The books were junk, honestly. They were the same kind of doorstop novels as Wizard's Last Rule and the Wheel of Time, just with more nastiness, and they are showing the same flaws as those books. Do a standard epic fantasy, bloat it into at least seven novels, and add some transgressiveness to make it spicier.

I think the SF/f genre has really struggled lately...stuff like Brandon Sanderson writes feels so lightweight compared to even the second tier authors of the past, and there's very little flavor in books now; it's formulaic and narrowed to such a tight audience.