Winterbirth by Brian Ruckley (Orbit Books)

I finally managed to finish this one and I put up my review over at FantasyBookSpot. Go take a look! (link below)

Some excerpts:

Winterbirth is the story of an ice-clad world that has been deserted by the Gods. An uneasy truce exists between the rulers (Thanes) of the True Bloods, the Haig blood ruled by Gryvan oc Haig and the Gyre blood, ruled by Ragnar oc Gyre. Then as autumn ends and winter approaches, the armies of the Black Road march down south from their exile beyond the Vale of Stones. These tidings of war and violence shake the Glas valley that is governed by the Lannis Haig blood on its very foundations. Orisian, nephew to the Thane of the Lannis Haig blood, is confronted with these assaults when forces of Black Road men and woodwights combined overrun his home, the castle of Kolgas. For his own safety and in order to preserve the Lannis bloodline he must flee. What fate falls to his father or his older sister is unknown to the young man. Together with his old master, Inurian (a na’kyrim) and his shield man Rothe he is compelled to discover what has truly happened..

And these were my parting thoughts on this novel:

So in short, Winterbirth is very solid, decent debut by Brian Ruckley. It offers extensive worldbuilding, good characterization of the main character and an interesting view of both sides of the conflict the novel is revolving around. Added as a bonus you get couple of nice maps, a timeline and list of characters. On the flipside, it is a not entirely original piece of work, the characterization other than that of the protagonist was rather weak and the pace was quite slow. Yet it was good enough to give the next novel, Bloodheir, which will be released in February 2008 a shot.

In the end I rated it 7/10.

Check out my full review: HERE

Let me know what you think of it!