I liked the first book much better than the second for basically all the reasons you mention about Hanani. I wanted to see her succeed - and I don't really think we've had enough stories where the first woman does succeed to play with the story form just yet? idk, maybe I'm just being irrational about that, but urgh. What I liked about the first book, also, is that it was just so damn nice to have a queer brown fantasy-novel protagonist! I'd forgive it a lot for that. Actually, I like the short story, The Narcomancer, rather more than both the books - it does some really interesting things with the idea of what the Gatherers actually do.