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To each their own, but I personally didn't find the book characters flat in any way. They're developed just enough for my taste.

But my view is that if I wanted to read a character development story, I'd pick up just about any other genre than science fiction. A romance novel, a crime novel, a drama novel, etc. I like my sci-fi when it's about something else than usual, mundane interpersonal drama that real life is so full of already.

>I think the book suffers from the same issue as many other books in the science fiction genre: there's so much focus on developing the setting that the characters are underdeveloped and seem very generic.

I'm okay with this because it's more realistic.

You learn a whole lot about each of them in the later books. The first book is a slower start to the series.