Pun Salad

I don't often (or, more precisely: never) read books in this genre, but the author is a great writer of non-fiction on libertarianism and economics, so I thought I'd give it a try. Come to think of it, I'm not even sure this is a genre, since I've never read a book with the particular combination. The technology is vaguely medieval and the characters human, and there's no magic, but the history and geography are entirely invented.

It's also one of those books that just plunks the reader into a world, and the reader has to make some effort to deduce the way the world works via dialog and descriptions. Plus, people talk funny. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't pass a pop quiz on exactly who was related to who, or other major plot points. Someone more acclimated to this type of writing would probably have done better.

There's a great deal of edged-weapon warfare in the book, but the blood, gore and screaming horror is underplayed; it's more like one of those strategy games played in the back of the comic book shop translated into prose. The tactics, insofar as I could understand them, were clever, and served to let the good guys prevail over the bad guys in most cases.