So, I wrote a lengthy review of this book, but Goodreads gave me an error when I submitted it, and I lost the entire thing. So, here's the point form version:
-I really like Mark Lawrence's prose and admire the depth of his themes and writing in what is a relatively short fantasy romp
-This book has very short chapters that act as independent set pieces in a larger story (usually three-five pages per chapter)
-The middle stretch from page one hundred through two fifty or so is really damn good
-The beginning is a bit jumpy and left me confused on my first readthrough
-The twist near the end was legitimately surprising (spoiler?)
-The pace of this book is BRISK. It's very much how I'd like to write my own fantasy books one day in terms of speed...maybe with a little more scene description than Lawrence provides, and less jumping around
-The historical setting is weird and jarring at times. Lawrence mentions Plato, Jesus, and David and Goliath (fine), but then also mentions Shakespeare and Nietzsche. (huh?) Very weird as the rest of the setting is decidedly medieval...except for a mention of a bit of twentieth century technology as well. If there's some weird multiverse thing that happens later on in this trilogy, this setting is way more amazing than I'm giving it credit for here, but just in this book alone, the contemporary mentions felt out of place
-This is a 3.5/5 book overall for me, but I rounded down in this case since I "really enjoyed" or "loved" two-thirds of it, and felt a bit tossed around by the first hundred pages
-I re-read the first chapter again when I finished this book and liked the symmetry of the beginning and end, but then skimmed the following chapters again and felt the same "jumpy" pace that I felt on the initial readthrough
Finally, I think I'd like this book even more on a subsequent read-through, and while I'm not frothing at the mouth to read the other two books in the series, I'd happily give them a shot...especially if there's a wicked multiverse element, which I doubt for some reason.