This was a good, fun, intriguing read, despite how long it took me to finish it.  I was suffering from a bad cold and could not concentrate for long periods of time.

That being said, I totally enjoyed the 3 main characters and their 'misfittedness'.  There is a lot of snark back and forth which made me chuckle.  And while one of the main characters is indeed a paladin, he's not insufferably upright.  Well, not really.  Just enough to make it fun.

The one glaring downfall to this book - for me - is that it ends rather abruptly.  Not exactly a cliffhanger, but honestly?... not many questions have been answered.  The book felt more like Part One of a two or three part novel.  Even in the author's notes, reference was made to the fact that it was originally 130K + in draft form so it was split into two.  Honestly?  I'd have preferred the whole thing.  So I docked a half a point for that, because things like that matter to me and my reading enjoyment.

Anyway, it's a fun, sometimes dark, swords and sorcery adventure with great dialogue and memorable characters and I WILL be picking up the second book.  :)

Series: Clocktaur War #1

This was book one of a duology that was basically cut in half for length, and although the author did pick a natural breaking point, it felt like it had been written to be part of a longer work. It took me a really long time to get into it, and although I'm now thinking about picking up the sequel, I really could have dropped it for most of this book.

A group of condemned prisoners set out on a mission to learn more about an enemy's new weapon because their own city is losing the war. It's a cool concept, since the new weapon is an army of almost unstoppable artificial men called "clockwork boys" and there's a lot of really good banter. But it dragged a lot in places and I just couldn't get into the characters' mission. It was as if the mission was too...artificial? and over-explained? for me to really buy into it.