The girl and the lady with the candles... I have no idea what you're even talking about. The series has so absurdly many characters that when rereading you only really pay attention to the characters that you know will keep mattering. In the case of early GotM, that means Paran, Whiskeyjack and his Bridgeburners, Crokus, and of course Anomander Rake. And maybe Tattersail.

I've now read nine of the ten Malazan books, plus two of Ian C. Esslemont's related novels, and while they all have their moments, I wouldn't really rate the series as high anymore as I once might have (there's a reason why I've owned book ten for half a year or more and still haven't started it). Deadhouse Gates puts the "epic" in "epic fantasy" (which of course isn't necessarily entirely a good thing, but I don't think one becomes a fantasy fan if one doesn't enjoy some epic-ness every once in a while), Memories of Ice remains one of the best single books in any fantasy series I've ever read, and Midnight Tides is fairly strong as well. All the other books have their moments, some more, some less, but aren't super good on the whole, imho. And after a while you just get tired of ultra-powerful heroes fighting each other or soldiers getting stuck in pointless wars.

So if you insist on not skipping ahead and just can't bring yourself to care about GotM, well, you're missing out on some good stuff, but it's not the Second Coming.

I've read very little fantasy the past two years or so (except during my recent holiday in the States, for some reason), so if you asked me for book advice now you might get very different results. Regardless, at this point, any activity on the Books board is good activity, it's gotten far too quiet. Someone who can write long thought-out posts like yourself can definitely also write long thought-out reviews or comments on reviews.

Heh. What would we do if we had nothing to gripe about...