A Little Hatred - Joe Abercrombie
Unsure how I feel about this one. I think it suffers from some of the same issues as The Blade Itself, where it's doing a lot of work to set up the stakes and characters of the rest of the series but as a result doesn't have much impact as its own novel. It's interesting that Joe seems to get "second book of the trilogy" syndrome in book 1.
It definitely has more in the way of plot and characters development than The Blade Itself, but some of that growth doesn't feel wholly earned. Savine goes through hell after the Burners take the city, but we don't really get to see any of it. Instead we have a small time skip - several weeks for Orso to march from Adua? It's unclear - to a point where her character growth has already happened.
There's an issue if personal taste here as well, in that I'm particularly drawn to this early industrial setting. I respect Joe for having his world advance and change over time, it just happens to be in a direction that isn't for me. That said, Rikke's Long Eye is cool and hints at the magic coming back into the world. I'm interested to see how that develops. Definitely going to continue with the series despite not loving this one.