A quick recap: 
 - Excellent world-building: Erikson thrives here, the city of Darujihstan is one of the better completely original fantasy cities, not far behind New Crobuzon (The gold standard for sure). 
 - Epic Plot: There's a ton of stuff going on in this book and I am absolutely looking forward to continuing on in this series to see where it all goes. 
 - Awful dialogue: It must be said, and a star must be docked, for the laughably bad dialogue in certain spots. It's not always that bad but when it is...whew! It's bad. 
 - A challenge: Everyone says it, and it's true, Erikson drops you directly into this world and leaves you there to figure it out on your own. There's very little hand-holding going on here and some who might be used to lighter, breezier fantasy novels could easily be turned away by this. 
 All in all, I enjoyed this book quite a bit once I found my footing and started to understand what was going on. Definitely recommended to fans of darker, grittier, fantasy.