Fantastic read!
It's a great book. More of an introduction than anything, an extended prologue, but with everything firmly in place, the next two books will be fire and brimstone! The author is writing is a fine story. The makings seem all clichéd and typical of traditional High Fantasy, but the unique touch means there's a lot of unpredictability.
Big potential for massive twists and turns. The world is amazing. For a small book, the author cleverly does a lot of rather unique world-building. It's not vast Midkemia, truth be told. This one is more straightforward, more streamlined, very different.
Writing this trilogy this way is a bit awkward because there's not a lot of heart-pumping action as you'd expect. The author uses the whole book to set and establish all of the major ideas and characters before the real action starts.
Now I'm just hungry for the next two books! With all that's happened in this book, in this world, with these characters and this budding conflict with multiple sides and agendas, this trilogy promises to be as good as any of Feist's other top-notch offerings!