[AndrewH]

I started reading Steven Erikson's Gardens of the Moon, the first book in his 10-book epic series Malazan Book of the Fallen, a week ago. So far I'm about about a hundred pages in (which is painfully slow progress for me) and wondering if I should continue.

I'm totally confused on what's happening in the book. I understand this is typical, but at what point will I no longer be confused? By the end of the book? By the end of the sixth book? By the end of the last book?

I feel absolutely no connection to the (ridiculously named) characters. Will I care for any of them by the end of the book, or the end of the series?

What is it, exactly, that people find so great about this series? It certainly isn't the prose, nor the dialogue. From what I've seen so far it can't be the characterizations.

When does it start to "get good"? We've all heard people exclaim about how great such-and-such series is, but that it doesn't start to get good until the third or fourth book. Reading this definitely does not feel like entertainment, so how much further would I have to slog through the series before it starts to get better?

I'm not adverse to complex plots (A Song of Ice and Fire, The Fionavar Tapestry, Gormenghast Trilogy), hundreds of characters (A Song of Ice and Fire), nor meandering stories that take a long time to reach their destination (Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell). However, I'm not sure I want to stick with Malazan Book of the Fallen if its saving grace is simply its complexity and that it will require a dozen re-reads to truly appreciate it.

On a completely unrelated note, the editing on the ebooks is horrifyingly bad. Almost every occurrence of italicized text has one or two words that aren't properly italicized. Half the appearances of "Whiskeyjack" appear as "Whiskey jack". By far, the absolute worst edited (retail) ebook I've ever seen.