Age of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan - My Thoughts
Let me begin by saying that I had no idea we were so far back in the history of this world when I read the first book. Thinking it was just me, I asked my son who just read book one at Christmas what he thought the 'age' of the world was and turns out it's not just me. *LOL*
Anyway, after the first quarter of the book being rather slow and um... explanatory?... the tale picked up and I adventured along with the familiar characters I had grown to enjoy from the first book. And while there were adventures to be had and new locations to be explored, I felt as if this book was very much a setting of the stage for the next book. Yes, the over-arcing plot lines advance and we get an answer or two or three to some things, but you can just feel that there's a lot more of this story to tell.
I very much enjoy the overall tone and flow of Sullivan's books and he creates characters that I fall in love with, so even though the plot and action of this book might have been a little slow, I still enjoyed it muchly and am looking forward to reading the next book!
Oh, and I have to shout out the cover artist, Marc Simonetti. The whole series is terrific!