While it IS an interesting adventure as written, and it has lavish art and is admirably well presented, there is just so much that does not add up.
First and foremost, I know this is not the first time it's been said, it spends a huge number of pages on stuff the players are not even expected to deal with. The three different attacks on cities, and the five different giant lord domains, and you're only supposed to use one of each? For replay value, seriously? This is a serious problem, and compounded by the problem that if you do want them to do more than one, you have a lot of scenarios of identical levels... but the key issue is more insidious than that: All you do in the early parts of the adventure is trying to get your hands on a way to get to the storm giants and the ending. Shouldn't the heroes willing to stand up to the rampaging giants have more invested in the battle?
It begins right at the start. The heroes find Nightstone, and are thrown a great plot hook - the ancient artifact has been stolen by cloud giants! Only those never appear again. Then they find the townsfolk, and one of them asks them to carry the news of someone's death to one of the three towns that will be attacked - in one of the cases, halfway across the world! Please go to Icewind dale! I can just see my players' eyes darken at this idea. But! There is a friendly caricature of a cloud giant wizard with a flying tower WITH A HAT! who will take them there. Well, kind giant sir wizard, maybe you could take us to the ones who stole the nightstone, they are sort of getting away? Ummmm, ooops, I took you to Icewind dale instead, sorry. And so it goes on. As it does, the plot hooks do seem to get better, though.
There are also a variety of bad situations that have not been accounted for. The kindly wizard giant, for example, has a staff of the magi. And then the tower is attacked, at least once by people ready and willing to kill the giant. I really can't see that ending well without the heroes getting the staff and the tower, unless the players are paragons of virtue. Not to mention, "Fifty foot tall adamantine doors, you say? What is the sale price of adamantine this week, guys?"
Next up: The heroes talk to the all-knowing giant oracle. They get the job of going to every single tribal place of worship among the Uthgardt barbarians and dig it up to find a huge giant relic of some sort. What are they supposed to say? Sorry, we just have to excavate your holiest of holy places because some giant oracle told us to do it? Again, this is made easier to travel the massive distances required because they get a flying ride in an airship by a dragon to do it, hmmm. And the dead giant, the good ghostly giant they meet who was slain by his evil father demonstrates his nobility by sending the heroes to assassinate his father in return. Really? Not to mention that this sends the heroes to the final chapter of one of the other 5th edition adventures...
When the heroes finally have their conch, and go to the storm giants, they will die. See, the storm giants live at a depth which means pressure will cause 2d6 damage per turn to all creatures not giants, whales or the like. The conches do nothing to prevent this, and can't be used to get away. *sigh* So eventually they find the villain of the adventure, and they could have to figure this out, but no, the image of her in the book has a great big honking blue dragon horn, if the giant oracle hadn't already told the heroes that she was the problem. Then the storm giant king, arguably the most powerful giant on the planet, is set as a victim for them to rescue.
And then, the heroes are put in a fight they have no real hope of winning, against an ancient blue dragon - only they get huge help from the storm giants so they can still do it YAY!!! Again, that feels like one of the most stupid cop-outs around. If you want your heroes to fight a dragon, let them fight one they can kill themselves, don't put in some mega-NPC to kill it for them, does that sentence feel familiar from any DM tips? Not to mention that if the heroes had been going through all the content in the book, adapted to appropriate levels, they would have HAD a chance against the dragon.
I really, really want this to work... so, help, I guess?
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HawaiiSteveO's advice about the guides, both of them, are precisely what I was going to offer. But when I started reading the guide I too decided SKT was a great toolbox of setting lore and encounters I can lift out and mix and match with my own adventures. But just thinking of running it as it-is gives me a headache, sadly.
I haven't picked it up yet, but from what I understand, it's more of a setting book than a true adventure. Akin to first edition modules, where it's more important to describe the setting for lots of replay than it is to describe the adventure.
This is heavily true in the early chapters where they describe most of the landscape with lots of towns to visit and lots of NPCs.
This here is one of the more comprehensive reviews and highlights the goods and bads rather well.