• Chung Kuo series by David Wingrove
• Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind
• Lazarus Long series by Asimov
• Lord of the Rings by Tolkien

But the only similarities that I can find is that they use the same alphabet. And even then, not so much, given that Tolkien invented several new ones for his books.

Malazan are unecessasrily confusing, complicated and convoluted. The series I mention above each demonstrate that you can write a long series of fantasy books with lots of characters and locations without losing all your readers along the way. This series fails to do so.

No better than bad samizdat fanfic newsletter writing. Yes, I know some fanfic is fabulously good, but when it’s bad it’s shamefully bad. Except that in the case of Malazan, it’s expanded to an enormous number of thick tomes thru some demonic pact with an evil publisher seeking to destroy your will and eat your soul.

• Rachel Morgan series by Kim Harrison
• Anita Blake series by Laurell K Hamilton

except that both of these series are still way better written, plotted, scripted and executed. So it’s still not a fair comparison, since after reading Malazan you the reader and not a character in the books, end up as a drooling shuffling undead meal for a vampire.

Then I realized I knew exactly where this sort of writing comes from. An automated markov chain prose generator program makes exactly this sort of mind numbing mishegas. I once wrote a generator like the one the author must have used on my own website to produce candidate holywood movie plots (hit refresh a few times to see it generate a new plot with each refresh)

I guess “amibitious” (stealing from the author’s preface) is accurate, but I’d say the comparisons to Umberto Eco are not warranted. A big(ish) tale, including a large cast of (sometimes poorly-differentiated) characters. I didn’t find the prose to be particularly striking, with a fairly easy vocabulary.
I was disappointed by the confusion introduced by the large number of characters and constant shifting between them. Also, there were a large number of deus ex machina events, many of which weren’t justified, in my opinion.
I think I was also turned off by the range of the characters’ ranks – we have grunts, ordinary citizens, and all the way up to the Empress’s right hand, and I didn’t feel like the way in which these people interacted was realistic.

In spite of all these complaints, there are some interesting ideas, and the story moved quickly for me, so I’m not totally turned off. I’m told later books are better, so I may return. Still, as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t meet its reputation.

Overblown and confusing; and for the most part mediocre writing. Explanations are maddeningly vague; you have a hard time figuring out who is who and what they’re trying to do, and the ending left me saying, “huh?”. Would have been better if the sorcery bits had been left out altogether and this was pure military fantasy; a story focusing mainly on Paran and the Bridgeburners would be much more intriguing.

One of those books where you’re tempted to tear off the cover. Trying not to judge a book by its lousy art director.