Oath and Ember

This book started with the protagonist in a good place, demonstrating competancy, compassion, and honesty. Unfortunate for them, this isn't a world that rewards such traits.

It’s refreshing to see a character written with such unwavering principles, and the novel leans into that boldness. While in the early chapters some of his choices stretch plausibility, they also underscore a thematic question—what honesty costs when taken to its extreme. This leads to a scene that isn't for the faint of heart. It's not gratuitious, the author leans into the reader's imagination rather than describing things in lurid detail.

The prose of the book is stylized. From the dialogue to the descriptions, the author paints the world through an unconventional (for me) way of writing. This helped me quite a bit in visualizing things, although a few times it took careful ready to understand what was going on. It was like reading a book written in an earlier version of English, much like reading Shakespeare.

As someone who has trained in weapons combat over the years (FMA, fencing, kendo, HEMA), the battle scenes are well described. The author doesn't spend a lot of time in overcomplicated detail, but fight scenes have the right energy and dynamism.

If there's a flaw I can point out, there's a few places where the book switches from third-person point of view to first person. This is jarring, especially considering that the book is written in such a stylized manner.

In summary, this was an interesting book.