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Just read Locke Lamora and it was quite good.

I'd add in the Malazan series by Steven Eriksson. Gardens of the Moon is the first one. Great books, but definitely a long undertaking.

"The best life is the one the gods don't notice."

- Steven Erikson, "Gardens of the Moon"

You may want to try the audiobook version of Gardens of the Moon. I've been listening to it and have quite enjoyed it, but can definitely see how reading the book might be a bit of a slog.
There's a lot of posturing going on, talking about how powerful so many characters are, that it remind me a bit of dragonball z.

Was a bit disappointed to see Malazan Book of the Fallen #1 - Gardens of the Moon so far down. It'd be interesting if they took the series as a whole. One example is The Lies of Locke Lamora, I think it's a good first book but almost everyone I've spoken to/read comments from agrees is bottoms out in book 2 and 3. Personally think the same of Rothfuss' work. Conversely a lot of people say MBotF improves past the first book (I think its excellent from the start), so it's a tough list to base the entire experience on.

I tried reading the 1st one of the series (Gardens of the Moon) not once but twice. Both times I was quickly bored and did not make it past page 50. The book (at least in its first pages) is filled with boring descriptions and uninteresting events.

I've heard good things about it (along with that it won't be an easy read as you say) however I don't want to torture myself reading boring stuff for like 1000 pages until something interesting happens.

There are much better books to read and too little time.

Actually, that's more or less a rule I try to follow: If the book can't hook me after some pages and I keep feeling bored and not interesting I just put it away. Other books that I have started but found way too boring to keep reading them:

(* please don't downvote me for this. I know that some of these books are considered classics and many of you won't like this but remember that this is just my personal opinion; I tend to get border easily *)

- The orphan master's son
- The man in the high castle
- Metro 2033
- Neuromancer
- Catch 22
- Digital Fortress (this wasn't so boring but I hated the smart-ass characters)

Just finished the second book of this series. I agree with the parent comment - strongly recommend.

I also finished book 10 of the Malazan series.

Imagine Dan Carlin (Hardcore History podcast) and Quentin Tarantino took both the red pill and the blue pill that Morpheus offered Neo and ground both the pills together, snorted it, shook hands and agreed to create something better than Game of Thrones. I imagine they would have come up with something almost as good as the Malazan series.

You’ll have to power through the first book (Gardens of the Moon). It is notoriously difficult - I recommend following up each chapter with commentary on Tor’s Gardens of the Moon reread. I will also guarantee that the way book 1 ends will not make sense. But keep reading - the payoff is waiting as early as the end of book 2. And again at the end of book 3. And again all through books 4 and 5. And it’ll stay that good till the end.