail is some legendary master of her Warren but all she does is play with cards. Sorry, play with cards, get saved by other people and mope over her dead boyfriends. Good female writing there. Likewise, information about the world itself feels very flat and tonally dumb such as when they talk about Hairlock's adventures in the Upsidedown and Tattersail tells her table mates, one being another supposed master of their Warren who would then logically already know this, that chaos is bad and its very obvious this is for the reader and doesn't feel justified.

I'm not sure if this is worse than not knowing anything since Eriskon can not help himself but keep shoving more and more and more terms, characters, locations, magic, politics about a place that is either very boring and has nothing else going on or we aren't supposed to know about yet. As a result it feels as if there were holes in the pages where a story should be but because of the "mystery" of the world it just feels incomplete and kind of boring. Except for the Moranth and I un-ironically find them and their own internal war of dominance twenty times more interesting than the Malazanders and their throwing of bodies at a problem that seemingly does not matter while being the source of those wistful stares all at once.

The worst part though, the absolute worst, is the illusion that there is some bigger story. I get what's going on or as much as one can at this point: the Empress pissed off some gods and some floating city thing that gets burnt down in about five minutes, a coup is going on to kill off a group of members from the old leadership that is not going on so well and now even more gods and mages are getting involved. The problem is its so dull and I can't help but laugh at the idea that people are begging for a little puppet man dancing between these magic realms desperately trying to find the pages of the manuscript so they can find the next plot point and move on from their plutonian torment.

Am I missing something here? I really, really do not mean to offend anyone and if you enjoy the book I am glad for you but it just feels like I'm missing something big and I can't tell if its just my lac of interest even though I'm really trying to pay attention and like it. Right now though it just feels like coffee: its not good but people lie and pretend they like it because its an accepted public thing even though it only gives you hypertension and an upset stomach.

I will admit I enjoyed the first book in the series but the second lost me the way Gardens has done the same for you. I just decided it’s not for me and moved on. I’m confused why it gets so much praise to be honest.

You guys probably like simple stuff and are just confused, don't go in deeper, you might drown ;)

I'll admit when I started the series I was very confused and had no idea what was going on. But I like the world building and figured its a pretty long series I'd give it a shot. The book does kinda expect you to understand how everything works and all that and everything does get fleshed out later in the series.

I'll just say that book 2 isn't very fun either. I recommended the series to a coworker and they thought the first book was alright but stopped halfway thru the second book. Book 2 is just whiny and isn't fun at all. You do learn alot more about the world in this book though. And after book 2 It just gets better and better.

I thought it was very bland and the characters were very uninteresting. I couldn't have cared less if any of them died, became evil, or won the lottery.

I love the series as a whole. It has high and low points (Kruppe becomes a low point for me, esp in Toll the Hounds). There is an enormous amount going on - at least 6 or 7 interwoven major plotlines. The thing that can be difficult at first is that we come in part way through most of those story lines. The only ones that are current are the ones with the wooden puppet, and the empire plans to attack Darujistan.

The Deck of Dragons is important, in particular the way Fiddler and his mates play a real card game with it. There isn't a specific warren for divination; the Deck is sort of a way of interacting with all the warrens. Divination is more something that some people have an aptitude for, some of them are not mages in the regular sense and cannot access a warren, like Fiddler.

One of the things Erikson does (and it's a kind of marmite writing style choice) is he doesn't give background information other than when a character would give it. He writes in a fantasy universe the same way non fantasy writers in ours - he doesn't explain things everyone in his world would already know. This is quite a contrast to most fantasy writers who do a fair bit of explicit info dumping - some more or less subtly / intrusively.

If you didn't like it don't sweat it. No book suits everyone. Find something else to read that you do enjoy.