I fucking loved it, but I think part of the writing of the first book is that the main character is not entirely a person. The fact he's maybe the most human person there and his perspective is still so weird is part of it. 'Blindsight' is a masterpiece.

The second one is admittedly not as strong, but part of the difficulty is that most of the plot happens off screen–because that's sort of what it's about, and that's much harder to execute well.