It doesn't portend good things for the rest of the books in the series. I'm sure the series will eventually get to developing Pug, but a 17 hour book and only one instance of him (a magician) using magic in the first like 2 hours is kind of dumb to me (and being ignored in the book for the last 8 hours). I'd argue the side characters (Thomas or Roland) would be considered far more developed than Pug is at this point. If you don't care about the main character just being dropped from existence for at least hours 8 -> 16 then this book is great. Great writing, well-rounded characters, interesting story. I'm sure that by the time I finish the rest of the Riftwar books, I won't be able to imagine another narrator in his place. Don't get me wrong, it's not bad by a long shot, or even off-putting enough that I wouldn't want to listen, it's just my $0.02.
Without wording prompts of who was speaking, a few of the characters come across sounding the same.
My only (very slight) criticism that kept it from being 5 stars (I would have gone 4.5 if I could) is a bit of a lack of range on his characterizations. While I did only give four stars on the performance, I don't mean that as a knock on his ability. Nicholas Guy Smith is an excellent narrator. I will confess that there may be some rose-colored nostalgia in this for me, but I still am really enjoying this audio version. The world(s) is(are) well developed but the author lets you discover it organically as the story progresses, as opposed to an info-dump of world-building. The characters are compelling and grow and develop with the story. I haven't read it in years, and I was afraid my nostalgia was overshadowing the reality of the book but it really does stand up to my memory of it. This wasn't the first fantasy novel I ever read, but it was the first that brought a world to life for me and really dragged me in to the genre.
I'm only halfway through the audio, but I think I can safely write a review at this time. The book that started my love of the Fantasy genre
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