# Steven Erikson: Malazan Book of the Fallen



## Gyarachu (Dec 5, 2012)

Recently I picked up _Gardens of the Moon_ by Steven Erikson, the first book in his_ Malazan Book of the Fallen_ series. I had been browsing around and read from many reviewers that it was apparently one of the greatest epic fantasy series of all time. So I started reading it and almost immediately became annoyed with Erikson's writing style. I decided to push through it, but by about page 60 I couldn't take it anymore and gave up. Here's why:

1. Erikson's style is so pretentious it is infuriating. What's worse is he isn't good at it either. I am fairly certain that he's one of those thesaurus writers who spews out words he really doesn't know how to use, and the result is a string of over-the-top sentences that don't make a whole lot of sense.

2. His sentence ordering and structure are very ineffective at times. They have the potential to have an emotional effect, but always seem to fall short.

3. While the descriptions themselves aren't terrible, they often feel as if they are pasted into the text after everything else has been written. The result is that they feel very unnatural, and are downright laughable most of the time.

4. Erikson's two favorite words in the world are "growled" and "grunted." Probably half of the time any character talks, they are described as doing one of these two things.

That pretty much sums it up. I know many people complain that the first part of the book is too confusing as it throws you into the middle of things with next to no explanation for anything, but that didn't bother me. It was mostly the fact that I found my self rolling my eyes after nearly every sentence.

Has anyone else read any part of this series? What did you think?


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## Morkonan (Jan 15, 2013)

This: http://www.writingforums.com/writing-discussion/135800-worst-plot-twists-ever-2.html

I tried to read the series, but I failed horribly. Maybe I'll finish the last book I started, but I doubt it. I feel there's just nothing there for me. The characters get into interesting situations.. only to have those situations turn into not-interesting ones. When last I left our intrepid heroes and heroines, some of them were sitting in the middle of the desert staring at some huge statue. I don't really know why and, from what I had read up to that point, Erikson didn't appear to know either. What's worse is that I didn't care.

I don't care too much about his style, though I acknowledge your remarks as reminding me of some of my own annoyances with it. I battled through those foibles in hopes of finding a great fantasy epic, just like it said on the box... But, I just couldn't find it.


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