I like this book but the Flos chapters drag it down so much
I'm currently reading through the book in full on the website and so far I'm at 7.22D, so please don't spoil anything past that.
So far, I find that despite the extreme length of the novel, the individual chapters and arcs are quite well paced, I'm especially fond of Volume 4 and 5's Goblin chapters and Interludes.
However, this falls apart entirely specifically for K-lettered/Flos Reimarch chapters. Good god, they are so slow, there was a block of seven Flos chapters in a row where literally nothing happened, I cannot stress this enough, I did the math, 7 chapters of this book is the size of an entire average novel, Wistram Days was 7 chapters and so much happened in that interlude it's one of my favourite parts so far.
On top of being slow, I am halfway through book 7 out of 10, and they still have yet to have any relevance to the rest of the world - Flos announced his return, then nobody anywhere did anything about it, and it doesn't even get mentioned anymore.
On top of that, all the characters other than Gazi are unlikeable and shallow, Trey and Teres are annoying at the best of times, and Flos himself seems to be renting out the Baki narrator with how hard the universe bends over backwards to glaze him.
Also this is it's own thing, but the Flos chapters have a really strange approach to the topic of slavery.
I once stopped reading for months because I couldn't handle another Flos chapter they're such slogs, eventually I decided to just start skimming/skipping them.
Anyway the rest of the book is peak but I had to get off my chest just how gruelling the Flos chapters are, I think Volume 7 in particular hasn't lived up to the first 6 books in my eyes because of the high density of Flos chapters as well as all the major groups currently being in "downtime" such as the goblins being scattered and recuperating.