This was a reread, if that says anything. I love a good high fantasy, but this one struck a good spark with me. Inda is a great protagonist. Even if he is very smart and talented, he never comes across as a Gary-Stu sort of character to me, not really. He's not perfect. He makes mistakes. He has to learn things.

I think Smith is a good writer who juggles a variety of points of view well, as well as an intense, well written world with a degree of mystery to it--the magic, and the lack of it--as well as what feels like well thought out war training and such. This is the second or third book of Smith's I've read, but it was the one that cemented my love of the writer's stories. I immediately purchased the second book.

Definitely one I can see myself coming back to again and again.