Malazan magic question

[Banshee16]

I'm working through Gardens of the Moon, and a few questions come up. In several places, people refer to mages and sorcerers. Is there an actual difference between the two?

What exactly are Warrens? Are they alternate planes? In several instances, like when Tattersail was travelling to Darujistan, she seems to be "in" her Warren.

In other places in the book, the Warrens seems more like magical talents, or sources of power....possibly talents, like in Wheel of Time?

Is this every described in more detail?

Banshee

 

[jonesy]

I only just finished GotM and I'm having problems figuring out the Warrens too.

I'm working through Gardens of the Moon, and a few questions come up. In several places, people refer to mages and sorcerers. Is there an actual difference between the two?

I don't think so.

What exactly are Warrens? Are they alternate planes? In several instances, like when Tattersail was travelling to Darujistan, she seems to be "in" her Warren.

In other places in the book, the Warrens seems more like magical talents, or sources of power....possibly talents, like in Wheel of Time?

Is this every described in more detail?

I tried searching for answers at the malazanempire forums, only to find out that people mostly only post to ones related to the later books. So it's really hard to get to anything without spoilers. I did find this, however:
http://www.malazanempire.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7090

 

[mmu1]

Like jonesy said, it's kind of hard to give detailed answers without spoilers.

What people call various magic users seems to largely be a cultural thing - in the end, everyone (or virtually everyone) who uses magic does so by accessing the power of the Warrens. (regardless of whether they're a mage or a priest of some god, or a hedge wizard)

For practical purposes (at this point, anyway) it helps to just think of Warrens as alternate planes of existence that exist in a rough parallel to the real world, and which are filled with power - usually, power linked to some Ascendant/God, or some universal force.

It's really not all that different from - for example - a cleric in D&D drawing power from a god residing in some other plane, and being able to use Planeshift to actually visit it. (though it's definitely not a perfect analogy)