Toll the Hounds

800 pages in, it struck me that I could summarize everything that happened so far in about 2 sentences for each supblot and not miss much.

The series has always been rather slow-paced, with lots of philosophy, inner monologues, detailed descriptions of every other hill the characters encounter on their travels, and some lovely banter between loveable characters, but this one went too far for me. I skipped countless paragraphs of Kruppe's narration of the Darujhistan plot because they are so damn repetitive. After about 7000 pages in this series, every philosophical and moral stance on how the world is such a cruel place has been reiterated dozens of times. At this point, it just seems like Erikson needs an editor.

The Coral plot is so concerned with being mysterious (look, after 5 books, you get more of Anomander Rake! Aren't you excited to read his nonsensical musing about life? And there's a depressed mage, everyone loves some depression!) that it completely failed for me, even though Rake used to be one of my favorite characters.
Nimander's group wasn't interesting enough to make me care about any of them. They're all just different variations of edgy and traumatized.
Gruntle and Trull are kind of there, along for the ride, but felt a little... lesser than in previous books.

The Bridgeburners and Karsa kept me coming back to the book, featuring lots of likable characters and hilarious banter, and, in contrast to the other subplots, things actually happen, they are not just talked about. But they aren't enough to make the rest much enjoyable.