Emperor's new clothes?... - Rated 
I brought this book on the strength of its reviews on Amazon. About ten pages in I thought i may have bought the wrong book, by a hundred pages i was cetain! This book really doesn't merit the abundance of five star reviews that it has been given in any way.
It is quite simply not good.
The characters are all one dimensional cliches, with extremely wooden dialogue. The world-building is shallow - the world the story is set within is called "The Land" - hardly inspired creativity! And most of the places mentioned in the book aren't even on the map.
The concept of "White-Eyes" is interesting, but could have been so much better.
The book reminds me of a cross between one of my son's role plying video games and his Warhammer collection, which is o.k. if you like that sort of thing, but if you like your fantasy with interesting characters, believable dialogue and an ability to "suspend your disbelief" then this is probably not for you.
There are a lot of ideas crammed into this book - magic, elves, wyverns, minotaurs, dragons, vampires etc. really just about everything that has featured in fantasy's roll call, but none of it is given enough space or, more importantly, written well.
This book has been compared to the likes of Joe Abercrombie and Scott Lynch, but they are unfortunately in a different league from this book.
In short the book has an abundance of themes and ideas that could have led to an interesting read, however, it is let down quite simply by the quality of writing. It is worse than poor!
Not what is says on the tin - Rated 
I bought this book because it was recommended for people who had bought Joe Abercrombie's fantastic "The Blade Itself". I like my fantasy novels and I like a good bit of storytelling. This had all the right ingredients of a good fantasy novel, although it perhaps had too many. The storytelling however was terrible. The author has obviously worked out a complex back story and history for his "Land" but the way it is presented is as if the reader should know all about it before he even reads the book. Names are just thrown in a at random, every chapter has a new character that appears once and then vanishes leaving the reader wondering who exactly is important and why. There is a lengthy appendix of names to aid in the confusion but some names are not even in there. As for the ending it justs come out of the blue, with non of the subtle clues or build up you expect from a decent author. In fact the only reason I had a slight clue as to what was happening at the end was because I read the antagonists entry in the appendix, I shouldn't have had to do that. I can't understand why there are so many 5 star reviews for this book, and the mention of gemmell on the cover as well as the quote about the bar for fantasy being raised so high, I feel conned. As one of the other reviewers says borrow do not buy.
Great start to the series - Rated 
Like some other reviewers I found parts of this book not entirely convincing, but I was reading faster and faster, and looking up when the next book in the series is published before I had finished. Complex, enjoyable, and clearly setting the scene for a great series.
Strangely uninvolving... - Rated
I do not quite know why I found this book so putdownable, but it may be that the personaes are one-dimensional, predictable and boring. And of course, when the power wielded by the main protagonist is enormous there must be some silly reasons why they do not use it.
Good fun fantasy - Rated
This is a cracking debut. A very decent high fantasy novel with plenty of action. The central character is well written, the world building is good and the plot becomes increasingly complex as the story progresses. Lots of politics, well crafted fight scenes and a petulent teenager with a berserker rage for a temper. Thoroughly enjoyable.
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