Only seeing six reviews (at the time of writing this) after I finished it, made me sad to see this book hasn't gotten more people invested. It's almost criminal seeing people passing over this thinking it's another typical "medieval" story, because it's not, it's nothing like that.
What this book has/is:
1) Balanced adventure; This isn't a war story, romance novel or thriller. I say balanced as is in, it's not a book that goes "Here's a new setting and trial, conquer it then move on to the next." It takes just the right amount of time at each stop in the story before moving forward and most of the time it flows naturally.
2) Slow-building (some might say realistic, don't confuse with ponderous) character progression. I find this extremely important, characters show the right amount of doubt, anxiousness and naivety. Especially naivety, nothing breaks story immersion more than you thinking "Why would you stick around?!"
3) Good story; It has some slight pacing problems and some things move at a different pace than the rest of the book. I won't say at which part of the book it does this, because you might not even notice it. This whole thing is opinion after all.., but the story is great.
4) Interesting setting; contains few tropes and when they do appear it's often in strange combination with other original ideas. It displayed interesting ideas about tribalism and religious connections with their respective gods. It's complete high fantasy but it feels more grounded than a lot of other books in the same genre (i.e. no super powerful beings, wizards, main character doesn't become godlike, etc..)
5) Length; This book sets out to tell a story, you won't be let down by a book that suddenly ends to sell a dozen sequels. There is a sequel coming mind you, but this book is complete. You get your moneys worth.
IN SHORT:
So yeah, it's not a perfect book, but it's realllly good. Don't let the little niggles I mentioned deter you. It's an A++ adventure story in which after I finished reading the eBook version, promptly order it in hardback for my private collection.
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Reviews with images
Fantastic story, poor production.
The story was much better than I expected. I am a big fan of Tchaikovsky's (the author) sci fi novels, but didn't have high expectations for this fantasy book. Honestly I thought the synopsis sounded a little lame. As it turns out, it's fantastic.The world Tchaikovsky created is cold and harsh. It is brutal and realistic, with some tiny, tiny hints of magic and destiny you'd expect in the fantasy genre. One of my favorite stories by one of my favorite authors.On the negative side, the inside pages look a little cheap, and the gold flake cover just rubs off on my hands when I hold it. I'm just holding it normally while I read, and my fingers get covered in this gold stuff.
Top reviews from other countries
Finster
Great series and great writer
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 16, 2018