I had to bribe one of my friends that I trade books off with pretty often to push through the first. It's rough.I picked up book one after reading about it and how everyone loved it on FoH. I got about half way though and said fuck it, I'm done. It's the only book I've never been able to force my way though and it's been the only one since.
If this is the truth it makes a ton of sense. It would also explain why I've read some interview comments from him where he says people should just start with the second book.I believe, and haven't Googled it in a while, but Gardens was originally developed as a movie script or something that Erikson and Esslemont wanted to do, but it went nowhere and was adapted to the novel we have today. Then like 8 - 10 years later someone actually picked it up and signed him to the series. So you have a book written much earlier in an authors career, primarily as a set up for their P&P tabletop game, turned in to a movie script, then a novel.... and being asked to flesh it out 10 years later.