Traditional and ambitious. I'd recommend this to just about any fantasy reader. As long as you can like a story that pulls many of its fantasy elements from other much loved epics. Is it completely unique? No. But this is just the first book. These types of stories need time to build a world of their own. Wheel of Time was just an other Lord of the Rings before it took on its own life. 

I'm one of those readers who doesn't even read a synopsis before I dig into a book. So I was a little surprised after reading The Fall (prequel novella) to find that this is very much a traditional fantasy story. Farm boy and friends get mixed up in an adventure full of consequences. The Fall was all action where this was a lot of setup, which makes sense. 

For a first-time self pub, this feels extremely ambitious. It's a large world with many different characters, fantasy creatures, gods, and magic. Cahill has definitely put a lot of thought into the history and lore of this world. As a fantasy fan, I can't help but appreciate this. There really aren't that many large-scale fantasy epics currently being released, so it's just nice to see. 

Overall, I thought this was well done, but there are a few aspects of Cahill's writing that could improve. Specifically, I'd like to see more expansive and varied dialog. I'm exaggerating, but I started to feel like every conversation starts with...

 "Are you all right?" 

"Yeah, I'm all right. What about you?" 

"Yeah, I'm all right. What about so and so?"

After every scrap they all check in with each other too often for my tastes. Can they care about each others well-being a little less, please?

The other area that I felt could of been better, in my opinion, is that some of the characters lack a consistent and distinctive personality. I understand that finding a voice for all these characters would be a task but there so much going on with the world building that I want more complexity in the characters as well.