[TimMason]

At the end of this volume, there are a few questions that might - just - make me look at the subsequent ones. The author sets up two heavily drawn villains, and then just seems to throw them away. I would suppose that they will turn up again in later installments. There is also the question of why the various bad hats drew attention to themselves by going on the attack when they were, apparently, not sufficiently equipped to follow through. And why did they fight so badly? During one of the battles, halberdiers threw their halberds like javelins before the battle had been fully engaged. Military folly. Why did they do that?

I imagine that the various villains know something about the heroine that neither she nor her friends have yet discovered. It is to clear up these mysteries that one might go on reading.

But the prose is terribly wooden, and the characterization remains at the level of a book for adolescents: there's something terribly schooly about it all. I found myself reading as quickly as possible, in order to get it over and done with. If I had put it down, I don't think I'd ever have picked it up again. So on balance, I doubt very much that I will read on.

P.S. I have read six of the other books on the original list: all of them are in an entirely different world in so far as the writing is concerned. I'm afraid Elizabeth Moon simply should not be in competition with Tolkien or Gaiman. And Swift????