I read this and it left me feeling -- eh. There wasn't really enough character development to make me care about the story or the people in it.

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After reading Sorcery and Cecelia, I wanted to read another of this author's books; the library had this one and so it was the first. Pretty good, but not quite up there with S&C. There was only one line that really made me laugh (quite silly and unstopably for several minutes) and the action drug on a bit. Plus I didn't think as much of the epilogue was needed. But it was definitely better than a lot of things I've read in the past - just not on the excellent side.

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This book was OK but nowhere near as good as A College of Magics or A Scholar of Magics. And there is nothing to tie it to the other books in the series except for the setting. I didn't think the author did as good a job with character development in this book, and I found it hard to really care about Hail the way I did about the main characters in the other books. And I came away from the book feeling like I hadn't totally understood what it was about. If I had read this book before I read College and Scholar, I might not have read them at all because I wouldn't have been all that impressed by the author.

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This had been recommended to me, but I can't really do the same. The plot development was fairly poor and the ending felt truly rushed, as if the author could spend hours writing about grinding pigments and melting iron but could only right small notes about the battlefield.

The concept of it was interesting and the world involved (a nearly post-Renaissance European world mixed with a bit of magic and a few locale alterations) was very unique. I just felt that the story could not keep up with the scope involved.

It's an average story featuring an average cast and the few characters I wanted to learn more about...well, I never did. Which was disappointing to the extreme.

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So disappointing! I was predisposed to like this book, as I'd read the first two and loved them. This book, however, had none of the same characters; it was like a prequel from the other books' ancient history. Being an artist, I loved that the main character, Hail, becomes an artist's apprentice at the start of this book. About a third of the way, however, Hail starts running off to do things that seemed not just impulsive but nonsensical. It got so that I had a hard time following the gist of the story and the best I could feel at the end of the book was relief that it was over.

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