I picked up The Warded Man because Goodreads recommended it, and unlike The Night Angel Trilogy, I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was.

The Warded Man reads like a very long prologue to a very short story with an undeserving ending. Let me clarify that a bit.

About 85% of the book is spent building the 3 main characters’ background stories and world building. Both are outstanding and very intriguing. The concept for the world building was new for me and very enjoyable. 99% of the time is spent on character building and that was deep and satisfying.

After that, the story tells of how they meet and the building of their respective relationships. This takes about 10% of the book. Still very interesting and pleasantly void of fantasy clichés.

Finally the book ends with a single battle in a small village. Now, the battle itself and it’s preparations were written very well, and it was quite satisfying in itself. But when I look at the story in its entirety, it just falls flat on its ass when it comes to providing any form of “closure”.

If you judge this book by itself, it earns about 3.5 stars. But I’m currently well on my way in the next installment (The Desert Spear) and things are clearly going somewhere epic, and in that light, The Warded Man was a damn good prologue, easily earning it 5 stars.