I really enjoyed it.



Character development was excellent, as were many of the action scenes. "The bad" is that because this is the first volume of a planned 10-book series, the plot moves a bit slower than I prefer. I used to argue with Jacob that too much time was given to certain characters' inner struggles/character development for my preference, but I've more or less come around to his position on that.



There is certainly the "quest" feel for one of the main characters, but the others not so much. Overall, I don't perceive this book as being a "typical" fantasy epic because it makes no bones about the fact that it's basically setting the stage for the main thrust of the series as a whole. Within that framework, I think it's pretty well self-contained.



Definitely the magic systems.



In general, yes, I feel like I know where the series is heading. At the same time it would be a terrible series to read through if the ending to 10 was obvious by the time you finish 1, so there's bound to be a great many changes to come in the next 9 books. That said, I'm sure there won't be nearly as bad as Malazan in that regard.



I think it's a very solid start to a series that, after 1, at least, looks to be very promising.



Absolutely! According to Sanderson's Twitter, book 2 is his next project after finishing AMoL - so I'd estimate release in the first half of 2013.