Wow I enjoyed that. I feel like they more than made up for season 1. I really enjoyed most of season 2 and the last few episodes really got me excited for what's to come.
Fwiw, I read the books (1-8 I think) like 20+ years ago so have memory of little bits and pieces of the story and vague name recognition. Season 2 knocked it out of the park!
Seems like it almost has to have some sort of a carve-out for itself.