Do I actually want to do this? I'm not sure :). The this in question is to recap my thoughts on finishing Gardens of the Moon. Also, is this something I want to do as I finish each book? Well, I am doing this, and also not committing to anything in the future, how about that? :D
Well, what an excellent idea it was to start on this reread! It did take me a few days to sort of get properly into it, but once in, it was a fantastic experience! It's been almost exactly eight years since the last time I read GotM so I was rather surprised how much of the story just came back to me! Especially given how I'm usually the one to completely forget stuff.
As I came across a lot of the characters, it was impossible not to remember my feelings about them from the past, which in many cases of course, built up over the period of nearly a year and may thousands of pages :). And those memories, while not exact, were enough to provide a completely new light to a lot of the details in the book. It may be a bit early to declare, but this series was just made to be reread! There are so many details that I am beginning to appreciate a lot more given what I know now :).
For one thing, the deaths sting a bit less! Although maybe not the ones where I'm pretty sure there's no coming back from.
In the end I decided not to follow the Tor reread a bit, but not too closely :). In a way it provides a bit of a frame for my own thoughts, because sometimes it feels like there are so many I hardly know how to deal with them :). But I'm also happy to reflect on my own rather than just absorb or reflect that of others. The chapter summaries are kinda handy though.
One of the things that is very different this time around is the whole feeling of being part of a community :). It feels strange, but for my entire first read through of The Book of the Fallen, I didn't even know of the existence, let alone the extent, of the online fandom! I genuinely think I picked up the series almost at random, just because it happened to be on my Kindle. It was probably only after a couple of more books that the depth of the world started dawning on me!
It's nice then, to be able to pay what feels like a more appropriate amount of attention to this book this time around.
In terms of reflections on the book itself, I feel somehow more warm towards Paran. I also feel somehow less sad for Lorn than I did the last time. And less angry at Laseen... I find myself paying a lot more attention to the as yet limited interactions between Crocus and Apsalar :).
Being reminded that Paran's reprieve came at a cost and then reading the epigraphs by Felisin...
Ah yes, Whiskeyjack's knee! I mean, really!? I'm pretty sure last time around around I didn't even notice that bit. And was the Pannion Seer really that central to so much of the strategy in this book! Like I said, just made for rereading :).
I have to say discovering this interactive map made life all the more fun. What it lacks in exhaustive detail it certainly makes up for by making following the directional references a lot easier! It also just helped me get bearings a lot more at the beginning. The story does move about a lot, and I mean a lot particularly in the first few chapters, so it was good to have a quick way to see beyond the maps provided in the book.
Well, it feels good to have taken a bit of time to reflect on the first book before moving on to Deadhouse Gates. It feels like part of the reread for me, alongside just revisiting these people and places, is to find my way a bit deeper into the world. So far, albeit with a small sample size, it's going well :).
