As a fan of Robin Hobb's Assassin series, and a slightly less enthusiastic fan of her other trilogies, I picked up this book expecting to at least be intrigued by her imagination. Unfortunately, what I found instead was a detailed description of a boy growing up to be a soldier with a background full of possibilities that fails to ever achieve its potential.The disappointments in this book include a less than sympathetic and rather whiny main character, only a few chapters being devoted to advancing the story while you wade through endless chapters of minute detail of military school life, and typical characterizations for all the other characters. In fact, those chapters that are devoted to the plot almost seem out of place in this book.Recently, I read "Ender's Game", an older sci-fi book which has all the elements of this book, but delivers much more satisfaction. If you are interested in this book, I suggest you read "Ender's Game" first. This one will pale in comparison.