This was book 2 of the Way of the Shaman series. The book was paced well and kept me involved. My one complaint is waking at 2:00 in the morning ticked off that the author had blatantly violated the standard 3 try series and as such had temporarily stopped me reading. Looking from the end, I am not as upset about it. But I never realized how ingrained into fiction the rule of 3 was and how distracting it could be to be violated. Overall I hate the constant reminder that it is a game world and without any real feel on the experience point decrements at each death it almost made it as though each death was not all that bad. Even the character’s snarky remarks about losing more experience made it feel less than an adequate punishment. If I’d have been an editor on this I would have recommended a rework to make it feel much worse.