I came into this book with the wrong spirit. From the very short blurb, and not having read any of Hoffman's previous work, I thought this was going to be Terry Pratchett-esque with a bit more religion thrown in. The religious bit I got right, and the twists on familiar religious ideas and dogmas with a more explicit and devious motive, was a delight.

However, it was far from whimsical Discworld novel. I did find it holdingmy attention, but I'm surprised at that(and suspect that had I not been in a foreign country with no English books to tempt me into replacing it, I may not have lasted right through). Everytime I thought a bit of character driven story was shining through and beginning to steer the plot, I got another bloody battle. The characters were well observed and created, but for one thing, coming in (I presume) at the second novel, it wasn't mentioned that Thomas Cale was still only 15 until I already firmly had a Roland Deschanel type figure in my mind that I couldn't replace.

If you like tactics and war plans for medieval style epic slaughters, and tongue in cheek religious overtones, you will adore this book. As it stands, the very well written dialogue, interesting characters and facinating world gripped me; but only enough to make it through yet another set of battle plans.