Gardens of the Moon (Malazan Book of the Fallen) - Steven Erikson

...that I did! The Gardens of the Moon starts out as quite a confusing book, mainly because there are several main characters and very little information is given regarding background information of the characters or the world they inhabit. There are several main characters and at the beginning their relevance isn't clear.
In the prologue we meet Paran, a young boy with an ambition to become a soldier, despite the bloodshed he has witnessed. ...
...a humble background, who is cold and ambitious with her sights set on the throne. In the main body of the book, she has been Empress for seven years but the fighting and bloodshed has not finished. Paran has become a soldier as per his childhood ambition and becomes attached to the staff of Empress Laseen's Adjunct and his life becomes a lot more complicated and dangerous. He is sent to take command of The Bridgeburners, a once elite company now ... more

I am not sure how I came upon this book in the first place, but I am very glad that I did! The Gardens of the Moon starts out as quite a confusing book, mainly because there are several main characters and very little information is given regarding background information of the characters or the world they inhabit. There are several main characters and at the beginning their relevance isn't clear.
In the prologue we meet Paran, a young boy with an ambition to become a soldier, despite the bloodshed he has witnessed. He has a chance meeting with a female, from a humble background, who is cold and ambitious with her sights set on the throne. In the main body of the book, she has been Empress for seven years but the fighting and bloodshed has not finished. Paran has become a soldier as per his childhood ambition and becomes attached to the staff of Empress Laseen's Adjunct and his life becomes a lot more complicated and dangerous. He is sent to take command of The Bridgeburners, a once elite company now send first into any dangerous situation and so whittled down to a few remaining members, while the surrounding soldiers have already placed bets on the length of his life and he survives only through the intervention of capricious gods. In the meantime, the Empress continues her wars and is still determined to take the free city of Darujhistan so sends the Bridgeburners there to start sabotaging the city. This city then becomes the setting for the rest of the story as all the main characters collect there. The inhabitants of the city who are expecting a future war are determined to stay free and make a secret alliance with the Lord of Moon's Spawn who has already survived a savage battle with the Empress' forces and to complicate matters further the gods make their attempts to influence the course of the future.
The book is very readable and fast paced. As previously mentioned it is a bit confusing at first and definitely benefits from a second read, but I also appreciated more from the second read since I knew more about the history and world of the characters. As the whole story is so complex the lack of history is actually a good idea - you can get your teeth into the story without having to wade through pages of scene and world setting information. I usually get a tad irritated when authors start bringing gods into a story - it tends to be a way of covering up some strange plot contrivance or allowing something completely unbelievable to happen. While admittedly, sending someone back from an attack which should have killed them is a bit of a large leap, since the gods in this book are so shadowy and self serving, as well as being quite keen to take each other out, it makes them seem more like the other characters rather than a desperate measure to keen the plot moving. The book is long, which allows for the characters to be fully fleshed out and interesting - so don't pick up this book if you are looking for an afternoon's diversion, you need to devote time and attention to it or you will become completely bewildered. I can't wait to get the next book in the series. 

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