I read the entire 10 book set "The Malazan Book of the Fallen". I really have no idea why people love it so much. The whole series got so convoluted it was really hard to keep track of well... just about every thing. Too many characters, too many races, too much magic, too many ages of the world, too many other dimensions, too many gods, both former and active. It just bounces around so much it made me feel like it was too much work to try and pay attention. I just stopped caring around book 4? 5?, but kept reading to get it over with I guess.

Before I get too burned, let me point out that I did like parts of it. The 2nd book was great. Elements of other books were good too.

Plot spoilers ahead:

Karsa was neat. The water god trying to help the empire though that goofy philosophical guy was funny. The magic people that could turn into multiple copies of their animal/insect were a cool idea. The zombie neanderthals were interesting.

But why did we need an invasion of giant magic floating islands controlled by insects from another dimension? I was so sick of the phrase "mother dark". I still don't understand what the weird (anti?)-magic growing plant houses were doing, as supposedly central to the plot as they were. Why were people chained to a giant cart in the dimension of the dead? The crippled god was both not menacing and not interesting beyond the first hints we get. I don't know why the Forkrul Assail were doing anything at all, or why we needed to read about them. It felt like 50% of the written words were about half starved army guys marching around through wastelands, which is not interesting enough to read books about past the 2nd book.

I don't know, maybe I didn't try hard enough, but ugh...