Gardens of the Moon

Gardens of the Moon, the Canadian author Steven Erikson's high fantasy novel, was published on 1 April 1999. It opens the Malazan Book of the Fallen, ten novels in all, a series known for the scale of its magic and for a plot structure that drops the reader into an ongoing situation. It received a nomination for a World Fantasy Award, and it presents the empire as an army from the inside rather than from a map.

The Malazan Empire has taken Pale's last floating fortress, and the novel begins in the middle of an army that has been fighting this war for years. The campaign then moves towards Darujhistan, a free city on the continent of Genabackis, which would prefer the empire stayed out of its affairs. A young noblewoman is fleeing an arranged marriage, a squad of soldiers has no illusions left, and a legendary assassin is carrying a grudge.

Underneath the campaign, older powers are waking up, and a deck of cards called the Deck of Dragons is telling fortunes nobody wants told. The empress's plans, the gods who take an interest in them and the soldiers who have to carry the orders out all meet in the same city. Erikson writes from a large cast of viewpoints without explaining the world in advance, so the reader assembles the rules of the setting from the people using them.

The Malazan Book of the Fallen continues across nine further novels, and this first volume establishes the empire, its armies, its magic and the city everything converges on. It is the opening of a long series rather than a standalone story, and later volumes revisit many of the same characters.