I liked the way this novel started, but was not very thrilled with the ending. The whole thing with the "Green Shadow" is just too cheesy, almost like a bad mash-up of the "Green Hornet" and "The Shadow" from 1960's talk radio. If Malan's other novels have nothing to do with this mysterious cartoon character of NOT, I may take another chance with them.
I like the main characters, Dhulyn Wolfshead and Parno Lionsmane. They are members of the Mercenary Guild, and like all Mercenaries, are experts in swordsmanship, fieldcraft and full of common sense. Almost too much so. And they all have these funny adopted last names to reflect that, when they join the Guild, they loose their past.
There are also the Marked, those with special abilities that most everyone benefits from. You have your Healers, Menders and Finders. You would never guess what they do. =) Malan weaves an interesting theology together, showing how all these special abilities can join up with the more rare of the Marked, the Seers and the Lens. Together, they can form the Sleeping God when the time is ripe. By the end of the book, images from my childhood days of watching Voltron were coming to mind.
I like the little details, and most of the story. As you can tell from what I said above, some of the more abstract concepts did not pull me into the story, but instead distanced me.
