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I've never understood why people find Gardens of the Moon to be a difficult read. I think it's because they're expecting it to be the typical fantasy novel with the farm boy and contain all the typical fantasy tropes and have the stupid typical characters explaining to each other how the world works. Erikson's work isn't that way. He writes the world in a way that's more like real life. Meaning, you're in the middle of it and you're not seeing the full picture, you're just seeing bits and pieces and you have to infer what you can from what you read/take in. The passage of history isn't really about one hero saving the world like a lot of your typical fantasy, it's really about many players, some small, some a bit bigger and a lot of moving pieces moving around a massive world. That's Malazan in a nutshell. A lot of people can't seem to handle it. I loved the series because of that. It's completely original, and when you're reading it and something clicks in book 7 that you remember reading about back in book 3 or so, it's an amazing experience.
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