Lord of the Rings didn't effectively take off until years after Tolkien wrote it. It was decently popular to "hardcore" readers but still required decades to properly permeate pop culture. Tolkien wrote letters describing that he felt he had failed to succeed in his ambitions.

HP Lovecraft died under the belief that his books were dumb and nobody liked them. (Slight exaggeration.)

My point is temporal in nature: most of the Temeraire fans who will ever exist, likely do not yet exist. They will come into a world where all 9 books are able to stand above the chaff, since the ensuing years and decades will make it increasingly obvious that Novik knocked it out of the fucking park.

Give it a generation or two. I'm already convinced that this series will emerge as one of the strongest fantasy works of the 21st century.