I finished Lud-in-the-Mist. I found it beautifully written, but somehow very unpleasant. I did like the history between Lud and the fairy land, the way the Luddites turned everything fairy into all things cursed and obscene while retaining both physical and cultural aspects of their nearly discarded ancestors, the creepy random appearances of fairy stuff that at times tended to take an almost horror like turn. I didn't expect the action to take place mostly in the extremely prosaic Lud, but this was spiced by the occasional fairy incident, so it was fine.
What I really didn't expect was this becoming a detective story, which wouldn't have been bad had it not been kind of boring and uninteresting. It might have been because there was no reason to care about it except maybe curiosity or maybe because I utterly despised the self-absorbed protagonist.
This fed into that unpleasantness I felt throughout the book regarding most of its characters. I don't expect to like everyone when I read a book but it's kind of annoying to be expected to sympathise with the melancholy of some guy who only realises his son is a human being when he gets kidnapped and whose only reaction to finding his kidnapped daughter about to be sold off is that it is a violation of the law in that particular place. The latter in particular stood in stark contrast with his friend who comes to understand and appreciate his own daughter, while our protagonist does not even spare his own a thought. I'm not sure why I disliked this so, considering both children are cardboard cutouts, probably because we're supposed to sympathise with his newfound love for his son which I thought nothing more than a sort of narcissism anyway. His wife and friend are minor characters and still have satisfying development and emotional reunion scenes, unlike the protagonist.
Other than this, I really enjoyed the world Mirrless created. It was the perfect blend of magic and the mundane that tries to shelter itself from it and made me crave fruit.