It's a "love it or hate it" series.

Like the other commenter said, most people love it or hate it. It's a very long book series with books that are very large by itself.

Erikson gives you a character POV of that moment in the story. There's no exposure of what is going on and who is who. I love Malazan but I heavily struggled with that hard at first. Some people say you need to wait till book 3 before you can like it. And while by that point some of the rougher edges in the style are smoothed out I think it's perfectly fine to say you don't like it a couple chapters into book one.

Personally I liked it about a quarter into book one since I enjoyed the history being promised, and the very original magic system that I still didn't quite understand but was fascinated by.