This came up on my radar as being something to fill in the interminable gap between Stormlight Archive installations. Then a Goodreads friend read it and enjoyed it. And the clincher was the book being picked as the June 2015 Sword and Laser pick (which have been mostly miss-and-miss for me the past twelve months, either I've read them or I've been entirely uninterested.)

Turns out, aside from the main story (and kind of the point of the main story, no spoilers), this book is full of both history and religion and I've realised that I love that in a fantasy novel (I love that in real life, so it's hardly a surprise).

It was a fun and enjoyable read, but I doubt I'll pick up [b:City of Blades|23909755|City of Blades (City of Stairs, #2)|Robert Jackson Bennett|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1426255519s/23909755.jpg|43516764]. This works quite nicely as a stand-alone.