Author: 

Genre: Fantasy

What I liked about this book:

The world the author has created is interesting, and he has a knack for humorous ideas. The griffins are rather interesting as an idea, as are certain story elements, such as the map with the blinking orange dot. I am interested in the conflict with the soldiers, and would have really liked if there was more of it.

What I did NOT like about this book:

I had a very, very difficult time reading this book.

The dialogue is stilted and unrealistic, the writing doesn't flow, and the author has managed to take what SHOULD be an interesting book and make it incredibly boring to read about. For the entire first chapter, nothing happens except Ishkur shows up and some woman I'd forgotten the name of by halfway through chapter two starts talking about sex.

I really would have liked to see some more conflict, instead of just Ishkur riding around on his griffin. The pace needs to be much, much faster for me to really get invested. As is, I really just wasn't very interested in anything going on.

This was the first book in the list I'll admit I didn't finish. There were twenty chapters in this book so far, and I got through sixteen of them. It was a slog. For large spans of time nothing happens, the setting is forgettable, and I legitimately don't like or care about the main character.

Overall:

This would be salvageable with another draft, I guess, but I really disliked it. I think fans of certain styles may have liked it--I didn't like LotR either--but it's not for me.

Rating:

2/10. Deep edits and a MUCH faster pace would make an interesting premise salvageable, but this book was legitimately difficult to read as-is.