Did you seriously say it wasn't unique? What's your address? I'm sending you anthrax.
You know, I am posting a review of GARDENS on my review blog this week sometime (maybe tomorrow). It give a non-spoiler view about what makes it good.
GARDENS is prolly the hardest book to get into out of any fantasy novel. It's learning curve is very steep. The 9th book of the 10 book series just came out in the UK, so this portion of it is almost done. It is the most complex story of any fantasy out there, but whether you like that or not is up to personal preference. But uniqueness? Erikson's stuff is positively infested with uniqueness. Erikson has a background in anthropology and archeology, which has let him build incredibly deep and detailed original races. GARDEN picks up in the middle of a war that has been going on for a VERY long time. His world is as gritty as Martin's, but with extreme amounts of magic (whereas martin has virtually none).
My conclusion is that GARDENS doesn't become a great book until you have read more of the series. Hardly the best business plan up front, i know, but after reading through the next 2 novels (especially book 3), you realize how important GARDENS is, and how much info Erikson snuck in. Generally, I say that more happens in the first 3 Erikson novels than most other complete series (Jordan included).
I finally convinced Kaz to give it a read--he wasn't sold after book 1. However after books 2 and 3 he saw the light.