Once a Stranger

A Companion to Wolves is the only one of these I've read, and it worked for me better than it did for you. I also read about it on Bear's (matociquala's) LJ, before and after I read the book, so I think I was maybe more favorably disposed to it from the start? From what I gather, the "Dragon Riders of Pern with most of the skeeviness put front and center" comparison is definitely very intentional. I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "for an examination which tries to transcend it (I think)" -- if you mean transcend the skeeviness, I didn't get that this was the intent. I thought the skeeviness was always meant to be highly skeevy, just part of the world they ended up in. I also didn't get the idfic vibe (much less so than in DoL, for instance). Also, I gather that trying to write a feminist book with hardly any human women in it was part of the intent. It succeeded for me in that respect, because of the troll and svaltalfar (right? I forget if that was the term they use) and wolf social structures providing an interesting contrast to the wolfcarls, and I liked Isolfr's lover and mother, too, though they were certainly background characters.

The Cloud Road sounds interesting! I haven't had much success with Martha Wells before, but I'm a sucker for people turning into flying reptiles, and family themes, so that sounds like something I should keep an eye out for.