I found Anok to be reminescent of Anakin Skywalker - a half-breed bereft of his father, raised in the slums of a desert city, fighting against an evil power most of his life, only to be Corrupted by the dark power later, and accidentally causes the death of his girlfriend? Even the name is similar: Anok/Anakin, Wati/Watto (Watto is the little flying guy who owned Anakin as a slave). The author says this is coincidence.
It seemed to me that Fallon's only purpose was to have sex with Anok (Fallon is the Cimmerian woman in the story).
I also thought the dialogue was stilted (a lot like G. Lucas' dialogue in some respects). This is a problem with a lot of fantasy novels/movies these days - they all have to speak in this weird "high" dialect.
I thought chapter four and seven and fifteen were pretty much wasted pages. It seems like York wrote a book, then was told to make it longer, so he inserted chapters where people just talk about what Anok is doing or just did, so we get constant reminders of what is going on - kind of like a soap opera, so people who missed a a day can get caught back up. Chapter 23 worked that way, for example.
The treatment of the gods as real also dismayed me. Very high-fantasy and cheesy. The magic seemed a little over the top also. The last lines of chapters 23 and 24 really made me cringe, though.
It is too bad the author did not set up one particular character as a true friend so that the 'betrayal' at the end was a shocker. Instead it was totally expected by me. It was pre-ordained when the author introduced the character that he would continually be betraying Anok. I will wager the character continues to do that in a totally predictable manner for the rest of the series.
I will admit that it was a lot faster and easier to read and digest than Coleman's fragmented novels; York drew me into his version of the world far better than Coleman did. I did like a lot of his descriptions (I like the Festival) but Anok's companions are little more than window dressing. Some parts, like Chapter 16, were successfully suspenseful. I would say it is on par with most of the pastiches.
