Gardens of the Moon by Steven EriksonMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
A coworker at my new job recommended this one after he saw me reading some Brandon Sanderson. I'd heard of Steven Erikson before, but never really paid attention to his work up till now. Here, I can see that he's sort of the missing link between Guy Gavriel Kay's parallel worlds, inspired by real history, and the diverse but grimdark fantasy settings of the new millennium. Thankfully, this book isn't really all that grimdark, but I can sort of see where it serves as a blueprint for the likes of Mark Lawrence or Joe Abercrombie, even more so than the obvious GRRM influences. It is decidedly...mid, overall, but the worldbuilding (helped by Erikson's professional experience in anthropology) is very interesting, with the different regions in this empire paralleling real world history but not exactly on a one-t0-one basis. I've already got the second book on order at the library in Vancouver, so we'll see how much further I get in this series in this new year.
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