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This was a wonderful read. It's got that folktale quality, with a really intense slightly dreamlike story structure, along with favourite fantasy tropes like the scary deity cult. But it's mostly a fable about toxic masculinity and how it could just not.

Egert is a handsome talented loudmouthed egocentric braggart, brave and heroic and absolutely bloody awful. Really, we hate him. He's a rancid bully masquerading as a typical old school fantasy hero (rancid bullies) right up to the point where he kills an inexperienced student in an unfair duel because he was sexually harassing the student's fiancee. And he gets cursed with appalling, heart-stopping cowardice. And his life goes to shit.

Not going to lie, the first part of this is incredibly satisfying because Egert deserves everything he has coming. The triumph of the book is how it works through the process of Egert coming to realise how his actions have affected others, accepting his guilt, developing real friendships, learning kindness and altruism, and showing genuine courage in confronting his incapacitating fear. He turns into a decent person, which could be preachy in the wrong hands, but here is just a profound pleasure to watch.

Hugely readable (excellent translation). I'd say, if you like T Kingfisher, this will almost certainly float your boat.