First off, let me point out that I purchased the Age of Sigmar starter set to great excitement at getting in at the bottom floor of something new.
I purchased all the novels as I am a lore junkie.
Unfortunately, I have stopped buying both...here is why.

1) The novels and Storm Hosts are uninspiring, they are the same old thing in each, i.e. Storm Host is being overrun, another Host comes to their rescue, victory is now in their grasp, then a big bad guy shows up and they are on the brink of disaster again, then somehow the Storm Host pulls out a victory usually due to divine intervention. None of these novels can hold a candle to ANY Warhammer 40K or Warhammer Fantasy Novel. Not because the writers are not good, but because the writers have nothing to work with. Uninspiring Heroes and in the case of the Storm Hosts, they lack the variety of both Warhammer and WH40K.
The bad guys do have better variety, but the Storm Hosts remind me of NFL football teams all with the same uniforms and slightly different color schemes. They do not compare to even Space marine chapters.

2) The setting is bland....and confusing.
Are they in the old world a different world, in the iron core of the old world? Who knows?
You would think that the current setting would be interesting, but its not.
It would have been better if GW had placed AoS in the ruins of the old world with recognizable features or ruins that we used to find interesting. Instead, we have a bland and bleak boring landscape that despite its variety pales in comparison to the old world.

3) I want to love AoS, it was my first and only chance to get in at the ground floor of Warhammer/40K, but the more I read, the more I see the less excited i get. Maybe Dan Abnett can inject some life into it by writing an Epic Novel for it?