I came to this after reading one of those long-winded epics which litter the fantasy gender, and it was a great relief. The writing is sharp, characterisation puts an illusion of flesh upon folk-tale actors, and offers the reader no opportunity to wallow. Gender is fluid, allusions to romance terse, the main relationship being that between the twin children of the ruler of the book's universe - in this the author complies with one of the main themes in fantasy, the heavy weight put upon innate gifts, passed down through a blood-line. After I finished it, I immediately went over to ebooks and purchased the next volume.

Oh, by the way, Yang is absolutely right about the covers: they are superb.