There is a very good reason why many editors and agents say do NOT take your role playing world and try to convert it into a book almost direct from table to page. The in jokes don't translate, the characters are too Mary Sue, and frankly, most times, the best parts aren't that interesting. I hate to say it, but this book falls into that category of it needs major revisions to make it decent.

I did finish reading it, but that doesn't speak well of the book. It speaks poorly of me, willing to see how deep the rot actually went.

I can start with the overall poor writing. It lacked sentence variety in multiple places. The writers relied on spellcheck but didn't check to make sure the words they used actually made sense. Sections suffered from Information Dump Syndrome. We had a jumping point of view, from third person limited to omniscient and then back. There were points where the crawl through the muck of text made me shudder in pain. A good editor could have torn this book apart.

This doesn't even begin to address the issues with the plot, the characters, the cliches. I had no sympathy for the lead character. In fact, I begged the authors to kill him off. Multiple times. Minotaur, Sharlak (their shark people invention), even the two moron personal guards. The character never failed. I felt like I read a RPG game where the player kept rolling natural 20s. There was no three fails then a win, because there was never a fail. The character learned NOTHING. We had a deus ex machina early in the book with no explanation. Also early on, characters had one emotional reaction: Smug. There is so much more nuance to writing than that.

Just ... don't. ( )

"Verdict: Great - a solid book and an enjoyable read.

A fantasy adventure concerning a Dark Elf assassin and his latest target. A start to a greater work."

Full review on my blog:
http://knrbooks.blogspot.com/2013/05/review-waiting-game.html