[actually finished and wrote up these books in December, but didn't get around to posting]
--> Gardens of the Moon, Deadhouse Gates, Memories of Ice, House of Chains, Midnight Tides, The Bonehunters, Reaper's Gale & Toll the Hounds
This is remarkable epic fantasy - right up there with the Covenant and Song of Ice and Fire series as the best of its kind (probably just slightly shaded by both of those, but not by much, and only because of an occasional tendency to drag in its most 'big picture' moments). Indeed, it has much in common with that latter in its grittiness, sprawling multiple storylines combining action, politics and character drama, and penchant for spectacular and gruesome set piece battle scenes, not to mention a tendency to subject its major characters (of whom there are many) to dramatic reversals in fortune and a willingness to kill some of them off from time to time (not always, admittedly, permanently); that said, magic plays a big role in the Malazan series, as do gods and the various other supernally powerful figures who move through its pages, though the sections in which they figure, while integral to the plot and underlying structure of the series and its individual books, tend to be weaker and less gripping than the more grounded, military/campaign focused parts.
Gardens of the Moon is an auspicious beginning, but the series really gripped me from its second book, Deadhouse Gates, its backbone provided by the Chain of Dogs and Coltaine's doomed march, woven through with dozens of dark fates and struggles and drenched in blood. From there, it has an impressively wide canvass, ranging across continents (and worlds) and back and forth through time, often introducing characters in one book, only to backtrack much later to fill their stories in in considerable detail (the Toblakai/Karsa Orlong is the most obvious of those), now one character (or set of characters), now another assuming a central role, and others recurring over and over at longer intervals.
Each of the individual books is massive, and sees an awful lot happen; taken as a whole, they're quite staggering. They're hugely readable, too, despite Erikson's habit of frequently introducing a whole bunch of new characters in an entirely new setting, with no (initial/apparent) overlap with those who are already known - most notably in Midnight Tides, when the Tiste Edur take centre stage (also, if memory serves, the one where humour enters the series for the first time, mainly by way of Tehol Beddict and Bugg). Seriously, seriously good.
