A waste of paper and time. The book is a thinly cloaked S&M fantasy dressed up as an "epic." Wooden characters, stilted and monotonous writing, a plot that develops no original ideas, and an excess of violence that often seems to have no clear relation to the plot (such as it is). The appeal of this book is frightening--and doesn't speak well of the market for fantasy. This is the only book I've gotten rid of in a long career of reading.