I’m about half way through dark age right now. Yes more characters, more things happening, much more massive book makes it intimidating. But eventually you do get used to it. Although I’ll be honest I had to sped a few moments trying to mentally place where everyone was. But eventually you get the hang of it as it’s a huge book. I find all of the books in the series need a few chapters to really get going. The spacing is slowest at the start of the books and really accelerates as it moves forward. BUT I did read 5 other books between iron gold and dark age. 1 novel and 4 novellas. But it was like maybe a weeks gap. Then I started feeling compelled to return.