I think Richard Nell just became one of my favorite authors with this book, if not my favorite author period, then my favorite self-published author. What a feat! The world-building in this book seems effortless and comes out in conversations with characters rather than huge exposition dumps, it seems like you learn about the world WITH the characters as they grow and learn themselves. It's primarily character driven and you don't really learn about the main plot until way later in the book, but you're entranced with the characters the whole way through. It's very grim, bad things happen to good people throughout, but like the best of these books, a sliver of hope is wound all the way through. Speaking of, I hope I can purchase the next book soon as I'm ready to keep reading. ( )

Identifying evil is a tricky enterprise even in Fantasy. The smoker and the loud biker were --- and maybe in some degenerate places and times still are --- considered good, by way of cool, while in reality they are evil polluters. It's all down to how much bollocks a society can live by before they wake up and smell the coffee of reason.

A lot of the fantasy I've read tends to have 'evil' as an abstract, exterior force and 'virtue' as somehow innate and hereditary. There is room for moral complexity in fantasy but a lot of people make good money without bothering, which dilutes the impact of the better stuff (as does the tendency of critics and publishers to pretend that anything not thud'n'blunder broadsword-opera is magic realism or some kind of new genre, and to misprise anything that looks naturalistic until a particular point as 'going off the rails' or 'getting confused'.) Simply 'Good vs. Evil' stories still appeal to more people than more complex internal depictions I think. Complex reasons why. Of course, there are probably simple reasons too, but shrugging and saying 'the public like simple' rather weakens one’s case that there's more to fantasy than that.

I reserve the right not to only like what a lot of other people like, but more to the point I think other people might like the less, um, generic work if it were more widely available. The processes of 'othering' in the rather linear world-view of the tabloids (and to complete the process, not everyone who reads the tabloid papers is what we'd think of as 'a tabloid Reader', any more than I would be seen dead in socks and sandals or watching 'Mad Men'). Many fantasy works examine this process either directly or as a side-effect of the way we read fantasy. Simply 'Good vs Evil' stories aren't as satisfying. I've read all that before. ( )

the main character is so off-putting, I made it a little ways in but then gave up - cannibalism as the first scene was just too much to get over ( )

I'm having trouble putting my thoughts together on this book. And that's probably due to the overall dark tone of the book. This was a big departure from my usual lighter, happier reading choices.

On the positive side:
The book was very well written. I wouldn't have guessed it to be a debut indie novel. It hooks you right away with the start of Ruka's story. You feel for him as he tries to survive as someone different and outcast. Kale's story starts as a more generic "unimpressive 4th son of a king trying to figure out what to do with his life" tale, but quickly escalates into an interesting coming of age story. Nell keeps a nice balance between the darker Ruka story line and the lighter Kale story line. It was interesting the entire way through and never got boring.

And the minor negative:
I thought the book was a tad too long and wordy. It seemed like we would get several pages in a row of the thoughts going through some side character's head. A little too much information that could have been tightened up a bit.

So, overall, if you like darker stories, definitely give this one a shot. Just be prepared for some references to cannibalism, people getting their heads crushed to a pulp, some steamy sex scenes, and characters straight up filled with hate. Richard Nell pulls no punches here.

As for me, I need to go read some Terry Pratchett to get myself smiling again. ( )