Review: This should come with a warning that reads "Abandon good taste all ye who enter here"
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 03 30, 2014
The story starts out with people burning at the stake, then moves on to rape, murder, and debauchery, doesn't bother to rinse, then repeats over and over again.  I'd characterize it is a sadist wet dream spewed into book form with a dash of racism thrown in to add to the mood.The first two-thirds of the book has no plot other than to show how depraved and worthless each and every character is.  The world building shows a society that is nothing more than different groups of thugs that are on the constant look out for the next person that can be abducted and sold into slavery, except for the women, all of them will be abducted and sold into whore houses.The supposed blade master's first thought when going into any confrontation is "can I spread my legs to get out of it?"  In one instance she crawls through the runoff of a privy for a few hundred yards, and spends the next two weeks wandering through the countryside but can't manage to find a stream or pond to bathe in. The thought of washing her clothes out never crosses her mind evidently, even when she finally reaches the sea and bathes she isn't cleaned at all, reportedly still stinking of the filth that she crawled through weeks ago.  And all this is from the most thought out character in the storySeveral reviewers compare this to the Abercrombie's works, and I see the same thing but the depth and subtlety aren't there, the brutality yes, but quality, no.