Chasm City

Alastair paints a huge landscape. That is evident from the fact that at about 20% into the book do you get to the actual story. The rest of it upto that point is just making you aware of the vastness of his creation. While this is right up few peoples alley, it certainly ticks me off. Chasm city is slow and full of information that is not relevant to the story and if you try and read it standalone (like I did) it just drags and drags till you either give it up completely or take a break. So I would say, read the first book and then try this one only if you like this sort of thing.