Rating: 
Summary: 500 pages to go....we are experiencing delays
Review: While one has to admire Pinto for attempting something a little more compelling than the average fantasy extravaganza here, he still has committed one of the cardinal sins of the genre - endless wads of superfluous description intended to evoke his "fantastical" realms. I found myself skipping 20 pages at a time and still able to follow the story. And that story was - basically - a bunch of characters leave home and, several hundred pages later, arrive somewhere without a hell of a lot having happened! There's an attempt on someone's life - and there's a lot of congestion on the imaginary roads. This admittedly reinforces the general sense of delay this book produces. It reminded me of morning on the freeway.For the rest of the story the team stays put and indulges in some fairly basic politics that, of course, take another several hundred pages to complete (at least this seems real!) before the inevitable "continued next instalment" twist at the end. I wonder if Volume 2 will see everybody just going back home again? Hope not.
Rating: 
Summary: Unabashedly different-- and fascinating
Review: Yes this book is complex. But world building must necessarily be so. This world is alien-- in culture, in social strata, in the beasts (including humans) that dwell there. But isn't that in fact what makes fantasy so compelling? I found the descriptive passages engrossing and was able to satisfy my "creature" fix, something I absolutely must have. I found this world utterly unique and I highly recommend you go there.
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