I was put off by the bad writing. Good writing is really wasted on me, I mostly care for it to be sufficient enough not to get in the way of enjoying the story. In my opinion Malazan does not reach even that level, which is too bad as I enjoyed the word building and the most of the characters. For the most part it reads like a DM recounting their D&D campaign (which I understand it is exactly what it is), but what might work (or just be overlooked) on an interactive RPG session doesn't necessarily work on a book.

The first book was very bad, the second book was actually much better and I enjoyed it (I assume the editing was much more extensive), but the third book was again barely readable and put me off the series.

I might start it again at sometime in the future, because it is definitely something I would otherwise enjoy. I think I read somewhere that the third book might actually have been written before the second, which gives me hope.

I think I've reread Malazan about ten times now, generally once a year, and each time I get new things out of it.

And what I love the most is that he planned ten books rather than needing to shoehorn in extra books after planning a trilogy.

I absolutely adore the huge cast of characters and the fact that you kinda need to pay attention to get the most out of it.

I struggle to understand how you even get through it in a year, let alone re-reading it every year.

I don't watch TV, and read for at least an hour per day.

I've been reading a lot since I was very, very young, and have gotten better at it. To be fair, I do have to stop myself from skimming, which is fine with most books but definitely not Malazan.

And also, I probably forget most of it after I finish it, until I read it again.

Depending how (fast) they read, it can be as little as 150h of reading, which is a month or 3 depending how much time they can devote to it.

The audiobooks are 390h total (16 days 5h according to Wikipedia). If your commute takes an hour each way, that’s less than a year even if you only ever listen to it while commuting.

The problem with the series is it seems Erikson wants to use it as a vehicle to talk about a wide range of societal issues, which means we end up with hundreds of pages of Bugg or Kruppe inner dialogue which can be pretty painful at time.

Maybe that's what separates it from other series though.