I bounced off of book 1 multiple times but just finished it last week and it is fantastic. The book just drops you in the middle of everything and largely lets you piece it together rather than give you a fresh faced character that everyone explains everything to. 50-150 pages was when I started to feel grounded and like I understood the world well enough to say I liked it.

Malazan is my favorite fantasy series but it ruined other fantasy for me. I've found nothing else that can compare in the scope, breadth, world building, and detail.

The world was developed by these guys as their tabletop rpg setting in college. The series takes place over hundreds of thousands of years but is written with the density of a short story.

I'd recommend keeping Tor's re-read blog handy if you start getting lost. There are chapter summaries and discussions by both a first time reader and a rereader which are spoiler free but include foreshadowing and things to pay attention to. The user discussion below each post could contain spoilers though.

https://reactormag.com/columns/malazan-reread-of-the-fallen/?WT_mc.id=10586