One of my favorite books.  The definition of fantasy.  A great epic with magic and creatures and battles and deception.  The story is gripping right to the end, although the main conflict doesn’t start until near the end.  I have always been one for jumping straight into the conflict, but this one worked well doing it differently.  There are plenty of smaller conflicts to keep you occupied while the main one builds slowly, looming in the background and over the characters’ heads.  And the characters, they are amazing.  Each is unique and well-rounded and grows throughout, their development is wonderful.  The world is complex and deep, obviously having been well thought out ahead of time.

The writing itself wasn’t perfect.  He has a tendency to run on with his sentences and that, combined with his way of putting things led to some confusion.  He also loves his italics.  I’ve said before that I don’t really like using italics, particularly for emphasis, and he did that.  A lot.  Sometimes it felt like he was trying to emphasize every other word.  It was too much.  But overall, the writing melted away as the story gripped me, as it should.

This book gave me a lot to think about for my own writing and worldbuilding.  I actually started planning another story, or, rather, changed and expanded on one I had, thanks to this.  The actual plot of the story has nothing to do with Malice, but I am very inspired by how the plot unfolded and how we get to observe it.

This is a very short review compared to what it should be, but I stayed up way too late to finish the book.  I made notes throughout my reading and consolidated the main points here, but there is more I could say if I really wanted to get into it, but the main point is that I loved the slow building, yet gripping story.  I just ordered the next two books in the series and wait eagerly for them to show up on my doorstep.  I definitely recommend this book to any and all fantasy lovers.