'Malazan Empire' continues

That is the name of the latest Fiction Fantasy book that I could get
my hands on. It falls into the sub-genre of High-FF, where magic is
closely entwined in the world that the author describes, part of the norm.

Back to the book, has a bunch of characters, who fall into neither the class of good nor bad, but rather in the infinite classes between. The one thing that I dislike about FF, or Sci-Fi books, are where a book spans generations.It is difficult to break the mould of the characters that the author casts on the readers. Just when you begin to like a certain character, boom, the author decides, that it is time for the character to move on, and replaced by the younger, better,superior generation. {If some of you s/w pros perceive irony in this, I blame you
and your perception, for such ignoble thoughts :) }.
Case in point being the series Foundation - Isaac Asimov, Dune - Frank Herbert. I guess the author's point is that the story doesn't revolve around the characters, but has a life of its own, independent of them. Luckily Steven Erikson ( author ) does believe the characters form the story, and the story chugs along at a fairly even pace.

Another thing that I have observed after reading fiction
fantasy series' (reminds me of the need to check the plural of series), is that I don't know what comes after a trilogy. I mean
according to HGTG, a four volume book,is still a trilogy in 4 parts, but shouldn't there be a word for that, polyogy or something similar? So someone who knows, enlighten me.