I absolutely LOVED this book. Whereas some fantasy books can overwhelm you with characters, names, places and seemingly unrelated plot intricacies in their efforts to do world building, this book eases you into a story by carefully introducing a few people at once, characters that are all well-defined and different from one another.

Gradually, the world starts to grow around you as you discover more of it with the characters you already know, and you start to get involved in the bigger picture. But I never felt lost in the story as I often feel in other books in this genre.

What I also really loved is the humor of certain characters, especially of Malcolm, whose cynical wit reminded me of ‘Q’ in Star Trek.

I listened to the audio dramatization of this book by Graphic Audio, and it is extremely well done, with a full cast of actors and great sound design.

I can’t wait to read more of Michael Sullivan’s works - from what I understand, this series is a prequel series to the Riyria novels, which I’m adding to my to-read list right away!