Not bad; just not mind-blowing like the rest of her work. She's set an extremely high bar for her work, and while this series is good for anyone else, for me it was just a bit lacking the brilliance of her earlier ones. But it's a bit of an unfair comparison. Her first few books were, for me, just absolutely amazing, and this series didn't quite compare. It's still good, and worth reading all the way to the end of the acknowledgements for an alternative title. But if you were compelled to read only one of her works, you would start with literally any other series.