I enjoyed it well enough

I enjoyed it well enough, No where close to loving it but I liked it enough. Not sure Ill enjoy the future books if its combat scenes dont improve.

In this installment however combat plays a pretty small part. And at first it was ok. Basic tactics and strategy was used and it was all written well enough. But as the book progressed, fights have become more and more just lopsided affairs. Either the main character just uses his basic and overpowered attacks and wins or they are ineffective and he loses. And he has too many deux ex machinas attached to him for my taste.

As for the politics that are central to the story. They are too amoral for my tastes. The main character did one particularily immoral act of cold blooded killing. And though the author tried to make it look absolutely essential, the reasons given were rather weak. Triply so in hindsight.

But at least the author tried with him. The nobles in the book are generally completely amoral. Not immoral, but insteD completely without conscience or a sense of right or wrong or duty or anything. They dont even have some sort of greater good in mind. Its all straight power grabbing for the sake of power itself.

The first bad noble in the book, Gregory. Is actually the most likable noble in the book to me, because at least he seemed to have an axis his decisions were based upon. Even if it was a cartoonishly exaggerated sense of self worth

The result is the book is filled with what should be interesting and complex political machinations hampered by a complete lack of moral reasoning behind them, good or bad reasoning.

But despite all that, I still found it written well enough to earn a tentative 4 stars in hopes of later improvement.