It's a bit slow and I found the ending a little anti-climactic, but the characters, writing and world building are the usual Robin Hobb high standard. I considered skipping this series entirely, but I'm glad I gave it a go. It's definitely more Liveship Traders than Fitz and Fool though.

(Just for fun: we own pet rabbits and it struck me the dragons in this series are almost as petulant and self-centred as they are - it'd be amusing to do a find/replace "rabbit" for "dragon" in the text although the hunting bits might be a bit odd. Maybe replace the prey animal names with vegetables?)