Gardens of the Moon
I almost DNF’ed this book around 30%. The opening half hour of the audiobook is like a parody of fantasy written by someone who hates fantasy. A mishmash of prologues, pull-quotes, time jumps, and “Part One” / “Book One” / “Chapter One” … I feel like there were more. At 30%, I still had no idea what was happening in this book or what characters I was even following. Some fans of the series advised me that the series gets better, and that Erikson didn’t have an editor for this one (dunno if that’s true, but it jibes for sure). The novel settles and develops a narrative arc eventually. After that, it’s fine. I’ve read worse fantasy, and I’ve read much better. A number of characters, especially but not exclusively the Bridge Burners, blend together and I forgot anything unique about each of them. Now that it’s over, I have a general idea of what happened in the book, but the specifics are … vague. I would probably give the second half of this book closer to a 3, 3.25, but the first third drags it down some, so 2.5.