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That someone has taken the tired form of the fantasy trilogy and turned it into the gnarliest, fully realized, and readable fiction in recent memory is a wonder of the ages. That the author has mentioned influences such as James Ellroy, The TV show The Wire, Shelby Foote, Kurosawa, spaghetti westerns and film noir alongside Moorcock and Tolkein speaks volumes. This is pop fiction that lives and breathes, feels like real history, can rarely be outguessed (one big twist I did see fairly early on), and is quotable, funny, furious and brutal. Suffocating darkness nearly snuffs out the humor but still manages to redeem it from being po-faced grit. I might have some more textured commentary for this book later, but in the weeks after reading it I’m still pretty giddy with excitement at reading it.