This was a genuinely interesting and enjoyable story that moved along at a nice pace, with an engaging plot and mostly likeable characters, however, the writing style was a bit variable, being stilted or choppy in places. There was also a fair bit of exposition at times, and several plot points that seemed forced or contrived.

It is also quite obvious that the plot draws inspiration from other authors, both for its characters, settings and philosophies, which is not a bad thing, but in this case, it is just a little too obvious that the author is trying to emulate his favourite author's.

This, to the best of my knowledge, is the first book written by this author, so a lot of the points raised above I am willing to overlook, especially as I did enjoy reading this book, and I will continue with the series in the hope these rough edges get smoothed off.