I've read all of Will Wright's Cradle series published so far, which is ten books of about 90k words each. I've also read his Sea and Shadow set of two trilogies. So by my revealed preferences, well, I like Cradle, and I like him as an author. Nevertheless. I'm not sure I have entirely positive feels about it.
Well, summary: Cradle is progression fiction, featuring an initially unskilled character who ascends to the heights of magical power. On the way, he is sponsored by very high-powered beings who help him advance to geopolitical levels of magical power before he's old enough to drink in the US. There's a love interest, although not quite a romance. There are characters of dubious morality, but no particularly plot-relevant ethical dillemmas. There's, like, a lot of fighting, and a little munchkin-ing.
Good parts:
Progression fantasy needs a kind of logarithmically growing scale of power, and he does a good job establishing that. When you're at the bottom, you don't really see the top; each step feels pretty earned.
People keep entering the story, which is nice. You don't get a static cast of characters at all, really.
Easy to read.
Bad parts:
It makes someone who does suffer from repetitive stress injuries kinda sore to read about the magical version of someone who can just (try harder)[https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bx3gkHJehRCYZAF3r/pain-is-not-the-unit-of-effort] to hit goals faster.
The usual problem in these novels: the world is just super legible; surprises never involve new ontologies; there's one scale of power and knowledge in the world, and everything that matters fits onto it.
So meh.
Sea and Shadow is set in an intentionally Lovecraftian world. It's pretty bad as Lovecraftian fiction, though, because Lovecraftian fiction is about failures and going insane. But the protagonists have, by the end, acquired incredible powers per the genre that Will Wright likes. So, meh. Even something like Winter's Tide that repurposes Lovecraft for alternate political goals maintains greater Lovecraftian flavor -- it keeps the feeling of a world which is maddening, cold, and indifferent. While Sea and Shadow is, like, progression fantasy in a tentacle suit.
Nevertheless. Character development is more interesting than in Cradle so it has that going for it.