I made it to the end of Book 6 of Erickson's epic* fantasy series Malazan Book of the Fallen. There are 10 books, which today isn't entirely abnormal for a series, but these are so loooong. And exhausting. I've actually only read 5 because I skipped one**. It has taken me a while to develop a definitive opinion on the series, but finally here's what I think:
There are too many characters.
It is kind of lame to boil down 1000s of pages into 5 words, so I'll try to explain. Erikson and his pal Esslemont spent years - in between being archaeologists and other stuff - developing the Malazan world for the purpose of role-playing games. They score points here for being seriously devoted, for putting in so much time, and for being anthropologists***. One cannot fault the Malazan books for being rich on details. There are a variety of distinct cultures spanning millions of years many of whom have developed mythologies and histories.
Up to a certain point I am fascinated with the different groups; humans, non-humans, gods, monsters, etc. Unfortunately, many of these people are practically immortal (even when they aren't gods) so instead of these ancient races being relegated to the backstory, they all keep running into each other. Many of them have issues with each other - conflicts, unresolved crises, lost loves etc. Furthermore, lots of them have a multitude of aliases. And our writers are intimately familiar with these stories that span millions of years and thousands of characters because they spent decades inventing them. But the reader (i.e. me) does not have such depth of knowledge and so these complicated plots become quite confusing.
I can, in fact, totally sympathize with this problem though from an academic point of view. When writing grants I often alluded to things in my research that I was intimately familiar with and that seemed super obvious to me, until a kind reader pointed out "hey actually I don't know anything about the Austro-Hungarian Empire maybe you could explain this with a couple more concrete sentences." In contrast, Erikson and Esslemont are writing characters. Therefore the problem of the super-obvious not, in fact, being so obvious is that conversations between characters can become extraordinarily opaque - particularly if these characters have been around for a long time (being nearly immortal). No actually I don't remember that brief episode you are vaguely referring to that happened 10,000 years ago with one of those tribes on one of those continents. Don't mind me muddling through your insinuations that turn out to be (3 books later) important revelations and crucial to understanding the over-arching plot. Sorry.
Beyond the issue with time-depth, the other problem is that the very structure of Erikson's novels requires dozens of characters. In most books, something happens called a convergence. This occurs when things in the Malazan world get heated up, there is extra excitement, the gods are meddling more than usual and so on. People all over the empire are affected by different aspects of this turmoil seemingly at random until you realize that everyone is actually headed in the same direction (to the same city, battle, temple, or what have you). Therefore in order to get a whole world stirred up and to convey the grand-scale of this conflict many characters are needed. In addition, much of the action is war-oriented. There are many (oh so many) battle scenes and Erikson likes to write these scenes from the points of view of the armies - not just one soldier, but several that are usually in a squad together. Its nice on the one hand because you get a feel for the bantering camaraderie of these army buddies, but on the other hand I just can't keep up with the sheer number of them.
Now I should point out that Erikson's fans have come through and have created an encyclopedia.**** And I have multiple times had to consult this reference guide because I can't remember who is who, when, or why. Honestly, I feel sort of cheated that I have to do research in order to read these books, in order to understand where the story is going (and where it has been). See, its exhausting.
Ok, so now you ask "why don't you stop reading?" Well, several reasons. 1) I have nothing better to do at the moment 2) I like some of the characters and I do want to know what happened to them 3) Its nice to be able to read an epic fantasy series that is actually finished! 4) I've invested a lot of time in them and since I don't hate the books I might as well keep reading while I still have time to read things for fun*****
*of unusually great size or extent
**I skipped book 5 b/c the storyline diverges from book 4, but in order to read further I have to go back and read it b/c book 7 combines the two plots. See its exhausting.
***I'm only a little biased.
**** I'm actually pretty sure there are two, possibly more
***** Before I become a real anthropologist.
