This was a slog, not gonna lie. It was way too LOTR-derivative. BUT. I am excited to continue the series because I feel such an extensive universe must have unique ideas going forward.

Look, look. I know people don't want to just hear "LOTR knock-off bad," so to be specific on what I didn't really like:

1) The length, but it's not what you think. I like long books, wouldn't trim one page from the Stormlight Archive. But this book was at least the length of the first two LOTR books and I never felt like I had a good grasp on the world or characters, even as archetypes. It was just a whole lot of meandering nothingness that left me feeling apathetic.

2) The battles were boring. They were mostly sterile "soldiers clashed and died, so and so was the victor, the end" sort of stuff. This was the 70's, so it's technically classic fantasy and I think this was common then, but it's not great to read. It might be engaging if I cared for the characters, but I didn't. It doesn't help that I was never scared. One person died but, mostly, I was never really on the edge of my seat. I knew no one important would die so there wasn't any tension to the fighting.

3) The ending felt anticlimactic where Shea was concerned. You know, Shea THE MAIN CHARACTER. Yawn.

I want to reiterate that I'm not done with Terry Brooks and I just didn't like this installment, alone. It was just a long journey for little reward.