When a fantasy book has lots of characters, it's scary because that means not all of them will make it. Even at that I can't help loving them and hope the author doesn't kill off all my favorites.
Then there are the themes in the book. Everything needed for a perfect dish of dark, grim fantasy is here. Magic? Check. Betrayal? Aplenty. Violence? You can literally hear the screams of dying men. A flawed hero? There's more than one flawed hero here.
