You're right. The characters were real; maybe that's the part I need to become accustomed to. I need to be able to identify with a character or a story even when a set of people are not groomed to be specifically the heros with likeable traits. Taniel and Ka-Poel were unique and held the story up. Olem was fine as a secondary, but I didn't think much of the rest.
If that were MY first trilogy, though, I'd certainly be happy with it.
To some extent, maybe I'm salty about the lack of proper characterization of the enemy. The Kez felt absolutely faceless in book 2. I don't need to necessarily care about them, but I don't want them to just be there as meat for the grinder.
Yeah the Kez didn't seem particularly evil, except I remembered the fact that it was Ipille (their King) that had Nikslaus decapitate Tamas' wife and send him the head. Ipille is also just not a very good leader in general, and horrible to his people.
In the latter of book two and throughout book three, I think the presence of Kresimir grants them more of a 'face'.