Being a huge fan of the Dresden Files, and lacking any new books in that series until Mr Butcher finishes writing the next one, I decided to give his other series a try.
The description of it sounded fairly generic fantasy - young farm lad gets drawn into empire-shaking conflict - but I rather thought it might be worth a read anyway.
I was right. The book is a bit slow to get going, but then it's the establishing book for a six volume series, so I suppose that's excusable. It doesn't have as much wise-cracking humour as the Dresden series, either, but he still gets a few good lines in. The world-building is interesting, well set up with hints at more going on that we know about yet, and having seen what the author can do with a series, I've no doubt that some of the hooks set in this book are going to pull up some startling fish later on… Likewise the characters have depth, the villains have actual motivation and are fleshed-out people rather than cardboard Dark Lords.
I've already ordered a copy of book two, which seems like the best endorsement I can give book one :)
