That was an amazing book! Even more amazing if we consider the fact that it was the author first published book. Highly ambitious pieces of epic fantasy. At first the many tropes reminding me of LOTR, especially The Fellowship, had me worried a bit, but then it finds its true style, its personal narrative and I enjoy every word of it. There is a bunch of characters, but the author did a great job introducing them, letting some time to know some of them before bringing others in. The world is also great. Strong background and a very interesting mythology behind it. The quest brings us battles, great and rich magic (time control/travel magic, power magic, memory sighting magic, control magic, etc.), strong intrigues and also a fair share of mysteries that still haunt us in the end and so might get some development further in the series. It was a series I was holding on for a long time. Having such expectation for it that I was scare to start it and being disappointed. It wasn’t the case. It meets every expectation I had and even surpass some of them. Even the writing which have very little problems here and there in the first third of it, improve as the book goes on and, again considering this is the first book of James Islington, it will surely continue to improve as the series move forward. I honestly haven’t anything negative to say about it, except maybe that it goes a bit too fast. It is a thick book, but a lot happen in it and the author could have taken a bit more time in some even to go a bit deeper in some part of it. That wasn’t necessary, but it would have been fun. Those who think fantasy is often too slow or too descriptive won’t be able to say that about this one. If you love fantasy you should read this series! Enjoy!