I've read all Malazan books quite recently. Never understood why people think they are so good; I personally think its one of the worst fantasy series I've read, with book 2 and 3 only being the really good books (book 3 in particular). My overall objection to the series is that it feels... contrived. It feels like Erikson is trying to imitate the complexity of an author like, for instance, Bakker, but failing horribly at wrapping the storylines/characters up, while also failing to make the individual storylines/characters themselves interesting. There is just so many things going on in the books, so many storylines and characters and its far form obvious how they are all entertwined. There are also many storylines that simply abrubtly end and as a reader you have no idea why they were there taking up space in the books in the first place. Also, there are hardly any really likeable characters and even if you find one, chances are that in the next book you read you aren't gonna be reading about that character again (i.e. same problem as the last 2 GRRM books).
The only thing that really impressed me was some of the tragic moments throughout the series. Given the scope of the series, it hardly makes it worth sloughing through all of the books just for those few pieces. I strongly recommend all my friends to stop reading these books after book 3.
I guess a good way of describing the overall quality of this series would be the following: Due to the complexity of the series, it feels that as a reader you are pretty much required to re-read the series. Whereas this can sometimes be exiciting to gain a deeper understanding of the series (as is the case with Bakker's works. I felt immediately while reading the books that I wanted to read them again), it just felt laboursome to read the Malazan books because I knew there were so many things that I didnt understand but that I felt was needed to be understood to understand the point of the things transpiring in the story. Compare again with Bakker. Bakker's 'show, dont tell' way of writing is mainly concerned with the world-building and it enhanced the books greatly, giving them this sense of 'mystery' (answers are like opium etc). You dont NEED to know everything about the nonmen and the first apocalypse to understand the forward-going story, but you certainly do want to understand more. Whereas in the Malazan books it felt like the story got so stunted by there simply being to many things that you didnt understand, and many of those things at least I felt were needed to be understood in order to understand what was actually happening present-time in the story.
I'm just really disappointed by how good I've heard the Malazan books to be, and it actually turned out to be a labour to understand crucial points of the books. Sure, Bakker's works has some esoteric writing and stuff as well but I have never felt that some of the more abstract themes etc have been crucial to understand the story; they are merely means to get a deeper understanding of it.