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Sigh, just what we need, another revolutionary, unusual fantasy book by an author with a practiced mastery of tone. When will authors like Clarke realize that what the fantasy genre needs are more pseudo-medieval that sprawl out into fifteen volumes?

Her magic didn't conveniently solve all of the characters' problems, instead, they wasted time thinking through conflicts and then had to solve them by taking action; how dull is that? The magic was weird, anyways. It didn't have a simplistic, internal system to allow it to act as a one-for-one substitute with technology, it was just all unpredictable and otherworldly and unknowable--how can you even call that 'magic'?

And the characters were overly-complicated. Instead of acting as recognizable archetypes, they were complex, conflicted, and developed as the story progressed. For some reason, they also seemed hesitant to fall back on the default plan of attacking anything that gets in their way, which was probably why this book was so long. I guess they just didn't have a strong enough sense of honor to instantly kill anyone who opposed them.

And then, instead of having her characters laboriously explain how the world worked to each other, she made brief mentions in footnotes, as if she were writing a history. I'm not sure why she made this decision, I often explain to my friends in basic terms how cars and money work in our culture, so it's clear that endless expositionary dialogue is the most realistic way to inform the reader. I mean, I guess you could just have the omniscient narrator tell us everything in detail, that's almost as good.

Come to think of it, this book had a lot of history stuff, it was almost like she had read a whole bunch about the period her book was set in, which is such a waste of time, because if that's what I wanted, I'd just read a history book. I mean sure, the author could take some vague things from a period, but otherwise they should just treat everything as if it were the modern day so it'll make sense. Besides, if she had any errors, she could just remind us that 'it's fiction!', so it's all fake anyways and it's pointless to try to make it seem real.

I guess she thought she was Jane Austen, or something, gradually building a tonal portrait of the world and revealing the characters through details of action and conversation. I don't know why she would try to write like those boring, old, dead authors, they wouldn't have to make us read them in school if they were good.

I should have known it was going to be bad when I saw it had footnotes in it, like a textbook or something, but I tried not to read any of them because I didn't want to accidentally learn some stupid fact (and then be STUCK with it FOREVER), because I'm saving up that brain space to memorize the lineage of the ninth house of the Dragonpriests of Ur, or maybe which incantation can counterspell the splash damage effect of a lesser draconic fireball.

So the whole book, I kept waiting for one of the women to be raped (or at the very least threatened with rape), or maybe enslaved, or for someone to be put in a collar and tortured by a woman in leather, or to be spanked in public as part of some cultural ritual, or to walk through flames while spraying breastmilk everywhere, or some other perfectly normal expression of human sexuality, but don't bother waiting, you'll only be disappointed. Really, the only thing that could have made it worse is if it were illustrated by Charles Vess, like the equally hopeless sequel.

So yeah, basically this book is WAY TOO LONG! I mean, it was totally worth it for me to read the first five twelve-hundred-page books of the Dragonkingspell Cycle (it starts to get good at book six), but that's nothing compared to how much it tried my patience to read this book. I probably wouldn't have been able to finish it if I didn't need something to read while waiting twelve years for Jeb R.R.R. Franzibald to finish book seven.

But I guess if you like a well-researched, historically accurate book that doesn't tell the same, familiar story, doesn't use magic as a plot facilitator, reads like a Gothic novel, slowly builds the story based on psychologically-developed characters, and is obsessed with tone, then this is the book for you! Congratulations.

Otherwise, you can sit around with me and hope the author of our favorite series doesn't die before finishing vol. XVIII of The Epic Magic Sword of the Undead Dragon Throne Saga Duovigintilogy, where we will finally discover whether the badass, outcast, swordmaster, dragonrider assassin prince defeats the great evil, once and for all (with the help of his trusty albino wolf/girlfriend, of course).