Just finished it. I agree it was definitely not as good as the first one. It started out strong but then <jargon to avoid obvious spoilers> got kind of bogged down in the Fleet Captain pulling an Awn, the big conflict at the start of the novel is all but unaddressed, and it completely wasted Tisarwat's potential. Still enjoyable in many places to me (I was bursting out laughing for several minutes at 'this granite folds a peach!') but definitely less so. Hopefully its middle book syndrome and the third can come back...