The Stone in the Skull by Elizabeth Bear
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

By the end of this new fantasy of Elizabeth Bear, I was completely under its spell. Like, utterly.

But I really need to be honest here: most of the novel is really slow-paced and focused on slow reveals about the lands as the Gage (a fantasy cyborg) and the Dead Man, a highly-skilled bodyguard, travel in a caravan and we get to know and love them. We also get to know the ruler of their intended destination. And I got to love her, too. :)

The best part of this is not the action but the character development. And there's a LOT of character development. Very slow burn, but after a while, I was fully entranced and invested.

It hardly matters, by that point, that the full-blown action was blowing me away after they get to their destination. Once they are all together, everything gets really great. So great, in fact, that I had to drop all my other plans and start reading my ARC of the second book. Like, now.

And it is all action so far. :) Yay! Loving it. :)

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