With Gardens of the Moon (1999), Steven Erikson kicks off a ten novel series, called The Malazan Book of the Fallen. The book introduces a complex world, rife with magic and political intrigue, and poised on the edge of a continent-spanning war.
The book moves between several storylines that eventually come together, but not before blurring the idea of exactly who the protagonist of the tale may be: several are offered, and a few are revealed to be less than savory in the end (not that that alone prohibits them being a novel’s protagonist).
The world-building is impressive, spanning hundreds of thousands of years and including the presentation of a varied and intriguing system of magic, separated into various flavors each with its own strengths and weaknesses. The characters are well drawn: if largely taken from stock portraits, they are fleshed out in interesting and engaging ways.
The plots are creative and convoluted, and often hinge on the kind of twist common to the genre, where history often turns on a single dramatic action and the characters, varied as they are, represent large swaths of the world’s populations.
My suspicion is that the world only grows in richness throughout the series, and if that sounds appealing, the series may indeed be for you!
#WhatIWishICouldDo
Just go with it. Erikson’s magical system of warrens is interesting, and provides some of the most compelling moments of the novel. It is also less than fully-fleshed out, and the relationship of the mage to their chosen flavor of magic is not always evident (although, of course, this may be addressed in later books in the series). I find myself unable to plunge ahead with that sort of thing without figuring out all of the implications of its internal logic first, something that can certainly hold me back in my writing.